John 2:13-17
Pat was reading some information about the state of the church in the UK and came across a phrase neither one of us could recall hearing. The material mentioned the churched, believers who are part of some church community, and the unchurched, men and women who have never had an association with the church at all. We use both terms here in the States. But this material also mentioned the dechurched. Who are the dechurched? The dechurched are those believers who are no longer part of any church. They have a commitment to Christianity but they are not part of any Christian community. There are many dechurched in the UK (one study suggests the figure may involve an amazing 30% of the population). [1]
How many of these Christians who believe but don’t belong are here in our country? It’s hard to say but since I know few churches where attendance figures approach parity with membership figures, I’d say the number was pretty high.
The dechurched have a variety of reasons for leaving church but most can be summed up by saying the churches they knew had somehow forgotten its purpose, had begun to behave in ways that betrayed rather than honored her Lord.
With that in mind, let’s look at this story.
Jesus was Jewish and observed the schedule of holidays and feasts. Luke says he attended Passover as a young child. In fact, Jews from Galilee appear to have been particularly faithful about attending Passover. He had probably made the trip many times before. Almost certainly, what he was about to see he had seen before, but this visit was different.
During this visit he would openly respond to what was before him. You see, the time was right for action.
During this visit he would openly respond to what was before him. You see, the time was right for action.
What did Jesus see? John tells us, in the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.
These merchants had every legal right to be doing what they were doing. In many ways, what they were doing provided a useful service. Many pilgrims came to Passover from long distances. It would be difficult for them to bring an animal to be sacrificed. Making animals available to them resolved the problem. Then, too, every Jewish male above the age of nineteen was required to pay an annual temple tax. Since coinage from other nations varied in value, the authorities insisted that the tax be paid in coinage known to be pure. Again, the money-changers performed a useful service.
So, why did Jesus respond the way he did? Remember, “… he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, "Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father's house into a market!"
This behavior suggests someone who is livid. There’s no other word for it, Jesus was angry. Some have wondered how one man could have created so much havoc. To begin with, it doesn’t take much to spook cattle or sheep—a single man with a makeshift whip could have easily sent them bellowing and bleating into the streets. And while everyone was distracted by the retreating animals, he could quickly begin to turn over the tables of the money changers.
Notice, by the way, how Jesus handles those selling doves. He tells them to take their cages and get out. Cattle and sheep chased out of the Temple easily could be recaptured, doves could not be. Jesus was not being wantonly destructive.
Again, why was he so angry?
First, even though those who exchanged money or sold the cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices performed a useful service, they and begun to exploit the people.
Money-changers were allowed to charge high fees for their services. Their customers might pay from 12 to 30 percent to get their money changed.
When we think of the Jewish sacrificial system we usually think of the cattle and sheep involved. They were often used in the national sacrifices and, sometime, by people making personal sacrifices. But, in the Law of Moses, God made provision for the poorest of people—they could sacrifice doves. Jerusalem was an expensive place to visit in the first place. Fruit sold in Jerusalem cost about six times as much as it would have in the countryside. According to Larry Richards, a dove sold in the temple cost 100 times as much as it would have in the country. Prices for the cattle and sheep may have been just as exploitive.
Jesus cared about those being ripped-off because they were pious. This is why, Jesus—either on this occasion or a later one—would complain that the temple had become a “den of thieves.”
There was a second reason Jesus was angry, one which John emphasizes. Jesus was angry because the very purpose of the Temple was being subverted. Rather than being a place of reverent worship it had become just an ornate market-stall. Pilgrims would go to prayer worried that they might not have enough money to get back home or angry that they had been gouged. Those same pilgrims might go home thinking about the corruption of Jerusalem’s religious leaders rather than about God’s deliverance of Israel at the first Passover. They might think this even though the majority of priests and Pharisees were by no means involved in this kind of corruption.
During this season of mission emphasis we need to recall that there was one more reason why Jesus was so very angry. In Mark’s account of the temple cleansing, Jesus says, “Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations'? But you have made it a den of robbers." Mark 11:17 (ESV)
The most likely place for this ruckus to have been happening was the so-called Court of the Gentiles. This was where non-Jews could come to worship. In fact, if non-Jews wanted to worship at the temple, this was the only place they could come. So, as they worshiped they smelled cattle and sheep, heard the sounds of coins being dropped into the money-changers coffers.
Those who were dissatisfied with their pagan religion or impressed with the high moral teachings of Judaism, would have felt repulsed by their experiences in Judaism’s most sacred site.
Jesus' passionate behavior reminded his disciples of a verse from Psalm 69:9 which spoke of the psalmist's zeal or concern for God's house: “His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me." There would be other times when Jesus' words and actions would recall important Scriptures. In Psalm 69 the psalmist claims to so share God's concern that God's enemies were his enemies as well. Did Jesus’ behavior suggest he believed those who sanctioned this extortion in the name of religion had actually become God’s enemies?
Jews believed the Messiah would come to the temple and purge it of corruption. Did the observers that day wonder if this Jesus could be that Messiah?[2]
I’m not going to deal with the debate over took place between Jesus and the Jewish leaders who challenged him. I’ll just say it reflects John’s tendency to remind us that we know the end of the story from the beginning. John, again looking ahead, remarks that the resurrection served to confirm the faith of the believers.
What does this story say to us?
Years later John would begin The Book of Revelation with a series of letters to the churches of Asia Minor. These letters contained the special message of the Risen Lord of the Church to these congregations. His words included some commendation but often he focuses on what was wrong with the churches. And what was wrong was the fact that most of these churches had forgotten what it meant to be a church.
This story from John’s Gospel reminds us that Jesus, the Risen Lord of the Church, has the right to shake things up in his churches.
Jesus, the Risen Lord of the Church, has the right to shake things up when we forget to respond to God with reverence.
We Baptists must sometimes confuse our children. Every Baptist who’s been one very long has heard some Sunday school teacher or a preacher say something like this, “This building is not the church, we are the church. This is just where the church meets.” At the same time, almost every Baptist child has probably heard someone say something like this, “Don’t act that way, this is God’s House.”
At the same time, some churches have transformed the “sanctuary” into something like a multipurpose room. I recall seeing one in a large church on the southside; there were signs that people could gather there to worship, to pray, to hear God’s Word preached yet, we could look on the carpeted floor and see it had been striped for hopscotch and other games. There’s nothing wrong with that but we’d all agree that something was amiss if, during prayer time on a Sunday morning, some of the young people in that church should produce a basketball and begin lay-up drills.
It would be out of place. We would never tolerate such irreverence. Yet, we are just as irreverent when we disregard God’s Word because it makes us uncomfortable or unpopular. We are just as irreverent when we treat God as if He were a kind of cosmic Grandparent whose great purpose is to make us happy by granting all our material wishes. We are just as irreverent when we treat people who are yearning to encounter God as if they don’t matter because their background or demeanor is different than our own. It is just as irreverent when we make worship a tasteless experience rather than one filled with joy.
Jesus, the Risen Lord of the Church, has the right to shake things up when we lose perspective or forget our reason for being.
Ultimately, that’s what had happened in the temple. Those charged with responsibility as religious leaders had forgotten its reason for being was worship. Some even allowed pride in the magnificent structure to replace pride in the God that structure was to honor. At the same time, because of the failure of their leaders to pass on the vision, the Jewish people had forgotten that they were to become a channel through which God would bless the entire world.
We may not bring cattle or sheep into our buildings to sell but we show we’ve forgotten our reason for being in other ways.
We’ve forgotten when we are indifferent to “outsiders” seeking God. We’ve forgotten when we so treasure our emotional and spiritual comfort that we resist any change in the way things are done, even if some of those changes might mean others would find God.
We’ve forgotten when the church is no longer a place where the broken may find healing and the loveless may find love but, instead, find condemnation and censure.
We’ve forgotten when we fail to follow our Lord’s example and become people who shake things up. Christians ought to make a difference in the world. This failure to have a practical impact on the world is one reason many of our young people are dechurched.
Conclusion
Those who complained about some scattered sheep and some overturned tables couldn’t imagine how Jesus would ultimately shake things up. John hints here and elsewhere what that shake-up would be. In time the temple and all it represented would no longer be needed. It would be superseded by the church, the living Temple of God.
That ought to be a warning to every Christian and every church.
If the Southern Baptist Convention does not focus itself on carrying out God’s purpose in the world, God will find a denomination that will.
If American Christians do not take seriously the call to be salt and light, God will find Christians somewhere who will.
If our church will not embrace the call to do intentional evangelism, to produce appealing disciples, to apply the Christian world-view to every area of life, God will find a church that will—even if that church is smaller and less gifted than our own.
The study of the dechurched in the UK revealed there is little hope of bringing them back into the church. Some 82% said it was unlikely they would ever return to church.
I’m not ready to be that pessimistic. I maintain the hope they may return to a thoroughly shaken church. So, I hope we are willing to pray, “Lord, shake us when we need shaken.”
[1] These statistics are based on a 2007 Tearfund report on church attendance in the U.K. According to the report, “it’s not Christ but the Church, that most Christians in the UK reject.” Another report suggests that young evangelicals are leaving the churches at a rate faster than new converts are joining those churches.
[2] John is the only gospel writer who speaks of Jesus cleansing the temple at the beginning of his ministry. The other writers place the action during Passion Week. There seems to be four possible solutions:
1. John has it all wrong; the cleansing took place at the end of Jesus' ministry.
2. The Synoptic writers have it all wrong; the cleansing took place at the beginning of Jesus' ministry.
3. John knew the event took place at the end of Jesus' ministry but placed it at the beginning for purposes of his own.
4. Jesus cleansed the temple twice. Anyone who has ever tried to persuade any organization—even a church—to change deep rooted habits and behavior knows it often takes more than one attempt.
Conservative commentators seem pretty evenly divided on the issue. I appreciate the complexity of the problem but I think there are good reasons for believing Jesus cleansed the temple twice. It shouldn’t make much difference to how we treat the story.
