The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” [John 2:18-19].
A decade or so ago (I’m trying to be obtuse here, so as not to give away too much), a friend and I engaged in some good-natured “religious” banter. He wasn’t a particularly close friend, but we had enjoyed quite a few conversations over the years on a broad range of topics, including Christianity. Like me, he saw himself as a “thinker.” In both of our cases, I’m not sure that assessment was/is justified.
On this particular occasion, I recall that I had potentially stepped far out on a limb by saying something dangerous and potentially offensive like, “Over the past several months, I’ve missed you in church.” I say it was “dangerous and potentially offensive” since, back in 1965, a lady had uttered a similar statement to one of her friends on the steps of Olney Presbyterian Church, in southern Gaston County, and the result had been disastrous. The recipient of the comment, after snorting, and turning her face away with elevated chin, had briskly walked to her car without so much as a word, driven away, and never returned to church—any church.
“How dare Sally (not her real name) say that she’d missed me in church! Just who does she think she is?”
My friend’s reaction to my comment about his church attendance was, as I had expected it to be, decidedly benign. He retorted, “The warmth and color of Spring has seemed really nice lately. You know, Tom, I can see God in nature, particularly from the banks of the Eno. I don’t need church to feel close to God.”
Hearing his words, my mind had quickly given way to a wonderfully sarcastic (and theologically sound) sermon delivered in Duke University Chapel a year or so before this encounter with my friend. The preacher was the Rev. Dr. Lillian Daniel [author of When ‘Spiritual But Not Religious’ Is Not Enough, and Tired of Apologizing for a Church I Don’t Belong To].
Channeling the Rev. Dr. Daniel, I thought, but did not say, “Wow! Seeing God in nature; no one’s ever done that before. It’s so original!”
I’ll confess that I almost said, “I’m sure you enjoy a leisurely read of the Sunday New York Times, along with a capers-studded onion bagel, piled high with perfectly-smoked nova, splashed down with a skinny, iced, vanilla latte.” I can, of course, be sarcastic and sanctimonious at the same time.
As I read this week’s Lectionary selections, particularly the pericope set aside for this week’s Gospel lesson [John 2:13-22, Third Sunday in Lent, RCL, Year B], I’m reminded that all too many of us, like my friend, have come to believe that God can best be seen and experienced in a particular place: the lonely walk on the beach, the gently sloping river bank of the Eno, the beautiful sunset, the quiet dawn, inside Duke Chapel, or, as was the case in first-century Palestine, within the Temple in Jerusalem. And yet, if I might be so bold, may I suggest that this week’s Gospel lesson teaches us that God is best seen not in a place—even a sacred place—but rather in Jesus.
First century Jews in and around Jerusalem, of course, had a lot invested in the Temple. It had taken years—no, decades—to reconstruct. Solomon’s original Temple had been destroyed at the time of the deportation of the Jews to Babylon. After years of exile, they had been allowed to return and reconstruct the beloved Temple. The Temple—it was where YHWH lived.
Indeed, the entire religious identify of the Jewish nation was caught up within the Temple structure. Pious Jews from far off were obliged to make a pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime to the Jerusalem Temple to celebrate one of the major festivals. That’s what Simon of Cyrene—the guy who helped Jesus carry the cross along the Via Dolorosa—was doing in Jerusalem when the Roman soldier “asked” him to help [see, e.g., Mark 15:21].
The Temple administrators in first century Palestine wanted a sacred place and yet, as we read this week’s lesson, what had they done with it? They’d turned part of it into a shopping mall. Instead of functioning as the people’s sanctuary, YHWH’s house had become a “place” where the strong took advantage of the frail. The Temple leaders were so intent upon their own, carefully designed, carefully maintained, carefully controlled, sacred space that they failed to understand Jesus when he told them that they could destroy “this temple” [John 2:18]—i.e., his body—and YHWH would raise it up again in three days. That, of course, was exactly what happened later. Here, in this week’s Gospel lesson, Jesus was telling them that if they really wanted access to YHWH, if they really desired to see YHWH, they could look him in the face, since Jesus was standing right in front of them.
Trying to see God in a place, instead of a face—the face of Jesus—many of us still follow the pattern set so long ago in first century Palestine. It’s so much easier to concentrate on a sacred space, a sacred place—those loci where we feel comfortable, safe, secure, uplifted. “See those stained-glass windows over there? My granddaddy gave some money to buy them.”
Ah, but our Gospel lesson tells us that the temple is on the move. He won’t sit still and enjoy the sacred moment. He won’t instruct us to take up a seat at his feet. Instead, he commands us to follow him, to walk with him, and for so many of us, that means going places we’d rather avoid. It means running into folks that we don’t like or even respect, since Jesus has a habit of wandering all over YHWH’s good creation. When Jesus reaches the edge of our nice neighborhoods, he just keeps going, all the while turning around to continue with his command, “Come on y’all, follow me.”
This is perhaps where the yoke of Christ’s Gospel gets so difficult for us. If we could just tie YHWH, i.e., Jesus, down to one spot—a pleasant sunset or a shaded porch during a summer rain—but with this wild one named Jesus, that’s never really possible. He’s filling up his social calendar and it includes all sorts of saints and sinners, only some of whom look like you and me. And yet, he’s also extending his mission to a larger flock, a flock that consists of folks whose days are numbered, to other folks who’ve been discouraged by pandemic, who are growing weary while they wait for vaccinations, as more privileged others are allowed to jump in line ahead. Some have driven DATA busses or checked out groceries for 10 months within a whirlwind of infection while many others worked in relative safety. They don’t have the ear of the governor, but they have the heart of their Lord.
Jesus has this constant habit of reaching out to those who have little promise of tomorrow, of nevertheless making promises that only unremitting and unlimited love can fulfill. Jesus has a way of holding the heads of the lepers and then turning to the rest of us and asking if we’d like to help, of comforting the sick and the dying, and spreading balm upon the wounds of a broken humanity.
Jesus has this way of making us uncomfortable, just at the moment when we’d become accustomed to the sight of the glorious sunset, to the sound of the soft dribble of the rain on the mountain house roof, to the pitter-patter of grandchildren’s feet on the kitchen floor. Jesus has the nagging method of saying that all that is very, very nice, that he’s glad we’ve enjoyed the moment, but that he has some other plans for us that require our energy and our attention this very day. We long for the space or the spot where we think we can experience YHWH and we see instead a Savior that is brushing himself off, telling us to gather up our stuff, because he’s on the move toward a cross.
Do you really want to see God? If so, then we must listen to his words, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father” [John 14:9].
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