3 Lent, Year B                                                                           Exodus 20:1-17
March 19, 2006                                                                         Psalm 19:7-14
St. Margaret of Scotland Episcopal Church                                 Romans 7:13-25
The Rev. Linda McCloud                                                           John 2:13-22  

Expectations Versus Reality 

            When we think about stories of Jesus that are told in all four of the Gospels, we usually think about Jesus feeding the five thousand – the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.  But there is another very important story of Jesus that is also told in all four Gospels.  That is the story of the cleansing of the Temple.  John’s Gospel gives the most complete account.  The other three Gospels, although they give a shorter account of the incident, all record Jesus as saying that God’s house is supposed to be a house of prayer for all people.  Apparently, what Jesus found in the Temple fell far short of his expectations for it.  It did not match up with the narrative in Jesus’ head.   

            As we grow up, we formulate a concept of how life should be.  We all have a life story that contains certain expectations, such as  – people should be responsible for their behavior, obey the speed limit, do not kill anybody, do not throw their trash on my lawn, etc.  If other people grow up expecting to do those very things, then our stories come into conflict with each other.  At that point neither of our expectations match the reality.   

            Here, as I see it, was the situation that Jesus confronted:  The Temple in Jerusalem, which was destroyed by the Romans approximately thirty-seven years after Jesus’ resurrection, had been built by Herod the Great as a way to help keep the peace.  This Temple in which Jesus worshiped was the third building on the site chosen by King David.  The first Temple was built by David’s son, King Solomon, and became the central place of worship in Israel.  The buildings, courts and open spaces covered some thirty-five acres.  Different individuals were allowed into different spaces.  First, there was the Holy of Holies, into which only the high priest went only once a year.  Tradition says that he wore bells on his garments and a rope around one ankle.  If the High Priest died, and the bells stopped ringing, persons outside the Holy of Holies would drag the High Priest out by the rope, because no one else was allowed in the Holy of Holies.  Then there was the Court of the Priests, the Court of Israel (for the men), the Court of Women, and, finally, on the periphery, the Court of the Gentiles.  When Jesus went to the Temple, he probably entered through the Court of the Gentiles. 

There were strict rules and regulations about Temple offerings and sacrifices.  If you brought a lamb for a sacrifice, it had to be without blemish.  When the infant Jesus was presented at the Temple by Mary and Joseph, they brought two pigeons, or turtledoves, because they were too poor to afford a lamb.  But then if you think of it, they brought THE LAMB.   

            Let’s say you are a Jewish man making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover in Jesus’ time.  You live in North Africa and it is a long, hot, wearisome journey.  When you get to Jerusalem, you have to take a ritual bath and wash your clothes before you can enter the Temple. You thought about bringing a lamb for the Passover offering, but decided that by the time you got to Jerusalem with it, the lamb might be dead, diseased, or physically marred in some way.  It might no longer be perfect.  In fact, it might be a full-grown sheep by the time you arrived.  The merchants have a perfect solution.  Buy a perfect lamb from them right on the spot and offer it before anything can happen to it.     

Or say you were going to pay your temple tax, which could only be paid in temple coins.  The rule was that you could not use any foreign currency because it might bear the image of Caesar or some other ruler. No graven images were allowed in the Temple.  But you have only Roman coins.  The merchants had a perfect solution.  They would change your filthy lucre into temple currency – at the going rate of exchange.  

            All this might seem to us like a practical solution to a pesky problem, sort of like carrying travelers’ cheques instead of cash.  So why did Jesus get so uptight about the presence of these merchants?  I think it was because the situation was in direct confrontation with Jesus’ inner narrative about what the Temple should be.  The Court of the Gentiles was taken up with merchants and their wares.  The Gentiles – that would be most of us – were pushed further away from the Temple.   

The answer to Jesus’ attitude lies in the Fifty-Sixth chapter of Isaiah.  Briefly, this chapter is about the fact that God welcomes the stranger and the outcast.  God treats them in the same way that God treats those who think they have an inside track to God.  Speaking on behalf of God, the Prophet Isaiah says that to those who keep God’s commandments, and especially to the Sabbath-keepers “these will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”  (Isaiah 56:7, NRSV) 

            Jesus’ anger was appropriate to the situation, and he handled it well.  He slowly and deliberately thought about it while he made a whip of cords. This was not exactly a deadly weapon.  It was handy for driving livestock.   Jesus’ behavior seems shocking at first, but his inner narrative had been challenged.  God’s sense of right and wrong had been insulted.  Those who were making a profit off the misfortunes of others were cloaking their misdeeds under the guise of being helpful to the pilgrims.  Somehow their behavior was blocking the poor and the stranger from coming to worship God.  What if pilgrims had been robbed on the way and could not afford a lamb, or dove, or the right currency?  Would they have been allowed to worship God in his holy Temple?   

            Jesus’ behavior in the temple turned over more than the tables of the money changers.  Jesus proclaimed that the presence of God was within himself.  Jesus was trying to get those in authority to include everyone whom God loves in the worship experience.    

            Today we find ourselves smack in the middle of Lent.  It’s the third Sunday out of five Sundays in this season of penitence and self-examination.  A logical question for today might be – How is our Lenten discipline coming along?  Did we start out with high intentions and then descend into chaos?  Today is a good day to accept God’s forgiveness, forgive ourselves, and get back on track.   

            In today’s epistle reading we find ourselves in the middle of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans.  If we read this passage and no other passage from Romans, we might figure that St. Paul is smack in the middle of Lent.  We might want to ask him what it is that is twisting him around so much that he appears to be tortured by his own failings.  Why is St. Paul so frustrated?  I have a sense that it has to do with his high expectations of himself.  He apparently had a narrative in his head that said, “Paul, you know the law, the prophets, and the Gospel. You are an Apostle of Jesus Christ, and as such you are held to a higher standard. You can do better than this.”     

Paul’s disappointment in himself had to do with his story.  He was, according to one of his pastoral letters, accustomed to being a religious perfectionist.  He would have been one of those persons in authority in the Temple.  In his former religious experience, Paul had been so zealous that he had persecuted Christians.  Then he became one.  Somehow, he expected the same level of perfection from himself after his conversion.  His letdown came when his old habits overwhelmed his best intentions.  He had to come to terms with the fact that only God is perfect.  He came to realize that our human nature is not abolished by God’s grace, and that our relationship with God is not earned by any perfection that we can attain on our own.  It is strictly a gift from God through the merits of Jesus Christ.   

Paul’s expectations of himself did not meet his reality.  But his struggles helped him to grow and change into the person God wanted him to be.  Our Lenten journey can have the same effect on us.