Creekside Church Sermon of March 2, 1997 "Hot for Holy Sake " John 2:13-22	Rev. David Bibbee
Send this sermon to a friend

I told him that if necessary, I would instruct our large muscular ushers to ask him to leave. "What's your name, anyway?" I asked. "Jesus." "Jesus?" "Yes...Jesus." "I expected you to be more warm and nurturing." "I am, but sometimes I can't help myself." I told him there was plenty to be angry about down at Monk's Lounge, and over at the Pleasureland Museum on County Line Road." He knew all about them, then added that judgment begins with God's house, and that since it is Lent, now is a good time to hear it. As we talked, I understood where he was coming from, and admitted I get upset about Sunday mornings, too. We left it that he would spare us the disturbance today if I would pass along the message. So as best as I can remember, here it is. But just remember, He's doing the talking!

"This is my Father's house!" He said. "This is a place of worship where you bring yourselves into the presence of an awesome, holy God who wants to melt you, mold you, fill you, and use you for His exclusive purposes. God draws you to Himself to purge your lives of every desire but Him, to purge you of all the puny God's you worship, in order to submit yourself to the one true God who again and again gives Himself and longs for adoration, thanksgiving, and the sacrifice of your lives in return. To worship is to get a glimpse of God, high and lifted up and then respond with dedication for God, consecration to God, and consummation in God."

But when I watch you stroll into this meeting with the eternal God, I'm amazed at how self-assured you seem...like you know what you're doing. You sit in your usual pew, check the bulletin to be sure there are no surprises, and then relax, secure in the knowledge that the Holy Spirit won't do anything not printed in the bulletin. Then you prepare yourself for worship by talking to each other while the organist plays, "The Lord is in His holy temple...let all the earth keep silence before him." Would you be genuinely surprised if a voice from heaven cried out, "Be still so you can know I am God?"

Then there are all those announcements. My father says he wished he had never created them. People need to be informed, but even he doesn't know what to do with them in a worship service. I see you stand to sing praises to God, but instead of losing yourselves in the wonder of God's love, you're not pleased because the hymn is new and too fast, or old and too slow. Prayers are recited with the same enthusiasm you would generate from reading an instruction manual for a weed whacker. The sermon brings God down to size...down to a devotional thought, a spiritual massage, or a manageable moral. After the final hymn and benediction you leave satisfied knowing that even though the rest of the world is going down the tubes, that you're all right with God.

You would think that with everything that is wrong with the world, Jesus wouldn't be so hard on our temple gatherings. Just be glad I convinced Him not to come this morning or it would be raining bulletins and offering envelopes, offering plates would be flying like Frisbees. There would be hymnals crashing through the stained glass and my guitar would be wrapped around the pulpit. Cows would be running loose in the aisles and we would run for the exits wondering what's gotten into Jesus. "We've never seen him this mad before."

But during the Passover he was. All four gospels tell the story...all except John put it near the end...after he had endured relentless threats, criticisms, and entrapments; after he had his fill of temple religion. No wonder Jesus blew up. But John puts the temple incident at the beginning, right after the miracle of turning the water to wine. Worship as a transforming encounter with the holy God wasn't a little matter. "Get all this stuff outta here! It's my Father's house, not a board of trade."

Passover celebrates the end of Israel's captivity and Egypt. It was the greatest of feasts, and every male within fifteen miles of Jerusalem was required to attend. But Passover also attracted Jews who had been dispersed into other lands. Their dream was to be able to attend at least one Passover in Jerusalem in their lifetime. Since it wouldn't be convenient traveling long distances with a sacrificial dove, lamb, or cow, these animals were provided. "Get your snow white blemish free, temple approved sacrificial dove...right over here! Get 'em while supplies last!" It was a necessary service for the temple system, and so were money changers. The religious pilgrims brought different kinds of currency which was accepted for all transactions, except at the temple. To pay your temple tax and purchase a sacrificial animal, you needed shekels. For a slight fee the money changers assisted. The system made sense, but it made Jesus mad.

"This stuff doesn't belong here!" He shouted as the whip cracked, fur and feathers flew, and tables were toppled. "But Jesus, what's wrong if it helps folks feel a little better about themselves and a little closer to God?" "I'll tell you...because worship isn't an exchange of goods for services. It isn't appeasing God with burnt offerings. It isn't plopping yourself in a pew and putting a check in the plate and God in your hip pocket!"

In Annie Dillards' book, Teaching a Stone to Talk, she asks, "Why do people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? On the whole," she continues, "I don't find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what power we so blithely invoke?"

The other gospels put this story at the end. But in John, Jesus topples the tables early and sets things straight. The temple is not for transactions. Worship is not about sacrificing a bird, or two percent of your income; it is not about mouthing a hymn and leaving with a blessing.

It would be good to remember that the word worship means worth-ship. It means giving honor, glory, and praise to that which is worthy of such offerings. There is only one object worth our worth-ship and that is God. There is only one object of attention that determines how we order everything else...and that is God. Two hundred and fifty years ago the philosopher Kierkigaard drew a design for worship. In the chancel was the pastor, the cantors, the choir, and the pews sat empty. The pews were empty because he put the congregation in the chancel with everyone else. God was in the pews. The hymns, the prayers, the anthems, are all directed to God, not toward us for our edification.

Are we on the same page? Do we agree that God is the object of our worship? Good. Then why do we speak of the Sunday service as a service station? "My energy gauge is on E and I need a fill up of high octane to make it through the rest of the week." "I need to get my batteries recharged." Why do we evaluate worship on the basis of what we get out of it? "I go to church because I feel better than if I don't," or "I really got something out of worship today." Or the one that really pushes my button..."I just wasn't fed today."

When we catch ourselves talking like this, we are unconsciously saying that worship points toward us. But the temple is God's house, not yours. Not about your desires, but God's. Not about your feeling good, but God's being praised for all He is and all He has done for us. The choir and organist and pianist and pastor don't work hard every week so you'll be entertained. They give their best to God to inspire you to do the same. By the world's standards, what we do here isn't a meaningful activity. What do we have to show for an hour's worth of sitting, standing, and singing? But this hour is judged by a very different standard. It isn't directed toward us, but to God.

Of course this isn't to say we come away empty handed. But any blessing, any insight, any touching of the heart is the result of correct focus. "Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you," Jesus said, or as the old words from the Westminster Catechism say, "What is the chief end of human existence?" "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever." Seeking, glorifying, honoring come first. The goal is to get us disembodied from ourselves and our wants and desires in order to be ushered into the presence of the high, holy, Other so we then know how to tailor all our relationships to God and to one another.

Karl Menninger in his book, Whatever Became of Sin, describes the absence of this attitude which led the pastor of a wealthy, comfortable suburban church to write these thoughts on his bulletin as the parishioners filed into the pews:

Here they come, my nonchalance, my lazy dazies,
Their dainty perfume disturbing the room,
The succulent smell seductive as hell.

Here they are my pampered flamboyance,
Status spoiled, who bring with exquisite zing,
Their souls spic and span protected by Ban,
Their hearts young and gay decked in handsome clich‚,
Exchanging at my call with no effort at all,
Worship for whispering,
God for gossiping,
Theology for television.

Baptized in the smell of classic Channel
I promote their nod to a jaunty God
Who, they are sure, is a sparkling gem
Superbly right for them.

There they go my in crowd,
My soft-skinned crowd,
My suntanned, so-so elegant, swellegant,
Natty, delectable, suave, cool, adorable,
DAMNED!

Jesus didn't explode in the temple because he was having a bad day. God's peaceful man of Galilee was also an angry confrontive man as well. This was a pivotal incident. The fact that all four gospels report it tells us so. The God of Jesus Christ is no take me or leave me God; no worship at your convenience when you're in the mood and whatever turns you on God; we're not talking about a however you want to worship, let's be casual and laid back God. The veins in Jesus' forehead are bulging, the whip is cracking as he drives the people out of their controlled, predictable sacrifices for blessings worship.

And they shouted at him over the stampede of animals and worshippers, "Who do you think you are coming in here and venting your anger like this?" "Destroy this temple, and three days I'll raise it up," Jesus said. What an odd answer. "Three days? It took forty-six years to build this place. What are you talking about?" Well, in another forty years Rome would destroy that temple. But Jesus was speaking of a different one. Sixteen chapters later in John, Jesus was beaten, stripped like a peeled grape, nailed to a cross to die, and sealed in a tomb, but only for three days. The anger of God over sin and death, and the love of God for people who misplace the object of worship, led God to provide a new temple.

What is the sign for real religion? Not a building, for sure. Not a location. Not some trendy worship they're using at that new church down the street that's bulging at the seams. Not a worship that focus's first on people's wants and needs and desires. Not in some plan that brings God down to five points you can put on your refrigerator. No...the temple at which we worship is not built with bricks and mortar but with the body and the blood. Anything else isn't worthy of our worth-ship.

When you meditate upon the great lengths God went and the great sacrifice God spent to provide this temple, you begin to realize that it is a big, holy business we are about. Then you begin to understand the point of worship and then you begin to preserve the integrity of worship. Then we will judge it not by what we get out of it, but what we are willing to give to it.

All of the sermons that have appeared in text form on our Web Site since August 1996 are available here in the On-Line version. Use the search engine below to find the sermon you want. You may search by date, sermon title, or content. The sermons are full-text searchable.

Sermon Search:



Exact phrase    All words (AND)    Any word (OR)