Becoming Who We Are

 John 2:13-22

We are what we love, St. Augustine asserted, and this Lent we are exploring how what we love and desire is shaped by our unthought habits and repeated rituals.  It’s our chance to do a “liturgical audit” – to ask what habits are shaping me away from life? And what habits are shaping me toward life?

We learn habits through repetition; they become so ingrained in us that we don’t even think about them. So changing habits can be daunting. Once we recognize an unhelpful habit, we want instant results and immediate gratification.  We modern folks are not wired for the long, slow slog of repeating uncomfortable things until they become second nature. We’d rather keep repeating comfortable things, even if they’re not great for us. 

A couple years ago I realized my problem with exercise was not that I didn’t have the right health club membership, exercise partner, tennis shoes or motivation, but that I didn’t have the right habits. I was formed and forming myself as a person who thought exercise was a good idea and did it when I could, but mostly just practiced feeling bad I wasn’t moving as much as I believed I should be. But, it turns out that changing my habits has changed my desires, and lo and behold: I have become a person who exercises. 

When I decided I would not be all or nothing about it, my mantra became Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. (This carries over quite well to things like thank you notes and birthday greetings, but not to things like home repair projects or driving). Consistency, rather than quality, was what mattered in my habit-learning quest, so I decided I would exercise every single day even if it was just for a few minutes, whether I felt like it or not. The promise was, if I did it every day, I would reach a point where it would become just like brushing my teeth—I would no longer have choose to do it, it would just happen. 

And I had evidence this could be so. I do, after all, brush my teeth—twice every day, in fact. And I tie my shoes like a pro without even thinking about it. Because a long time ago, I learned how by doing it imperfectly, over and over again, and probably I cried about it a few times. And now, I exercise. And as a totally non-athletic, lifelong avoider of sports, after a couple of years of moving on purpose every day, I sometimes really look forward to exercising – though mostly I love the feeling of having exercised.

Why can I apply these habit-forming ideas to things like eating vegetables or exercising, but I can’t seem to do so with prayer? I put up all sorts of hurdles and barriers between God and myself.  Even though I long to be connected to God, and I want to be a brave, kind person in the world, it appears I would much rather stay busy and distracted, even by tedious and unpleasant tasks, and practice feeing bad about “not praying enough,” than assume the inner stance of least resistance and terrifying openness to being encountered by God as just my vulnerable old self. 

Turns out, we humans have a long precedence of creating barriers to God for ourselves and others.

The marketplace situation in temple that Jesus blew a gasket over was not something out of the ordinary - it was business as usual. People had to change their normal money for temple currency, to buy sacrifices to offer to God here in this place where human beings and the Divine meet each other.

 

But that’s not how things started. Way, way back, when God was giving the Israelites instructions for how to live as God’s people, God said, 

Dedicate 10% of all your harvest from your cattle, crops, and vineyards, and bring it to God, and feast on it with God. This is a way to remember, every year through practice, that you belong to God.  And, so you don’t forget that you also belong to each other, every three years, use your saved up 10% to stay home and throw a feast in your own town for all who are in need. 

 

To help this happen, God’s law accommodated those who couldn’t reasonably travel long distances with 10% of all their harvest and animals. They could sell it, travel with the money, and then buy lovely things for feasting with God when they arrived at the temple. (Deuteronomy 14:22-29)

 

But over time, this directive that was supposed to make celebrating belonging to God and to each other more feasible for all, became a gatekeeping instrument, an obstacle to navigate, a hurdle to jump through. Now, whether you lived near or far, you needed to trade your money for temple money, and likely also exchange whatever imperfect gift you brought for a more perfect, worthy sacrifice. 

 

And so, a whole business arose in the temple to mediate the connection between human beings and God, and this is what Jesus came bashing and crashing and yelling about. 1500 years later, Martin Luther will call out the church for similar practices of selling and buying access to God, though in a far less dramatic tacking up of a piece of paper with some provocative statements written on it, onto a Cathedral door.

 

It turns out that even those of us who believe in a God of mercy and grace, belonging and wholeness, often tell a different story with our practices and habits, You belong if… you don’t belong unless… you only belong when…

After Jesus’ outburst, when the air clears of feathers, the coins stop rolling, and the shocked silence holds them all, someone clears their throat and asks, "What sign can you give us for doing this?," What an astonishing and wonderful question to our modern, secular ears! This question means they were willing to consider that God might be redirecting them through this – they were open to a Divine course correction.  

 

Lent is a great opportunity to be open to a course correction. But it can’t come from more of our own well-practiced, malforming habits. 

 

When Jesus answers them, he does that frustrating thing where he stays all metaphorical and vague, saying, Tear down this temple and I will rebuild it in three days. Only he uses the other word for “temple” not as in "sanctuary space," but as in “the place where God dwells.”  And the gospel author helpfully tells us he’s not talking about the building they are standing in, but about his very body. 

I am, Jesus will go on to say a million times in John, I am the way and the truth, I am the good shepherd, I am the light of the world, I am the resurrection and the life. I am the place where God dwells, the ground on which God and humans meet.

 

God became flesh and dwelled among us, breaking through barriers of time and space to be with us, and nothing can separate us from God's love.  According to the Apostle Paul, because we are in Christ, we are now the temple, the very place where God dwells. Our ordinary lives are the sacred ground on which Divine and human meet.  We are the Body of Christ, the dwelling place of God. 

 

And so, Lent’s Divine course correction opportunity asks us, 

How are we making our lives into a marketplace?  

How do we sell our attention and earn our worth? 

What hurdles do we put up to connection, and what barriers do we build against belonging? 

Do we despise our own imperfect gifts and try to exchange them for a more perfect, worthy sacrifice? 

As parents, or partners, or neighbors, or friends, do we construct all or nothing approaches that wall us off from the terrifying vulnerability of being human alongside one another and beloved of God, just as we are?  

How do we habitually resist being encountered by God?  

And what are the well-worn ways we withhold the possibility of access to God from those we despise? 

Do we avoid being brave and kind because we can’t do it perfectly? 

And with what patterns do we refuse to rest because we suspect being unproductive means being worthless? 

 

We are so practiced and proficient at our habits of disconnection and alienation from God and the world - which is another way of saying, we’re so good at our sin – that we do it without even having to think about it. It’s ingrained in us. No amount of our own effort can free us. We cannot save ourselves. 

 

The good news is Jesus is ready and willing to storm into our business as usual, and tear down every barrier we erect that divides us from God and each other. He is always opening cages and letting our guilty pride and pampered self-loathing fly off. Jesus will drive out every label and prerequisite we place on ourselves and others for how to be included or excluded as God’s beloved people. He’ll chase away our carefully calculated good deeds, toss out our smug judgments of one another, and gladly scatter in the dust all our well-honed measurements of worth.

 

Once that happens, the compasses of our hearts are recalibrated by the promise that in Christ’s body, Christ’s own relationship to God, we are pulled into love and set on a new path. 

 

And just as we may not realize we have habits that are misdirecting us, we also probably don’t appreciate those habits we have that reinforce us in our belonging to God and all others. Just take today, for example. By getting out of bed and coming here, even when you don’t necessarily feel like it, because here something happens that we can’t make happen, without even realizing it, we’re being, with and for each other, the place where God dwells. 

Today when we confessed our sin and sought forgiveness, sharing words spoken by followers of Jesus for hundreds of years, and when we called one another to worship by receiving the welcome of God and remembering out loud why we’re here, and in a few moments, when we lift up our fears and joys to God with one another in prayer, we are practicing assuming the stance of least resistance to being encountered by the Divine. 

When we share what we have in offering for the work of God between and among us that is only sustained by our free giving, we are living in a different economy than the marketplace of the world. When we depart in blessing and are sent out to see strangers as siblings, and our neighborhoods and communities as the sacred ground where Jesus shows up, we are learning new habits of relating through repetition. When we remind each other to watch in the world for God’s hope and healing, and we use our time and gifts to share in that work, the compass of our heart is pulling us toward God’s trajectory for the world.  Each time we acknowledge beauty, and let ourselves listen deeply, we are attuning ourselves to the Creator. And every time we answer our knee-jerk dismissal of another person with an internal reminder of their belovedness, and an external acknowledgement of our shared humanity, we are joining in our own transformation. 

Talking to God is worth doing poorly. So is reaching out to someone we’re worried about. So is accepting help from others. Saying things wrong to someone we love, and imperfectly apologizing does far more to shape both of us in our already-belonging than fearfully guarding our words does. Practicing forgiving forms us toward freedom. 

By repeatedly doing these uncomfortable things until they become second nature, we’re participating in God’s relentless redemption of the world and of ourselves, so that, little by little,  by the grace of God and power of the Holy Spirit, living our belonging to God and all others become more and more habitually ingrained in us, directing our love so we become who we are. 

Amen. 

 (The sermon is the second in a Lenten series drawing from the themes in James K. Smith's, You Are What You Love. Here is the first). 

What Makes God Angry

John 2:13-22


It was difficult for me to write a sermon this week.

My heart was in Pennsylvania, with Theresa (our former Parish Associate and beloved friend), who is facing down a lot of pain and anger that arose when hurtful parts of her past were dug up and spread around. 
I flew there Monday night to be with her Tuesday, as she faced the seminary community where she is president, and did the most courageous and vulnerable thing I have ever seen a leader do. She shared her very self with them by telling them her story – the parts that felt personal and fragile, the parts that have been misunderstood and misused, the parts that she regrets that have caused pain to others, and the parts that have made her a little bit more who she most longs to be.  
And I saw briefly, a glimpse of what it looks like to belong so fully to God and to yourself that you can belong completely to others and invite others into their own belonging.  I felt a bubble of hope rise within me for that community, that they could get through the pain this has dredged up together to the other side, where trust and joy dwell when we are with and for each other.

But pain is powerful, and we use it as protection.  And not everyone is ready to set it down. And outside that room, on social media, I’ve watched a nightmare unfold, as, in the wake of people’s pain and anger and amidst partial truths, she is being labeled, attacked and demonized.

When I go online and see something about my friend that dehumanizes her, or makes her out to be so radically other than she is, I feel a ball start to form in my gut, a molten rage that pushes up into my chest and heats my face. My hands actually get tingly, my head starts to spin a little, and I want to lash out and defend her.

In fact, on Friday I did. On an unsuspecting friend who shared something she’d read, I unleashed a series of firehose-esque messages intending to set the record straight.

Then I sheepishly apologized for my enormous, emotional word dump.

So, when I came to this text this week, I connected with it at the gut, visceral level first.

I imagined Jesus walking into the temple that day, the temple, which was the special place where humans and God meet one another.

I imagined this man, this God-with-us, divine embodied human walking in there and taking in the chaos.  Letting it hit his senses: the moneychangers and the sacrifice sellers, the smells and the clamor, the animals bleeting, and the vendors shouting, and the crowds navigating this noisy bazaar atmosphere in the temple’s outer court.

I imagined Jesus taking it all in, and the hot, churning ball forming in his gut, the tingling hands and the anger rising up his chest and heating his face.  I picture him grabbing some rope and finding a wall to squat against, and with sharp clarity of purpose, pouring all his concentration into the task, braiding a whip out of cords.

Then, rising from his corner, intent on setting the record straight, he takes a deep breath and plunges into the center of the chaos, swinging his whip at the cattle, shouting, and chasing the bewildered animals out of the temple. 
Turning back he lunges at tables, flipping them over, scattering money everywhere as though it is useless. He points at the doves and roars to the sellers, “Get these things out of here! Stop making my father’s house a marketplace!”

And something inside of me wants to get to my feet and cheer.

Let me back up and give some context to the scene. 

This act Jesus did took place in the Court of the Gentiles, where thousands of Pilgrims came from all over and converged. This area was as far as non-Jews were allowed to enter the temple, as close as they could get to worship the God of Israel. It was their place to pray.  
The next section inward was for Jews only, called the Court of the Women, where all Jewish people could go, but the farthest in that women were allowed. 
Then came The Court of the Israelites, for only Jewish men, and inside that, the Court of the Priests for Levites, and inside that, the Holy of Holies, where God most resides, and where almost no human is allowed to go. 

I imagine each section quieter and calmer than the last, each one closer to the Divine, each one with fewer people in it.

The marketplace situation was business as usual in the temple, because people had to change their money for temple currency, and to buy sacrifices to offer to God in this place where human beings and the Divine meet each other.

Because way back, when God was giving instructions for how to live as God’s people, when God was directing them about how God and humans interact, God’s directions said,

Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is brought in yearly from the field. In the presence of the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the firstlings of your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. 
But if, when the Lord your God has blessed you, the distance is so great that you are unable to transport it, because the place where the Lord your God will choose to set his name is too far away from you, then you may turn it into money. With the money secure in hand, go to the place that the Lord your God will choose; spend the money for whatever you wish—oxen, sheep, wine, strong drink, or whatever you desire. And you shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God, you and your household rejoicing together. As for the Levites resident in your towns, do not neglect them, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you.
 Every third year you shall bring out the full tithe of your produce for that year, and store it within your towns; the Levites, because they have no allotment or inheritance with you, as well as the resident aliens, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, may come and eat their fill so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work that you undertake.
(Deuteronomy 14) 

Point being, all this -  saving up 10% of all your land and herds and vineyards produce and bringing it to God and feasting on it with God -  is meant to remind you every year that you belong to God.  And don’t forget, (in fact, every three years, you’d better use your saved up 10^th to really practice and remember this, by throwing a feast in your own town with it for all those in need): you also belong to each other.

But over time, the helpful accommodation God built in for those far away - that lets them sell their 10^th of produce and harvest for money, and then buy lovely things when they arrive on the other end to feast with God - this tool that was meant to create easier access between God and humanity, had become a gatekeeping instrument, a barrier, hurdles to jump through. Whether you lived near or far, it was expected of you to trade your money for temple money, and likely you'd need to trade your subpar sacrifices for approved temple sacrifices. And a whole business had built up around it; commerce and corruption, the outside world brought in to the place where God and human meet. 

And just as all things do when we trade the way of God for the way of fear, it had become a system of restrictions and labels, defining who was more worthy, and deciding who had more access. In the name of approaching God, they had succeeded in creating a maze of requirements and expectations to get close to God, that limited that access to a very narrow chosen few.

Now, the real reality is that God loves the world God made so much, and so longs to be in joy-filled relationship and deep connection with us all, that God became one of us, came here to share life with us, and take on death and all that separates us from God so that no barrier could ever again exist that would keep us apart.  Because we belong to God.  And in this person of Jesus Christ, God and human meet, completely, fully, absolutely. 

And so, walking into the temple that day and taking it all in, fresh off his water into wine miracle revealing a God of abundance, relationship and joy, Jesus was exceedingly angry.

The truth of who God is and who we are had been warped, amended, covered over – buried under layer after layer of caveats: some belong, in part, but not all, and not quite. 

You belong if… you don’t belong unless… you only belong when…

The who we talked about a few weeks ago, had become a how. 

Instead of the very being of God meeting real human beings in this place, it had become a game of how to please God, how to be a good Jew, (or a good Christian, or a good American, or a good parent, or a good ally, or a good fill in the particular measurement you’re working on at the moment...)

Instead of our very humanity coming into the presence of the One who claims us in love, it becomes how to prove yourself to God or others, how to meet expectations, how earn your worth or justify your existence or solidify your place. 

These are the messages swirling in the dust and the dung amidst the noise and the vendors and the people trying to pray to God the best they know how in the middle of it all.

And they all had accepted this as fact.  All of them.  Complicit in the system. They had accepted the how as the way it is.  They had let go of their who, and God’s who too, and accepted their roles, their proper place, their particular requirements to reach as close as they could to God, believing, perhaps, that they were lucky to get even that far, and not expecting anything more, because in the way of fear and scarcity there is only so much to go around, so if some get accepted others can’t be, (but at least we can take comfort that we’re farther in than they are).

It is no surprise whatsoever, then, that when Jesus cries out his last breath and dies on the cross, the huge, heavy temple curtain that divides off the Holy of Holies where God most resides and where almost no human was allowed to go, is torn in two from top to bottom.  His little temple demonstration with the whip this day was a mere taste of what was to come.

Because Jesus will tear down apart every barrier we erect that divides us from God and each other. He will drive out every distraction, and requirement, and label, and demand we place on ourselves and others that presumes to dictate who is worthy or unworthy to approach our maker, that dares to set terms for how to be included or excluded as God’s beloved people.

"What sign can you give us for doing this?," they ask Jesus, when he’s all finished making a huge mess of things.

What a great question. I love that question, because it means they’re willing to accept wild incidents, willing to let God surprise them; they’re open to being redirected.  

Jesus answers, Tear down this temple and I will rebuild it in three days. Only he uses the other word for “temple” not as in "sanctuary space," but as in “the place where God dwells.”  They scoff and think he is talking about the building they are standing in, ‘How are you going to do that?!” but he is talking about his very body.

I am, Jesus will go on to say a million times in John, I am the way and the truth, I am the good shepherd, I am the light of the world, I am the resurrection and the life. In me is all belonging, in me is love, in me is your wholeness and your joy and your identity and your purpose.  I am the temple, the place where God and humans meet.

God with us is with us. Nothing can separate us from that love. 
But we will make it a chaotic marketplace of goods and hurdles to reach what is already and always ours – belonging to God and belonging to each other.

We will put up barriers, and wield belonging like a weapon, a prize, a ticket that requires purchase. 
We will define ourselves and each other by our mistakes and our regrets, our associations and our labels, our beliefs and our track records and our ratings.  
We will decide who gets to come into belonging, and how far.  
We will act like we can bestow belonging or deprive people of it.

This happens between us, like it is happening right now for Theresa.

But it also happens within us. In the very center of our deepest selves, where God longs to dwell with us, we’ve barred our full selves out, deemed ourselves unworthy to go there.  We’ve decided what parts of us God welcomes in and how far, and what parts have to stay out in the outer place of exchanging and earning, chaos and noise.

But listen up, you guys, we don’t get to decide how to include or exclude or earn or prove who belongs.  And if we try, this scene assures us that God will mess it up for us, because that stuff make God really angry.

Jesus is always opening cages and letting our qualifications fly off, Jesus is always storming in with a handwoven whip and chasing away our good deeds, past performance, and personal sacrifices.  Jesus is always throwing over our carefully counted measurements of worth, and tearing open the barriers that keep people out.  
Jesus is intent on setting the record straight. 

And that is comforting to me.

We meet Jesus who is with and for us when we are when we are with and for each other. That is it. That’s the temple. That’s the place were God and humans meet. 
That’s the calling.  
We are the Body of Christ. 
May we belong so fully to God and to ourselves that we can belong fully to others and invite others into belonging.  
May we be willing to let God surprise us, 
open to being redirected, 
and brave and vulnerable to live as our true who, 
seen, and known, and loved, and claimed by the great I AM.

Amen.