Year
C, Pentecost 26
The people of Israel had a tendency
to focus on the temple. When things were
going well for the Hebrew people, the temple was a doing well and vice
versa. When the temple was destroyed, it
was dire times for the Hebrew people because it generally meant that the people
were under foreign control, or worse, they were exiled to another land. So much of the Old Testament recounts the
story of the temple. It is built and
destroyed….rebuilt and destroyed again. The
temple that existed during Jesus’ day was one of the finest temples that had
ever been built. It was built under the
reign of King Herod in about 20 BC. This
new temple was twice the size of the old one and the outer walls were covered
with gold plating. Pilgrims poured into
the city and were overwhelmed by its magnificence.
King Herod did not have the best
reputation and was certainly not seen as someone devoted to God. Many thought
that the temple stood more as a monument to Herod’s own self-importance, rather
than a temple in honor of God.[1] So it is not surprising that Jesus was
unimpressed with the temple and the beautiful stones that adorned it or the prospect
that it would last forever. He knew that
like all things made by human hands, it could not last forever. That did not mean that another temple could
not be built in its place. It just meant
that this particular one, despite its appearance of greatness, could not stand
forever.
From this text, a lot of people have
concluded that Jesus was against houses of worship, perhaps even a critic of the
temples. This could not be further from
the truth. It is true that Jesus liked
to preach on hills, boats and large fields; but he also spent a lot of time in
the temple. According to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus was at home in temple. It was not his actual home, but it was the
place that he always returned to, which is what I have always considered
home.
The Gospel of Luke begins and ends in
the temple. It begins with a priest
named Zechariah being told by God that his wife will bear a son. This son would be John the Baptist. The Gospel of Luke ends with not the death,
resurrection, or ascension of Jesus, but the gathering of the disciples in the
temple. After Jesus ascended into
heaven, the disciples immediately proceeded to the temple in Jerusalem to sing
praises to God. In between these 2
stories, we hear of many instances when Jesus and his parents went to the temple. From the very beginning when Jesus was
dedicated in the temple, his parents made sure that Jesus was part of the
community of faith. The temple was the
first place where Jesus went after he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness
for 40 days. That is where his public
ministry began. Clearly, Jesus was not
against temples. For Jesus, it was not
about the beauty of the stones, but the beauty of the community of faith, the
people of God. That is why Jesus was in
the temple. God was manifest there. God was manifest in the people of God.
So why was it that Jesus wept over
Jerusalem when he saw it? Why did he
feel the need to cleanse the temple? Why
did he predict the destruction of the temple?
He wept because when he saw Jerusalem, he saw a beloved city that had
forgotten who they were and what they were about. He saw a city that was headed for its own
destruction because of its blindness. He
cleansed the temple because instead of it being a place of worship, it had
become a place where people bought and sold things to make a profit. It had become corrupt, a den of robbers. He predicted the destruction because that was
the truth. Forty years after he died,
the temple was destroyed once again.
Yet despite this sorrow, this doom,
he had a message of hope for his disciples.
He said whatever horrible things happen, you have an opportunity. Out of the dust and the rubble, will come a
message, but only if you, the disciples of Christ, are willing to deliver
it. He said, “This will give you an
opportunity to testify. So make your
minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words of
wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict… By
your endurance you will gain your souls.”
If I do write my professor, I am
going to tell him this: “I don’t care about the oldest building. I care about the community that was built to
survive, a community that has lived through death and rebirth, a community that
is ready to testify, to be disciples of Christ.” Are you all with me on that? Because I need some people to back me up if I
am going to try to correct a history book.
Are you all ready to testify to not only the history that is behind us,
but the future that is before us? Let’s
not just correct it. Let’s rewrite it.
No comments:
Post a Comment