John 2:13-22
March 19, 2006
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Last weekend, about 50 women went on retreat to learn how to de-clutter their lives so that stuff won’t get in their way to get closer to God. Of course, I wasn’t there but we can all identify with this perennial task of cleaning up and cleaning out. While the women were on retreat, a few of us guys went out for dinner. What’s interesting is that we heard that some of us were given very specific instructions to clean up that pile or that mess while the women were gone! Whether it’s out of fashion clothes or appliances that sometimes work or simply what we might call, “junk,” we all have some cleaning up and cleaning out to do.
When spring is coming, we all get these mailings from the heart association or cancer society or goodwill that their truck will be coming by our neighborhood to pick up useable stuff. We look in the garage, back of the kitchen cabinets, in the closets, in all of the nooks and crannies to get rid of stuff as long as we can stop the temptation of thinking that what’s one person’s junk is another person’s treasure! It’s time for Spring cleaning.
Jesus at FCBC
Imagine with me for a moment.
It’s a Sunday. I just parked my car below Kearny as I usually do. I briskly walk up Sacramento without taking a moment to stop as my way to get in some morning exercise before another long day at church. The sun is shining after another week of heavy rains. Seeing our red brick church against a deep blue sky reminds me of how moderate temperatures are all year round in San Francisco. It’s a glorious sight to behold.
But then I saw something this morning that was something else. I could hear some sort of commotion as I got closer to the front doors of our church. I could hear clatter and clamor, things crashing.
“No, you can’t do that! Stop! What do you think you are? I was hearing the voices of our Trustees.
As I approach the door, I was shocked, yes, even horrified, to see a couple of our new hymnals come flying out the door. The new hymnals that we bought only a few years ago, the ten-dollars-a-piece hymnals with the silver letters stamped on them, for one dollar extra! Those precious books were being thrown out the door by some raving lunatic.
Then came the brass plated offering plates—flying out the door like someone was having a Frisbee tournament. They were clanging and rolling across our newly renovated street.
What kind of nut would throw around these shining plates that symbolize our giving and tithes to the church? Have the police been called?
Then came the furniture: a couple of those individual sanctuary chairs, sailing out the door. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were pews ripped out of the floor where we had carefully bolted down—they came out the door, splintering into a hundred pieces on the sidewalk. The Department of Public Works will have a field day cleaning up this mess.
The pulpit! No, not the pulpit! This pulpit has been with our church for countless years—it even survived the church’s centennial when it was briefly retired for a rather larger pulpit only to be sold to the highest bidder. There it sailed out the door. The beautiful purple paraments, embroidered on silk now lay crumpled on the street.
I ducked just in time or the microphones, music stands, the drums, the piano, even our big $30,000 Allen organ would have conked me on the head. Where are those police when you need them! Probably writing parking tickets while our place of worship is being ransacked.
Then I saw the Sunday morning worship service bulletins and all of the literature in the vestibule and even our parking stickers come flying out the door like it was time for a confetti strewed Chinese New Year Parade.
One of the Trustees comes running out, his clothes half torn off, cuts and bruises on his face, screaming, “Jesus is in there cleaning house!”
“Jesus,” I said. “My Jesus, Jesus meek and mild? The compassionate Jesus? Our best friend and most loyal patron? Jesus?
“Hi” that’s Chinese for “Yep,” said the Trustee, “I saw him myself. Burst in this morning while we were setting up for church today. Aiyaaaah, is he mad!”
Jesus is busy with spring cleaning.
Temple Cleaning
The first time Jesus was at the temple was when he was in the arms of his mother to be dedicated to God. Then he was there when he was about twelve. Things didn’t go that well on that visit either. He got into a big argument with the biblical scholars, embarrassing them with his extensive knowledge of interpreting God’s word.
That was the last time Jesus was in the temple until today. It’s Spring so it’s Passover time when Jews celebrate their deliverance from Egyptian slavery. Going to the temple was to commemorate that time when they were freed from having to bow down to the Pharaoh. They were so free that they were freely doing many things in the temple when Jesus came to visit.
Jesus comes in the temple and encounters the vendors selling cattle, sheep, and doves and goes ballistic. Why? The temple leaders were saying that if you want to make a sacrifice to God you need to buy one of these livestock. The rich people are to buy an ox to sacrifice. The upper middle class are to buy a sheep and the poor people can buy a dove. You can’t get your sins forgiven, can’t get right with God without a sacrifice. The moneychangers were selling animals and giving back change. The people took their sacrifices to the priest high up at the altar so that they can get closer to God.
And what if you didn’t have enough money to even buy a dove? Well, too bad. We know it takes money to run any organization, especially one as big as ours at FCBC. That’s why we need all those shining offering plates that were just thrown out into the street.
When it comes to worship, we think that we need a little help. Sure, we can meet God hiking in Death Valley or climbing up to Yosemite Falls or sitting quietly at home. But when we come to this beautiful church building rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake, remodeled for the centennial and retrofitted after the Loma Prieta, we think we need the organ and piano, the blue hymnals, the choir and the preacher. It’s easier this way.
We think we need the oxen, the sheep, the doves, the bulletins, the cross, the communion table to help us to do business with God and for God to do business with us.
Do we believe we need such a nice building, this historic choir, and paying this high-paying pastor in order to worship God? Well, you say, “if we want quality worship here, we got to be ready to pay for it.”
And Jesus? What does Jesus do? Jesus makes a whip, kicks over the tables, destroys the bird cages, stampedes the cows, scatters the sheep, dumps out the cash registers and throws the moneychangers out the front door of the temple on the seats of their pants!
“Stop making my Father’s house into a Mega Mall!” he screams at them while cracking the whip on their back sides. Never have we seen such thorough spring cleaning before!
New Temple
Jesus’ temple spring cleaning taught the disciples that people were too caught up with doing all of the rituals of worship that they have forgotten what true worship to God really is. The disciples said, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” This means that when we put more importance on all of the accoutrements and superficial stuff just to do worship, we are consumed to keep the church building up and overlook why we come to church in the first place.
We don’t get close to God by buying a sheep or a dove. We don’t get close to God just by singing from the hymnals or listening to the organ music or even not falling asleep on my sermons. In just a few years later, the Romans destroyed the temple. If there was no temple, how can we get close to God? we ask.
Jesus told his disciples and the temple leaders that the temple is no big deal. “Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will build it back.” The temple leaders were confused because they said to Jesus that it’s already taken 46 years to build the temple to where it’s now. How can you build it back up in just three days?
Jesus was not talking about some brick and mortar temple. There is now a new way to God. The altar of God has come down to us. The high altar has become a dinner table where there’s a place setting for everyone of us. The sacrifice required is no longer livestock but everyday bread and wine. The Word of God has become flesh and dwelt among us.
Idol Barriers
All our beloved aids to worship, our blue hymnals, our offering plates, our musical instruments, our power point projectors, our stained glass windows, all of our sacred places, as helpful as they often are, pale in comparison with the new “temple,” built not with human hands, not dependent on human contributions but an undeserved gift from God.
It’s sad sometimes to think that these beloved means of worship, those things that we believe we need to climb up to be close to God, in our hands, become idols. All these things can become idols. We invest too much of ourselves in them, expect too much from them, allow them to expect too little from us. Our freedom to worship becomes enslavement to false gods. So Jesus sets us free by bursting into our church and start spring cleaning.
Just as sad is that our beautiful places of worship become a barrier between us and the poor. There are poor people in this world who can’t afford a sacrifice of a dove. The poor who are beloved by God don’t know how to return that love to God in such protected and sacred temples like our church. Even the church, the house of God can become an idol, a substitute for evading God.
Fred Craddock shared one time that he went to the dedication of a beautiful building at the University of Oklahoma. It had a tall tower, great facilities, all kinds of marvelous things. At the dedication, the young campus minister had a very brief prayer. “Lord, burn down this building and scatter these people for the sake of the gospel.”
What else might we use to make an idol?
The Body of Christ
The good news is that Jesus is also consumed with passion for God’s house. Because he called into existence his church on earth, he wants to transform our little play church into his very Body where there is truth, righteousness and holiness of God.
He will, with a whip in hand, drive out the idolatry in us. He will cleanse us until we shine like the sun. He will clean up and clean out our fumbling attempts to worship and transform them into a faithful and worthy acclamation of the true God.
So on this third Sunday in Lent when tomorrow is the first day in Spring, amid all of the rubble and clutter of our religion and our lives, we pray that our Lord Jesus will drive out our sins and idols, whip us into shape, clean us up, dust us off, until we are able to worship God—in word and in deed, on Sunday and on Monday and on every day of our lives as God has made us to be.
There are no more barriers that can separate us from the love of God. Jesus has done all of the cleaning that’s necessary. All we need to do now is to keep it clean and orderly with God almighty who is the only one worthy of our worship.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, come to our church this day. If our front door is locked, kick it open. If we are too cold or aloof, set us on fire. If this preacher goes too long, shut him up. If we talk about everything except what is important, force us to confront the truth. If we become so concerned about the mere survival of our church at the expense of the mission of the church, take it from us and tear it down. If we hunker down behind our sacred walls, push down the walls and drive us out into the world where you are Lord of all.
You are Lord of all, including this church. Help us never to forget that truth, even when it hurts. Amen.