Sermon Tone Analysis
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Sermon Intro:
A Light Has Come.
We continue this morning on our journey through the Gospel of Mark.
The declaration from chapter 1 still echoes: And the Word became flesh… Jesus holds together human and divine.
Jesus reveals who God is and what is like.
And then Jesus’ call to “come and see.”
Come and see what this embodied God is doing… Last week, we saw Jesus at a wedding, turning water into wine, declaring that a new, a messianic age was beginning.
But also only letting a few people hear the announcement.
This week, we see Jesus in a very public act.
Some have called this the “Cleansing of the Temple” or, I like the phrase “The Temple Incident.”
Before we read the text together… I’d like to point out four things that I think will help us listen better:
Four things: Occasion, Place, Chronology and Location
Our reading will begin with these words… “It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.”
Occasion: Passover
What about the context of it being Passover?
We won’t go into all the details, but Passover was a remembrance of God’s deliverance of the people during the plagues.
And Passover was originally the blood of a lamb spread on the doorposts of the Israelites homes… and John has already told us that Jesus is the Lamb of God.
So at Passover, pilgrims would arrive, needing food and lodging, but also needing to buy animals for the sacrifice.
Jerusalem would swell with the influx.
That brings us to the second thing...
Place: Jerusalem
A couple of key things here:
In Matthew & Mark, Jesus only goes to Jerusalem once… and that is for the events we now think of as the Passion, or Holy Week.
In Luke, Jesus will go up to Jerusalem as a preteen, and then not again until closer to the end.
In John, Jesus will make three trips to Jerusalem for Passover and this is one of the reasons we get the idea that Jesus’ ministry was three years long.
And that brings us to the third thing...
Chronology: late or early in Jesus’ ministry?
In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke), The Temple Incident happens in the final week of Jesus’ ministry.
John, however, locates it near the very beginning.
So, you may, like me, think of this as the inciting incident that gets the religious establishment upset and ready to accuse Jesus and have Him arrested.
Part of that is because the synoptics also highlight Jesus’ anger at the injustice and dishonesty of the traders or the sellers.
But John invites us to look at the story from a slightly different vantage point.
We’ll explore that more later.
Now, none of the gospel writers are trying to tell us that Jesus only set foot in Jerusalem during the moments they choose to mention.
That isn’t the point at all.
Each gospel writer tells the story using a chronology that suits their theological agenda.
As would make sense.
Audience:
A reminder that John is writing after the destruction of this temple.
And, after the death & resurrection of Jesus.
Both of these were pretty momentous.
John himself experienced the unthinkable death of his teacher and friend.
And then the post-resurrection events…
John’s readers have heard these eyewitness accounts, but have also seen their own unthinkable event… the Temple, the one that took decades and decades to build.
Has been destroyed.
So, on the occasion of Passover,
in the city of Jerusalem,
with John’s chronology of this event early in Jesus’ ministry,
writing to people who are still trying to make sense of the Roman destruction of the Temple…
bearing these things in mind,
and asking God to speak to us through this text,
as Linda comes to read for us, would you stand for the reading of God’s word?
Scripture Reading
In this text, we see Jesus make a dramatic announcement.
A dramatic announcement: Jesus, disruptive and destructive (squirm)
Now, here we have to grapple with this right up front: Jesus uses physical force, even violence in this incident.
And, if you are someone who appreciates Jesus’ nonviolent approach in other stories, this story becomes problematic.
And the temptation is to explain it away.
Or to use it to justify our own use of violence.
Or some combination of the two.
I’m not interested in explaining this story away.
Nor am I interested in preaching something to justify our use of violence.
Thinking about how and when violence is used, or is deemed “necessary” is a worthwhile conversation, but that’s not what we’re exploring this morning.
Instead, I want us to keep asking what Jesus is doing, what is Jesus announcing by His words and his deeds?
He is announcing disruption.
If last week announced the arrival of the messianic age, of the Kingdom of God, this week reminds us that this new age, this new kingdom will require disrupting the status quo.
If Jesus is ushering in a new moment, the old moments might have to end.
And He doesn’t announce this quietly and calmly.
He makes a whip.
He turns over tables and scatters the coins.
He chases the animals, and with them, the people.
(Pastor Brian Zahnd tweeted this earlier this week: [read from slide])
I think it matters that there is no invitation for his disciples or for us to “go and do likewise” - we are however invited to mimic Jesus and to “take up a cross” …
If we see a system that needs overturning, can we participate in that?
Yes.
I think so.
However, we are not Jesus.
We are not Word made flesh.
We are not holding together in our person both humanity and divinity.
So, perhaps, we have to proceed with some caution before flipping tables.
And, perhaps we need to ask whether we’re more likely to show up in the story as the righteous embodiment of God, or the people seated at the tables.
In other words, what tables do we sit at that would God like to flip over or that God is flipping over?
What systems do we participate in, and even benefit from, that are not meant to last?
And that aren’t what God desires for creation?
If I don’t find myself in the story seated at one of the tables, the next place I’m likely to find myself is with the Jewish leaders who ask Jesus for His credentials.
When Jesus shows up all disruptive and destructive, don’t you find yourself joining the religious establishment and saying things like…
Jesus, what do you think you are doing?
Who do you think you are?
Well… maybe it’s just me.
But those are, in the end, the right questions.
What IS Jesus doing here?
And who is Jesus?
In the synoptic gospels’ telling of this incident, Jesus is motivated by righteous anger in the face of injustice.
Sellers overcharging, moneychangers taking advantage of the poor and those who have travelled long distances.
But here in gospel, Jesus isn’t necessarily taking issue with those things, in fact, it appears that He walks into the Temple courts only to find the sacrificial system functioning as it’s been set up.
But here Jesus is announcing that that whole system is going to be overturned.
Gilberto Ruiz helps us here:
By disrupting the well-established and accepted economic practices of the temple, Jesus publicly reveals he is more than a pilgrim visiting the temple.
He is Son of the God who dwells in that temple, and as such he has the authority to disrupt the temple’s usual activities.
Gilberto Ruiz
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