Year B Lent 3 2024 Things Real and Unreal

 Year B Lent 3, 3 March 2024

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“Things Real and Unreal”

Collect: Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

John 2:13-22

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The[ Jewish Leaders] then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The [ Jewish Leaders]  then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

“You cannot serve God and mammon.” That is how you may have first learned this idea. It is the King James Version, and its old sounding words were intentional when it came out. The New Revised Standard Version, the version we use here in church, puts the whole verse this way:

‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.’ Matthew 6:24

This is Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Wealth and money are a tool, but they are not the end, the “be all, end all.” Far from it.

While this verse is not in today’s readings, it does set up Jesus’ view of money, and money is one of the topics that Jesus talked about most. This construct we have is even one step removed from the money used in Jesus’ day. At least then the coins had the value of the metal used. Our paper money is a construct of a construct. 

And for us to get these constructs straight, you may be asking yourself, “Rock, what do you mean by construct?”

It is when we give something power or meaning beyond what it has on its own, and we mutually agree that this construct, which we made up, we will treat as if it is real. 

Imagine this: If I started pulling out $100 bills and lighting them on fire, one of you would run up here and stop me. Maybe because I should not be lighting fires in the church, but more so because I they are $100 bills. While printed on nice linen paper, it is still paper which we have together agreed has value. I can trade that piece of paper and several of us could go and have a meal together. What I can do with this thing is real, while the construct is not. National borders are the same way. We agree that there is a line where there is no actual, physical, visible line. People fight and die over those constructs. While make-believe, they are treated as real.

For many, God is a construct. They have not been introduced to a God that made sense to them or they have not had a profoundly personal interaction with the Almighty. I have said this before, when someone says around me that they are an atheist they often look to see if I react. I don’t. That is theirs and their experience. If I am able and they seem open I do ask them to describe the God they do not believe in. The times when people have taken me up on it, their construct of what “God” is supposed to be is a monster. Cruel. Harsh. Judgmental. Vindictive. I have always been able to say that I would not and do not believe in that God either. Really, it is their construct of a God that I could not fathom. But this is the one that someone, somewhere presented to them, and they rejected it. I would have as well.

And so that is where Jesus comes in, presenting a loving, relational, personal God. A God of Grace. A God of Forgiveness. A God like the Prodigal Son’s Dad. A God who weeps with us and welcomes us home.

With this in mind, we need to hear what Jesus is saying. ‘You cannot serve God and wealth.’

Don’t trade God who you know for some unknowable construct. Don’t trade love for power. Don’t give up things eternal for things whose meaning can disappear in a snap.

For Jesus, it is all about relationship, with God, with one another. At the end of the day, our relationships are the only things that are real. Some are new. Some are life-long. Some are hurting. Some are blooming.

This story about Jesus seems out of character, unless you filter it through that idea. That idea that relationships for Jesus are the be-all, end-all.

In recent years a joke has been made about this story. We all have probably seen the WWJD bracelets, and hats, and t-shirts, etc. 30 years ago they were everywhere. Since memes have become so huge on social media, I have heard “Next time you are asked, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ Remind them that flipping over tables and chasing people with a whip is within the realm of possibilities.” While funny, he was making a huge point.

Jesus’ rage over the activities going on in the Temple was understandable. Prayer. Prayer was the reason for the Temple, not commerce. The booths were established for a reason, but then they became a means to an end.

The Temple put up with it because it got its cut. Dirty Roman money with a graven image on it, Caesar’s head, could not be used to pay the Temple tax. Good Jewish money with a menorah or other Jewish symbol on it could be used. So the moneychangers were there to exchange foreign currencies to the one and only place where it could be used, here at the Temple.

The sheep and cattle being sold were for sacrifices. Pure, unblemished. If bought there you did not have to bring one from far away over so many miles. While astronomically expensive, for many it saved so much headache and they were guaranteed to be taken as acceptable. It was worth the cost if you could afford it.

For Jesus, the commerce taking place had ceased to be a practical or even honoring thing. It was all being done for money. Money had become the reason for the Temple to be there instead of prayer.

Slight pause here, Prayer is the foundation of our relationship with God. Scripture is another. But the Temple was to be a house of Prayer first and foremost, so it was to be a place of relating to and with God. The stench of the animal pens that one had to go through to worship seemed out of place, and rightly so.

There are some tables we need to flip over in our lives, and maybe in our church. When we put outcomes and bottom lines above relationships and our faithfulness, yeah, we need to flip the tables. If someone took our building away, our church would still be here. If someone took Ashland away, we would still have a mission to spread God’s relationships and grow in ours with God. When this world is taken away, the one thing remaining will be your relationship with God. Alpha, Omega, Beginning, and End.

Today we gather(ed) for our Annual Meeting as a parish. We were able to see what took place in the previous year. We are in a time of high anxiety, and whenever we go through a period like the one we find ourselves in, people are cautious with the money. It is only natural. Because of that, we have had to have several monetary conversations. Every time we do I am reminded of today’s readings. 

Being reflective, I have to ask, are we gathering, or sending out this letter, or mentioning money in a sermon to further relationships or to be transparent in relationships? Or am I like the Temple leadership who were happy to take their cut of the marketplace’s income? We are very cautious around these topics.

But like you all, the church has bills. We have a wonderful space with which we are very generous. We have been and we aim to be in the future. We have these facilities to sponsor ministries or to further relationships. Like the money needed to keep them up, the facilities as nice as they are are merely a tool for the work God has given us to do.

We gather at the Annual Meeting to remind ourselves, no matter how often we attend, no matter which service we go to, no matter how long we have called this fellowship our spiritual home, we remind ourselves that we are the Church Family of St. James the Less. 

As a family we learn and grow from these truths.

Don’t trade God who you know for some unknowable construct. Don’t trade love for power. Don’t give up things eternal for things whose meaning can disappear in a snap.

We are a twig on the diocesan limb of the Episcopal branch of the Jesus movement. As we care for our family on each of these levels, God will be glorified and make Godself at home with us. As Revelation closes we hear God speak these words:

“See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them;

they will be his peoples,

and God himself will be with them and be their God. (21:3) 

That is the relationship God wants with us and for us. Everything else is nothing. Amen