His disciples remembered that it is written, “Zeal
for your house will consume me.”
This past Tuesday I gathered
with Episcopal clergy from our area for lunch and fellowship – something we do
every month or so. One of our
practices is to read and discuss the next Sunday’s Gospel lesson. Reflecting on the text we heard just
moments ago, the clergy as one asked the same question, “What would Jesus think
if he walked into our church today?”
“Oh no,” said one priest, “This is the week of our annual rummage
sale.” Others spoke of offerings
and collections and ticket sales and fund-raisers of one kind or another. What would Jesus say about all of
this? Today’s reading just seems
to draw out of us this response.
But I want us to put this
aside and approach the text from a different angle. I want to move our reflection from the negative – what was
Jesus reacting against – to the positive – what was Jesus advocating for. Do you hear the shift in focus? If we can figure out what Jesus was for
then we can explore what inhibits it in our time. The truth is that the Temple merchants and money-changers
where shake-down artists that would make today’s pay-day lending operators
blush. Yes, some churches become
too focused on money, and a few ministers have robbed blind their flock, but it
is hard to imagine most congregations today reaching the scale of what was
going on in the Temple that Jesus entered.
The disciples, in
watching Jesus go to work, associated his actions with the ninth verse of the
69th psalm. In it, the
author describes hardships he endures because he is zealous for God’s
house. Zeal is an interesting
word. According to Webster’s
Dictionary it means an “intense enthusiasm, as
in working for a cause; ardent endeavor or devotion.” It has a positive connotation, describing something you are
for. And while “zealot” can be
used negatively to describe a person fanatical, militant, or bigoted, it also
has a positive association as “one who is animated by an intense or eager
interest in an activity, cause” or the like.
Jesus’ zeal – his intense
enthusiasm – was for the Temple to be a house a prayer. One of the best articulations of a what
this might look like is found in the least-used service in the prayer book, the
liturgy for the Consecration of a Church.
On pages 568-569 we find three prayers: one offered to the Father by the
bishop, one offered to the Son by a warden, and one offered to the Spirit by
the priest. As the church is being
set apart as a house of prayer, these three prayers provide a rich description
of what it should look like.
Everliving Father, watchful and caring, our
source and our end: All that we are and all that we have is yours. Accept us now, as we dedicate this
place to which we come to praise your Name, to ask your forgiveness, to know
your healing power, to hear your Word, and to be nourished by the Body and
Blood of your Son. Be present
always to guide and to judge, to illuminate and to bless your people.
Lord Jesus Christ, make this a temple of
your presence and a house of prayer.
Be always near us when we seek you in this place. Draw us to you, when we come alone and
when we come with others, to find comfort and wisdom, to be supported and
strengthened, to rejoice and give thanks.
May it be here, Lord Christ, that we are made one with you and with one
another, so that our lives are sustained and sanctified for your service.
Holy Spirit, open our eyes, our ears, and
our hearts, that we may grow closer to you through joy and through
suffering. Be with us in the
fullness of your power as new members are added to your household, as we grow
in grace through the years, when we are joined in marriage, when we turn to you
in sickness or special need, and, at the last, when we are committed into the
Father’s hands.
This, I
think, is a fair description of what Jesus is zealous for. His actions point us toward this by
pealing away every layer that covers or conceals what is central.
One of the devotional books I am
reading is a work by John O’Donohue called Beauty: The Invisible Embrace. In it he
writes that in China they tell the story of subjects from Mongolia who
travelled vast distances to see the emperor. Once they arrived in Beijing, they had to practice for
months the decorum appropriate to that moment of encounter. When the emperor finally passed, they could
not even look up. The whole
journey was rewarded with a glimpse of just of his feet.
Reflecting on this O’Donohue
writes:
When we approach with
reverence, great things decide to approach us... When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide
to trust us. The rushed heart and
the arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter the embrace. Beauty is mysterious, a slow presence
who waits for the ready, expectant heart.
In Jesus’ day it was the
business of the Temple that worked most forcefully to prevent seekers from
encountering God. I think
O’Donohue is on to something important when he identifies today’s biggest
impediments as “the rushed heart and the arrogant mind.” Rushed: the pace of life today is so
crazy that is nearly impossible to sit down in a church and slow down long
enough to be present to the moment.
Arrogant: coming here knowing what you need from God and when you need
it and how you want God to give it to you. There are times I approach worship the way a college student
comes home from school, bursts in the front door, drops off a bag of dirty laundry,
asks for cash, and is gone again leaving the parent bewildered and empty.
We are in the presence of Greatness
here, but do we approach this moment in a way that allows Greatness to open up
to us? On the first Wednesday
night in Lent, we encountered this statement by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
“Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God. And only he who sees takes off his
shoes, the rest sit round and pluck blackberries.” What is it that allows one person to see the burning bush
while another sees only the berries to pick? Certainly not being rushed and not having your mind already
made up as to what you are looking at help.
This, I think, is what
Jesus would help us to understand if he walked into St. Paul’s this morning. The over-turned tables, freed
sacrificial animals and birds, and the coins strewn out over the Temple floor
are signs that we are here to encounter Greatness, to be open to Beauty, and to
respond with praise worthy of the One who passes by.
His disciples remembered that it is written, “Zeal
for your house will consume me.”
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