Loving God, by the power of your Spirit you have made us members of the body of Christ and servants of the gospel.  Empower each of us this day for all to which you have called us, and fill us with your love, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

            Possibly today’s gospel should have started with a couple of disclaimers.  The first would go something like this: “No humans or animals are harmed in the course of this story.”  To be sure, we do hear that Jesus made a whip of cords and overturned some tables. However, the whip was actually used to set the animals free, and the tables overturned had money on them, not doves.  Given that the cattle and the sheep were only there in order to be sacrificed, Jesus may have just saved their lives.

         The other disclaimer should probably be applied to the entire Gospel of John.  For, whenever John mentions “the Jews,” it does not mean “the Jews.”  We need to keep in mind that most of the people in the gospel are Jewish.  Jesus and his disciples are Jewish.  John is Jewish.  And so, when Jesus gets into discussions with “the Jews,” they are not really “the Jews.”  Rather, they are the Jewish religious leaders who oppose Jesus.  And so, with these disclaimers in mind, what is really going on in today’s gospel?

         We are probably thinking too small if we focus only on buying and selling in the Temple.  The money changers and the people selling the animals are doing so as part of a much larger system.  When people went to the Temple, they were required to offer animal sacrifices, and, since only the temple shekel was accepted, they had to exchange any Roman currency in order to get their shekels.  On top of this, there were many in the first century who believed that the entire Temple system had become corrupt, as the priests skimmed some money off the top and the animal sellers inflated the prices.

         Given these realities, and a system that made offering sacrifices the most important part of worshiping God, Jesus objects to the entire Temple system.  Just as Jesus teaches elsewhere in the gospels, God desires mercy, not sacrifice (Mt. 9:13).  At the same time, today’s gospel points ahead, once again, to Jesus’ own death and resurrection.  There will no longer be any need for animal sacrifice after Jesus’ own sacrificial death on the cross.

         There is also no longer an emphasis on the Temple in Jerusalem as the place where God’s glory resides.  Just as the glory of God appeared out in the fields near Bethlehem, so God’s glory now abides in Jesus.  There is a cosmic shift taking place as Jesus refers to his own body as God’s temple.  This applies, not just to his time “in the flesh” in the first century, but to all those who believe in Jesus now.  We are now the body of Christ, God’s house of living stones, and God’s temple (1 Pet. 2:5; 1 Cor. 12:27).  While we still have buildings that are sometimes referred to as God’s house, the church is made up of people and not bricks and mortar.  Buildings don’t last forever, but the church of Christ remains.

         As members of the body of Christ, we are invited today to enter into Jesus’ relationship with God, zeal for God, and worship of God (workingpreacher.org).  While a verse from the Psalms is quoted today that talks about zeal for God’s house (Ps. 69:9), it might be more accurate to talk about Jesus’ zeal for worshiping in spirit and in truth.  His concern was not so much about the Temple being contaminated in some way, but about sacrifices (and wealthy religious leaders) having become more important than, say,… prayer, or doing justice, or caring for those in need.

         Jesus also calls us into a relationship with God that is modeled after his own.  We are invited to relate to God as to a loving father or mother, praying often, worshiping often, and being filled with the Holy Spirit.  We are also invited to see ourselves as parts of a larger whole – as all of the references to us as God’s temple that are in the New Testament are plural.  While God’s Spirit is given to each one of us as God sees fit, the entire glory of God does not dwell in any of us as it did in Jesus.  It is only as part of a community – or the communion of saints – that we grow into the best version of ourselves and members of the body of Christ.

         And so, I invite you to focus today on worshiping God and prayer, and on the Spirit of God dwelling within you.  For, we have become God’s house of living stones, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of others who have not yet encountered the love of God through Jesus.  May the Holy Spirit continue to empower each one of us for the ministry we do together, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Epiphany 2 (NL 4)                            John 2:13-25

January 16, 2022

St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church

Pastor Lynne Hutchison

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