Cleaning House

We begin with a story.

It's a story about a pastor who had a terrible dream, one night. Actually, it was a nightmare. The pastor dreamed that he arrived in the church parking lot one bright, sunny morning, only to be greeted by some loud noises coming from inside the church. Sounds of things being thrown about and voices being raised met him as he approached the door. "No! You can't do that! Why are you doing this?" a voice said. What on earth was going on here? When the pastor opened the door, a stack of hymnals went flying by his head. They had just been purchased a few months before. They even had the church name engraved in gold letters on the front cover. Right behind the hymnals came a large bible, the one that had cost three hundred dollars and been donated by a prominent church family. It landed in the middle of the sidewalk, open to the Book of Psalms, of all things. The pastor almost made it to the door when some furniture came sailing. A couple of chairs, the ones the pastor and the lay reader sat in, as well as the communion table, a pew, with its pad still securely attached, and a miscellaneous candlestick and offering plate here and there - it all ended up in a pile out on the lawn.

In no time at all, the pile began to grow even larger. The computer from the church office, the one that kept all the membership and financial records, some Sunday School material, and some random reference books from the church library, and who knows what else, became part of one large mound.

Eventually the janitor staggered out from wherever he had been hiding. "You're not going to believe this," he said to the pastor, "but Jesus is in there and he's cleaning house!"

"Jesus?" said the pastor. "Kind, gentle, comforting, child-loving, Jesus? Our Lord and Savior Jesus? What is this all about?" "Well, it appears that he's tired of the way people have going about God's work. He's decided to make some changes."

The pastor turned around toward the lawn again to gaze at everything that Jesus had chosen to discard. The pew, the bible, the chairs and all the rest - what could Jesus be thinking? The pastor could only shake his head in wonder and amazement.

At that point, the pastor awoke from this surreal experience, but not without the realization that he truly had something to ponder and pray about.

Obviously, this little story has a great deal in similarity to the Gospel reading this morning. It is John's account of how Jesus decided to do some housecleaning in the temple at Jerusalem. The time of Passover was approaching. Jews from all around the region, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, would be descending upon the holy city. It is said that entire villages came to the holy city to observe one of the holiest times of the year. That's why Jesus and his friends were there. They had come to remember how God showed grace and mercy to their forebears so many centuries before. However, while Jesus is there to worship, he is also there to remind people what their worship should be all about.

Just to give this story some context, the temple Jesus entered that fateful day was, in many respects, a well-oiled organization. Yes, it was a place of reverence and worship of God, but it was the way people were forced, really, to worship God that set Jesus off.

How would it feel if I told you that, in order to worship God with a right spirit here on Sunday morning, in order to be able to make yourself right with God, you had to use only certain approved offerings here on Sunday morning?

Just imagine that there are different kinds of money for different parts of our town and region. Those of you who live in Moody would have your own currency. Those who live out to the west toward Sanford would have your own. If you live in Kennebunk, you have your own special coinage, as do those of us who live here in this section of Wells. But, no matter where we live, our money has no value here in worship. Our tradition demands that you use money which is sanctified. Of course, the sanctified money can be obtained only here in the church, and at a price. A sanctified five-dollar bill will cost you seven dollars and fifty cents, a ten dollar bill, even more, and so forth.

Oh, and did I mention the small animals? A dove or a goat is required as an expression of true confession. It is not enough to confess our sins and repent of them. Blood must be shed, animal's blood, and, of course, those small animals can be obtained only here in church and, again, they are going to cost you something.

I think you get the picture. There is something patently unfair about all that, isn't there. Our offerings alone are inadequate for worship. Between the cost of the special money and the price of the sacred and acceptable animals, coming to worship has its price, and that's just not right. But that is exactly the system that Jesus was challenging when he stormed his way through the temple. And it was a system, mind you. It was a way of doing business that devalued and besmirched the entire worship experience. It was nothing short of an abomination before God and Jesus will have none of it. "how dare you turn my father's house into a market!" he thunders to the tradespeople in the temple. You can just hear the indignation in his voice.

What Jesus was challenging in that temple was a system that was deeply embedded in its own rules and practices. It had all become so routine that the people - priests and worshipers alike - were no longer open to any fresh revelations from God. How does anyone hear the voice of God if they are so caught up in so many restrictions?

Sadly, it's an arrangement that had become so matter-of-fact that no one really knew any better. If you were going to worship God, experience God's forgiveness, dwell in God's grace, you just knew what was expected of you. Unfortunately, it was the church, the religious establishment, that controlled those expectations. Jesus meant to radically alter this understanding. He did so by, literally, cleaning house in the temple.

Is this a story of Jesus' humanity, as some people believe? "See, even Jesus could get angry!" No, not really. Yes, he was human, and, no doubt, he experienced the wide range of emotions which you and I experience. But his goal in the temple that day was to radically transform the focus of people's worship. They were not supposed to be coming to the temple to accommodate certain ingrained requirements. They were coming to worship God, the God who, as the people would learn, was revealed through Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph, the only begotten son of God. Jesus is the fullest expression of God's presence on earth, not the temple, with all of its rules and regulations. And didn't John say just that in the opening verses of his Gospel? "In the beginning was the word, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth…" this is a truth which finds its fullest expression through this one man, Jesus Christ.

Let's return to the story I told you at the beginning, about the pastor and his nightmare. Is the lesson of John's Gospel somehow being revealed through the pastor's dream? Might the church of today be mired down in certain routines and expectations? Yes, the large bible that was donated, the nicely engraved hymnals, the fancy chairs, the Sunday School materials, and so forth, are important to our faith experience, but must they be as important as some people make them? "No, you can't move that chair because Mrs. So-and-so donated it you know!" and what about changing something about the order of worship or, heaven help us, the time of worship? We don't even want to go there, do we?

Granted, we would all be just scandalized to experience what the pastor dreamed about. But in the end, are not those sorts of things really accessories to our worship? When we place inordinate value on such things, are we, in fact, making them idols? If we center ourselves on such things, what else might we make an object of worship?

In truth, is our worship any less sincere if I sit on a folding chair, and communion is served with paper plates and cups? Is the word of God any less moving or fresh if it is shared from a paperback version of the Bible?

That pastor had every right to wake up in a cold sweat. He had every reason to question his own ministry and the form that it took. The word of God, the challenge of our faith, can do that to a person.

In the book of Hebrews we read, "For the word of god is living and active. Sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart…" (heb.4:12)

Jesus of Nazareth, the son of God, God's living word, was that two-edged sword in the temple that day, coming to judge the attitudes and habits and routines of the way the people of God worshiped and revered their god. His actions should have no less power for us today.

As we continue to journey through this season of Lent, it would be good for us to thoughtfully and prayerfully examine our routines of faith, our expectations of our experiences in worship. Do we, in fact, create idols of the practice of worship, while ignoring the very object of our worship? This is a question we have to ask ourselves.

For today, it is enough to say that the season of spring begins tomorrow afternoon. And Easter day is only four weeks away. Is it, in fact, time to do some housecleaning as we prepare our hearts, our minds and our lives for the wonder of the resurrection?

Something to think about.

Amen.