Jesus Our Temple?

Jesus and The Temple

When listening to the story in John 2:13-22, commonly referred to as The Cleansing of The Temple in Jerusalem, readers need to take context into account. After the majestic first chapter and its Hymn to Jesus, The Word of God through whom all things were created, Jesus the Word who pre-existed the entire universe steps onto the scene where John the Baptizer is holding his River Baptism and Revival Meeting. Twice, on successive days, John proclaims to his camp followers, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” when Jesus comes into view. The Lamb of God, the Paschal Lamb of the Passover. The people who would become Israel are saved by the blood of the Paschal Lamb when the Angel of Death passes over Egypt. Jesus is the new Paschal lamb.

Next scene, Jesus and some followers attend a wedding reception where he solves a crisis of hospitality. They have run out of wine, so he turns three large jars of water into wine. Not just wine, but good wine, thus allowing the celebration to continue. Jesus, if anything, practices radical hospitality. Then comes the episode at the Temple – which, of course, by the time of John’s telling the story has been burned to the ground, the result of the “zeal” of a northern Galilean attempted revolt against the Roman occupation. Jerusalem, The Temple and all of Israel lies smoldering in ashes in the days of John the evangelist.

Jesus causes excitement as he disrupts the bazaar outside the Temple proper. This is odd since the sale of animals and currency exchange is necessary for all Israelites to perform the appointed sacrifices with animals and money suitable for the appointed sacrifices. Of course, again, by the time of the fourth gospel there is no Temple, no place to offer sacrifices, the central act of worship in Israel at the time, a crisis of major proportions. He then claims the Temple as his “Father’s house.”  He is immediately questioned by some local Judeans, Southerners: who do you think you are to be doing these things? A typically enigmatic response claims that if the Temple were destroyed, he could build it up again in three days. They say it has been under construction for forty-six years! You have got to be kidding! But, says the narrator, he was speaking of the Temple of his Body. Jesus himself is the answer to the crisis.

As the fourth gospel places this at the beginning of the story, alongside his being proclaimed “the Lamb of God,” the Wedding incident and now the Temple incident – the issue is not so much the commodification or corruption of religious practices, nor “cleansing the Temple,’ which is a place he often frequents, but rather it’s about the identity of Jesus. Who is he? He is the Lamb of God who secures our freedom from sin; he is God’s Son; his Body is replaces the Temple, which in fact had been under construction for over 600 years, not forty-six. His questioners, perhaps collaborators with the Jerusalem Herodian establishment, who in turn collaborated with Rome, seem to have lost track of this history. All they remember are the renovations of the pretend King of the Jews, the Herodian crowd. They have lost all connection to who they are and whose they are. Yet, in all fairness, his claims are as difficult to grasp as have been his actions so far. His actions announce that he is restoring the terms of the covenant between God and his people, Temple or no Temple, which rather, hinges on Love of God and Love of Neighbor, rather than sacrifices. Feasting on Jesus’ Body and Blood, like the manna in the wilderness, will sustain us through good times and bad. He comes to restore communal life governed by the commandments received at Sinai.

As outlined in Exodus chapter 20. The first four commandments outline our relationship with the God of the Exodus, while the remaining six establish a base-line for how to “love one another.” Due to our own cultural context, we often misconstrue many of these. We rarely note that this is not at all a monotheistic statement. “Other gods” are acknowledged. Therefore, there are to be no images, no idols, since the God of the Exodus is astonishingly inscrutable, and cannot be packaged so as to become any sort of utilitarian tool to obtain whatever we want. Similarly, the command against false use of God’s name has no basis in vulgar language, but rather that we have no standing to harness or exploit God’s name for anything outside God’s own distinctive purpose. This is a peculiar Church temptation, suggests Walter Brueggemann: to claim God’s “endorsement” for all sorts of moral, charitable and institutional purposes. God cannot be claimed as the patron of our pet projects. [Brueggmann, et. al. Texts For Preaching, WJK]

And we totally misconstrue the very center of this command structure, the insistence on a day of rest, Shabbat, Sabbath – which command constitutes at least one-third of the entire text in Exodus 20. Sabbath is no religious or pious concern, it doesn’t mean “going to church,” but rather a concrete act by which slaves distance themselves from “the abusive production schedules of the Empire. In a consumer economy like ours, covenant with YHWH of the Exodus requires rest, breaking the vicious cycles of production and consumption. Such rest is woven into the very fabric of creation and helps us recover our sense of creatureliness and to resist all pressures to be frantic consumers who find our joy and destiny in commodities.” Building and filling more and more barns will never satisfy our hunger or thirst for happiness. Yet, when was the last time any one of us took a whole day off?

Jesus, in his crusade to restore a true sense of covenant life could foresee the kind of production and consumption frenzy we take for granted in the established bazar outside his “Father’s house.” Which leads to the only command stated twice: the Tenth. “Thou shalt not covet….and if you did not hear me the first time, Thou shalt not covet!” In Hebrew when something is repeated it indicates superlative emphasis!!!! This command makes me tremble. The algorithms in Facebook connive with the algorithms at Amazon and Music stores I peruse and tempt me to covet over and over again. Covetousness is at the heart of what we euphemistically call “the economy.” Surely, many will recall that after the tragedy and terror of 9/11 we were directed, commanded, “to keep shopping.” We are awash with so much designed and targeted covetousness that we don’t even recognize that covetousness surrounds us on all sides, on every screen, 24/7, 365 days of the year, 366 in Leap Year.

Abraham Joshua Heschel observes that the gift of the Sabbath may be the antidote to all this covetousness that ultimately will never make us happy! Heschel also asserts that Sabbath is not a religious practice, but rather represents a break, a time-out, from all forms and cultures of endless productivity and consumption! All of which only serves to make us frantic and exhausted, instead of joyful and free. [AJ Heschel, The Sabbath, Shambala Press]

In his letter to the church in Corinth, Paul writes, “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” [1 Cor 1:25] Paul speaks of the cross – our Passover. The Jerusalem crowd was threatened by the man from Galilee’s crusade to return to covenant principles founded on Love of God and Love of Neighbor. Caesar’s Empire was threatened by any and all who followed his lead in a return to basics; a remembering of our basic identity. Yet, who Jesus was, is and continues to be has outlived the Temple and the Empire. He is the Lamb of God. He is God’s Son. His Body represents the center of God’s presence where the Temple left off in the year 70 CE. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, yesterday, today and tomorrow. Perhaps we can find something to do in what remains of the forty days of Lent that can help us to hear his call to follow him in restoring a covenant relationship with God, with neighbor, with all other people, with the Earth, and with the entire universe as well.