SERMON SERIES: THE SPIRIT OF LENT—WEEK 3: HOUSE-CLEANER
There’s a TV show on 9 Now called ‘Space Invaders’. It’s about helping people who have accumulated too many possessions in their home and have become deeply attached to them. Unable to break this pattern themselves, their living spaces and family life have consequently become dysfunctional. Stylists go to transform these rooms, but before they do, they lay out all their things in the centre of the room and help the people work through at an emotional and psychological level why they form such entrenched bonds with the possessions they have accumulated. They are then able to dramatically cut down the quantity of their contents and discard them, leading to a huge clean out of their home, and a transformation of their life.
In today’s Gospel reading, we hear that it is God’s house that needs decluttering. It was time for the Passover; the celebration of God’s salvation of his people from slavery to Pharoah, by bringing judgment on Pharoah and the Egyptians. God struck down all the first born, so that there would be no successor to Pharoah’s throne. He instituted a sacrifice and promised to pass over all the homes whose doorways were marked with the blood of the sacrificed lamb. Then he parted the Red Sea and led his people through it, before bringing the waters together again to drown the mighty Egyptian army.
God commanded that this saving act should be commemorated every year, so that future generations could be reminded of his steadfast love. So each year, Jews throughout the land would make the pilgrimage up to Jerusalem. Jesus went too. When he arrived at the Temple, he found those who were selling oxen, sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting in the temple courts.
God had instituted the sacrificial system that required cattle (or doves for those who couldn’t afford cattle) to be sacrificed. For those who travelled for such long distances to go to Jerusalem, or who didn’t have their own animals, it would be necessary for them to acquire some so that they could participate in the sacrificial ritual.
The money changers had a legitimate role too. God had commanded every Israelite who was twenty years old to pay a half shekel as an offering to him (Exodus 30:11-16). This tax was collected during the month before Passover and was either sent in or paid in person by those attending, who had to have Jewish coin. So those who came from lands beyond Israel had to have their currency converted. For this a small rate was charged.
So why did Jesus react this way? Because these vendors were situated in the Court of the Gentiles—the outer area where God-fearers from beyond the borders of Israel were permitted to come to worship. As Jesus enters the Temple precinct, coming into the outer courts, the sight that greets him is not people coming for worship to meet with God, but penned flocks of sheep and oxen, wicker cages with doves, filling that area, while money changers sat, cross-legged at their tables, with piles of coins stacked up. Imagine all the noise, the smell, the hustle and bustle. It was a scene more like the Central Market, than the place of meeting God. Greedy eyes twinkled with gain, there in the entrance court of the Most High. The Temple which was God’s house of prayer for all nations had been defiled, corrupted by people who were only thinking of financial gain for themselves. In so doing they had displaced non-Jews from the Temple. They had come to the right place but for the wrong reason, distracted from the one thing needful—coming to a merciful God in repentance, trusting in his promise of divine favour through faith.
So making a whip of cords, Jesus drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” (Psalm 69:9). The cleansing of the Temple is about Jesus bringing into line what his Father’s house is for.
The Jews said to Jesus: “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” In other words: “Who do you think you are, coming in here, doing that? We want to see some ID—what are you going to show us to prove your authority to do this! So Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?”
Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body. The fullness of God no longer dwells a stone Temple in Jerusalem, but in the flesh and skin of Jesus, for in Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Colossians 1:19). In the person of Jesus the reign of God is powerfully at work in the world with grace, forgiveness, favour and blessing. At the start of Lent Jesus proclaimed: “Repent and believe the Good News!” This is an invitation in the present, even for us today, for people to turn to him with their sin so that he can take it from them.
Jesus is the new Temple but also the new Passover Lamb. We are a week closer to remembering God’s new Passover in Christ, when Jesus took bread and broke it and gave it to his disciples and said: ‘Take and eat, this is my body given for you.’ In the same way after the supper, he took the cup and said: ‘Drink of it all of you, this is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ Because of the blood of Christ crucified painted over the doorway of your heart, God passes over you in judgment, for he brought judgment on the sin of the world on his own Son. By his precious blood he has ransomed you from sin, death and hell and reconciled you to God.
We now are another week closer to commemorating that death; a sacrificial death unlike any other of the sacrificed animals at the old Temple at Jerusalem, for Jesus’ sacrificial death means that there is now no longer any animal sacrifice needed to be made for our sin to be taken away and be reconciled to God. Jesus is that once-for-all sacrifice—a sacrifice unlike any other, for it ended in resurrection.
The only sacrifice God is now interested in is your heart, as King David prayed in his great Psalm of confession:
For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise (Psalm 51:16-17).
Lent, especially, is a time when we reflect on where our heart is with God. Just as our homes need regular cleaning, so also do our hearts. Jesus said:
“It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
…whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled. But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person” (Matthew 15:11, 17-20).
What are the evil thoughts we keep to ourselves? What is it we think, say and do in our secret life that we would never want known in public? What are the motives behind our behaviours? What needs do we try to meet with the actions we take, and are they ones that build others up, and honour others, especially those in the family of God? What do we look to, and go to, and cling to for comfort when we feel anxious and fearful, and things seem out of control?
Jesus said: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). In today’s Gospel, it was clear what the cattle marketeers and moneychangers treasured. It wasn’t God. Lent, especially, brings us to the point of reflecting: “What is it that we treasure above all else?” In our life what distracts us from listening to Jesus, and gladly hearing and learning his word—and being doers of it? What priority do we give to following Jesus in our daily life? What decluttering needs to take place in our heart? What needs driving out, and what tables need overturning? The display Jenny has put on the pinup board I think connects profoundly with this: ‘Make room for Jesus’. Lent, especially, is a time calling us to focus on—how much room in our life—in our heart—do we make for Jesus?
By nature, cleaning up—or more accurately cleaning out—our hearts, and making room for Jesus, is not something we can do ourselves. In fact, we do the opposite. We do not clean out, but cover up. Like a hasty clean-up of the house when family or friends announce a visit at short notice—sweeping dust under the rug, piling up dirty dishes in the dishwasher or oven to hide them, pushing the overflowing ironing pile into the laundry, gathering the stuff lying around and throwing it in the spare room and closing the door on it—the house might seem clean on the outside…but we have just pushed it down, pushed it away, out of sight. Like the families who feature on the Space Invaders show need others from outside of themselves to clean out that which they hoard, we need the work of the Holy Spirit, to create in us a clean heart. And he does! In Luther’s Small Catechism explanation to the Third Article of the Creed, he said:
“The Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, and sanctified and kept me in truth faith. In the same way he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it united with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. In this Christian Church day after day he fully forgives my sins and the sins of all believers. On the last day he will raise me and all the dead, and give me and all believers in Christ eternal life.”
As you come to worship, as you spend time in God’s word each day, the Spirit of Lent goes to work for you, and in you. He doesn’t wait for us to be able to clean out our heart before he comes to us. He lives in you. For your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God. The Holy Spirit is our house-cleaner; our heart cleaner. He keeps sanctifying your heart—making it pure and holy—as he goes to work through God’s living and active word, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).
The Good News is that God goes to work, creating in us a clean heart, not so that we can become God’s dearly loved children, but because we already are. You are not your own; you were bought at a price. That price is the precious blood of the Passover Lamb—the costly price God paid for you. And you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20a and 11), that with King David, we might pray:
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me” (Psalm 51:10-12). Amen.
