No wonder people continue to call the church a bunch of hypocrites! It was so even in Jesus' day. Wasn't Jesus basically calling the temple leaders hypocrites when he cleared the temple? His actions said, "You are perverting my Father's house, filling it with the same self-serving values as the world around you." John doesn't have Jesus actually use the word hypocrite as we hear come from his lips with some startling frequency in Mark, Mark, and Luke. But the meaning is still here, the leaders of the temple were not conducting temple business with the same righteousness that they were calling people to live out. It's bad when the greed and corruption present in the world are found in the temple as well. The temple in Jesus' day was as broken as the world.
And the world around us is indeed broken. Just look at Shelly Silver. Known for corruption and power abuse, Shelly still accomplished decent things, but now he must add to his resume "indicted on federal corruption charges." We can find the good in things in all systems --and we should look for it them-- but let's not blind our eyes to the bad. The systems that organize and normalize our lives, the very things we need to live in community, are broken. Even the Church.
Dare I say "even the church?" Ha. If you are a pastor, you know about the broken system. If you're a leader, you may be aware, too. If you're a lay member, problems in churches may have passed you by, but probably not. You know the good, the caring Christ-centered people who really are trying to embody Jesus in the world. The faithful committed who serve year after year. The compassionate care givers and pray-ers who bring love and hope to people's lives, You see the good of the Church, but you know the bad there as well: the people who are nasty and out to catch you doing something they can complain about, and the continued breaking of the 8th commandment. --A former Upstate NY bishop's assistant would cite that commandment as the one most often broken in the church. How many times have you heard a sister or brother in Christ casting dispersions on another, rather than speaking well of them and interpreting everything they do in the best light possible?
The systems of this world are broken, even the Church, because the people who make up those systems are broken. We are broken. Simul justus et peccator. We've been given the best guidance possible. Just look to the Ten Commandments, and the self-giving way of Jesus. But guidance isn't enough when we are broken. Which is why God is Jesus came to this world. To fix what is broken. To bring restoration, newness, another chance. Because the temple was broken, Jesus cleared it out. Because our temples, our bodies, our very selves, are broken, Jesus offered his temple, his very body and blood, to be broken in death and to break the power of the system of this world. In his death, Jesus has started a new thing.
This always brings to my mind the Christian Allegory, the Chronicles of Narnia, with its Deep Magic and Deeper Magic. The Deep Magic gave the ruler of Narnia the power to sacrifice traitors on the Stone Table, a punishment for their wrongs. The Deeper Magic said, "If a willing victim that has committed no treachery is killed in a traitor's stead, the Stone Table will crack, and even death itself would turn backwards." When the savior figure, Aslan, gave his life for the world upon the Stone Table, he broke the power of death in Narnia. And the turn around of all that was dying began.
Interpreters of the allegory liken the Stone Table to the stone tablets of the Commandments. Punishment followed the breaking of the commandments to ensure a good life in the community. But when the system of keeping the commandments became so perverted, then even the system had to be broken so that punishment and death would not rule the day, but the gift of life, which is what the commandments were intended to bring.
Hmm... Did the lectionary formers have Narnia in mind when they paired the laws given on the stone tablets in Exodus with Jesus overturning the tables in the temple? Or is this tablet/table thing just a coincidence in the larger theological framework of restoration and making new? Either way, in our gospel this week Jesus is foreshadowing his ultimate work of restoring what is broken.
God, when human bonds are broken
and we lack the love or skill
to restore the hope of healing,
give us grace and make us still.
Through that stillness, with your Spirit
come into our world of stress,
for the sake of Christ forgiving
all the failures we confess.
You in us are bruised and broken:
hear us as we seek release
from the pain of earlier living;
set us free and grant us peace.
Send us, God of new beginnings,
humbly hopeful into life.
Use us as a means of blessing:
make us stronger, give us faith.
Give us faith to be more faithful,
give us hope to be more true,
give us love to go on learning:
God, encourage and renew!
God, When Human Bonds Are Broken Text: Fred Kaan, b. 1929 Text © 1989 Hope Publishing Company, Carol Stream, IL 60188. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Duplication in any form prohibited without permission or valid license from copyright administrator.
Jesus attacks the commercialization of religion by driving merchants out of the temple. When challenged, he responds mysteriously, with the first prediction of his own death and resurrection. In the midst of a seemingly stable religious center, Jesus suggests that the center itself has changed.
