Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent, March 3, 2024

Exodus 20:1-17+1 Corinthians 1:18-25+John 2:13-22

For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom,
and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
(1 Corinthians 1:25)

In the first of the three gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – the scene of Jesus cleansing the temple (as it has been so delicately called) takes place after his three-year ministry and after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem on what we now know as Palm Sunday. This violent act on the part of Jesus is believed to set in motion the conversations among the religious leaders that led to the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus on Good Friday.

John’s account is radically different. (NB: When John refers to "the Jews," he is speaking specifically about the religious leadership who were opposed to the popular following he had amassed. These words of John have been used as antisemitic fuel since the very beginning, so we need to understand that it was not about an entire people, just a certain group of leaders.) The cleansing of the temple comes not at the end of Jesus’s earthly ministry, but at the beginning. He had barely gathered his disciples around him and performed his first sign, the changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. He then took his disciples with him and headed to Jerusalem for Passover.

Before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in the year 70, every Jew in Palestine and beyond was required to observe Passover at the temple. This sacred pilgrimage represented the liberation of the people from the bondage of pharaoh in the time of Moses. It was a festive time for the people and a lucrative time for those selling animals for sacrifice in the temple precincts and others changing Roman coins with their image of Caesar into the more acceptable shekel for the paying of the temple tax.

When Jesus entered the courtyard of the temple and witnessed the mass of people and livestock and greedy moneychangers, he became livid. It was like a meat market, and the poor were being ripped off in their sincere efforts to make the proper sacrifice using the proper coins. This had nothing to do with liberation from oppression and everything to do with oppressing those who could least afford it. So, he took up a whip and cleared every last cow, sheep, and thief out of there.

To our ears, it sounds like a reasonable and correct thing to do, but to the temple authorities, it threatened a very well-crafted system they had in place to make as much money as they could while enforcing the minutiae of laws that only they seemed to understand. It was a racket, and Jesus was having none of it.

So, John’s gospel does not save this for the end, kind of as a last straw leading to Jesus’s arrest. No, for John, this is the opening salvo. This is Jesus’s manifesto of who he is and what he is about, which is to lift up the poor and cast the mighty from their thrones as we read in Mary’s Magnificat. The entirety of John’s gospel unfolds with this backdrop as the religious folk keep an eye out for an opportunity to get rid of this troublemaker so they could continue to oppress the suffering.

Now, this may make it sound like the chief priests and rabbis were really awful people. I’m not so sure they were any different than any one of us who is so invested in what we believe or what we own or what we control or what we do that we make an idol of it and will do anything to protect it. We humans seem to have an infinite capacity for self-deception in our self-justification! Some might call it original sin and some might call it total depravity, but by whatever name it is called, it is always, always about us putting ourselves in the place of God – of knowing best, setting priorities, and making up very good reasons why those are our priorities.

For some of us, the idol we protect at all costs might be wealth. It might be power or privilege. It might be the idea that we deserve comfort and good things. It might even be guns. But today is no different than the day Jesus cleaned out that temple, because if we are willing to idolize anything at the expense of the vulnerable, the voiceless, and the victims, then we are no better than the religious authorities who crucified Jesus. And that is a sobering thought.

But all is not lost. We know, as the Apostle Paul tells us, that God has “made foolish the wisdom of the world” (1 Corinthians 1:20). And the wisdom of the world will tell you that you need to hoard your wealth because you just never know when you might need it. The wisdom of this world will tell you that outsiders are going to take what is rightfully yours. The wisdom of this world will insist that you live in fear, so you need an unfettered right to protect yourself by whatever means necessary, even an AR-15.

But Paul and Jesus before him know that this is nonsense. We heard from Jesus last week that we must lose our life in order to save it (Mark 8:35). The way of power is not the way of the cross. In our baptism, we promise to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving (y)our neighbor as (y)ourself and to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being” (BCP 305). It is not possible to do these things if we are making idols of our own power or privilege or prestige. It is foolishness to think otherwise.

This service opened with the collect for the Third Sunday in Lent which begins, “Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves” (BCP 218). The wisdom of the world tells us that we are in control, we have the power, we have the ability, if only we have the willpower and perseverance to get what we want when we want it. Self-help gurus and the likes of Joel Osteen will lead you to think that you can have it all if you just do the right things.

The cross of Jesus Christ proves the foolishness of such claims. We can do nothing but allow ourselves to fall into the arms of God’s unfailing love and mercy, and in thanksgiving for that, we live lives of gratitude and generosity toward our neighbors. It may sound like foolishness, but it is the way of salvation, not just for ourselves but for all of creation.

Maybe none of us will do violence to those who oppress and use those on the margins for personal gain, but may God give us the courage to speak out against injustice and abuse, and to counter those who monger fear with a gospel of love and mercy, because we know that the power behind us is far greater than anything that stands in front of us, for we proclaim Christ crucified and risen, for you, for me, and for all of humankind.