St. Luke's Episcopal Church
Cleveland, Tennessee

Third Sunday of Lent
March 15, 2009
Pam Park, Director of Christian Education

JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What if we were to take a Lenten journey back in time? What if, instead of sitting in the pews at St. Luke’s, we find ourselves as faithful Jews in Jesus’ time, having just completed the long and arduous journey to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover--the most important feast of the Jewish faith?

There we are, minding our own business, doing things the way we, and our ancestors before us, have always done them in preparation for this most sacred time of the religious year.

As we await our turn to exchange our worldly coins into those acceptable at the Temple, we think about the sacrifice about to be made on behalf of our family and ourselves. We understand that the Temple is not only a place of sacrifice, but also the heart of Jewish worship, the dwelling place of God on earth.

Suddenly, a man bursts into the Temple. He grabs a whip and drives livestock and the people selling them out of the Temple. Then he turns to the money-changers’ tables, overturning them and spilling their coins onto the ground.

We might ask, “Who is this man? Just who does he think he is anyway? Who gives him the authority to break into this most holy of places and turn it upside down?” It would have to be a shocking and unsettling scene.

When the holy breaks into our lives how do we respond?

As I read the scripture of the cleansing of the Temple and thought about the response of the Jews, I was reminded of a story I heard on a trip to Peru several years ago. It was the story of the arrival of the Spanish to Peru in the 16 th Century. The Indios, the native peoples, call that time the “time when the world was turned upside down.”

The storyteller told us that when the Spanish sailed into the bay, the Indios never saw them…not because they were blind, but because they didn’t have any conscious basis to “see” with their eyes—no capacity to comprehend—the great ships with their billowing sails and the soldiers in shiny armor coming ashore with their plumed helmets and swords set to conquer. So the people were taken by surprise. Their world was turned upside down, and they didn’t know how to respond.

So too were the Jews taken by surprise as Jesus made his way through the Temple. The way we most often approach this Biblical story is to see an angry Jesus, acting against the corruption he saw in temple practices. But, like most of the great Bible stories, there are many levels through which we may access their meaning. So, without discounting Jesus’ anger, let’s look at the response of the Jews in the Temple.

When they questioned by what authority Jesus had acted, Jesus replied, metaphorically, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Confounded, the Jews responded, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” As we would say, the Jews and Jesus were not on the same page. Jesus’ remark was metaphorical in nature, the Jews responded from a literal, legalistic point of view, missing the point Jesus was making entirely.

From my perspective as a spiritual director, the response of the Jews, which to us in hindsight, sounds a bit obtuse, may not have, necessarily, been an unwillingness to see what was standing before them, but that they had no basis in their covenant relationship with God to expect the type of Holy revelation that broke into their midst. After all, their Covenant with God was an ancient one, given by God to Moses centuries before on Mt. Sinai.

Their relationships, with God and with each other in community, were established within this ages old covenant and within the sacrificial system of Temple worship. Although the Jews did believe that a Messiah was coming, this man, Jesus, didn’t quite seem to fit the vision of the Messiah they were expecting.

What did Jesus want those present to “see” through his words and actions on that day when he turned the Temple and its sacrificial system upside down? I think that Jesus brought Heaven and Earth together that day in the Temple. What the Jews were unable to see was God Incarnate, fully human and fully divine, standing as the gateway between Heaven and Earth, bringing the Old Covenant, heavy-laden by the Law, to completion, and ushering in a New Covenant, based on relationship and Divine Love so deep that Jesus was willing to go to the cross for our salvation. Jesus, through word and action, was proclaiming that he is the new Temple, the dwelling place of God, and that through his death and resurrection he is the perfect sacrifice for our sins.

Today we find ourselves, not at the Temple in first century Jerusalem, but in the 21sth century sitting in our favorite pew at St. Luke’s Church, making our own preparations for the most holy feast of the Christian faith. Here we are in the third week of Lent, minding our own business, doing things the way we, and those before us, have always done them in preparation for this most sacred time of our religious year.

That same Jesus who came into the Temple that day long ago, is here with us today. Christ is always with us. He is in every breath we take and in every beat of our heart. He was with us as we took our first breath, and he will be with us when we take our last.

But let’s not forget, as we sit in the comfort of our pew in this beautiful and venerable old church, that Jesus comes to us every day in a myriad of ways.

During this Season of Lent, let’s take the time to nourish our spiritual senses, so we will not be taken by surprise, and fail to see, the Holy which might not be quite what we are expecting.

Where do we see, or fail to see, God in our midst today? Does God come in surprising and unsettling ways to lull us from life as we, and those who came before us, have always known?