Faith embraces life; religion goes its own way.

What was the Temple?

There was no doubt that the Temple was impressive - it was built at the highest point of the city of Jerusalem, and took up about a quarter of the whole city. It was at the heart of Israel’s life as a nation, even under Roman occupation. It was, most of all, the place where for a thousand years God had promised to meet with his people. At the great festivals, to celebrate the best moments in life and to seek God’s help in the worst, his people had come here to offer prayer and sacrifice.

It hadn’t always been quite like that. It started as a tent - that made sense when God’s people were on the move, travelling through the wilderness, and God’s presence went with them. That was the time when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, the core laws for life with him and with each other. And after they’d moved on from Mount Sinai, the place of meeting went with them as a tent. God’s presence was there, and because that presence and holiness would be overwhelming, there were rules about who could go into the tent, when and how; and the tent stayed just outside the camp, but never far away; always visible, always there for someone to go and seek God’s help.

Even when Israel settled down, for many years God told the prophets that he still wanted the simplicity of the tent, a reminder that they were people on a journey. But at last he allowed King Solomon to build a permanent temple in Jerusalem, finished in 957 BC. It was beautiful, inspiring; it was still essentially a simple place of meeting with God. After all, that was what it was about. Only priests could enter the central building, and only the High Priest could go into the Holy of Holies, the presence of God, once a year to sacrifice for the nation. But anyone could come to the very doorway of the building, to seek God’s favour, to offer sacrifice and prayer. It was open, not for business, but for meeting with God in the heart of life. Through civil war, invasions, exile, demolition and rebuilding, it stayed like that for 900 years. God was there.

Then King Herod turned up. Herod didn’t do small and simple. And he felt that Jerusalem needed a bigger, better Temple. One that would persuade his people that he was a proper king, even though he wasn’t Jewish himself. And of course, the powerful families of the High Priests and Chief Priests were only too happy to help with the plans. Work began in 18BC, and was still going on through the whole life of Jesus. At the heart of it was an updated, stylish new version of the old Temple. But now it was surrounded by a whole system of walls and courtyards. Only priests and Temple staff could even see the steps of the Holy Place. Other Jewish men were allowed into the next courtyard out, Jewish women into the next beyond that. And outside that was the Court of the Gentiles - the place anyone could enter, which had become a marketplace and meeting place, probably the noisiest and busiest place in Jerusalem. And conveniently built onto the side was Herod’s fortified palace.

There’s no doubt it was impressive. But along the way, its purpose had been distorted. The place where God met with his people, to which all the world could come, had become the symbol of power, of exclusivity, of a series of walls between God and the world where he’d originally only commanded the fabric of a tent wall.

And it was into this outer courtyard that Jesus came in anger and judgement, with a whip. Not the ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ we’ve all heard about. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and drove the sellers of animals for sacrifice out of the place. Why?

They were there, splitting the profits with the priests, to provide a service they’d persuaded people they needed. Special holy coins to pay their tax and donations, a bargain at two of your ordinary everyday denarii for one of these wonderful Temple coins. Carefully-bred and-raised animals for sacrifice, guaranteed clean and acceptable to God, only six times the price of the ordinary, dirty ones you could bring in from your farm in Galilee.

But quite aside from the profiteering and corruption, as if that wasn’t bad enough, this - like the whole grand structure around the Temple - was distorting what it was all about in the first place.

When God gave the Ten Commandments, Moses realised something that was new to the religions around him. God’s commands about how we relate to him and about how we relate to one another weren’t separate; they belong together. And when God set out the laws about giving a tenth of everything to support the Temple and to care for the poor, it was about bringing what you had grown in your field, or earned by your daily work. You brought your daily life to God as a gift, not something special and holy. And when you offered a sacrifice, you looked at your own flock of sheep and chose the best of your own to give, or you bought the best you could find in the local market where you did your weekly shop. You brought the best of the ordinary, not some thing special and religious.

Like the walls within walls around the Temple; like the whole grandeur that made it a statement of religious nationalism, like the whole system that made money out of access to God’s blessing and controlled who was inside the walls and who was outside; this was just another invention to separate religion from the rest of life. It was about keeping control of God’s love and forgiveness. And Jesus was angry.

Because he came to proclaim the Kingdom of God; a Kingdom that embraces every part of life, and doesn’t separate the holy ‘God’ bits from the ordinary bits of work, family, shopping, cooking - life. A Kingdom of love for all people, inviting them to know that God loves them and inviting them to get to know him better. A Kingdom of freedom to become the people God made us to be, not to be kept in our place by those who claim the authority to tell us who we should be.

The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans about forty years after that day. But God was no longer there, any more than he was anywhere. If you join us for Good Friday and Easter, we’ll think more about how that happened. The Temple of God is now in our hearts, and between us when we gather to worship and serve him. So bring all you are to him, without dividing life into religious and ordinary; without drawing lines around his love. Don’t wait for Jesus’ anger. Let him cleanse the Temple of your heart with his gentle love. Let’s pray.