What money cannot buy


Sunday Gospel

John 2:13-24

Just before the Jewish Passover Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting at their counters there. Making a whip out of some cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money changers’ coins, knocked their tables over and said to the pigeon-sellers, ‘Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market.’ Then his disciples remembered the words of scripture: Zeal for your house will devour me. The Jews intervened and said, ‘What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?’ Jesus answered, ‘Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this sanctuary: are you going to raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body, and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words he had said.

In my youth, my image of Jesus was reflected in Robert Powell's portrayal of Jesus in the television series Jesus of Nazareth. Actually this image of a tall, white, ethereal gentle man, while owing nothing to the likely physical characteristics of a rural Palestinian, pretty well fits in with most of the visual images that, we in the West, have of Jesus; that he was born meek and mild, and seemed to spend his whole ministry acting like the quiet lamb who is eventually led, willingly, to the slaughter.

Well, thank goodness, that even Robert Powell's Jesus found a voice in the scene that represented this week's Gospel. It is one of the dramatic counterpoints of the series, where Jesus truly loses it with the people who are using the faith of their community and countrymen to make a quick buck. The courtyard, within the Temple grounds, was used not only by the moneychangers who made their profit exchanging Roman coin for Temple money (plus commission) but by venders who had set up stalls for the selling of birds, lambs, goats and calves to be offered in sacrifice. Doubtless there would have been other vendors selling candles, oils, incense; whatever could be sold would have been sold.

God had told his people, how many times, that His Covenant was with them. He'd made the world, he didn't need it offering back to him. He didn't drink blood or ask for sacrifice like the little idols of the other religions. Their relationship with God didn't depend on how many sacrifices they could afford. In fact the only sacrifice God did ask for, their heart and their love, was the one thing missing in the Temple market.

After the time that Jesus had been spending, living with the poor, the criminals and the unwanted and knowing their need to experience God's Love, but being denied by Temple Law, the last thing he would have wanted to see was this further barrier to his Father. If anyone has ever been in a Eastern bazaar, you can imagine the chaos that would have broken out as tables were overturned, people scrabbling to pick up money, livestock screeching and flailing, cages breaking open. It would have seemed as though one of the sand devils from the desert has hit causing pandemonium and in the midst of it Jesus, incandescent with rage.

I love that image, I love that Jesus. Because, sometimes, that is the Jesus that I need in my life - maybe not 'rage' but passion and power and energy and so alight with the Divine that his heart and his eyes shine out of his body. I need that Jesus to come into my head full of limitations and expectations and throw them all out. I need that Jesus to drag me along the path when I am feeling tired and downhearted. I need that Jesus to challenge me to do more, to be more.

How can he not have been like that? Because only when you have all that power can it mean something when you do submit to being a servant, to making the sacrifice. Jesus has that power and never uses it to his advantage, only ever to point the way to his Father. To wake us from our complacency and show us the potential of a life filled with a passionate desire for a godly life.

When you have that desire you can overturn the world's values and seek the truth.

wordinthehand2015

Comments

Michael Moore said…
Wow! Powerful! Wish I had seen this before preaching this morning. But I think I hit close to this anyway... My image growing up as a teenager was Ted Neeley in the film adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar...
8 March 2015 at 19:16
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Listen

Image
Jesus said: ‘I tell you most solemnly, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold through the gate, but gets in some other way is a thief and a brigand. The one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the flock; the gatekeeper lets him in, the sheep hear his voice, one by one he calls his own sheep and leads them out. When he has brought out his flock, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow because they know his voice. They never follow a stranger but run away from him: they do not recognise the voice of strangers.’ Jesus told them this parable but they failed to understand what he meant by telling it to them. So Jesus spoke to them again: ‘I tell you most solemnly, I am the gate of the sheepfold. All others who have come are thieves and brigands; but the sheep took no notice of them. I am the gate. Anyone who enters through me will be safe: he will go freely in and out and be sure of finding pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so ...
Read more

On and on and on and...

Image
Gospel Luke 18:1-8 Jesus told his disciples a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart. ‘There was a judge in a certain town’ he said ‘who had neither fear of God nor respect for man. In the same town there was a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, “I want justice from you against my enemy!” For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, “Maybe I have neither fear of God nor respect for man, but since she keeps pestering me I must give this widow her just rights, or she will persist in coming and worry me to death.”’ And the Lord said ‘You notice what the unjust judge has to say? Now will not God see justice done to his chosen who cry to him day and night even when he delays to help them? I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?’ A strange Gospel this; mostly because of the insinuation that we can get whatever we want from God just by nagging. ...
Read more

The Fourth Shepherd

Image
There are many characters in the story of the Nativity but one that we rarely hear of is the Fourth Shepherd. When the angels came that night to bring the Good News, they began with the most unlikely. Shepherds were a tough lot, weathered and self-reliant,  who had to survive out on the hills protecting their flock from the weather, the wolves and their own stupidity.  Once the shepherds had gotten over the shock and wonder of the glory of heaven shining all around them, they immediately wanted to go and find the baby; the lights of Bethlehem beckoned as brightly as the stars – ‘Come and see’. The could barely stop to wrap their cloaks around them. They took hold of  their staffs and each caught a light from the fire.  All except one. One young shepherd remained seated, looking into the fire. When the others asked him why he wasn’t ready, he replied that he was; he was ready to stay behind and take care of the flock. The other shepherds ...
Read more