“Cleaning Out the Clutter”

A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC, Birmingham, AL
3rd Sunday in Lent, March 15, 2009

Text: John 2:13-22
“Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple”(v. 15).

THE BERENSTAIN BEARS is a cartoon show seen on public television. The theme song for the series begins . . . .

SOMEWHERE DEEP IN BEAR COUNTRY
LIVES THE BERENSTAIN BEAR FAMILY

THE BEAR FACT IS THAT
THEY’RE JUST LIKE YOU AND ME
THE ONLY DIFFERENCE
IS THEY LIVE IN A TREE

The TV show is based on books written for children by Stan and Jan Berenstain. This week, one of my cyber-sources directed me to a particularly relevant book in the series: “The Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room.” This read-aloud book is a lesson about house cleaning. The introduction warns: "When small bears forget to pick up, store and stash, Some of their favorite things end up in the trash."

The crisis in the story comes when Mama Bear loses patience with the mess in Brother and Sister's room. The story reads: "Well, the mess just seemed to build up and build up until one day... maybe it was because Mama's back was a little stiff, or maybe it was stepping on Brother's airplane cement, or maybe she was just fed up with that messy room, but whatever it was... Mama Bear lost her temper! She stormed into the cubs’ room with a big box. 'The first thing we need to do is get rid of all this junk!' she said. Brother and Sister were watching in horror as Mama began to throw things into the box."

Truth be told, most of us, beginning especially with yours truly, could use a little encouragement in our own housekeeping--literally and figuratively. We are in the midst of the sacred season Lent and this is just the time for it. Whether it is a messy room, a cluttered car, or a messy set of circumstances at home, work, or school, the time comes--or should surely come--when we need to put our things--and our relationships--in order.

Problem is, for many of us, we have let things go on for so long--we’ve let the clutter build up, stack upon stack, in the basement, the attic, the garage. . . . We’ve let the issues in our relationships go unresolved for so long . . . . We’ve let the injustices and inequities in our society fester for so many years, so many decades that only radical house cleaning will correct the situation. That's what today's gospel lesson is all about. Jesus “cleans house” at the Jerusalem temple. In so doing John shows Jesus standing in the prophetic tradition of Jeremiah--who labeled the Temple a “den of robbers” (7.11) and Zechariah, “there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord”(14.21). There is much tension in the Bible between the entrenched leadership and those who stand on the outside looking in. Jesus makes it clear with whom he stands, and thus with whom the Church should stand today.

Now, back at the Temple . . . . My sources tell me it all began-- this abuse of sacred space . . . . It all began innocently enough. It wasn’t that the religious leaders set out to exploit the faithful. The whole scene at the Temple compound during the great Passover celebration evolved over decades to meet the genuine needs of people of faith. Jewish requirements prohibited the use of Roman currency to pay the Temple tithe, because the coin of the realm bore the graven image of the emperor. Thus, money changers were quite necessary. And, ancient cultic practice called for animal sacrifice. It was not practical for people traveling great distances to bring animals to the Temple, so vendors set up shop to accommodate the pilgrims. Inevitably, abuses arose. Power corrupts some, money corrupts even more. Power and money together are “unsafe at any speed.”

Now, as Jesus begins his public ministry in John, the abuses have gone unabated, the clutter in the house of God has become so offensive that nothing will do but to “clean house.” As John describes it, the scene is surprisingly violent. Jesus brandishing a whip, turning animals lose to cause havoc, tables overturned, and coins spilled out onto the floor.

We are fortunate that John has made the disciples available for commentary. And here the story takes a strange twist. The disciples explain the cleansing of the Temple by citing Psalm 69.9. That verse actually reads: “ zeal for your house that has consumed me . . . .” But the disciples change verb tense. From past tense--“zeal . . . has consumed me” they change it to the future tense: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Here, early in John’s gospel, is a prediction of the Passion. The zeal that Jesus has for God’s house, and for God’s righteousness-- for God’s love, mercy, justice and peace . . . . This zeal will consume him, even to the point of death.

Now, bring that determination for radical housecleaning . . . . Bring it forward to our time and place. See the same divine fervor applied to the dusty caverns of our lives. To our tightly packed closets as well as to our messy relationships. See that same determination applied to the vested interests in the church. See that same anger directed at the injustices and inequities in our society. To see Jesus in this bright light is to see the Risen Jesus, alive and well in our world today promoting God’s righteousness and challenging the world’s wrongdoing. This is a far cry from “gentle Jesus, meek and mild.” A far cry from romantic portraits and sentimental songs.

Of course, old images, old concepts, proven practices die hard. The religious leaders ask Jesus for a sign. ‘Show us your credentials; let’s see us some ID.’ Jesus responds: “Knock this Temple to the ground, and watch me raise it up in three days.” Just imagine a similar threat against Bryant-Denny or Jordan-Hare, Fenway Park or Wrigley Field. You can image how angry the crowd must have been. The religious leaders point out that the great Temple, begun by Herod the Not-So-Great, 46 years earlier, is, like Corridor X, still under construction.

But as is so often the case, the religious leaders have missed the point. There is double meaning hidden in the words of Jesus. New Testament scholar Gail O’Day explains: “The verb Jesus uses to speak of raising the Temple points to a second, more symbolic level of meaning . . . because that verb is also used (in John’s gospel) to speak of the resurrection.” John makes clear for us what the contemporaries of Jesus could not see. John tells us that Jesus is speaking of “the temple of his body.” “Since for Judaism the Temple is the locus of God’s presence on earth,” John is now suggesting that “Jesus’ body--our Lord’s body-- has become the locus--the location--of God.” (New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. IX, pp. 541-45). This extraordinary claim gives Jesus the mandate to conduct a wholesale housecleaning of the religious establishment then, as well as, now. Jesus has the authority to radically alter the Church today, in all of its diverse configurations, as well as, this congregation in all of its particularities. Why, Jesus could be making changes even as we speak! Remember the Presbyterian watchword: “We are Reformed, and always being reformed!” Reformed, refashioned, reconstituted, always, we pray, that we might be more Christ-like in our worship, our fellowship, and our ministry.

Jesus has the authority to order wholesale change in our corporate life and in our personal lives. Elsewhere, Jesus gives us this encouragement to make the changes: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”(Matt 18.3).

“Unless you change and become like children” takes us back to the Berenstain Bears, to Brother and Sister bear watching in horror as Momma Bear tosses their scattered toys into a big box--a box to be set out on the curb with the other household discards. Don’t you know Brother and Sister Bear got busy, right then and there, racing to clean up the clutter!

Better we do that now--clean up the clutter in our lives, in the church, and in our community. Start the clean up now, while there is still time; while we still have the energy and the resolve. Better we do it now, for we do not know the hour or the day. “Be ready,” says Jesus, “for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour” (Matt. 24.44).

To Jesus Christ, who loves us
and freed us from our sins by his blood
and made us to be a kingdom,
priests of his God and Father,
to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Rev. 1: 5,6