Category: News

¹⁵ Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; ¹⁶ and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. ¹⁷ He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written,

“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?
            But you have made it a den of robbers.’

¹⁸ And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. ¹⁹ And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city. 
Mark 11:15-19

Many people have campers in my neighborhood.  Whether they enjoy parking their campers in a campground for a summer or an evening.  The Winnebago transports people and their possessions from place to place.  Going to see the Grand Canyon?  Your camper can take you there and cook your meals, keep you cool and wash the dirt and sweat off.  But what happens when you purchase a Winnebago and park it on your driveway and never use it?  The camper becomes a status symbol or perhaps even something to brag about: my camper is bigger and better than yours.  The point of a camper is to travel and deliver people and possessions to their destination.  When you buy it to show off, something needs to change.

Just as it can be with campers parked in driveways instead of campgrounds, so too is it with Churches or Temples.  The Temple of Herod was meant to be a vehicle for connecting with God by prayer.  Every symbol from the Exodus, the law and the sacrifices, were meant to be the vehicle for delivering the people to God and God to the people.  A Winnebago is a vehicle that can get someone from Ohio to California, the Temple was the vehicle to get the people to God, through prayer.  The Temple was not god, but a vehicle or a symbol to transport the people to God, to close the distance between Heaven and Earth, from Creator to creature. 

The great dilemma for Jesus was the purpose of the Temple to be the vehicle for faithfulness and covenant between God and Creation and finding the temple to be for a different purpose.  “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations.”  But you have made it a den of robbers.’  The point of a Winnebago is to be a vehicle for transportation, not to sit as an object of pride in the driveway.  The point of the Temple is to be a vehicle for transportation to God, not to sit as an object of pride and greed.   The people were to connect with God in the building, not to stare at the building and earn a fortune.  Instead of using the temple, they park it in the driveway and to brag to the neighbors and to fleece a fortune.

Now we can understand why Jesus cleaned house.  The point of the Temple buildings was to be a vehicle moving the people to God and Jesus reinstates or rededicates the building to that purpose.  Instead of being used unfaithfully, Jesus cleans the temple to be faithful to why God created it in the first place.  Not to park the vehicle in the driveway, but to be a vehicle moving the people to God.  To be a house of prayer connecting with God inside the covenant, not to be a house of thievery, connecting the leaders with mammon or money inside greed.

What then is the purpose of our buildings?  To be a vehicle moving us to God, or to be a vehicle parked in the driveway to brag about to our neighbors, or to be a source of income increasing our cash flow.  We need a building, but that building needs to serve God’s purpose and serve our needs as a community.  We need a space to worship God, but it doesn’t need to be gilded in gold, to connect with God.  We need spaces to study and learn, but it doesn’t need to be the lecture hall of Harvard.  We need spaces to cook, eat and fellowship together, but those spaces do not need to be a 5-star restaurant, limiting the clientele.  We need spaces to store goods for our neighborhoods and to serve the physical and emotional needs of our neighborhoods, but those spaces do not need to be the Waldorf-Astoria.  We have needs as a community, but to what end, God’s or ours: a vehicle to connect us with God, or to park in the driveway to gather fortune and fame?

As we begin the process this month of discerning what we need from our building spaces, I will repeat Ad Nauseum, that our buildings need to serve the purpose of connecting us to God not filling our checking accounts or our egos.  Perhaps this is the golden opportunity to clean house, literally and metaphorically.  Are our sanctuaries about worship or entertainment or competition?  Are our kitchens and dining rooms about fellowship and camaraderie or snobbery in the form of gilded plates and professional kitchens?  Are our rooms about learning, and nurturing faith, or are they about status and showing off?  What changes can we make to make our buildings to change them into the vehicle they were supposed to be, to bring us closer to God, not to become gods that deliver us further from God.  Jesus cleaned house, maybe the time is now for us too also.  Amen 

³¹ Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³² He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³ But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’  Mark 8:31-33

Thanks to Hollywood, we live in a world of superheroes.  Whether we know the Iron Man or Black Panther from the Marvel Universe or Superman or Wonder Woman from the DC Universe, we have come to know superheroes.  They possess fabulous powers to counteract the fabulous powers of the supervillains.  Some have weaknesses and vulnerabilities like kryptonite, but by and large the superheroes can do extraordinary things and by the end of the movies or the season, the superheroes always win in some way and the villains are defeated.  We expect greatness and glory from our heroes.

By Superman’s standards, Jesus is a total failure.  Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.  We can see great suffering in Captain America, but the great suffering of Christ?  Everyone loves the Justice League but rejected by His own people?  Iron Man died, but destroyed Thanos, but be killed and crucified as a felon and failure?  The popular expectation of our culture is greatness and glory, and the world cannot see greatness and glory in the passion and crucifixion of Jesus Christ, they only see weakness and humiliation.  By the world’s standards, Jesus fails.

Perhaps this is why Jesus proclaim this prediction of his passion openly without riddles but when affirming his Messiahship, he commands silence and speaks only in riddles or parables.  What if His priority is not to become the popular identity of political revolutionary or King, which is what they wanted Him to be (and the Superhero we want him to be) but what if His priority is to be One who gave his life for many?  Not to be served but to serve?  Not to conquer but to be conquered?  Not for power but to empower?  Not for glory, but to glorify?  Jesus speaks openly about his cross, and perhaps our crosses also, but silences any talk about revolution.  Messiah? Yes of course, but Crucified Messiah?  Far more important.

It is no wonder then that Peter, and us, does what he does.  He must put a stop to this nonsense.  And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.   Peter leads Jesus and Peter commands Jesus, these are the same verbs used earlier in this chapter about Jesus leading the disciples and Jesus commanding the crowds.  But here, Peter leads and commands Jesus.  Peter claims authority and superiority over Jesus.  Peter is in charge and Jesus will not choose His own destiny of crucifixion, but Jesus will accept the destiny that Peter chooses for Him.  Peter patronizes Jesus. 

We do the same.  We have the nerve to believe that we have authority over Jesus, like Peter believes.  Authority to command what we want: more money for our Church budgets, more people attending worship, more upgrades and expansions to our buildings and campuses.  But do we really have authority over Jesus?  Peter thought his plan was superior to Jesus’ plan: revolution not crucifixion.  Do we know better than Jesus what is a blessing to us: my church not the neighborhood, my cause not the cause of humanity, my glory and power not the empowering of the weak and the glorifying of the humble?  But do we really know better than Jesus?  We make the same mistake and force our destiny upon Jesus, instead of allowing Him to have the sovereign freedom to choose His own.  We patronize Jesus.

What if the words spoken to Peter are the same words spoken to us, when we play God instead being merely human: he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’  Get behind me.  Disciples follow, they do not lead and every time we try to lead, we are corrected and reminded of our place to follow.  Satan.  Satan means adversary or enemy.  Disciples do not need to protect Jesus, Jesus is the one who protects the disciples and every time we try to prevent pain and suffering from Jesus, we really are trying to prevent pain and suffering from ourselves, we are corrected and reminded as Jesus’ enemies of our place as sheep or allies.  You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.  Disciples do not possess or control Jesus, that is the way of sin, the way of God is the way of faithfulness and self-surrender.  Every time we clamp down on Jesus we are corrected and reminded of our place as creatures not the Creator.  Jesus still corrects us, can we be corrected?

Friends, the ways of our world are the ways of the Superheroes, greatness and glory.  But the way of Jesus Christ is the way of the Cross, no power without pain, no glory without humiliation.  The disciples needed to be corrected and taught by Jesus, and today we still need to be taught: a crucified Messiah, means crucified Disciples.  Jesus is still correcting, Jesus is still teaching, Jesus is still rescuing us.  But we must come to terms that that rescue is not like the Avengers, but to truly rescue means crucifixion.  When we are tempted to believe that God’s Anointed, and ourselves, can avoid suffering, rejection and death, let us remember and acknowledge that true power comes through pain, true glory comes through humiliation, true life comes through His death for us.  Messiah? Yes. But Crucified? Amen. 

¹¹So then, remember that at one time you Gentiles by birth, called “the uncircumcision” by those who are called “the circumcision” — a physical circumcision made in the flesh by human hands — ¹²remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. ¹³But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. ¹⁵He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. ¹⁷So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; ¹⁸for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. ¹⁹So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, ²⁰built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. ²¹In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; ²²in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.  Ephesians 2 11-22

I can remember my first few days in my new dorm room in college.  I knew no one.  I had what is now a closet for a room and a roommate from Pittsburgh, who I knew nothing about.  I was on a floor with 30 other complete strangers, with 7 other floors of complete strangers with 2 other wings of complete strangers.  One fall day, I happened to be walking past all the other dorm rooms on my floor and paused in front of one because I heard a familiar song playing on the stereo.  I peered into the open door and saw a fellow student lying on his bed and listening to the music.  I introduced myself and we made small talk about the music and the band, and the rest is history for us.  We struck up a friendship that still lasts to this day.  We worshiped together, we rented an apartment together with other friends, we attended each other’s weddings.  We were once strangers and now we have become family.

Just as I can talk about once being strangers with someone and then becoming family, so too does Paul talk to the Ephesians about being Gentiles or strangers to Israel or the Church.  Once they were pagans but now, they were part of Israel.  Once they were slaves to their fleshly desires but now, they are spiritual.  Once they were in their sins, but now they are forgiven and made new.  Once they were strangers, but now they are part of Israel, the Church and the family of God.  So too with us.  Once, we were three congregations, but now we are one community of people.  Once we had 3 worship services, but now we worship together.  Once we had 3 sets of committees, now we work together.  Once we had tiredness and worry, now we have new energy and courage.  Once we were strangers and now, we are family. 

In our eyes, Paul tells us this is the Peace of God at work in Jesus Christ.  For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.  In him, he has made three groups into one, and broken down the dividing wall, that is the hostility between us.  God’s Peace is not just the absence of war, but well-being or wholeness, and Peace-Making then is making things whole; like 3 congregations become one.  But that Peace has removed the hostility between us.  This does not mean that we hate each other, but it means that the barriers between us are gone.  The separation, the history and the experiences of isolation are now removed so that those that we once called strangers have no barriers from becoming family.  God’s Shalom at work; bringing together.

The good news of the Gospel is that because this is God’s Shalom, that work is effective; he has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, so that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace.  Genesis reminds us of God as Creator, created out of nothing and created very good.  Ephesians reminds us that in the new creation, God can create again out of nothing and creating complete, “Shalom”.  Even when the 3 congregations don’t look like one or even when the blockades and red tape hold us back, or even, when we have moments of doubt and uncertainty if this is a good idea, we can hold fast to this Shalom work because it isn’t yours or mine, this work is really God’s.  Once we were strangers, but now we are God’s family.  Who better could bring us and hold us together?

So, over the next few days and weeks as we evaluate the last 3 months and discern the next weeks and seasons, we can in faith follow God’s Shalom work.  But specifically, that means like the Ephesians we can join together and grow into a holy temple in the Lord.  What can you join or maybe even start if we don’t currently have it?  What growth can you make, as an individual or into the community?  Who or what is strange to you that can become familiar and family?  I was pleased to hear a member of our congregation tell me that it was getting harder and harder to find someone in our 3 congregations that they didn’t know.  That is the whole point; to join and grow until every stranger has become family.  Friends, let us live into this new creation which God’s Shalom is creating; let us not start college but let us start being Church, where every stranger becomes family.  Amen.