Sermon: "Getting Out of the Religion Racket," March 7, 2021
Giotto di Bondone: "Expulsion of the Money-changers from the Temple," 14th century.
Preacher: The Rev. Ryan Slifka
Scripture: John 2:13-22
Today’s the third Sunday in the season of Lent. When I think “Lent,” I think quiet meditation. Confession, giving up. Giving over to God. But not Jesus in today’s reading. Today Jesus is reflective than he is destructive. Jesus is in a classic punk rock kinda mood.
Flinging around a home-made whip—one of those freaky ones with the like ten fingers on it—he’s chasing people and livestock out the door of the Jerusalem Temple. He’s flipping over tables, and there’s panicked moo-ing, and bah-ing, and crashing as cash registers smash into the ground. Then when Jesus makes it to the booth of people selling doves, he points, he stares them. “Take these things outta here!” He shouts. “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” Whip-whip.
Jesus rarely gets upset. Jesus is usually kind, forgiving, gracious. We generally think of him as a kind of Zen-master, detached from worldly emotions. He doesn’t get this riled up about divorce. Or questions of human sexuality. Or even social injustice. But here Jesus is literally lashing out. This is one of the few things that drives Jesus up the wall. It makes him break up the place. Why?
Because they’ve turned his Father’s house, they’ve transformed the temple into a marketplace. Purchase a pigeon, we’ll sacrifice it for you so and maybe you’ll have a happier marriage. Invest in a few sheep or two and we’ll burn it up, along with your guilt and anxiety. Go whole hog (not literally) on a heifer and maybe you’ll be able to finally sleep at night. Whatever your problem is, we have the solution. By the way—did I mention that we’ve got an ATM for you inside no matter your country’s currency.[i] Don’t mind the steep exchange rate. You can’t put a price on your personal wellness, can you?
Jesus is flipping right out because the dwelling place of the Holy Creator of the universe into a marketplace. The Temple’s supposed to be a place of encounter with the Living God, the Holy and Righteous King of the Cosmos, but now it’s been reduced to an institution of religious exchange. The Temple’s got itself into the religion racket—you give us this, we’ll give you God. And Jesus won’t stand for it.
I love it when Jesus does stuff like this, don’t you? I’m right there with the disciples who are just watching the scene unfold and loving it, too. One turns to the other, “hey remember that part in the Psalms where it says ‘Zeal for your house will consume me?’ That’s what Jesus is doing right there. Give em’ hell, Lord!” I’m cheering Jesus on for finally sticking it to the religious frauds, the spiritual charlatans, the toll-free number televangelists. Whip-whip. Giddy-up, J.C! Cleanse that temple good.
This, however, might let us off a little too easy. After all, we’re not really in the business of selling livestock for sacrificial purposes. Nor do we have a reasonably priced prayer line. And our church’s financial practice has—more or less—been deficit budgets. So it’s harder to see our particular church—or most churches—as holy profiteers in the light of today’s text.
There is a danger here, though, that every institution that deals with Holy things faces, no matter what. And that’s seeing ourselves as being in the business of exchange. The religious goods and services industry.
You see, the Jerusalem temple, for all of its obvious idolatry to us, did a good job at meeting people’s spiritual needs. The salesmen and money changers were making money, but they were helping people feel better. No doubt pilgrims—rich and poor—who walked miles and miles to make a sacrifice—often felt better about themselves. A little less guilty, more like their lives were on track. Like they'd made some kind of amends for their mistakes. And it also really boosted the local economy. The Temple’s meaningful role is society could not be underestimated for that fact. It provided essential religious goods and services.
The problem is that this gets God all wrong. The assumption is that we come, we offer something to God, and God gives us something back. Based our effort or the quality of our sacrifice. It assumes that God’s just waiting there for us to do something, that there’s a technique to human happiness.
And it’s not just the church that does this. Everybody does this—sacred and secular alike. Feeling guilty about the environment? Atone with a Tesla. Sad that you’re no longer young and you’re acquiring a Dad-bod? Peloton will resurrect your old young self. Terrible anxiety around your parenting? There’s a Youtube video, book, or electric baby blanket that will not only make you a better parent but it will quash that lingering sense of failure and ineptitude you just can’t seem to shake.
God or no God, the common assumption is that if we do or give something big enough or sacrificial enough then our problems will be solved. And it means the Temple, the Church, the Nation-state, the Gym, the Apple Store as the middle-man in the transaction of salvation.
Of course, this never actually works, does it? It might for a while. But then, we’re back there again on the pilgrim trail in another year. There’s the next book, the next overnight campout for the next product launch.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Meeting needs is fine. Helping people feel just a little bit better, trying to improve ourselves—nothing wrong with that either. But it’s not what God’s ultimately about.
Now, I feel like I might have just preached the worst stewardship sermon, provided the worst advertisement for church ever. Hang the banner on Fitzgerald Avenue that reads “WE CAN’T HELP YOU.” I mean, it’s kinda true in some ways. But it’s not exactly what I’m going for. Because the temple, the church—that flawed-but-blessed institution—has played a role in completely transforming my life, and so many other people. Hopefully the church can be at least some kinda help in life. I mean, hopefully, joy, forgiveness, happiness. Etc.
I think the difference is here this happiness comes from. How we get it, where it comes from.
It’s interesting, because after the cow and sheep money tossing incident. There’s this exchange between Jesus and the temple authorities. “Why you doin’ this, Jesus? Show us what gives you the authority to disrupt our festivities like this?” And Jesus says, “knock this Temple down, and I’ll raise it up again. And it’ll only take three days for me to do it.” They’re of course confused. “Look, man, they’ve been building this thing for forty-three years. I know you’re a carpenter. But my guess is that it’s gonna take you more than a few long shifts to take this thing on.”
Funny enough, though, John tells us that Jesus isn’t talking about the Jerusalem Temple. Jesus is speaking of “the temple of his body,” John says. "The Temple of his body.”
Maybe that sounds as confusing to you as it does to me. So John has this little flash forward to explain. John jumps ahead to the end of the story. And he tells us that Jesus’ friends, his disciples remembered him saying the thing about the temple. What jogged their memory was his resurrection. His rising from the dead. And they believed. That was the incident that changed everything in a way that no temple sacrifice, no matter how expensive, grand or sincere could ever do.
Here Jesus isn’t talking about the Temple. He’s not taking about crafting a new building. He’s not talking about starting a new church or rival denomination, or founding a new and better religious service-provider. He’s saying that he is the temple. He is the dwelling place of God. And the sign is not only that he’s going to die and be raised. The sign is that he comes to his disciples. He’s the temple, and he comes to where they are. When he’s raised, he doesn’t wait for a visit, or a sacrifice. No purchase, no expense, no act of contrition. No! He’s the Temple so God’s mercy, God’s forgiveness, God’s healing death-strangling, life-giving power go wherever he goes. It simply goes where it’s truly needed—which is everywhere in God’s green earth! No bulls or sheep necessary. No currency exchange, no system, no trade of any kind. It’s nothing but a one-way-unilateral gift from the God we meet in Jesus Christ. It’s a gift. And the only thing that’s required is a heart that longs for the healing he brings.
And this, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the Good News. That our lives, our healing, our wholeness, our mercy, and forgiveness, our flourishing or our worth as human beings. None of these are dependent on any human system, any market, any religious good or service, any exchange. Not by any work but by grace have we been saved.[ii] Because in Jesus Christ, the Temple of God’s presence has already made its way to us, in us, and among us. No Temple complex required.
And in the end, that’s all we’ve got here. In this church, this community of faith. There is no trade here. There is no transaction. There’s no method, there are no steps you’ve gotta climb, nothing you’ve gotta beg for, steal or buy. It’s all being given to you right now. There’s no system, no bargain. Just the power and the presence of the living God, the One who we can’t control, manipulate, or domesticate for our own purposes, but insists on his own purpose of raising people like us from the dead. At our best, the Temple has been cleared out of everything but Christ and him crucified, and us, his band of fellow beggars sharing the bread that God herself has handed us, turning to each other in awe of this incredible, unexpected gift. One that we can rely on each and every day. No exchange necessary.
So cease your striving, your anxiety, your reaching and your grasping. Know that Christ has smashed the rules of exchange and trashed the tables of the religion racket for good, and in its place has filled the whole of Creation with the Temple of his life-giving presence.
AMEN.
[i] “It’s Passover week, and it’s a mob scene. The temple is a tourist attraction, religion at its apex. Here are all the religious instincts of humanity on display. There’s liturgical dance in the sanctuary, performance art in the courtyard, and a rock mass in the nave. You can buy a tour guide in the narthex, a cookbook in the transept, and a bumper sticker in the parish hall. Weight Watchers meets in the Sunday School wing, yoga in the gym, AA in the audiovisual room. There’s a prayer group in the basement, a flower show in the courtyard, and group therapy in the reception room. And you can get your money changed at five convenient ATM locations. What a temple! What a church! God must be very pleased.” Fleming Rutledge, “The Messiah Comes to his Temple,” The Undoing of Death: Sermons for Holy Week and Easter (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 53.
[ii] Ephesians 2:5.