Sermon: The Promise of Overturning

Rev. Mandy Sloan Flemming
Laguna Beach United Methodist Church
Sunday, March 8, 2015

The Promise of Overturning

John 2:13-25, NRSV

¹³The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. ¹⁵Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶He told those who were selling the doves, 'Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a market-place!' [1] ¹⁷His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

¹⁸The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” ¹⁹Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” ²⁰The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” ²¹But he was speaking of the temple of his body. ²²After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

²³When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. ²⁴But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people ²⁵and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.

            The very first thing we should do upon encountering a text is to ask us what it says about God and our relationship with God. The problem with the text today is that it tells us something very complicated about God – that God has feelings.

         My dear friend from seminary, Rev. Casey FitzGerald, is a Biblical Storyteller[2]. She tells this story in her podcast this week, and made reference to the striking picture of Jesus that this particular text paints of him. When we think of Jesus, we tend to picture this:[3] 

(You should know that my grandmother had a print of this in her home, which was complete with glittered stars upon which Jesus could cast his gaze.)

          But, Casey highlights for us the problem with this vision of Jesus. It softens him, making it seem as though God Incarnate's most laborious job was finding a light source to keep behind his head at all times. This painting, by a German man named Heinrich Hofmann from 1890, is entitled, ironically, "The Agony in the Garden." I find this funny because Jesus looks less like a man in deep despair and more like, as Casey describes, “Malibu Jesus,” who maybe needs a good barber.   

          The problem with this text is that it shatters our image of a benign embodiment of the one true God, and encapsulates the scope of power and emotion that God-With-Us must feel. In short, this text dashes our hopes of the Malibuification of Christ. That's part of the reason hearing children read this text underscores its irony. There is nothing sweet about this story. This isn't "love your neighbors" or "blessed are the meek."

            No, This is Jesus, our beloved Jesus, 
                   making whips out of cords and driving out the tender lambs and the calves.

            This is Jesus, our outraged Jesus, 
                   pouring out the coins of the moneychangers and overturning their tables.

            This is Jesus, our prophetic Jesus, 
                   screaming that the doves had no place in the temple.

            And yet, even in his outrage, it seems as though the offended parties had the audacity to stand up to him. “What sign can you show us for doing this?” they ask. Just prior to this incident in John’s Gospel, Jesus performed a miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee when he turned water into wine. Really, really good wine. The text tells us that, “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” (John 2:11). The overturning of the tables, Jesus’ big, adult temper-tantrum, occurs at least 85 miles away from Cana. This means that it’s highly unlikely that the onlookers and moneychangers could have heard about the miracle that he had performed.

            The disciples might have believed and understood his glory, but the men with empty dove baskets did not. And they were angry. They wanted something in exchange for what they had lost. They wanted something good. They don’t ask for money, or their livestock. They must have heard him when he shouted, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” This is no timid child. This is the voice of one, crying out from the echoes of the prophets of old, borrowing Zechariah’s words, “And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day!” (Zechariah 14:21).

            So, Jesus gives them a sign. Let those who have ears, hear: “Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up!” Despite the literal interpretation of his audience (“It took 46 years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in 3 days?!”), the author of John’s Gospel is kind enough to pencil in the meaning: Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body.

         Suddenly, the rage and anger have a home. This is not about money or maleficence. This is about the death of the incarnate God, and God’s refusal for our actions to destroy what God has promised. 

That’s what this text is telling us. 

        We spend years building up a temple, a church, a ministry, a business. Then, suddenly, one day, it exists only to serve itself. Whatever the beauty, the creativity, the original purpose was of our idea… it’s gotten lost in spreadsheets, projections, net losses and profitability. Even in relationships, what begins as the most beautiful notion of romantic and unconditional love eventually devolves into a series of squabbles over whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher. Every parent has stared deeply into the eyes of their infant - gazing with hope and wonder, only to find that approximately 13 years later, those same eyes seem to do nothing but reflect mutual exasperation. Over the course of time, our best intentions become inwardly focused and self-sustaining. Almost as soon as they begin, the institutions of our lives become engines for their own survival.

            Jesus is calling attention to this because, for the temple system to survive, “it had to function as a place of exchange for maintaining and supporting the sacrificial structures. Jesus is, then, is calling for a complete dismantling of the entire system.” But this is terrifying to us. It’s terrifying to the hearers. If the temple isn’t necessary, then what do we do?? How do we find God? Worship God? Where do we seek God?

            When Jesus drives the animals out of the Temple, overturns the tables of the moneychangers, and demands the end of buying and selling, “he is really announcing the end of this way of relating to God. God is no longer available primarily, let alone exclusively, via the Temple.”[4] So, how do we determine the location of God’s whereabouts? Our colloquial understanding is that God abides “in heaven,” which implies that the God of Gods is confined to a very nice residence in the sky. This, however, is exactly the kind of limitation that Jesus is pushing against. If we are truly going to seek out and find the Presence of God, then we must figure out who Jesus is and what Jesus means. “This deeper engagement also underscores the Johannine theological theme of abiding…If the temple symbolizes the location and presence of God, Jesus is essentially saying to the leaders that he – the one whose body shall be destroyed and raised up again - is the presence of God. Where one looks for God, expects to find God, imagines God to be are all at stake for the Gospel of John. In Jesus, God is right here, right in front of you.”[5]  

        This means that when Jesus shows us this marvelous display of righteous indignation, that Christ himself is modeling for us how we are to be truly present in the world. Sisters and Brothers, it is not a matter of if or when but a matter of how Christ overturns institutions. If it were up to me, the institutions of government, economy and social status would be overturned immediately. I’m growing tired of the fight, the struggle, to both be in the world, but not of it. I’d love it if these perceived barriers were removed from our path immediately, but God doesn’t seem to work that way.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the law, the embodiment of it. We are bound by the law, but Christ has come to set us free. In this moment of overturning, Jesus models incarnational theology – meaning, what it looks like for God to be in this world with us. God overturns the tables, not out of sheer rage, but because the institutions that bind us do not bind God! The Incarnation is God’s way of lovingly engaging the world in the most real and visceral way. By living. By suffering. By dying. By being rebuilt. By abiding. 

            Today marks the 50^th Anniversary of the three Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965 were part of the Selma Voting Rights Movement and led to the passage that year of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark federal achievement of the 1960s American Civil Rights Movement. Activists publicized the three protest marches to walk the 54-mile highway from Selma to the Alabama state capital of Montgomery as showing the desire of black American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, in defiance of segregationist repression. Representative John Lewis describes his experience as a member of the march, saying, “I thought I saw death. I thought we were going to die.”

          President Barack Obama, in his remarks commemorating the Marches in Selma said, "What they did here will reverberate through the ages. Not because the change they won was preordained; not because their victory was complete; but because they proved that nonviolent change is possible; that love and hope can conquer hate."[6] This is righteous indignation. This is the overturning of tables, slowly and surely, that the unjust institution would be torn down and re-built in 11 days, with voting rights for all.

         The same is true for our call to Biblical Obedience, over and against a mandate to uphold the rules in the Book of Discipline. Bishop Mel Talbert, also a champion of the Civil Rights movement, teaches us that “Biblical Obedience is a call for us to claim our identity as it relates to the Bible, to speak truth to power, and decide that laws that discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer persons and allies in the life of the Church are immoral and unjust and are no longer deserving of our loyalty and support. It is a call to declare our beliefs and start doing the right thing. Jesus was asked by a scribe, “Which is the greatest of all the commandments?” Jesus simply said, “There is only one God. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” It is time for us as people of faith to live into those commandments. It is time to see ALL human beings as our neighbors. That is Biblical Obedience.”[7] 

        The church cannot exist only with the hope of self-sustenance. Rather, we must overturn the need to do things as they’ve always been done, liberate ourselves from the perpetuation of the institution, and discover the radical over-turned way we are called to be in ministry and service to the world. Our task as Christians is not to balance our budget or provide a community place for fellowship and food. Our task as Christians is to live in this world with the awareness that God abides here, with us. Now and always.

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen and Amen.

Let us pray:

If you wish, close your eyes and imagine this scene:
        ...Business as usual… then the violence of Jesus’ anger… the shock of the onlookers…Pause with the scene for a moment, and let it unfold in your imagination.
                                    What in our world,
                                                            The church,
                                                                        Your own life
                                                                        Makes Christ this angry now?
Invite God into the place where you hold these thoughts, images and feelings in your heart. This is your chance to give these things over to God, and let God be angry with you, for you. Here, in the courtyard, I invite you to “overturn” the tables of the things that have set up camp in your lives and hearts.  Smash them, break them, let them go. Watch as the good intentions that have turned into bad habits & misguided actions are turned on their heads.

---

[1] See also: Zechariah 14:21, “and every cooking-pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the Lord of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and use them to boil the flesh of the sacrifice. And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day.”
[2] Video of the text provided by Faith and Wonder.
[3] Agony in the Garden, Heinrich Hofmann, 1890.
[4] http://www.davidlose.net/2015/03/lent-3-b-igniting-centrifugal-force/[5] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2377 [6] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/03/07/remarks-president-50th-anniversary-selma-montgomery-marches[7] http://www.rmnetwork.org/blog/2013/10/25/biblical-obedience/

Sermon: The Promise of Faithfulness

Rev. Mandy Sloan Flemming
Laguna Beach United Methodist Church
Sunday, March 1, 2015

The Promise of Faithfulness

Mark 8:27-38

²⁷Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” ²⁸And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” ²⁹He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” ³⁰And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

³¹Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

³⁴He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

             This text comes to us after a series of events in which Jesus has shown himself to be a man of remarkable power. In chapter 8, he has already fed the 4,000 with a meager serving of bread and fish, healed a blind man, and withstood the indignity of the Pharisees asking for a “sign” after they have witnessed these things first hand. When Jesus warns the Disciples about the “yeast” of the Pharisees, they misunderstand him and ask, “‘It is because we have no bread.’ 17And becoming aware of it, Jesus said to them, ‘Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? 18Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember?” (Mark 8:17-18). This question rings with hilarity after Jesus has done so many remarkable things in their presence.

            But, when Jesus asks the Disciples who people say that he is, he is inviting dialogue. This is not a test, as the Pharisees sought to test him. Rather, it is an earnest engagement with how the world receives his ministry. Jesus asks one of the best questions in the Gospels, posing it to his Disciples who are having an atypical moment of lucidity.  

            Jesus asks plainly, “’But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.” This is Peter’s shining moment of insight. The time when his earnestness and wonder coincide to produce the right answer to a very difficult question. This is Peter’s confession of faith. “You are the Messiah,” he says. The one who has come to save us. The one who abides with us. You are God, with us.

In a sermon series on the topic of promises: this text could begin and end right here. It is this confession of Peter’s faith that underlies our own testimonies to why we show up here week after week. But, it’s the fact that he is correct that keeps us going. After all, we are not disciples of Peter. We are disciples of Christ, the Messiah. That means that even before Peter or you or I could recognize the gift of grace we receive through the life, death and resurrection we receive in Christ, that God had to decide to become one-with-us.  This is the promise of faithfulness we receive.
            So, let us ask our selves the same compelling question: Who do we say that Jesus is? This forces us to look clearly at our faith and own it for ourselves. If we say that Jesus is someone who taught us how to live well, then we must reflect whether or not we are. If we say that Jesus was a prophet, then we must observe the ways in which his words are becoming real. If we say that Jesus is the son of God, then we must consider how we are living out our lives as brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the foundation of who we are as a faith community.

            But, as we read on, there is one line in our scripture today that has always given me trouble. Jesus says to the crowd and his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Jesus spends some time speaking candidly with his disciples just prior to this about the events that are to unfold. He tells them about his suffering, rejection, death and resurrection after 3 days.  Peter famously rejects the notion that this is possible and necessary, and Jesus rebukes him. Even though Jesus is so clear with his disciples about these events, there is something about his use of the phrase “take up thy cross and follow me” that has plagued me for years. How could they know the depth of what this means? How could they possibly understand? We have the benefit of hindsight – we know the story and when we hear, “take up thy cross,” it means something particular to us. I always thought this was an outreach to us – the hearers through history. That we might know -  in a way the disciples never could -  that this call to discipleship has clear and noticeable ramifications for how we live our life.

            But, if we are to push a little harder, taking up the cross sounds like a mandate for us to receive a burden we don’t want to bear. I look back on the previous few months and the turmoil we’ve seen in so many communities. The fall was filled with conversation around the events in Ferguson, MO. We watched as our country took to conversations about race and reconciliation with the same passion that we saw during the height of the civil rights movement, and we listen to modern-day prophets sing for the hope of Glory. We have been praying for ways to help the homeless community in Laguna Beach and beyond; and, yesterday, in less than 8 hours, our leadership and missions committee drew up a plan for how we can open our doors to serve as an overflow shelter during the cold and rainy nights. We have been called to work for immigration reform and seek how to serve migrant children. Our congregation has seen an incredible response to our willingness to engage the topic of how the churchcan re-visit the texts that sought to exclude and oppress the LGBT community. Today, in Georgia, my clergy colleagues are fighting hard to save the life of a woman on death row who is to be executed tomorrow.

            Take up thy cross is hard to hear, because the cross is rarely something we would choose. But, let us look to Jesus. Part of the reason this language is so abrasive to us is because Jesus did nothing to deserve the cross himself. It’s offensive to us because this man – this son of God – doesn’t deserve the burden of the cross.

            But, here’s the thing: he did it anyway. He did it because the cross was never his. The cross was ours, and ours alone. And he took it up for us.

            So, when Jesus says, “Take up thy cross and follow me,” he doesn’t mean, bear your own burdens. He means, lift up the burdens of others that they might not be carried alone. He means that we are to do things, not because they benefit us, but maybe because they don’t. We are called to feed the hungry, not because we’re hungry, but because they are. We are called to advocate for those who are marginalized, not because we were once marginalized, but because they are. We are called to speak out for the voiceless, because people will listen to those with strength. We are called to open the doors, not because we want to grow our church, but because there are people hungering for a vibrant community in which to live out their lives of faith. The work we do, the ministry we share is not about us. We do not, can not do anything to earn God’s love or grace. We can only act out of our own conviction that if we take up the cross and follow Christ, then we widen the reach of those who will come to know God’s love. This is the true cost of discipleship – denying ourselves and our own self-interest that others may be considered. This is how we use our privilege. This is how we are the church.   

            We gather today, not only to hearken to a call of social justice and mission in the world, but to remind ourselves why it is that we do such things. Theologian Rebecca Chopp argues that “The church is not created for fellowship, continued support, spiritual nourishment, or even social service; rather, the church is called to give to the world news of emancipatory transformation.” That means when we “deny yourself and take up your cross,” we are invited into what the cross can also mean – “not just death and suffering, but God choosing human relationships. The cross represents God’s commitment to humanity (it is truly the symbol of God’s faithfulness to us). The cross represents what we do when we are not in relationship with the other and think only for ourselves. Because we realize it’s not just about our own selves. Lent is a denial of the self in the best way, the self that refuses community. The self that thinks it can survive on its own. The self that rejects the deep need of humanity -- belonging.”[1]  God promises to be faithful to us by being willing to do the very things God asks of us.

            Our call is to pray to see how we can live into a life of discipleship for its own sake, remembering that Christ took up the cross on our behalf, that we might take it up on behalf of others. Jesus is the embodiment of perfect love, absolute grace, and total acceptance. The cost of discipleship, then, has a reward beyond what we can imagine in heaven. The cost of discipleship yields the gift of community, compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation. When we deny ourselves, we give up the stronghold on all that keeps us from loving openly, that keeps us from becoming transformed into people who live into the promise of God’s faithfulness to us.

            So, let us be changed by the Good News that Christ comes to give. If we seek to serve only ourselves, then we are bound by our interpretation of Scripture, our history, our narrative, our expectations. But Christ comes and says: I am not bound by your expectations. I am the Son of God, the living Christ, and I have come to teach you how much God loves you, and how we are called to be in relationship with one another –not just with the people who are like us or nice to us or praiseworthy or acceptable. This Good News is for the people who have never had a good word spoken to them, and today – that doesn’t mean you. It means those who are outside freezing in the rain, unable to be cured, locked up in prison, marginalized because of their sexuality and silenced by the government. We are called to tend to them, heal them, listen to them, and remind them that THIS is the year of the Lord’s favor, so that they may be the ones to say, “MY eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!” And we can, at last, gather together in worship and praise of the God who refuses to let any of us go, so that we can be transformed into a people of living into the promise of God’s faithfulness.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen and Amen.

---

[1] Karoline Lewis, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=3542