Beyond the Patio

On The Threshold of a New Era
John 2:13-22

They had never really seen Jesus quite like this before. They had never seen him quite as angry. Oh, they had seen that determined look in his eyes before. When he set out to go to Jerusalem, he appeared to be looking at them when he was talking to them, but at the same time he was looking beyond them. His mouth was set and his teeth held close together and you had the feeling that no matter what one said or did, no one would convince him to change his mind. One of his followers described that by saying, “And he set his face to go to Jerusalem”. So they had seen that determination before but not the same kind of anger.

You could see the difference in his face. There was a frown this time. And his eyes were blazing.

You could sense it in his stature, the way he held himself. He was standing straight up as if he was ready to take on the world.

You could feel it in his actions. (It almost seemed like a pre-meditated act to some extent, not just an act of passion.) All of sudden to everyone s surprise, he began driving out those dove sellers who tried to make enormous profits from there wares.

You could hear it in voice. His voice was forceful and you could make no mistake that it was from the depths of his being. It cut through the uproar of buying and selling and bargaining and auctioning, “It is written my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.

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I suppose you might say he was justified in his anger. These people selling in the outer court were preying on the people.  They were  exploiting them.  They were trying to make huge profits from religion. The people had to have sacrifices didn’t they? And everyone knew that you would be expected to pay twice as much for animals and birds inside the Temple gates than they did on the outside.

Exploitation like this make a lot of people angry. Rich people exploiting poor people, rich nations exploiting poor nations, huge multi nationals exploiting people in third world countries. Business in our own country trying to convince us to spend money that we don t have on things that we don t need. It is easy to imagine that man Jesus  with in his mouth set and his eyes blazing, standing in the midst of one of our mega-malls in the midst of all the mass buying hysteria and confusion that takes place. in the name of celebrating his birth. It is easy to visualize him going into one of our modern TV studios to confront those who collect huge sums of money for themselves in the name of religion, because people  who exploited in the. name of religion earned his greatest wrath. The questions of a old song by Ray Stevens plays in the background to my reflections, “Would Jesus wear a Rolex watch in his Television show?”

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There was something more to it than the anger over exploitation. I think that some of his followers were beginning to realize that when they saw this imposing figure standing in the midst of the crowds of people and driving the merchants out, that they were on the threshold of a new era. Perhaps that’s why in John’s gospel it is a story told at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. It had implications for all that was to follow. (In the synoptic Gospels it was just before his crucifixion.) Here he was standing there as some kind of auditor on the old ways. When he began to teach in the temple about the new way, there were many people hanging on every word, but there were others, mostly the. leaders in the old system, who were plotting to get rid of this auditor. And if you listen very closely behind the event, you can hear the sound of their gods, the gods that they had created, dying.

Jesus stands in the midst of us in all the  crowds and confusion of our age as auditor of our life and the gods that we have created. And if you keep your eyes on him you realize that the gods of this age are sick unto death.

Frederick Buechner has a beautiful description of the death of our gods in one of his books.

The gods are dying.  The gods of this world are sick unto death.  If someone does not believe this, the next time he happens to wake up in the great silence of the night or of the day, just listen.  And after awhile, at the heart of the silence, he will hear the soft crazy thud of the feet of the gods as they stagger across the earth, the huge white hands fluttering like moths ; the little moans of bewilderment and anguish . And we all shudder at the sound because to witness the death of gods is a fearsome thing.

Which gods? The gods that we worship. The gods that our enemies worship. Their sacred names? There is Science, for one: he who was to redeem the world from poverty and disease, on whose mighty shoulders mankind was to be borne onward and upward toward the high stars. There is Communism, that holy one so terrible in his predilection for blood sacrifice but so magnificent in his promise of the messianic age: from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Or Democracy, that gentler god with his gospel of freedom for all peoples, including those people who after centuries of exploitation and neglect at the hands of the older democracies can be set free now only to flounder in danger of falling prey to new exploiters. And we must not leave out from this role of the dying what often passes for the god of the church: the god who sanctifies our foreign policy and our business methods, our political views and our racial prejudices. The god who, bless him, asks so little and promises so much: peace of mind, the end of our inferiority complexes. Go to church and feel better. The family that prays together stays together. Not everybody can afford a psychiatrist or two weeks of solid rest in the country, but anybody can afford this god. He comes cheap.

These are the gods in whom the world has puts its ultimate trust. Some of them are our particular gods, and there are plenty of others, each can name for himself. And where are they now? They are dying, dying, and their twilight thickens into night. Where is the security that they promised? Where is the peace? The terrible truth is that the gods of this world are no more worthy of our ultimate trust than are the men who created Them. Conditional trust, not ultimate trust.

And where are we ? we stand lonely, stripped of our securities as hypnotized spectators at the dance of death being played out before us. With all the gods that we have created going or gone, all that may remain is the God that created us brooding over our darkness.  He is awful in his majesty and power as he says, “Let there be light.” …..

The former things are passing away and the gods are dying, just as the former things must pass away and the gods must die so that the new things can begin to come to life beneath the dark wings, so that creation can go on happening.  My questions is this: Are there in us , in you and me now, that recklessness of  the loving heart, that wild courage, that crazy gladness in the face of darkness and death, that shuddering faithfulness even unto the end of the world, through which the new things can come to pass.  Are there in us such qualities as these, which are in fact themselves the first glimmerings of the new things that even now are beginning to come to pass?

Frederick Buechner The Magnificent Defeat Seabury paperback, Seabury Press, New York 1968. pp 24 to26

When we realize that the gods we have created are dying and that they were really not worthy of our ultimate trust.  When we can put them away and totally recognize that God that created us brooding over our darkness like God’s Spirit did at creation,  we are on the threshold of the new era.

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