Lent 3 2024

Exodus 20.1-17, Psalm 19, 1 Cor 1.18-25, John 2.13-22

I wonder what rules your household lives by? Every household has rules, whether we realise it or not. Do you expect people to take their shoes off at the door, for example? And what happens at meal times – do you eat at the table, or on your laps, together or separately, tv on or off,? As a visitor you usually only discover household rules when you break them, when you realise everyone else is looking at you oddly, perhaps too polite to say “we don’t do that in our household”, but uncomfortable nonetheless. 

Household rules can be a huge source of tension. It’s always the small things, of course, the unwashed teaspoon left on the kitchen counter, the person who finishes the last of the milk and doesn’t do anything to replace it. But often the small things are the big things, or at least they are symbols of them, signs of peoples’ respect and care for one another, or their lack of it.  

How do we live together? That’s the central question. And it’s one we all have to answer, whatever the size, shape or nature of the community we call our household. To the people who wrote the Bible, household meant meant everyone who shared your life in some way; extended family, servants, close friends – anyone whom you supported or who supported you. That still seems to me to be a useful concept, because however small our personal households are – even just one person – we are all part of networks of relationships; neighbours, colleagues at work, friends, fellow church members… Our Lent course this year is looking at the household values of our church, what we do and how we do it here at Seal, as a help towards the next stage of the Churches life after I retire in July. We belong to, and relate to, many different groups of people. The Greek word for household is “oikos”; it gives us “economy”, and “ecology”, both words which remind us of the interlinking of our lives, and the way every living thing depends on and affects every other living thing in the end. Ultimately, we are all part of the community of this one world. We all have to share the same space, whether we like it or not.  “No man is an island”, said John Donne – and no woman either.

Today’s Gospel reading has a clash of household values at its heart. Jesus comes storming into the Temple in Jerusalem, driving out the traders and money-changers who have set up shop there. They were selling sacrificial animals to worshippers, and changing the coins they used in daily life, often decorated with images of emperors and pagan gods, into coins acceptable in this sacred space. So what was it that offended Jesus so much? Opinions differ. It might have been trading in this sacred space, but for Temple worship to happen at all it had to happen somewhere . It might have been that the traders were ripping off the worshippers – there will always be someone looking to turn a quick profit. But the most likely explanation is that it was where they were trading that was the problem, in the Court of the Gentiles, the only place where non-Jews could pray in this vast complex, squeezing them out of their place in the Temple. That would fit with Jesus’ wider message that all were welcome and should have equal access to God. Fundamentally, though, it seems to me that he was angry because these traders, and the Temple authorities who allowed them to be there, had forgotten whose Temple this was. “Stop making my Father’s house a market place”. If the Temple was a household, who was its head? The High Priest? The Temple authorities? No. It was God. 

By the time of Jesus, the Temple had become a powerful symbol of the presence of God, and of the household of Israel, a place where people came to encounter God, and be reminded of their common identity as his people. But religious buildings can be a problem as well as a blessing. Ironically according to the Old Testament, God hadn’t ever really wanted a Temple in the first place; the danger was that people would see it not as a symbol of his presence in and among them, but as a box to contain him, separating him from the rest of their lives and giving those who controlled the building the idea that they could also control people’s access to God. And that’s what seems to be happening here. The small things are the big things; giving these traders permission to take up space which excluded others was a sign that the Temple authorities thought they were in charge. Jesus’ angry outburst challenges that. This is not their house; it is God’s. They are not the head of this household; God is. 

Our Old Testament reading today makes the same point. It comes from the book of Exodus the account of Moses leading the people of Israel out of Egypt – out of the house of slavery, as the reading puts it - towards the Promised Land. As they trek across the desert this rather random bunch of people have to form a community. They will eventually become the nation of Israel, so they have to work out what their shared life might look like’

 

The Ten Commandments, as we call them, were intended to be a summary of their household rules and values, the way they would do things, their basic attitudes, and the way these commandments are structured makes it crystal clear that it all has to start with letting God be God. 

The first three commandments emphasize that; there is only one God, that they shouldn’t make or worship idols, they shouldn’t take God’s name in vain. This is the God who rescued them from Egypt, the God who has committed himself to them. He has shown his faithful love by the provision he’s made for them as they travelled, water from rocks, manna in the wilderness. He is a God who can be trusted.

The fourth commandment, to honour the Sabbath day, forms a bridge into the rest of them. It makes the vital link. They don’t have to labour ceaselessly, as they did when they were slaves, because God knows their need and meets it. There is enough. They don’t have to shore up anxiously their own place in the world, because God has their backs They don’t have to exploit others, either, making them labour without rest. Nor do they need to kill or steal or covet or bear false witness or neglect their commitments to parents and spouses, manipulating and cheating to make themselves feel secure, because they are secure, safe in the hands of God if only they will dare to trust that. 

The Ten commandments challenge us to ask ourselves where our faith, where our household values, are really rooted, whether that’s the household of our immediate family, our church, our nation or our world. Are they rooted in ourselves, our own achievements and anxious striving, or in God’s love. When he clears the Temple, Jesus makes the same challenge to the people of his own time. Ultimately, this Temple will be destroyed. In AD70, the Romans smash it to the ground. It provoked a huge crisis for Jews and Christians alike, and John’s Gospel was written with that traumatic event  very much in mind. Jesus’ promise to raise it up the Temple again in his own body is a reminder to us that God doesn’t need a “bricks and mortar” meeting place for us to encounter him. We meet him in Christ, in one another, in the eucharist, in the word of God, and in all his creation, which is his dwelling place, his household where all are welcome. 

Amen