renovating the church

Jesus cleanses the temple in Jerusalem

It's spring cleaning time.  Time to open up the house, let the stale out and the fresh in. Time to turn some things inside out and wash the windows.  Time to prepare the yard for plantings and blooming.   Time to take out the old, throw away the trash, declutter.  We always have a spring yard sale in our neighborhood, a good way to reduce clutter and clean out unwanted household items  Old toys, outgrown children’s clothes, toddler beds, the things we no longer use we sell or give away.  Spring cleaning usually feels pretty good.  It is refreshing.  

Now we have also experienced renovation in our home.  It is not the same thing.  Renovation is much more severe.  It requires tearing up and removing, getting down to the bare floor or bare wall.  Going down to the bare bones of the house and replacing the old with new.  It meant living in a construction zone for awhile.  It displaced us from our own home.  It was a much more drastic change.  We have two new rooms that we didn’t have before because of our 2011 renovation. We have a new bathroom, a new dining room, and a new family room.  Renovation takes imagination and a little bit of risk.  Renovation is deconstruction and reconstruction and it is not something one does annually.  At least we hope not.   

The cleansing of the temple is a gospel scene found in all four gospels.  John places the scene at the beginning of his gospel, whereas the others place it in holy week.  John frames Jesus’ ministry within the context of this temple story, because for John Jesus has become the temple and the sacrificial lamb.  Jesus is the place and the person within whom God dwells.  Of course, he is writing some thirty or more years after the Jerusalem temple was physically destroyed by the Roman army.  1^st century Jews and Christians had to revise their religious lives, religious rituals which primarily occurred within the confines of the temple. Even Pagans enshrined their gods and their rituals within temples.  John’s Jesus seems to reject that old notion of temple, a home fashioned by human hands for the god to dwell inside.  Jesus’ body becomes the temple.  For the Christian community this has powerful implications because Jesus becomes available to them in the breaking of bread, in the baptismal waters, in the remembering of the story--- and this happens wherever Jesus’ people gather.  The presence of God is completely decentralized and democratized.  This God who raises Jesus from the dead is everywhere, even with non-Jews; anyone with faith to believe and practice this new way of life is a Christian with access to God’s grace and mercy.  This empowers Christians to think globally and expand the mission into new frontiers, new territory. Because they believe that God goes ahead of them and before them and is always with them.  There is no singular building, no holiest place in all of Christendom.  We do not require a pilgrimage to Bethlehem or Jerusalem or Nazareth as part of one’s faithfulness.  God is present in Christ.  Christ is present in me and you. 

It seems to me that what Jesus is accomplishing in this story ought to be named the renovation of the temple.  He’s not tidying up the place, decluttering, doing a little spring cleaning.  He is deconstructing the place. Certainly he demands the physical change of the building’s use.  Driving out the commercial marketplace. When God’s promises are sold as marketable goods, a renovation is in order. God is not for sale.  Why do people turn everything into a consumer good, a product with a price tag? In every age, there have been Christians who have rejected the sale of God's gifts; in the 16th century, Luther opposed the selling of indulgences by the church in Rome--it was exploitative of the peasantry and theologically unbiblical.  Deconstruction of the religion's practices is risky business.    

But Deconstructing is also about reframing the purpose of the space.  It will mean restoring  its intentions.  In this case, Jesus is deconstructing the temple as a marketplace and reconstituting it as a house of prayer. Why?  The prophets, like Isaiah and Amos contend that God is not interested in ritual sacrifices of animals, not interested in burnt offerings to avoid punishment.  They say that God desires mercy, compassion, a broken and contrite heart, and a heart of praise and devotion.   The marketplace made God’s mercy something one could buy for the price of a dove or a sheep.  How does one estimate the value of God’s forgiveness?  If you believe that your life is a mess, unclean, in need of a good scrubbing—then you will understand that you can’t buy God’s love.  It is given through unmerited grace.  No more sacrifices in fancy buildings. No more holy shrines.  There is Jesus.  He is the temple.  So any structure built by human hands can be the holy place, if Christ is present there in the Eucharist (The Lord's supper of bread and wine).  The sacred and the profane are found together; that is what we mean by the incarnation, Jesus is fully God and fully human.  The separation of church and world has been destroyed.  The curtain has been torn in two.  We do not need a building to be a church.  Usually churches that lose their buildings to fire or natural disaster are able to see and believe that.  But I have met people on the west coast who call themselves a church without walls.  I think they have a gathering space which they rent, but they say that most of what they do as a church they do in the world.  Being church, after all, is about loving your neighbor.  It’s about your everyday life and how you see God in it.  It is about how you see the world and the people in it.  Attachment to church buildings can become idolatrous and restrictive because the Holy Spirit is not stagnant and God is not immobile.  God is on the move, acting on behalf of those who cry out, who long for God’s mercy, peace, healing, love. 

There is a real renovation happening in the church today.  It is a movement that some call 'missional' or emerging Christianity. It is about bringing the presence of Christ to untouched places and people.  It is about living the gospel as a way of life in the world here and now.  I am seeking to practice this way with others.  We observe the church year.  We pray a daily office.  Worship is sacramental.  We share the good news with people.  We walk with people who are poor.  We hope to bring light and hope to people who need those things in their lives.      
Lent is the season of cleaning. Any sort of renovation in this church begins with me. Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me. What spiritual renovation is God doing here with us?  For what sort of restoration is God preparing us?  Amen.