Collect
Creator God
who on the third day of creation called the trees into existence, Your Son once
saw fit to curse a tree that promised fruit and offered none. Grant that we
might live out the promise our faith professes by truly bearing the fruit of
the Spirit, so that in us a spiritually starved world might indeed find the
presence of Your Son, Our Lord, Christ Jesus, in whose name we pray, Amen.
Right Panel: The World
A few weeks ago I needed a rental
car for a business trip. I arrived at the rent-a-car place which, for reason
that will matter in a moment, is located on Ocean Drive right across from the
bay front. I arrived in a carpeted office with comfortable chairs and central
air conditioning. A polite, well-dressed young man sat behind the counter at what
I assume was a state-of-the-art computer. He clicked a few buttons and
announced, "Yes," he smiled, "I have your reservation right
here, but I'm sorry: We don't have any cars."
"You mean," I said,
"you don't have the model of car I requested, so now I'll get an upgrade
for the same money?"
"No," he replied, "I
mean we don't have any cars."
"You mean," I pursued,
"you don't have the model of car I requested or the next size up, so I'll
have to settle for a compact at a discount?"
"No," he replied again,
"I mean we don't have any cars."
"Let me get this
straight," I breathed. "You're the rent-a-car store, and you don't
have any cars?"
"Yes, that's right."
So I leveled my prophetic index
finger at his nose, fixed him with my glittering eye and thundered, "May
no one rent cars from you again!"
Well, no, I didn't. I did say, I hope politely, "I know this isn't
your fault, but I'm never going to rent from your company again, and you should
tell someone higher up the food-chain that if you keep this up, your whole
business will go under." I could have said - though I didn't - "At
this rate, you might as well take this whole place across the street and toss
it into the bay!" As an interesting side-note, my prophecy came true: I
had occasion to walk by that very office suite just last week and found it cleaned
out, completely empty and shut down.
Central Panel: Jesus in the Text
Put a mental bookmark there and turn
with me to the story in our text. This is a bizarre miracle, isn't it? As far
as I can figure, this is Jesus' only DE-structive miracle. Everywhere else he
makes food; here he destroys the potential for food. Everywhere else he heals
the sick; here he sickens the healthy. Everywhere else he raises the dead; here
he puts a living thing to death. And why? He acts out of what, in anyone else,
we could call a temper tantrum: The one who refused to do a miracle to make
food when he was hungry now does a miracle because he was hungry and couldn't
find food! What's going on?
To understand, we have to look at
the story in its larger context. This is part of a structure that Bible
scholars - we love fancy theological terms - call a "Markan
Sandwich." (You won't find THAT on the menu at Subway!) This one is
actually about figs so if you prefer, we can call it a Marcan Fig Newton™. This
morning we read the cursing of the fig tree and the fulfillment of the curse.
In between, in v.16-20, Jesus carries out what I learned in Sunday School to
call "the cleansing of the temple." But I don't think that's what's
really going on. I think what Jesus performs is a symbolic destruction of the
temple. I'll give three reasons, though there are others.
First, look at what Jesus does: He
gets rid of the money changers, the guys selling sacrificial animals, and won't
let anyone carry any kind of container. (v.15-16) Now, there was some crooked
dealing going on here but these things were not bad in themselves. People came
to the Temple at Passover from all over the world to do their religious duty.
They had to pay the Temple tax, and you couldn't pay it with foreign money
because those coins had a picture of the ruler on them and the Jews considered
that a violation of the second commandment, the one against graven images. And you had to haves an animal to sacrifice; since most
Jews came from far away and weren't herdsmen, they needed to purchase an
animal. The sacrifices also involved flour and oil, things they carried in
jars. So Jesus basically shuts down the whole sacrificial system, the mechanism
God had given Israel to remain in relationship to God.
Next, look at what Jesus says:
"My house shall be called a house of prayer
for al nations, but you have made it a robber's den." (v.17) He's quoting
Jeremiah 7.11, where Jeremiah prophesies the destruction of the Temple by the
Babylonians, an event which took place in Jeremiah's lifetime. Those ancient
Jews thought the Temple was magical and could not fall. They believed in the
Temple, not the God of the Temple, and it proved fatal. For an entire
generation, the Jews had no place to come and seek God. Jesus warns that the
same thing is going on here.
Finally, look at Jesus' vocabulary:
"A den of thieves," says the King James, or "robbers" in
most other versions. That is a literal translation but it misses a cultural
nuance. In Jesus' day there were Jews who advocated a military revolt against
the Romans. These groups included the Zealots, the Siccarii or
"Daggermen," and some others. They were sort of the Tea Party extreme
of Judaism in that time. They would conduct terrorist strikes against the Roman
army and then hole up in the limestone caves out in the deserts, as King David
once did. The people called them "robbers" because, in the name of
funding their revolution, they stole from their countrymen. Jesus hangs on the
cross between two "robbers" (Mk 15.27). We know he took the place of
Barabbas, whom the Romans had condemned for armed political revolt (Mk 15.7). So
probably the two "robbers" were actually revolutionaries who took
part in the same uprising. Add all that up and you get Jesus saying that the Jews
are using the Temple as a political symbol instead of a place to find God and
that as a result the Romans will destroy it. That, by the way, is exactly what
happened about thirty-five years later. So, Jesus says, you've turned the House
of God into your own private Alamo and it will come to the same end, except
there will be no San Jacinto, no ultimate victory.
Now, go back to the fig tree: Jesus
curses it for making false promises, for being a fig store with no figs. Then
he symbolically destroys the temple for being the God store with no God. Look
carefully at what he says in v.23: "Truly I say to you, whoever says to
this mountain, 'Be taken up and cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his
heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted
him." Notice: "this mountain"
and "the sea." For a
first-century Jew standing on the Mount of Olives, right across the Kidron
Valley from the Temple, the phrase "this mountain" can only mean one
thing: Mount Zion, the Temple mount. I've stood where Jesus was standing; you
can see the Eastern Gate clearly. And in the same cultural and geographical
setting, "the sea" can only mean one thing: the Dead Sea, that
lifeless sump just to the south that covers the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah,
the most proverbially wicked cities in Jewish thought. And remember Jesus'
emphatic language to the fig tree. In the original language it is quite
exaggerated. He literally says, "No longer forever ain't nobody going to
eat figs from you."
His teaching here re-enforces his
action there; the tree and the temple speak the same truth: "If you
believe I know what I'm talking about, then make up your minds that your
precious Temple is going into oblivion and never coming back." There will
never be another Temple, and even if there is, it will be of no theological
significance to Christians. I know all about Ezekiel 41 and the vision of a new
temple, but interpret that passage by Revelation 21.22. Jesus is our new temple
and Ezekiel's vision helps us understand how he will minister to us.
Left Panel: The Church
So - a car store with carpet,
chairs, air conditioning, computers, and polite, well-groomed employees. . .but
no cars. And a fig tree with a sturdy trunk and healthy branches and thick,
fragrant leaves. . .but no figs. And a God store with impressive architecture,
sacrificial money and animals and materials, a legitimate priesthood descended
from the high priest Aaron. . .but no God.
And here is my question: Are we ever
a Jesus store with no Jesus? We have a lovely building - debt-free and with a
roof that no longer leaks! We have great music and gifted preaching. We have
friendly faces and warm greetings. We have lots of programs and classes. But do
we have Jesus?
Sometime you should read Revelation
2-3. The risen Christ speaks to seven churches, seven literal, historical,
local churches in Asia Minor: Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamos, Thyatira and
Sardis and Philadelphia, and Laodecia. And Jesus says to the first of these
churches, "I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its
place -unless you repent." He says something along those lines to almost
all of these churches. He's not talking about any individual Christian losing
her salvation. He is saying to a church - a specific local church in a given
geographical location - "If you are the Jesus store and you are out of
Jesus, I will shut you down, blow you up, cave you in and drown you out."
You know, of all the disciples, I
have always envied Philip the most. When Philip goes to his pal Nathaniel in
John 1 and says, "We have found the Messiah and it's Jesus of
Nazareth," what does Nathaniel reply? "Can any good thing come out of
Nazareth?" Nathaniel was from Bethsaida, where they told Nazarene jokes: How
many Nazarenes does it take to light an oil lamp? One hundred: One to light a flame
and ninety-nine to squeeze the olive tree. So what does Philip do? Launch into
a long argument proving Jesus is a direct descendant from King David? Tell him,
"No, no - he's from Nazareth but
he was born in Bethlehem, just like Micah says!" Do a full exposition of
the Suffering Servant songs from Isaiah to demonstrate that the messiah will be
of lowly origin? No; he just says, "Come and see."
And I've always envied the woman at
the well in John 4. When she hot-foots it into Sychar and tells everyone,
"I think I've met the messiah," how does she get them to listen? Does
she go into 2 Kings 17 and lay out the whole history of the Samaritan race and
religion and say, "See? We got it wrong. Their temple in Jerusalem is the
right one and ours on Mount Gerazim was a mistake!"? No, she just says,
"Come and see!"
I envied them because when I would
share Christ with my friends at school they would bring up all these arguments
and questions. I could answer most of them but it seemed so complicated and
anyway I got the idea they weren't really concerned about the arguments - they
just didn't really want to hear it. And I wished I could just say, "Come
and see," and walk with them to Jesus and let Jesus take over because of
course he would do everything right. It just didn't seem fair that Philip and
the Samaritan woman could say that and I couldn't.
Then one day it hit me: Jesus says
to his disciples, also in the Gospel of John, "It is to your advantage
that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if
I go, I will send Him to you." (Jo 16.7) If Jesus was physically nearby
and I could take people to him, he would be too far away to be available to
people in foreign countries like China or Afghanistan or Oklahoma. But if I let
the Holy Spirit control my life, if each believer lets the Holy Spirit control
her life, Jesus can always be everywhere and anyone can say at any time to
anyone else: Come and see! And, since I'm never going to be enough like Jesus
to handle that all by myself, I need a church full of Spirit-filled people so,
when I'm off my game, I can still say to someone, "Come with me to church
and see Jesus."
Bottom line: If we're going to be
the Jesus store, we'd better have Jesus.
And what might that look like? It
isn't as complicated or intimidating as you might think. Just last week Amanda
Alaniz, who is a member here, posted something on her Facebook page for
Throwback Thursday and I asked her permission to share it. It was the third
anniversary of her coming to Lexington and this is what she wrote:
I stayed because before and after the first service
people introduced themselves to me, welcomed me, and when I went back they
remembered my name. I stay not because of amazing music (although ours is
pretty great), or flashy worship, or a large college/singles group but because
I'M WELCOMED. I was seeking community and authenticity and I found it.
That's
pretty much it. She came here to the Jesus store and she found Jesus!
Conclusion
I'm going to wrap this up by
suggesting a few different ways to respond. For those of use who are Christians
and members of Lexington, I suggest we make a renewed commitment to making sure
we have plenty of Jesus in stock. But how does that work? Well, how did it work
for Nathaniel and the woman at the well? They could say, "Come and
see" because they knew where Jesus was. And they knew that because they'd
just been spending lots of time with Him. We need to pledge ourselves,
individually and as a community, to doing the same - lots of time in worship,
lots of time in prayer, lots of time in God's word and, incidentally, lots of
time with poor people, and sinful people, and sick people, and generally
unpopular people, because Jesus tells us we find him there (Mt 25).
Next, I want to offer a response to
those of you who are Christians but don't have a church home. I know the church
isn't perfect; I know we often run low on Jesus. But I know you aren't perfect
either, that you aren't always completely stocked up on Jesus either. But our
city needs a Jesus store where people can come and find Jesus and you can help
us with that and we can help you. And if it was enough to have your own
personal relationship with Jesus then why did Philip go find Nathaniel and why
did the woman at the well go find the men of her village? So you can respond to
this message by saying, "I want to join this church. I want to help the
Jesus store have a little more Jesus."
Last, I want to offer a response to
anyone here who doesn't have Jesus but would like to. You're here at the Jesus
store. We haven't shown you Jesus perfectly; we may have given you a pretty
warped look at him. But somehow that's still enough that you want to know him. The
figs we feed you here may be a little shriveled, a little sour perhaps, but
it's still sustenance. Come this morning and let's talk about how you can find
Jesus.
Hey,
ReplyDeleteGood stuff.
Also, you accidentally got Phillip and Nathaniel mixed up in the brain to keyboard blender.
Geoff