Worship, March 12, 2021
Let us worship!
God calls us,
Through new situations,
through turned over tables
and turned over worlds
God calls each of us to be
who God made us to be
let us worship God
A prayer to center you
Breathe in God’s mercy…
Breathe out God’s mercy for others.
Holy God,
you are with us always,
move us toward you and toward your ways.
speak anew to us this moment.
breathe your life into us.
amen
Holy Words from John 2: 13-22
When the Passover Feast, celebrated each spring by the Jews, was about to take place, Jesus traveled up to Jerusalem. He found the Temple teeming with people selling cattle and sheep and doves. The loan sharks were also there in full strength. Jesus put together a whip out of strips of leather and chased them out of the Temple, stampeding the sheep and cattle, upending the tables of the loan sharks, spilling coins left and right. He told the dove merchants, "Get your things out of here! Stop turning my Father's house into a shopping mall!" That's when his disciples remembered the Scripture, "Zeal for your house consumes me." But the Jews were upset. They asked, "What credentials can you present to justify this?" Jesus answered, "Tear down this Temple and in three days I'll put it back together." They were indignant: "It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and you're going to rebuild it in three days?" But Jesus was talking about his body as the Temple. Later, after he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this. They then put two and two together and believed both what was written in Scripture and what Jesus had said.
Reflection:
I love these stories leading up to lent. Lent tends to be a time in which we are called to remember our own humanity. It is a time to reflect on our imperfections, our short comings, the ways in which we have strayed from the callings of Christ. From Ash Wednesdays words of remembering “we are dust and to dust we shall return”, to Maundy Thursday when they disciples cannot stay awake in the garden (a small favor that is asked of them by Jesus) to Good Friday where humanity calls for Jesus’ death to Peter, one of those closest to Jesus, denies even knowing him, the story of Lent reminds us again and again that the distance between us and God is vast. A reminder of our own feeble humanity.
Today’s Scripture is one of those stories as well; a story in Lent that remind us how human humans cans be. These stories somehow bring me comfort. When I see how dense the disciples were, I feel a little better about myself. They had seen miracle after miracle as they followed Jesus around and yet they still don’t get it, they still don’t trust him totally. They sat around and listen to Jesus speak in riddle after riddle and yet they never really seem to get smarter. They never seem to learn to listen or to fully put their trust in Jesus. Here, just days before the end of Christ ministry, the disciples and people still don’t understand or trust in what he is doing and saying. They still seem clueless.
There is so much I don’t understand about God’s timing and will. So in hearing this story I find hope. If those men who followed Jesus around day in and day out for up to three years still don’t get it, it gives me comfort in my own ability to miss it time and time again. It takes the disciples a good amount of time after the death and resurrection to put things together.
Jesus enters the temple only to find that it full of people selling animals for sacrifice at ridiculous prices. Within the temple is where they people selling animals for sacrifice would raise the price heftily. Because people where in great need once they were in the temple after traveling great distances, they sellers had a captive market and could charge what every they wanted. Desperation was the venders friend and the poor mans enemy. In order to have sacrifice, they could easily by situation be forced to purchase the overpriced goods in order to fulfill the law of the Hebrew people. The loan sharks were not to be left out either. They saw profit could be made from necessity and jumped in, helping make the price gouging worse.
I cannot blame Christ for his anger. To see a Holy place given over to such corruption! In seeing the purpose of the temple, sacrifices and tradition to be so misunderstood and abused, Jesus became enraged. This place of worship had become not about worship but about profit and means of abuse. Therefore, in his anger, Jesus—normally easy going and cool tempered—becomes enraged to the point of violence. It was not just his normal quick retort, quick come back in the form of a question or slight side eye that he responds with. No it is anger that rises within him. Creating a whip and chasing the people out of temple. Turning over tables, stampeding the sheep and cattle, throwing coins. Jesus had had enough. The people seem confused, the disciples perplexed. It is not until after Jesus is raised from the dead that the disciples understand what he says, that the temple will be destroyed and in three days Christ will build it back.
In Christ coming, in his life, death and resurrection, Christ turned the world upside down—turned faith upside down—changed the broken system! No longer would the temple be used to take advantage of the least of these. No longer would tradition trump relationship and wellbeing. No longer would the powerful abuse the weak in the name of God.
As we stand here on the edge of the one year mark of the Covid-19 virus changing our lives, turning things upside down. I can understand this story in a whole new light. Jesus came to the world, a gift from God, to flip the understanding of the world upside down. The way the world hand been working was not working to God’s standard. Jesus came to set a new model before us, to show us the ways that we need to improve, better ways to love ourselves and our neighbors, to turn the tables upside down and call us to clean out and get rid of all the things that were not working.
Over this past year we have had the opportunity to do a little of those things ourselves, a little clean of our own temples. We have been given time to reflect and this Scripture calls me to evaluate what is good and what is not.
Throughout this past year, I have spent A LOT of time within the walls of my home. This much staring at my walls, has given me ample opportunity to work on all the things that needed to get done around my house. The amount of time on my hands also led to a lot of TV watching. My youngest daughter and I watched a couple of Netflix series on cleaning and organizing, thus making me an expert (or atleast a self named-quarantine-time -internet expert!)
So we hit several projects over this past year. One weekend, inspired by ‘The Home Edit’, my new personal heroes, we tackled her room. First step, we edited down. Then we contained the items, then created sections and stations. It was a work of beauty both pretty and functional. O the cleaning out did not end there!
We have also moved our built in shelving to make room for a bigger TV something we had talked about doing forever—probably close to the 9 years since we bought the house, and in the process redecorated the shelving, paring down significantly. We finally broke down and bought new blinds, that actually now match (and not clash) with the wall color we painted 5 years ago. Strangely enough, the thing that makes me the happiest is that we added some cup hooks in kitchen cabinet, right next to the coffee maker. That cabinet had become an unruly mess over time and now adds function that I could not have imagined. Every morning when I am grabbing my cup as the coffee brews I am so excited and grateful that we final cleaned out the space and made better use of it. And don’t get me started on the new Tupperware we just got which involved cleaning out the old and another more usable drawer.
This time of Covid has caused us to clean out home, to consider how we were using our spaces and our time. When the work schedules of school and work shifted so dramatically, we had to decide where we wanted to place our limited asset of time. In our family, the working from aspect of the past year has led to a better family life. While I know that is not true for everyone, I do hope this time past year has made you think about where and how you spend your hours.
When the world gets tipped upside down, sometimes there are lessons to learn within it. Lessons that can lead to a happier and healthier life.
If you are like most of America you have taken some of this time to cleanout our home as well. I hope that you have found better function and form in so doing.
The tipping over of our lives did not just end in our homes however. When a year ago, churches began to shut down mid lent, with great hope of reopening by Easter, we were sent into a frenzy. As Easter of last year came and went and doors were still shut and even more continued to shut down, the Church had to look at itself and it’s practices to see what really mattered to them. Churches as well as individuals have had to see what traditions mattered enough to invest energy into and which ones we could let slip away. The importance of worship became paramount. Through Zoom, Facebook and Youtube we figured out how to make it happen. We realized the importance of connection and support for the body. We learned quickly that the church was not just the building but about the love and mission of its people.
As we go forward into the next year, I hope that we will take time to glean from this past year the lessons that we have been given the opportunity to learn. I hope that from this time of things being turned on its end we can create a better, more Christ like world to live in. It is not enough to just return to normal. What if the disciples had just returned to normal after the resurrection?
Perhaps we can use this time as the push to make lasting changes in the church universal. We maybe we can use it as the reminder to reach out in new ways, to venture into evangelism using technology we had never considered before, perhaps it is the time that we are called to reach a younger generation through the important lessons that we have learned. I hope the church universal doesn’t simple rush to open the doors up just like it was, because the church was broken. I hope that we, as the church, take the time to reflect on what is the heart of our faith, what is essential and important, and what needs to be cleaned out, refreshed or replaced.
I hope over these past twelve months, even in the midst of all the hard and the difficult, that when our way of life has been turned over and torn down that we can find new and stronger ways to build back.
What do you think...
What is God calling you to clean out?
What parts of your life were not working before this time of Covid? What changes have helped your quality of life?
What changes to you hope to keep? What things will hopefully “go back to normal”?
Are those things in line with where God calls us?
What could you let go of this week to better be the hands and feet of Christ in the world?
Prayer of Sending
Creating God,
you have given us a time to reflect and pray.
You have turned our world upside down.
Help us learn through this time
and to realign ourselves with you.
Amen.
Going out.
Go out into the world, seeking the light of Christ Jesus and may you see all around you the love, compassion, joy, generosity, and hope in the Kingdom of God.
and in all that you do, may the love of Christ Jesus uphold you,
the peace of God sustain you and may the Holy Spirit guide you each step of the way
Let all God’s people say: AMEN
