Outrageous!

It is not uncommon to hear people articulate reactions and assert opinions in the superlative. It is common to hear exaggerated responses within human interaction. Maybe this has always been the case. Notice the frequency when you hear the following modifiers: worst, best, awesome, necessary, absolutely, and perfect. Not every time I use the word “awesome” has the thing moved me to a state of awe. If I say something is perfect, I often mean I approve of it, and it is perfect only in a relative sense. If I say something is the best or the worst, I have never done any broad survey or testing. We throw around the words “necessary’ and “absolutely’ which have an extreme, specific, literal meaning. In informal speech, we are not careful with words; we exaggerate a bit.

In some fields, precision and accuracy are required for the effectiveness and integrity of the particular work. Science is a good example. Studies are run. Language, charts, and such are used to report the data. Precision is required and standardized terminology is applied to keep things clear. The same precision is required, for example, in accounting and law. A scientist can’t falsify data and stay in science. If an accountant is found to have cooked the books to exaggerate profits or hide things, that is for him or her. In our pronouncements around the proverbial “water cooler,” however, we feel free to state things as wildly as we want based on hunches. In general, it would probably help if we avoided exaggerations and superlatives in all of our speech, and learned to use cautious precision in our communication. Or is it impossible for us consistently to mean what we say, and say what we mean?

In the second chapter of the Gospel according to John, we find a story of high human reactivity. We will hear it as our Gospel reading this Sunday. It is the story of Jesus, making the trip to Jerusalem just before the Jewish Passover. When he walks in he sees the place bustling with the money-exchange business that funds the institution of animal sacrifice. He fashions a whip of rope-cords drives out the animals, and overturns the money changers’ tables, sending their coins flying. Jesus shouts, “Take those things out of here. Don’t dare any longer turning my Father’s house into a market!”

If the whole scene were sketched out as a picture, the caption underneath could be “Outrageous!” and we would be left to wonder if the utterance was applied to the operations of the Temple or the actions of Jesus. To the onlookers, the staggering behavior of Jesus was outrageous. To Jesus, the arrangement of commerce is outrageous. There was a temple tax every Jew over nineteen years of age had to pay to underwrite the cost of animals for sacrifice daily.  There was currency from several realms in play in Jerusalem: that of Tyre, Sidon, Egypt, Rome, Greece, and Palestine proper. But for purity's sake, the temple tax had to be paid with Galilean or Temple shekels. The fee for the exchange was steep. So, how pure is the practice of gaining profits by marking up the coin exchange? It feels as though they are told, “You too can have ritual purity, for a price.”

We see how this practice hits a nerve with Jesus. The very place intended to bring God and humanity into a union is the site for those in charge to separate people from their wallets. The space the establishment uses as a lucrative marketplace is for Jesus, his Father’s house. He makes a scene for a very precise reason.

There is something else outrageous in what Jesus says. I don’t think it was lost on those present, certainly not on the early church telling this story. Jesus identifies himself as the son of God because he indicates the Temple to be his Father’s house. He then in a more hidden way, identifies himself as the new temple of God. When horrified authorities confront Jesus, asking him to produce a sign that would authorize such behavior, Jesus Indicates that should they destroy this temple, he will rebuild it in three days. Jesus says that God is his Father, and his body itself is the temple of God, is the real outrage, Only, it is true, so it is not so much outrageous as it is astounding!

For your own enrichment, read the passage yourself:

 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 Jews 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 Jews 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.

—John 2:13-22

The covenant of God and the commandments come to us, and over time, sadly we find ourselves turning precious gifts into something small for our selfish gain. We learn Jesus is acting not wildly and randomly in his reaction. He is turning us around with a very specific message. He is not sensationalizing things as a muckraker, he is redirecting us as Messiah and Savior. It would be outrageous of us to recognize this, and refuse to follow him. Let our pilgrimage with Jesus go on, even to the foot of the cross.