Monday, March 09, 2015

Sermon from Sunday, March 8m 2015

Scripture:  John 2:13-25
Sermon:  A house of prayer

I imagine it was because he knew the potential and the possibilities that Jesus got so mad when he saw what it had become, and that it was no longer what it was meant to be, and what it could be.   

Imagine having a place to pray -- where you can spend time simply adoring God, being open to and aware of the Higher Power above and within and in the midst of all life -- where you can honestly confess your sin, speak about the brokenness of your life and your heart, uncover the trail of wreckage you’ve left behind you, and not be damned for it – where you can be thankful for the Love that underlies all life and that holds you and all creation in tender and gentle care – where you can pray for others, that they too may know this Love, pray for all the world, for its healing, and pray for you to know and be able to act out your part in it. 

A place where you can pray the Lord’s Prayer – our Father, who art in heaven – day after day, week after week, season after season – and to have your life renewed and transformed and made good by it – day after day, week after week, season after season. 

None of what Jesus was upset about in the Temple – the sellers of turtledoves, the money changers, even the whole priestly class and superstructure, started out as anything evil.  In fact, there was reason for all these things to be there. 

Yes, way back in the beginning, it was said each person and household should make their own offering to God, with their own hands to choose and kill and offer up their own unblemished animal to the Almighty, to enter themselves into that lived-out relationship of thanks, submission and trust with the Higher Power.  But when the Temple was built as a central place of righteousness and reconciliation for the people as a whole, and hundreds and thousands of pilgrims came to make offering to share in the nation’s holiness, it only made sense to create a priestly class – a corps of people trained and set apart, to do the work and do it right on behalf of all the people. 

And who could walk all the way from Galilee or wherever they lived to Jerusalem with an unblemished animal taken from their flock at home, and still have it unblemished by the time they reached the city and the Temple?  It only made sense that people be able to buy an animal suitable for the sacrifice once they get there. 

So then there was the money.  All the money the people had at home and brought with them was Roman coinage.  It had the image of the emperor on it, and to use it in the Temple precinct for holy purposes was idolatry.  So it only made sense to have moneychangers at the Temple gate, so people could trade in their Roman currency for appropriate, image-less Temple coinage. 

It all made sense.  But it also meant that step by step, the people were slowly distanced from their God, and God from the people.  Layer upon layer of process was created.  Institutional structure grew up.  Opportunities multiplied for corruption, for price-gouging, for superficiality, and for a mechanical, bureaucratic, check-list kind of spirituality, in place of the renewing and transforming practice of prayer that was meant to be at the heart of each and every life. 

I wonder how Jesus feels about what we do here? 

I have to admit there are some Sundays when I wonder whether what we have just done, or are in the midst of doing, is worshipful.  We have all kinds of things that have grown up here and been added to our worship of God and the practice of praying together – from the building itself to the style and pattern of our liturgy, from paid minister and music director to volunteer choir and readers and candle lighters and leaders of all different kinds, from prayers spoken only by one person to written-out responsive prayers to times of silence, from hymn books and candles and crosses to images and words on a screen – all intended for good purpose, to help open us to the presence of God not only here but in all the world and in our lives, and to help us be renewed, encouraged and changed by the encounter. 

But there are some Sundays I wonder whether this week some part of what we are doing or what we have has become a distraction, or a barrier to real worship and openness to God.  Or maybe an idol – a god unto itself.  Or a substitute – a way of letting someone else do the work of worship so we don’t have to, letting someone or something else be engaged in conversation with God on our behalf, so we can hold back and not be so engaged. 

Jesus knows the potential and the possibility for holiness in this place, and within this congregation.  So I’m sure he gets mad if he sees us not living up to it, not living into it. 

And the same in our lives – apart from here, in our homes, at school and at work, in our neighbourhoods and in the world. 

There too we make compromises, don’t we, with the kind of life we could be living, and we know we are meant to be living.  Not necessarily with evil intent.  Not meaning to grow away from God and our own best way of being.  But it happens step by step, each step making sense and being totally defensible.  But nonetheless taking us step by step away from intentional relationship and conscious openness with God, turning daily life into a series of automatic responses and less-than-mindful patterns of behaviour, opening the door to all kinds of compromise, blindness, anxiety, numbness and thoughtlessness, hurt – both hurting-others and being-hurt, and who knows what kinds of personal wreckage that we don’t always see because in so many ways it all makes sense. 

Except when we look at it through Jesus’ eyes – through God’s eyes, and we see that it doesn’t. 

So imagine having a place to pray -- where you can spend time simply adoring God, being open to and aware of the Higher Power above and within and in the midst of all life -- where you can honestly confess your sin, speak about the brokenness of your life and your heart, uncover the trail of wreckage you’ve left behind you, and not be damned for it – where you can be thankful for the Love that underlies all life and that holds you and all creation in tender and gentle care – where you can pray for others, that they too may know this Love, pray for all the world, for its healing, and pray to know and be able to act out your part in it. 

Imagine a place where you can pray the Lord’s Prayer – our Father, who art in heaven – day after day, week after week, season after season – and have your life renewed and transformed and made good by it – day after day, week after week, season after season. 

Can you imagine such a place, and can you find a way to be there?

No comments:

Post a Comment