All That Is Necessary

John 2:13-22  The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the moneychangers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

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In research on human emotion, there are theories about which emotions are the most basic, foundational feelings.  On the positive side, there is happy.  And then, of course there is sad.  But some say the feelings that are at the very bottom of it all, the two most primitive emotions, are rage and fear.  Rage and fear – two different emotions.  There is no consensus on which of the two is more basic than the other.  They may be equally base.  At the bottom of our humanness is the combination of rage and fear.

I can’t think of anyplace in the gospels where we can clearly see Jesus expressing fear.  But this passage from John is the one place where we see clear, unquestionable rage.  Jesus is angry.  So if you were ever taught that anger is a sin, think again.

Jesus is angry at this moment in the temple.  He rages.  He makes a whip and drives the animals out.  He dumps out the vendors’ coins and turns over their tables.  Get. Out. Of. Here. Now.

There are cattle running, doves flying, coins tumbling.  The people are, no doubt, frightened and confused.  What in the world is going on here?  Quite a lot, actually.

It is the Passover in Jerusalem, which always means a very crowded and busy time.  It’s the time when Jews from all over the world would make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the holy city.  They would visit the temple and make sacrifices to God.  The books of the law, Leviticus most specifically, clearly delineate how sacrifices are to be made.  And the people of Israel are merely trying to do it right.  They need a perfect animal, unblemished, to present at the temple and, all things considered, the best way to do that is not to schlep a cow from home, but to wait until you get there to purchase it.  The men and women selling animals were needed, all this was necessary.

Furthermore, there was a currency exchange issue.  People were coming to Jerusalem from all over the world, with all different forms of currency. Perhaps some of these could be used at the temple, but others could not be used, and would have to be exchanged for an appropriate form of cash.  They would need money to pay for the animals they were buying; they would need money for their temple offering.  Obviously, the moneychangers needed to be there; this was a service they performed.  All this was necessary.

Not to say that it wasn’t a golden opportunity for the merchants and moneychangers.  Anyone trying to make a living in Jerusalem might see Passover as his or her Black Friday.  It was the time of the year when they would make their nut, so to speak.  There is no law against making a living. 

Now, some would say they were taking advantage of the people; that the moneychangers were charging exorbitantly high service charges; that the merchants were jacking up the prices for cattle and sheep and doves.  That may have been true.  Whatever the market will bear was probably true then as it is now.  It’s the reason why they may charge $4 for a bottle of water at the airport or $15 for a hamburger in Manhattan – because they can.

The temple was crowded with out of towners and loud with competitive commerce and dirty with animals.  But all of this was the way it was supposed to be.  It was the sight and sound and texture of everyone trying to do the things that were necessary.  And it makes me wonder why Jesus got so unbelievably angry with people doing what was necessary.

And then it occurs to me that his anger also is something that was necessary.

A few years ago a book was published called The Great Emergence, by Phyllis Tickle, a religious scholar.  She writes that about every 500 years the church feels compelled to hold a giant rummage sale, getting rid of those things that are no longer useful or meaningful and deciding what to keep going forward.  Five hundred years ago we had the great reformation when the protestant church was born.  Five hundred years before that there was the great schism when the Eastern Church split from the western church over theological matters.  Five hundred years before that the Roman Empire collapsed and the beginning of the monastic movement kept the church going through the dark ages. 

Five hundred years before that, of course, was Jesus of Nazareth and the birth of the church, and we could go back another 500 years and look at the Babylonian exile of Israel and see how that fundamentally changed Judaism.  Every 500 years or so, things get shaken up.  Do you see what that means?  It means that it’s about time now for another rummage sale.

And we are seeing some evidence of it.  There is a lot of talk about the changes we are facing as a church, and they are not like the other changes we might have seen over our lifetime.  This time we can’t tweak around the edges of our worship and Sunday school programs.  This time there is a need for fundamental and radical change.

No one likes to talk about it, but we are seeing decline of a serious nature.  We are seeing it across all or most denominations.  It’s something we tend to get embarrassed about but there is really no need to be embarrassed or ashamed because this decline is not singling us out – it is affecting everyone.

There is a lot of talk about how the church is dying. I hate to say those words as much as I hate hearing them.  It is true that some particular congregations have died; more probably will die.  This is a part of the change.  When the tree is no longer bearing fruit, it will wither and die. 

There are some things that will die so that something new can be born.  Just like other kinds of death, there are the stages of grief: first denial; then anger.  The longer we stay in denial the less we are able to impact the future.  But moving from denial into anger is a very uncomfortable thing.  I think that’s how things were when Jesus went to the temple that day. Maybe there was a lot of denial around him, but Jesus was angry.

Is there anger in the church today? You bet there is.  There is anger both inside the church and outside the church about the ways the church has failed.  There is anger about abuses and bad actors and there is anger about those who have remained silent.  There is anger about what is perceived as hypocrisy; there is anger about a younger generation walking away from us as if we have nothing to offer.  There is anger about being regarded as irrelevant.  All this anger is somehow justified, but it is also just a symptom.

The church is gearing up for another big change and that makes people upset.  The church is gearing up for another big change and no one can tell you exactly what it will be.  But tables will be overturned in the process.  People will get angry.  All that is necessary will happen.

If you are wondering what hope we have in all this, I will tell you what I know:  Our hope lies in our faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  That is where the hope has always resided.  There have been times in our history when the church has lost sight of that: times when it has become too concerned with its own power, times when it has become too complacent about its existence and careless about its mission; times when it has become too fixated on rules at the expense of compassion. 

Today, from where I stand, I see both spiritual and cultural factors at play in this shakeup.  I won’t offer a 5-point plan because there is no such thing.  But there are conversations to be had among us, to take an honest assessment of our faithfulness, our flaws, and our hope for the future.   What is important is for us to listen together for the guidance of the Holy Spirit – with trust and without fear.  We all need to be a part of this.

The time for pretending that nothing serious is going on is over.  The time for lamenting the fact that things are not the way they used to be is over.  Now is the time to listen with our whole heart and mind, to listen for where the Spirit is directing us, and begin to take the first steps.