March 3, 2024
The Third Sunday in Lent
March 3, 2024
The Rev. R. Allan McCaslin
Readings: Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22
From Psalm 19, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD” I speak to you in the Name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
An interesting assortment of scripture lessons are offered this morning, and each is a sermon unto itself. And so I ask your indulgence as I attempt to address the specific intent of each lesson within the context of our contemporary lives. To that end, may the Holy Spirit truly open our hearts and minds to what it is that God desires for us to grasp on this Third Sunday in Lent.
Now, typically, worship services on the Third Sunday in Lent begin on page 317 in The Book of Common prayer with the traditional recitation of The Decalogue: that poignant Old English reminder of the Ten Commandments proclaimed in today’s Old Testament Lesson. And as each is spoken aloud, the congregation responds, “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” These are not only timely words, but our response to each commandment even more timely given our propensity to ignore the intent that lies at the heart of the Commandments.
See, many Christians are quick to cite the Ten Commandments when they desire to point out the wrong in someone else. They will say, “Thou shalt not (whatever)” not to remind themselves of proper conduct, but rather, to tell someone else how to live, or advance a personal agenda, and suggest that “(I) am holier and more Christian than you.” Have you ever smashed your thumb with a hammer and uttered an expletive, (not that that has ever happened to me!) and someone quipped, “God said, ‘Thou shalt not curse’”? Well, society would be more civil today if cursing were anathema to everyday speech, but that is not what God said. In fact, it is far more serious than cursing. This third commandment is about misusing God’s name. Using God’s name as a weapon to browbeat someone into our way of thinking or invoking God’s name as a lucky charm. It is misusing God’s name in order to insist people do things our way, or that our particular faith tradition is the only way to God as if God is our exclusive property. No, such denies the heart of all Ten Commandments. And I suggest that misusing God’s name has done more to destroy individual lives and faith communities than any expletive over a hammer and thumb incident, no matter how much it hurt!
The truth is the Ten Commandments are intended to bring life to God’s people, not condemn them. In the words of the Psalmist, the law, the statutes, the commandments of the Lord ‘are just and … revive the soul … and rejoice the heart.’ And they do so because these words come down to two simple phrases that are just as powerful as they are difficult to live: We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, body, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves. Every “no” or “Thou shalt not” Commandment makes sense to people who are grounded in the love of God and love for their neighbor. If our whole being focuses on loving God and neighbor as created in God’s own image, then we will be honest at all times; we will not steal; we will respect the dignity of every human being; and we will honor God with our time and substance, with all that we are and have, because loving God and loving all that God has created is the highest calling for, and mark of, God’s people. When read not as we want them to be interpreted and understood, but as God intended, the Commandments offer a way of living marked by forgiveness, mercy, grace, and justice; they mirror The Beatitudes – Jesus own words in his Sermon on the Mount. Yet, in society today many Christians insist that the Ten Commandments be posted in Courtrooms and Schools but not the mercy, forgiveness, grace and justice stated in the Sermon on the Mount. Now, there’s some food for thought!
When Jesus entered the Temple grounds as told in our gospel lesson, he flipped out. And that’s not because people were buying and selling on holy ground. It was much deeper than that. See, these merchants were providing a valuable service to people. Every citizen was required to make an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem in order to offer sacrifices to God. But it was impractical and often dangerous, to require folks to travel for miles carrying all the animals and supplies they needed for sacrifices, as well as their luggage and keeping all of the kids together. It was next to impossible. Instead, these pilgrims could simply purchase what they needed upon arrival at the Temple. So, buying and selling wasn’t the problem. What Jesus saw was the usury and cheating – the unbalanced scales, the injustice of God’s people towards their own brothers and sisters. He saw the violation of the very Commandments they had promised to uphold. It’s not about buying and selling, but rather, about failing to love your neighbor as yourself. And so, like any good prophet, Jesus chooses to confront the blatant evil in front of him. And it certainly got everyone’s attention.
So Jesus uses this as an opportunity to foretell his own forthcoming death and resurrection and do so in a most unique way. He says, “Destroy this Temple and I’ll rebuild it in three days.” This is not about knocking down a building. Jesus speaks to the very role of the Temple in Hebrew life. See, we need to realize that while our landscape is dotted with Churches, Synagogues, Temples and Mosques, - buildings we tend to think of as houses of prayer and a place to gather for worship and fellowship, that’s not what the Temple of Jerusalem was about. It wasn’t just another house of God. It was the House of God: the only place of worship in the entire country. It was God’s only house and at the center of that house, in a place called the Holy of Holies, God chose to physically dwell. This Temple, built in the heart of the city of Jerusalem, served as the spiritual and political heart of Israel. It was the only place to encounter the real presence of the living God. So it’s understandable that when Jesus said to destroy it, people were outraged. But that wasn’t what he was saying.
No. Jesus was revealing his true identity. He refenced the Temple to reveal that the real Presence of God dwells not in that building of stone, but in him. He is the promised Messiah: God incarnate who has come to redeem the whole world. He is the place where all people can find their deepest connection with God, not through a building, not in something encased in stone and mortar: but, in him. Our reading concludes with a reminder that what is coming is Jesus’ own death and resurrection – the Cross – that scandalous death of the Christ is looming ever closer.
St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians, addressed the scandalous nature of Jesus’ death. He says it is a scandal to our Jewish brothers and sisters just as it is foolishness to the Greeks, the Gentiles. It is a scandal because it suggests that God’s own people not only rejected their Messiah but handed him over to be killed. And it is utter nonsense to the Greeks because you don’t kill your leader, your hero, especially the one who will redeem you!
Yet, Paul says, while scandalous and foolish to many, the message of the cross – the hope of the Christian faith – is the very power of God still at work in this world – the very power of God that makes it possible to live as the Ten Commandments call us to live because the cross offers not condemnation, but grace, forgiveness, and a myriad of chances to start over again. It is about God’s unconditional love that offers to transform hearts and minds so that we do change how we relate to God and one another. The cross brings us back to the heart of the Commandments: Love God with all that we are and have, and love our neighbor - love them – as much as our own selves. And therein lies the dilemma for all people of faith today.
See , sometime ago, a Rabbi colleague in Memphis reflecting upon the tendency of Jews and Christians to misinterpret scripture and misuse God’s name remarked, “What God cares about most is not that we believe what is right but that we actually DO what is right.” He continued, “The greatest challenge facing people of faith today is humility. We must move the emphasis from claiming that God is on our side to worrying more about our being on God’s side: God’s side of compassion, grace, justice, acceptance, forgiveness, mercy, and love...” (Micah Greenstein, Calvary Church Lenten Series, Memphis, TN 2012)
Friends; that is the truth, the call of the Commandments, just as it is the truth and call of St. Paul and our Lord Jesus Christ: God’s people love God with all that they are and have, love all that God has created – they love their neighbor as their own, our own, selves. In these remaining weeks in Lent, I invite you to join with in imploring the grace of God to help us recognize that this morning’s words of scripture need to be more than words; they need to become who we truly are.
(Let us pray) In the words of the Decalogue, “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law” not just today, but always. Amen.