If you missed the Palm Sunday service, you can listen to the entire service!
Many of you know that I am a huge proponent of systems thinking. I truly believe understanding systems and the way they function is vital if we are going to understand the many processes that take place within any organization or community of people, whether it is within society, within the church, within our families and even within our very selves. Systems thinking is the process of understanding how the actions of various people or entities within systems, influence other components and affect the whole. Systems thinking can be applied to many facets of life. Our families are considered systems, government is a system, politics is a system, education is a system, healthcare is a system, we have a financial system that drives the way we live, religion often becomes a system, and faith communities function as a system. The way we use power and authority can become a system. Unfortunately, such authority often turns into a system of domination where power is leveraged over others in a very unhealthy manner. The list of types of systems goes on and on…. Each system is often made up of multiple smaller systems composed of inter-connected parts. And, the connections within a system cause behavior of one part to affect all others. Every day, each one of us is a player in multiple systems as we navigate our waking hours. Some systems can be very helpful, while others can be very harmful. One thing we soon discover about systems is that they are created to be self-perpetuating. Consequently, it becomes very difficult to break a system, to change systemic functions, or break free from a system. And, today, in John’s gospel, we are going to learn about a system.
As we begin the last two weeks of our Lenten journey with another reading from the gospel of John, we discover our focus is increasingly directed toward Jesus’ crucifixion and the work of the cross. The writer of John’s gospel has a large and very dramatic understanding of the work of the cross, an understanding in which the cross becomes the hour in which the Son of Man will be glorified. This “hour” represents the completion and fulfillment of Jesus’ mission. And, in today’s reading, John tells us that Jesus’ crucifixion judges “the world” and drives out the “ruler of the world.”
Last week, the Greek word translated as world referred to the cosmos, to all of creation. However, this week, the Greek word translated as world is not synonymous with God’s creation. Instead, it is a Greek word describing the fallen realm that exists in estrangement from God and is organized in opposition to God’s purposes, in opposition to God’s dream for this world. The word world in today’s reading from John, would better be described as a superhuman reality, a reality concretely embodied in structures, institutions, and systems that aggressively shapes human life and holds human beings captive. Today, the word we see translated as world would better be translated as “the System” with a capital S, the system of sin. And, in the gospel of John, this System of sin is driven by a spirit or force, “the ruler of the world,” whose ways are violence, domination and death. In fact, theologian, Charles Campbell suggests that in today’s reading, “the crucifixion could be interpreted as an exorcism in which the System is judged, and its driving force (‘ruler’) is ‘cast out’ by means of the cross.” The cross of Jesus shatters the System of sin. (Feasting on the Word Year B, Volume 2)
On Sunday mornings when we speak the words of Confession and Forgiveness, we frequently say, “We are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.” Those words describe our captivity to systems through which we are taken down the path of death rather than life. In our culture, many systems hold us captive. We are held captive to the system of consumerism as we consume and consume, all the while knowing that our consumption is killing others around the world, others who work in sweat shops so they can feed our insatiable appetites. We are held captive by hierarchies of winners and losers, systems that shape our behavior and thinking from birth to death. We are held captive to structures and systems that perpetuate racism, something we are presently seeing as crimes against Asian Americans are on the rise. We are held captive to structures and systems that perpetuate misogyny, sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, xenophobia, nationalism, and downright hatred. Just note the murders in Atlanta this past week. We are held captive by myths that shape our thinking and culture, myths that promote what some call “redemptive violence.” In fact, theologian Walter Wink has suggested that “redemptive violence” is the primary myth of the System as we try to bring order out of chaos through violently defeating any we consider “the other.” This myth is everywhere in culture – in video games, in movies, in the rhetoric I hear spoken among people, in our response to any kind of threat, in our response to any who are unlike us!
Yes, we are held captive to systems, especially the System of sin that becomes a system of domination within our very selves. And, Jesus, throughout his ministry and journey to the cross, enacted freedom from systems and systemic myths by refusing to respond to the domination and violence of the System. Theologian, Marcus Borg, in his book The God We Never Knew, wrote: “The point is not that Jesus was a good guy who accepted everybody, and thus we should do the same (though that would be good). Rather, his teachings and behavior reflect an alternative social vision. Jesus was not talking about how to be good and how to behave within the framework of a domination system. He was a critic of the domination system itself.” In fact, Jesus’ freedom from systems of domination and his rejection of violence is what distinguishes his way from the way of the System of sin.
In the gospel of John, Jesus’ death is not a matter of sadness. The cross is the purpose of his entire life, it is his mission, and his entire ministry is driven by this mission. And, that cross stands before us as a mirror, as Jesus exposes the System for what it is. As we look to the cross, we begin to see ourselves for who we are and the world, the System with a big S, for what it really is, the way of death. It is then that we can begin to find ourselves liberated and set free from the System’s captivating ways. As we look to the cross, we are set free to die to a life that has been shaped by the System so that we can live fully into the way of Jesus, the way of eternal life, the way of life that truly matters. And, as Jesus sets us free, the new covenant that Jeremiah describes is truly written in our hearts as God’s love transforms our hearts and our entire being.
Today, John’s gospel tells us Jesus’ hour has finally come. The writer of John’s gospel tells us Jesus has finally come to the cross, the purpose and mission of his life. And, as we continue to journey with Jesus to that cross, death is something we do not want to face. In fact, death is something we fear and do not even want to talk about. However, God is taking us to the cross, taking us to the purpose for which Jesus came. God is taking us to the cross, so we can see the act of ultimate love for all of human existence. It is in the cross that we discover the source of love that truly sets us free. It is the cross and the love of Christ that is shown in the cross that sets us free from the System of sin that imprisons us. And, it is in the cross where we discover that this love of the Crucified One is drawing all of humanity to God’s very self.
As we come to the middle of March, I am loving the smell and feel of spring in the air and the increasing sunlight with which we are gifted each passing day. But, I am so tired of this pandemic experience, and my entire being is hungry. This is not a hunger for food. It is a deep hunger within my very spirit. My entire being is increasingly hungry and yearning for life-giving, in-person relationships with people, with all of you, for in-person relationships with the community of the body of Christ. And, I am especially hungry for those in-person times I relish with our kids and grandkids. I know the time is coming closer when this will again happen, but the hunger for those special moments is just gnawing away within me.
The context for today’s gospel reading is the story of Nicodemus, a man who comes to Jesus under the cover of darkness, and he is hungry. He comes to Jesus during the night, and he has a deep spiritual hunger that is gnawing away at him. He has a hunger deep within, a hunger he cannot fully identify. Nicodemus is a Pharisee, so he comes during the night when he will not be seen. Yet, he comes wanting to find out more about this person called Jesus and what he is teaching.
Spiritually hungry Nicodemus does not understand the things Jesus tells him, so Jesus turns to a strange Old Testament story to make his point. By the way, this old story would have been very familiar to Nicodemus, good Pharisee that he was. Jesus reminds him of the Israelites who, during their forty-year wilderness wanderings, had sinned. You see, after wandering in the wilderness for so long, after they also had at times experienced hunger, their seemingly endless journey was leading to considerable dissension within the community. In fact, dissension began growing in the ranks and the “Let’s Go Back to Egypt Committee” got wound up yet once again. (You know, that is like the “But We Have Always Done It That Way Committee” you tend to find in most churches!) Anyway, the Israelites grumbled about Moses and grumbled about God, and they faced punishment. In part, the punishment was being bitten by deadly snakes. So, the Israelites then cried out to God for deliverance and God used the strangest thing to save them. Moses formed a bronze serpent, mounted it on a pole, and hoisted it upward. And, when the Israelites looked at it, they were healed; they were saved from death that was the result of poisonous snakebites. Strange as it seems to us, the Israelites were instructed to look upon this bizarre symbol of redemption to be relieved of the suffering they had brought upon themselves by their rebellion against God.
Anyway, as Jesus talks with Nicodemus, he connects this strange story to himself. He draws an analogy between the “lifting up” of the Son of Man and Moses “lifting up” the bronze serpent in the wilderness. Jesus says that, in like manner, the Son of Man must be “lifted up” so that “whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” And, as he attempts to feed the gnawing hunger within the heart of Nicodemus, Jesus speaks words that have become one of the best-known, best-loved verses in all of scripture – John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
“For God so loved the world….” For God so loved the world? When I think of the world, I see a small planet in the vastness of space. And, this insignificant, miniscule dot of a planet that is our world is so deeply, tragically broken. On this planet, millions of people have died and are dying from this pandemic. Racism plagues the fabric of our society and is present in every institutional structure. White supremacy groups, hate groups, and militias are growing and becoming more prevalent and destructive in our culture. The spread of domestic terrorism and the evil horrific acts these groups commit create increasing fear and reactivity in this country. In the developing world, more children are dying of diarrhea and infectious diseases than die of malaria and HIV/Aids combined. One in five children around the world do not have access to life saving vaccines and they consequently die. In sub-Saharan Africa, 7 out of 10 people lack access to electricity, the key factor that imprisons them in extreme poverty. Economic injustice is growing, here and abroad. And, what human beings have done to bring destruction to this planet we call home is mind boggling and sinful. Yes, the world is so very, very hungry! Yet, God so loved the world?
Yes. God so loves this world! And, in the gospel of John the word for “world” refers to the cosmos – to everything! God so loves everything – the entire cosmos, the entire creation, this little, insignificant, miniscule planet that is hardly a speck in the vastness of space, all the people, the land and the oceans, the animals, the bugs, the world’s goodness, and its evil. In the person of Jesus, God embraces it all and takes it into God’s very self, even the profound brokenness of this world. The gospel of John tells us God so loves the entire creation so much that the entire creation can find its home in God. Yes, God so loves the world with an immense, redeeming love. This is a love that disturbs us, gnaws at our hearts, creates within us a hunger for God, unsettles us, grasps us, and draws us into the very arms of God’s love where we become forever changed and transformed. And, once we have been grasped by this love, we find it is a love that will never ever let us go. When that happens, we discover that our true home, the home of all creation, is truly in God. Yes, God so loves the world, and it is in turning one’s face toward Jesus and looking to that cross where we finally find the love and grace that fills the gnawing hunger in our hearts. There we discover the beloved One whom God gave to the world out of love for the cosmos. There we begin to know the breadth and depth of God’s redeeming love for God’s people. There we find the One who takes into God’s very self not only all of the wonder, goodness and beauty of creation but also all of the brokenness and pain of this world. That is the way of Jesus, that is the message of the cross, and it is God’s redeeming love that changes us and causes us to then respond to the needs of the world. When God’s redeeming love fills our hungry souls, we are then compelled to work for peace, equity, reconciliation, and justice in this broken world.
In the early days of Jesus’ ministry, Nicodemus came by night and had a gnawing hunger within himself. He came to Jesus, seeking to fill a hunger he did not really understand. Nicodemus was invited into the way of Jesus, into eternal life which means life that truly matters lived in the present of our daily lives. He was invited into the love God has for the world, and he did not initially understand what Jesus was saying. However, it is likely he grew in understanding and was transformed because, when we get to the end of John’s gospel, we find out Nicodemus did not abandon Jesus. It was Nicodemus along with Joseph of Arimathea, who cared for Jesus’ body after the crucifixion. I have to think he was captured by the love God has for this world and he finally understood what Jesus had tried to tell him three years earlier.
As we gather online this morning, and as together we share the bread and wine, we receive the very life of God that will fill the gnawing hunger we feel within our hearts. In Jesus, the one who died on the cross, God has shown us the greatest love the world has ever seen. And, every time we gather and feast at God’s table, we are again nourished by the love God has for this entire world, a love that holds each and every one of us and will never ever let us go!
It is again that time of year when our conversations are focusing on the Big Ten! I know many of you have a certain, intent interest in at least one group represented in the Big Ten. So, today, I would like to begin by talking about the Big Ten. However, the Big Ten I am going to refer to were given to Israel by Moses at Mt. Sinai, just after the Israelites had left Egyptian slavery. They are of course the Ten Commandments which are rules that were established to maintain the Israelites’ freedom from Egypt.
Many people probably see these Big Ten as a list of do’s and don’ts. However, when we look at today’s reading from Exodus, it is very important to note the Ten Commandments begin, not with a word about rules and do’s or don’ts, but with a word about a very gracious God. They begin with a word about God’s identification as the One who has graciously freed Israel from bondage in Egypt. Note, the first line of our reading from Exodus, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt…” From the very beginning, this listing of the Big Ten begins by naming our gracious, emancipatory, liberating God:
I am the Lord your God.
I am the Lord of the Exodus.
I am the God who liberated you and gave you freedom.
I am the Lord of new promises.
Demonstrating enormous contrast to the bondage and injustice of life under Pharaoh, these Big Ten that God gives to the people are gift. These Big Ten are centered in God’s liberating love! They are strategies for living in a society ordered around freedom and justice and living in right relationship to God and to each other. You see, every society needs rules to function and operate, and these Big Ten rules are given to help the people live in freedom once they have gotten away from Pharaoh. They are gift to those God has freed from slavery. And, these Big Ten are a gift to each one of us as God continually liberates us from all that holds us in bondage, and as we live in loving relationship to God and to our neighbor. Freed from the powers that oppressed, these Big Ten remind the Israelites and each one of us that we are to let nothing other than love and worship of God alone claim first place in our lives.
In today’s gospel reading, we find Jesus throwing the merchants out of the temple. Jesus is defending the worship of God alone and rejecting the ways commerce and profit-making can become our gods. The Jewish temple system, out of necessity, had become a marketplace. The truth is the temple needed a marketplace for people to sacrifice according to Jewish law. People needed to buy animals for their sacrifices, and they needed animals without blemish. They also needed to be able to change money because it was not lawful to buy these animals with Imperial Roman coins imprinted with the engraving of Caesar. They needed local currency so they could purchase the animals. The temple marketplace really was essential.
In today’s gospel reading, the writer of John’s gospel tells us about Jesus disrupting protocol and procedures and “cleansing the temple,” a story found in all four gospels. However, unlike the other gospel writers who place this story at the end of Jesus’ ministry, John places this disruptive scene at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus enters the temple and does not like what he sees. He begins wielding a whip and drives the animals out of the building. He topples the tables of the money changers, disrupts daily temple business, and demands an end to all the buying and selling. In John’s story, Jesus tells the dove sellers (they are the ones who have animals the poor people could use in their sacrifices), “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!” Eugene Peterson in his Message Bible translates “marketplace” as “shopping mall.” I think the words “shopping mall” help us better understand the system that had developed within the temple. Quite honestly, the problem in John’s gospel seems to be the whole temple system. As this story is presented in John’s gospel, Jesus is challenging the whole temple sacrificial system. Jesus ushers in a form of liberation and emancipation as his ministry brings forth in a whole new understanding of God and the way God is to be worshiped. This becomes very clear to us when Jesus is asked, “What sign can you give us for doing this?” and he responds saying, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Of course, those who are listening think he is talking about the temple that has been under construction for forty-six years. But John tells us that Jesus is talking about his own body. He will die. He will be raised up. He is the new temple of God. He is replacing this the temple system. People will now come to know God through him.
Yes, Jesus is upsetting the whole temple system, something that meant everything to the Jewish people. Their whole lives revolved around and were wrapped up in this system. Jesus unsettles the temple system and I think Jesus unsettles the systems in which we become totally invested, and God continually works to free us from those systems. Theologian, Daniel Clendenin, says that he reads this story as a “stark warning against any and every false sense of security.” He goes on to say, “misplaced allegiances, religious presumption, spiritual complacency, nationalist zeal, political idolatry, and economic greed in the name of God are only some of the tables that Jesus would overturn in his own day and in ours.” You see, Jesus is overturning the loyalties we put in the wrong places, the beliefs we have that our religious assumptions somehow describe life finally and totally. He is overturning our satisfaction with where we are spiritually. He is overturning our sense that our nation is the “only” nation and the “right” nation, as in “America first.” He is overturning our political ideas that sometimes become too important for us. He is overturning the tables of greed that take advantage of too many people. He is overturning every part of every system that somehow suggests God is not God, that it is not God in whom we trust. Remember the top of the list of the Big Ten - you shall have no other gods before me!
We as human beings place our ultimate trust in all kinds of things. We trust the ideas we have, the programs we create, the families we raise, the institutions we help to shape, the political parties we favor, the nation we claim as ours, the churches to which we belong. And then look what happens: the stock market falls, banks mislead, pandemics arise, church and family disappoint, ideas and various ideologies serve only to separate people. And we are shocked. I want to suggest that Jesus, this “table turning prophet,” wants to shock us before the collapse sets in. He is unsettling the temple system before the whole temple system falls apart; before the temple itself is destroyed. Jesus has a zeal and passion for the house of God that consumes him because he has a zeal and passion for God, the One who truly challenges all our systems. Jesus has a zeal for the One who challenged Pharaoh and all the Pharaoh’s we are in bondage to, so that we can be freed from them. Ultimately, it is God alone who is above all these things, God alone who is worthy of our trust. Yet, guess what, the religious and political leaders of Jesus’ day never quite got this and never understood it. They put Jesus to death because of the way he challenged their systems. But the writer of John’s gospel wants us to know that Jesus’ death is not a sign that they win. It is a sign that God’s love and grace is bigger than any of our systems, and it is love that wins.
Jesus begins ministry as a “table turning prophet” and takes on the whole temple system to inaugurate a new era in which God’s love and grace is available to everyone. And, the truth is, sometimes it takes the tables to be overturned for us to understand such unfathomable grace. Jesus’ violent outburst announces a new beginning in which the grace of God is accessible to all, a grace that accepts each one of us, blemishes, wounds, scars, deep brokenness, and all. So, I say, “Jesus, come and overturn our tables. Make us uncomfortable because the place you take us to is the deeper place. The place you take us to shows us a God of rich immeasurable grace and love. After all, you are the new temple.”