Tomorrow's Sermon Draft

I haven't preached in a couple of weeks. So here is tomorrow's draft. I'll post the final tomorrow. Enjoy.
Have you ever been so consumed with something that you couldn't even think straight? And I don't mean I really want a muffin. I mean so consumed that is fills your every waking and sleeping thought. You can't go to sleep because you can't stop thinking about it. And when you do go to sleep you dream about. The more you think about it the more you want it or the more you have to do it. Let's say it is oh I don't know, George Clooney, just for illustration sake. You love George Clooney. You see every movie. You buy every magazine with him on the cover or that contains an article about him. You scour the internet looking for anything about him, any picture of him, and tid-bit of info even remotely related to him. You join the George Clooney fan club. You name your dog, Clooney. (Not George, it would be ridiculous to name your dog George. You'll save the name George for your first-born child.) You cut out the pictures of George and you paste them on your wall. Or better yet, you create a whole room dedicated to George Clooney. Then you find out where he lives and you set up camp outside his house to watch him come and go. Perhaps you even start rifling through his trash, looking for maybe something of significance something important, like oh I don't know his fingernail clippings. Sound familiar?
I sincerely hope not, because that description is of someone who has gone completely overboard. We might even call them full on crazy. They have lost all sense of what is rational and reasonable. They have lost touch with reality. I mean think about it consumption is what tuberculosis was called in the 19th century. And now it is often used to refer to someone who is consumed by cancer or some other over-taking disease. Consumption does not represent the modicum of good health. It doesn't resemble health at all. And we know that in most cases being consumed by something, being eaten up by it that things are not going to turn out well. There is going to be a terrible toll to be paid for such zealousness.
"Zeal for your house will consume me." Jesus rolls into Jerusalem, like all other observant Jews of his day, to celebrate Passover. He goes into the temple and what he finds he does not like. But why doesn't he like it. It's hard to say, and John doesn't really say why. He just describes what happens. We know that when Jesus arrives in the temple he sees people changing money. Something that would have been absolutely necessary. Think about traveling to another country, the first think you do is get your US money changed to whatever the currency of the country you are in is. Otherwise you can't buy anything, you can't even really get around. Well that is essentially what is happening here. In order to pay their temple dues they need to change their money that has the face of Caesar on it into something that is suitable for use in the temple. The moneychangers were providing a service that was absolutely necessary for any pilgrim traveling to the temple to celebrate the feast. And what about those selling the animals? Well that too was necessary. The offering they made in the temple had to be an unblemished animal. Well have you ever tried to get an animal to Jerusalem while keeping it from any blemish? Alright, well you probably haven't, but suffice it to say it ain't easy if even possible at all. So the people had to be able to acquire an animal that was suitable and the way to do that was to wait until they got to the temple to do that. So what was Jesus so upset about? This stuff was all necessary to be an observant Jew, like himself. To be honest it makes him sound a bit nuts. Right? So why didn't the people who were there just ignore him? You know like we ignore any sort of wing-nut who is hanging out at some public event--the guy who is always holding up the sign that says Jesus Loves You on one side and Elmsford/12 Galaxies/cesjrogrencial ergonomics/nbc:xoxphrozenigul coverage/wasprovrenikil/admonishments minuscule/stratospherical or the guy who got a hold of the microphone at the recent rally on the eve of the supreme court hearing to overturn prop 8. Typically one of two things would happen, either the crazy person would just be ignored or they would get carted off and potentially arrested. But that isn't what happened here in the temple. Jesus was not ignored. He was not carted off and arrested, at least not yet. Instead they listen to him, and they ask him by what authority does he make these demands.
Its as if they knew it was coming. It was only a matter of time until they got caught. Don't get me wrong I don’t think they consciously thought they were doing something completely horrible. I think quite the contrary I think everyone believe that what they were doing was exactly what the institution required. In order for the temple to survive these things were necessary. But at the same time, at the same time, they knew that something had gone wrong. They were just waiting for someone to point it out. Finally someone was pointing out that the balance had shifted. The point was not the preservation of the temple. The temple was just bricks and mortar. It was just an institution that could be destroyed, that could be torn down. The temple wasn't bad; the institution wasn't evil; the practices weren't awful. The people in the temple were doing what it took. They were the ones who you'd want on your capital campaign or your strategic planning committee. If you want the institution to survive then they are the people who you want around. They got it done. And in this case, in this telling in John, Jesus isn't calling them crooks. The money-changers aren't necessarily cheating the people. They are simply doing a job, a job that needed to be done.
It's just that the focus had shifted to something that in the end was fleeting. And in case you didn't get what Jesus was doing, John spells it out for you, albeit in John's somewhat esoteric kind of way. "But he was speaking of the temple of his body." Hey Jesus is not talking about this temple that is a building. Jesus is actually talking about himself. He the human is the temple, the human that is divine, the human that will be killed and then three days later will be alive again. The one who is stronger than death. The one who brings light to the darkness. The one who is right in front of them. That is the focus. He is the place of refuge, the place of peace, the place of sanctuary. And their focus should be on that not on preserving a building or an institution.
I wish that was the end. I wish that the people shifted their focus. But that isn't the case. Nearly every religious organization I'm a part of is so focused on preservation of the institution that they lose site of the true focus. They are holding on so tightly to what is and what used to be that they lose site of the future, of the resurrection. Institutions and organizations are fleeting. Our greater purpose is not the preservation of an institution. And that makes people who are invested in organizations uncomfortable. What will we do without the temple? We have worked our whole lives to build up this beautiful temple or to even rebuild this beautiful temple. We don’t want it to go away. But the answer is that it might. It is merely brick and mortar. The capital campaign isn't the most important thing we do. The good news is not how long we have been around or our images. The good news is not how many people we have. The good news is that life is stronger than death. The light will win out over darkness. The phoenix will rise up out of the ashes. Redemption, renewal, resurrection will come. Even if the walls of the building, even if the church, or even if the church crumbles Jesus will still be there pointing us to the focus, to what is beautiful, to the good news. The good news will not go away.
Lent calls us to shift our focus. To find what is life giving. It is the time when Jesus comes in and flips over all the tables and throws out the marketers. It suggests that we look not at what has been but what will be. I found this song yesterday that points us to this very idea. So I'll end with "The Things I've Gone and Done" by Carrie Newcomer.