Lent 3, March 8 2015
Ex 20:1-17; 1 Cor 1:20-25; John 2:13-25
Brookdale
The Ten Commandments—I suspect that most of you learned them by heart when you were children, as I did. They sketch in a few words the basic rules for living in society. If we honor and respect the Lawgiver and obey His rules for dealing with each other, then our community can live in peace and face problems together.
The Ten Commandments follow the pattern of an ancient Middle Eastern treaty between a mighty king and a lesser king who is subservient to him. The treaty usually starts out identifying the king and listing all he has done for the vassal. Then come the terms that the vassal has to uphold, which typically require paying tribute and sending soldiers to fight for the lord. In the Ten Commandments, God identifies Himself as the one who freed the Israelites from subjection. With God as their lord, the Israelites do not have to bow before any human lord. The terms are just the minimum that they will need to survive as free people.
Yet we human beings tend to follow our own agendas. On a television show some years ago, the host was interviewing a man who argued passionately for displaying the Ten Commandments prominently in courtrooms. The host asked the man, “What are the Ten Commandments?” “They are the commandments that God gave Moses.” “Yes, but what are they? Can you list them?” The man, flustered, said, “Well, you know, don’t lie, don’t steal—stuff like that.” In short, he didn’t know the Ten Commandments he was fighting for. He was just fighting for his cause.
One evening last year, my militant atheist brother-in-law began to denounce people who want the Ten Commandments in courtrooms. “The Ten Commandments ought to be outlawed from courtrooms!” he thundered. So I asked him, “What are the Ten Commandments?” “Well, they’re from the Old Testament.” “Yes, but can you list them?” “Well, there’s something about stoning people” was his answer. (When I recited them for him, he agreed that the ones regulating human conduct were not unreasonable.)
So here we have two good people arguing bitterly with each other about the rules that tell us how people can get along together, and both ignorant of the subject they are arguing about. Do you see something wrong with that picture? They have let their agendas—a Christian America and freedom from religion—get in the way of getting along and even of getting informed.
The Gospel passage from today shows another way in which people let their agendas take precedence over God’s commands. The fourth Gospel tells us that right at the beginning of his ministry—just after the marriage at Cana—Jesus goes to Jerusalem and cleanses the Temple. Now this temple was one of the largest buildings, if not the largest building, in the world. And it was a big business. There was a temple tax to support it. Many animals were slaughtered there every day for God. “Sin offerings” of animals were required if a person became impure, as a woman did after having a child. Many other conditions required sacrifice. And I believe two sheep were sacrificed each day for the Roman Empire, as required by Rome. The priests got most of the meat from sacrificed animals, or the profit from selling it in the market. And people had to change their local money—at a price—to buy animals to be sacrificed, which was a profit for somebody. So this was a big business.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus looks at the stalls and cages of animals for sale, the buying and selling, the animals taken away for slaughter, and the moneychangers, and he asks “Is this what God wants?” People are used to buying and selling, to being priests and scribes as a way to make a living; they have changed God’s house into a marketplace, because that is what people understand. Jesus is having none of it, and he drives out the men who run the business of the temple. Before long, these men—with a lot of help from the Roman Empire—will crush him. But they won’t defeat him. We know the ultimate ending on Easter Sunday—though we have to wait for it.
Meanwhile, we live through the season of Lent. Our little sacrifices and extra efforts are not heroic, but God doesn’t ask us for heroics. We so often get sidetracked into following our own agendas, like being in the right, winning, or making deals. God just wants us to spend a little time during Lent paying attention to His agenda and adjusting our lives to get back in sync with it.