Jesus had an uneasy relationship with ‘religion’ - or
perhaps ‘religiosity’ might be a better word. On the one
hand Jesus had been brought up as a devout Jew by his
parents, and went with them regularly on pilgrimage to the
Temple. There, at the age of only 12 he had debated with the
Doctors of the Law on equal terms, and later on he had
himself taught in the synagogue. And we know from his
teaching that his knowledge of the scriptures was profound.
But on the other hand he time and again criticised the
religious establishment for rejecting the poor, the sick,
the sinner and the marginalised, all of whom were
potentially ‘unclean’ in the eyes of the Jewish Law. The Law
had become a means of exclusion and division; and Jesus,
through his healing miracles, his table fellowship, his
attitude to women, and his proclamation of the Kingdom was a
constant challenge to the religious status quo.
Today’s gospel from St. John is a dramatic account of the
day when Jesus trashed the Temple in Jerusalem. The action
takes place not in the Temple building itself, but in the
outer Courtyard of the Gentiles. Herod the Great, in an
ongoing reconstruction of the whole Temple site, had
provided a vast new courtyard about six times the size of
Trafalgar Square. And in a very recent move, the high
priests had decided to allow into this courtyard the traders
who conducted the commercial business of the Temple.
Worshippers could buy only sacrificial animals and birds -
available exclusively from the Temple - that had been
declared ritually pure by the authorities. And people were
not allowed to pay for them with the cash in their pockets:
it had to be exchanged for Temple currency – and in this
transaction they could easily be exploited by manipulation
of the exchange rate.
But in order to fully understand John’s motive in telling
this story we have to dig a little deeper. His account of
the cleansing of the Temple follows immediately after the
Wedding at Cana. At the wedding Jesus orders the stone jars
used for ritual cleansing to be filled with water and then
upended. And the miracle is that the old water of
purification becomes wine: when the jars are upended out
pours the joyous new wine of God’s kingdom: the wine that
brings abundant life for everyone.
And so in overturning the tables of the money-changers and
animal sellers Jesus was overturning Temple worship itself.
Neither the Law nor the Temple were wrong in themselves, but
both had become tainted by elitism and exploitation. In
Matthew, Mark and Luke’s account of the cleansing of the
Temple Jesus quotes from Jeremiah, at a time when God had
threatened to destroy the Temple because worship had become
a substitute for justice. To Jesus, his Father’s house had
become a den of robbers – but the word translated as ‘den’
actually means a refuge, a safe haven. To established
religion injustices had become institutionalised,
acceptable, even comfortable: something our own Christian
churches would do well to remember. And so Jesus goes on to
speak, admittedly in code, about his body as the only
perfect Temple, the only perfect sacrifice. Through his
forthcoming passion, death and resurrection Jesus will
become the Lamb of God – that ‘one true pure immortal
sacrifice’.
Today we have our Annual Parochial Church Meeting. In these
uncertain times we will be concerned about the needs of our
church – keeping a roof over our heads, improving our
catering facilities, getting enough bums on seats to pay our
Parish Share and provide a degree of financial security for
our stipendiary clergy. All of these things are good and
desirable. And we rightly want to celebrate and preserve our
impressive building and our Anglo-Catholic worship of God
‘in the beauty of holiness’. But our church community is,
and always has been, so much more. It is exactly that – the
community of St. Faith, of ‘holy faith’. For over a century
our priests and people, through the sacramental life of this
church, have borne witness to the Lamb of God who died for
the flourishing of the whole world.
At the last Group Council meeting of our four Anglican
churches there was much talk of re-organisation, but not
once, not once, was the name of Jesus mentioned. And in this
I was as guilty as anyone. We have to re-discover the
startling truth that lies behind our services and church
traditions: Jesus has the power to make new wine out of our
worship together and even out of our church’s institutions
and structures; yes even out of Deanery Synods and the
Parish Share.
And so we have to re-discover that within and beyond this
house of prayer there is another building not made with
hands, that is the Body of Christ, that blessed company of
all faithful people. And as we follow Jesus through Lent and
Holy Week, along with his bewildered and fearful disciples,
we prepare to witness his total self-giving on the Cross -
the Body of Christ given up for us. In his death and
resurrection Jesus turns everything upside down, turns even
temple and church upside down. Through his death and
resurrection Jesus the Lamb of God does something that our
churches can never do in their own strength. He gives his
all for us, for the flourishing of all humanity, and for the
peace and reconciliation of the whole world.