John 2:13-22
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
“Again & Again: We Are Shown the Way”
Preached Sunday, March 3, 2024
When I was teaching confirmation at another church a handful of years back - today’s Gospel lesson about Jesus flipping tables was brought into question. And this text is a complex one for people of all ages because there are layers and layers and layers to what is happening in it and then there are the layers and layers and layers of how it has been interpreted historically. And so, it was a big test for me, as a pastor, the first time I had to try and explain to teenage boys why Jesus could flip over tables and chase people with a whip...but he was still sinless and no, they, the youth in my confirmation class, could not do the same. It was definitely a hard one to answer. I’ll consider it a success because the teenagers did not revolt and start overthrowing tables.
Now, the reason behind Jesus’s anger and actions here is important. In our text this morning Jesus yells out, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” The same story in the book of Matthew calls the temple “a den of thieves” instead of a marketplace. “House of robbers” has also been used.
Now, historically, this has been interpreted to say that those who were selling the animal sacrifices were ripping off the poor - people needed to buy these animals for religious purposes and were being overcharged but they had to buy them...so Jesus flipped the tables and ran people out.
Price gouging could have been happening - but we don’t have historical evidence one way or another. If it was happening, it would certainly be something that Jesus could be angry about. Something we would and should be angry about. As modern readers though we need to look at what was happening in the past and not apply it to modern day Jewish people who too often have related anti-Semitic claims hurled at them.
Jewish New Testament scholar, AJ Levine, gives helpful insight into what “den of thieves” implies. A den of thieves is not the place where the thieves commit acts of robbery, it is the place they retreat to to sort through their plunder. It is a place where they feel safe, where they are not afraid of being found out.
Now, we are taking some liberty here in combining the Gospel tellings of this event - and each Gospel writer had a different aim - and John even puts it in a completely different chronological spot in Jesus’s ministry compared to the other Gospels, at the beginning, not the end: But we’d want to ask, why would people who do unjust things - whether those deeds are done inside the temple or outside the temple - why would they feel safe and secure within its walls when their religion and their God explicitly condemns taking advantage of the poor and commands them to care for the least of these?
But this den of thieves or marketplace can be read or interpreted that power and money and religion and Empire had gotten so tied up with each other that they could not be distinguished from the temple. And thus, their religion could become a mask of respectability to cover corruption of power. Jesus would rightfully be FURIOUS over this. And so should we.
But the point of this sermon is not to focus on the acts of those of a different religion over 2,000 years ago. The point of this sermon today is to look at what Jesus was angry about and ask - would Jesus be angry at us, the Church, for the same reason?
When I am talking about the “Church” here it’s with a Capital C - meaning the Church universal, the Church at large, not just our congregation. With that being said: Has the Church become a den of thieves - a place where those who commit unjust acts feel safe because of the collusion of religion and empire for power?
With a heavy heart, as someone who deeply loves the Church and committed her life’s work to it, yes. In America, especially, being a Christian comes with privilege - because Christianity is the majority religion of the land, Christians are looked upon to be less suspect. Christians have easier times running for political office, buying homes, adopting children. Just being a Christian, especially a WASP - White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, opens doors that are closed to those not in this category. Now, being a Christian does NOT automatically make you powerful but if you claim the title of Christian, it makes power more accessible. That’s an important distinction because there are many Christians who eschew the power and privileges associated with being Christian - choosing instead a life marked by humility, service, and generosity. And yet - many Christians and Churches, especially those who seek power, chose instead the path of Christian nationalism.
Christian nationalism is a heresy that has swept through our churches in America. It is a belief set that proclaims that those in power are in power because they and their power are sanctioned by God. It thus creates a correlation that those in power in a human made government and the acts of God, are one and the same. It also upholds that a particular country or nation is specially blessed by God over others.
Christianity was formed as a minority sect in a minority religion and culture. It was a religion for the last and the least. The downtrodden and forgotten. It was a religion that, inherently, flipped the tables on power, on the narrative of what power is, who wields it, and what it is to be used for. The danger of the collusion of religion and earthly power - in the case of Christian nationalism, of the Church and government, is that, as in a den of thieves, those who commit unjust acts, those who power has corrupted, those who abused power, they feel safe under the sanctimonious title of Christian. For if they claim that mantle and what they do, whether it be right or wrong, if they say it is done in the name of Jesus - well, it is either overlooked, excused, or even justified.
And I know I am referencing high echelons of power - politicians and government. But the wedding of power and the Church can and does happen at every level. We have all, myself included, either sat at or wanted seats at tables that Jesus would have flipped because those tables did not consider those who Jesus commanded us to love - our neighbors, especially the poor, the orphan, the widow, the prisoner.
Okay - deep breaths. This is the season of Lent. The season of Lent is a season for hard truths. It’s a season of calling out injustice. It’s a season of confession and repentance. And it is a season of focusing on the cross.
So to help us make sense of this and get our hearts aligned, let us look at the cross.
The cross and the church are inseparable symbols. And as the church has risen in power and prominence since the time of Jesus, so has the cross. The first Christians did not use the cross in the way we did - they used the symbol of a fish to denote their belonging to The Way, the sect that followed Jesus.
The cross grew in prominence in the year 312 when Constantine had a dream where he said that if they put the cross on their shields, they would win their battle in the Crusades. They did just that. They won the battle. And as Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the empire, wedding Christianity to Empire and power, something that we still struggle to disentangle to this day, the cross became a symbol of power - tied to violence.
We saw a similar misuse of the cross - on the side of committing violence - when in 1915, D.W. Griffith wanted a symbol of power to accompany the glorified history of the Klu Klux Klan in his movie, The Birth of a Nation. Of course, he thought the cross wasn’t powerful enough - so he set it on fire. The KKK adopted this practice after the movie. They say they are burning crosses in celebration...but in celebration of what? In the terror and intimidation of others, especially our Black and Jewish siblings.
In these ways, the Cross has been used as a symbol of violence - and that’s what the cross originally was too. In our day and age we have ornate, beautiful crosses - and as Protestants we don’t generally have crucifixes - that’s crosses with the crucified body of Jesus on them - so we can forgot that the cross was a symbol of power, violence, and torture used by the Roman Empire. The cross was reserved for those who threatened the empire, political insurrectionists, usurpers of the power of the Roman Empire. Jesus, and others alongside him, and others throughout the Roman Empire, were crucified on a hill, just by the entrance to town, so many would see the gruesome fate of those who, well, tried to flip the tables on the powers that be. The cross was a tool of intimidation - don’t act up. Keep your head down. Speak out or act out and this could happen to you, too.
Now, I am NOT saying that Christians need to ditch the cross - hear me on that one. The cross is a beloved symbol to many. It gives us strength and endurance. It brings us comfort. It reminds us of Jesus’s love. Many of us wear crosses as daily jewelry, have them in our houses or places of work, and keep them close to us as a reminder of our faith and the love of God for us. The cross is a symbol of the church - it is a symbol of Christ - it is a powerful symbol - and its origin was as a symbol of intimidation, death, violence.
But Christ, Jesus, when he died on a cross and rose again three days later, he flipped the table on that narrative. He took a symbol of death and made it a symbol of life. He took a symbol of violence and made it a symbol of love. He took a symbol of power and made it a symbol of humility.
When we look to the cross we should see a powerful symbol - a symbol that perverts the narratives of power, a symbol that reminds us that our God is a God who always sides with the powerless over the powered, the humble over the proud, those who love over those who hate. The cross is a symbol that no power is stronger than God - no empire. No nation. No army. No Hate group. Nothing. Not even death.
In other words, the cross is a POWERFUL symbol. But it is not a symbol of power.
Paul in Corinthians calls the message of the cross foolishness. Another translation says moronic. And the cross is foolish. To a world that values power. To a world that wants to use the cross as a symbol of dominance and violence and hate...they don’t get that the power of the cross is in its meekness. In its weakness. In Christ’s death - although no grave could hold him.
Before the cross those who are unjust, those who need to repent, robbers and thieves of all kinds - they should not feel it is a symbol they can hide behind. The cross is a symbol to which we are laid bare before it. Before the cross, Christ knows every part of us. And in the Cross, Christ calling us to repent of violence, power, and hatred - and seek life, humility, and love.
John puts the story of Jesus flipping the tables early in the Gospel...and I think it’s because John is laying the foundation for who Jesus is: Jesus subverts the power structure at every turn. Jesus subverts the violence of the cross - and gives it to us, flipped over, a symbol of life and love. To the rest of the world? This may seem foolish. But Jesus and the cross show us the way, again and again and again - the way of Jesus is a way of peace. It is a way of love. And it is the way of the cross. When we look at the cross - may it lead us to Jesus, again and again and again, pulling us back from tables that Jesus would flip, and into God’s arms.
Amen.
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