Not long ago I was once again reminded of this struggle when I read Psalm 127:

“A Song of Ascents. Of Solomon. Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD guards the city, the guard keeps watch in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved.” (Psalms 127:0–2)

Some queries arise for me from this:

• Am I allowing the Lord to build the house? And, practically speaking, because I am one driven by a deep sense of praxis, what does it actually look like to create space for the Lord to build the house?

• Do I insert myself into as many situations as possible, believing that my involvement, my presence can somehow “save” the day?

• Do I trust God enough to allow God to do what it is God wants to do?

Recently I preached on a passage out of 1 John that reads:

“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.” (1 John 5:1–2)

This led me to thinking about the questions dealing with God giving birth (the greek language found in these verses uses wonderful mothering language around “begotten” and “to give birth too.”

So I wonder:

• “What is Born of God?” And am I able to recognize it when it happens? Or do I try and explain it away because it is something that deeply challenges or confronts me?

• Am I working on my own relationship to God in a way that I can truly and faithfully say that I will love whatever it is that God gives birth too (Loving the one giving birth leads to loving the one birthed)?

These are difficult questions. Questions that I continue to sit with. But part of what I recognized in meditating on these passages was my own need to nurture “that of God” within me. I need to recognize and be open to what God is birthing in myself, and if I cannot respond appropriately to that, how can I expect to respond appropriately to what God is birthing in those around me and in the world?

I am not interested in feeling guilty about not doing it right, or beating myself up because I constantly try to “do it myself,” or because I have little faith. I gave up on shame-based Christianity a long time ago. I know that God’s love is deep and wide. But I am interested in growing in my own awareness and growing in a way that I actually believe/live that is more free, not less. This is a different interaction with myself and others insofar my role becomes less about creating, doing and birthing something myself (the constant drive to overfunction) and more about noticing, listening, drawing out, and asking good questions (seeking a more non-anxious existence).

Some of the Basics*

Amazon is one of those companies that’s kind of off-limits for the typical American consumer. I mean, who owns a computer and hasn’t purchased at least one thing from Amazon? I know I have. And who can argue with such a “successful” business model? After-all, shouldn’t we capitalists encourage this kind of economic triumphalism? Amazon proves that capitalism still “works,” at least for some. And who doesn’t want to save money on a book, you’d could buy down the street at the local bookshop for $10 more? A number of years ago, when I was still using the “service” I used to make decent money selling my used books and getting ad-revenue from their site. So I get it, I understand why people are drawn to it.

Yet, is just like the big bully who continues to use his size and wealth to push around the little people. In my book, bullying of any kind, whether on the playground or in capitalist economics, is not okay. For instance, Amazon has been cited for its ill-treatment of its employees and has been critiqued as one of the main causes for crushing local-economies (specially in relation to bookstores). It was also caught encouraging its smartphone app users to go into their local stores, scan prices on items they wanted to buy, and then purchase those same items at Amazon.com for a discounted price. This was like the wolf just pulling the sheep’s clothing off and taking a more direct approach to gathering sheep. It confirmed very blatantly many people’s sneaking suspicions that Amazon was after local economies. And all of this is not to mention the fact that Amazon has been known to be anti-union see here, here and here, which is a very big deal for me.** And there are plenty of other reasons to boycott Amazon offered as well. Amazon signifies what the world looks like under the new Wal-Martization economic plan.

As poverty activist Willie Baptist says,

Either we’re dealing with a teddy bear or we’re dealing with a grizzly bear, and either estimate will determine your set of tactics, your organizing approach. If you think you’re dealing with a teddy bear and in reality it’s a grizzly bear coming at you, you’re going to be in trouble. So this estimate of the situation is absolutely crucial to the process Link.

Not only is Amazon a grizzly, but it’s a hungry grizzly that keeps getting stronger.

Coming At Quakers

But now our not-so-friendly Grizzly has hit an new low and this time it’s going after the Quakers.

Recently, the Oregonian reported that Amazon has been employing
Dynamic Pricing which is a euphemism for bait-and-switch pricing (even if it is legal). The Oregonian writes:

She browsed Amazon.com and, after sifting through several pages of options, settled on a set for $54.99. She placed it in her virtual basket and continued shopping for some scorecards and game accessories. A few minutes later, she scanned the cart and noticed the $54.99 had jumped to $70.99.

Plumlee thought she was going crazy. She checked her computer’s viewing history and, indeed, the game’s original price was listed at $54.99. Determined, she cleared out the cart and tried again, first loading the cards and accessories into the cart, then adding the game and clicking checkout. That’s when the game’s price jumped from $54.99 to $59.99.

And while this is shady enough, it gets worse:

Although consumers say such price revisions feel like bait-and-switch, they’re entirely legal. And Amazon’s not alone. Not only do prices move up and down on a regular basis, but also they’re often adjusted based on exactly which customer is mulling a purchase.

The practice, called price customization or dynamic pricing, weighs factors as it sets prices such as a customer’s income, buying habits, or the popularity of an item on a given day.

This was the part that really caught me by surprise. This is none other than sizing-up their clients before to determine just how much that customer should pay for a product.

And if any of you know something about Quaker history you’ll know that this is a direct affront to a practice Quakers put in place hundreds of years ago: fixed price-tags.

As Ben Pink Dandelion writes:

As well as closing their shops on Wednesdays and Sundays, when Quakers came together in worship, and opening them on Christmas day if that fell on neither a Wednesday or a Sunday [When they gathered for worship], Quaker traders bought and sold at fixed prices rather than haggle. This was an unusual practice but reflected their testimony to truth and integrity. Indeed, in the way many Quaker practices have now become generally adopted, this one gained the Quakers a reputation for honesty and led them into the nascent banking industry.

Quakers believed that the practice of sizing-up customers and haggling was one that often took advantage of the poor and lacked integrity and truth in business; so they invented the price tag. This kept things fair and honest, and you knew that it didn’t matter what you wore into a store, or what you spoke about, or what your purchasing history would be, you would get a fair price. This was one of the reasons why, in times past, Friends were so successful in business. People went to them because they trusted them.

Quakerism is driven by social witness and a pointing to a more just society based in an understanding of Jesus that challenges the kinds of shady-deals and bullying tactics Amazon and Wal-Mart are known for. But what happens when we ourselves benefit from a social structure that is opposed to core convictions of our tradition? Amazon’s tactics challenge Friends to consider their tradition and its relevancy for today.

Are we as Friends dynamic enough to respond to these challenges? Or will we just lament the fact that society no longer uses the fixed price-tag, bemoaning the loss of integrity around us? Have we become too fixed to allow our prophetic witness to be dynamic with God’s Spirit? Let us continue to press for justice and integrity in the world and operate as a prophetic community, even if it costs us.

Will we know how to respond if we see a Grizzly coming?

• a disclaimer:

I’ve made my ill-feelings about Amazon fairly well-known on this blog. And have had many good discussions with people on various ends of the spectrum on the subject. I understand that for some Amazon is a way to get their work out in a way that is not possible otherwise, and I understand that some use Amazon as a way to make a living without actually being apart of Amazon – they use it as a tool. So what I am about to say is not a critique of all possible nuances, and good people everywhere just trying to get by, it is more a challenge and observation about a company that we need to continue to question and address how they use their power and treat those in connection with them.

**Further Reading:
In the Wake of Protest: One Woman’s Attempt to Unionize Amazon.

Truly the Lord hath done great things for us! He hath given us the sight and knowledge of himself in his Son, which is life eternal: he hath given us of the nature and spirit of his Son; he hath given us of the true faith whereby the just lives, and obtains victory over sin, death, and the grave; he hath given us of the hope which purifies the heart, and stays the mind in all storms; he hath given us of the Lambs patience and meekness &c. And now if he will brighten these by afflictions, and try them, and cause them to shine to his glory; yea, and take advantage to increase them, and add further virtue to them, what cause have any of us to complain? Israel of old, after the flesh, murmured upon every trial; but Israel, after the new creation, doeth not so, but blesseth the Lord, and repineth not at the instruments which he permitteth to afflict them; but they love the Lord and love his truth, and are faithful in their testimony thereto, whatever befalls them. Yea, they rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer in any kind for his names sake, and are like lambs before the shearers, not opening their mouths in a way of murmuring or reviling; but instead thereof, pitying them, praying for them, and blessing; because God hath made them children of love, children of peace, children of blessing; which nature they retain, in the midst of all their trials and afflictions, and show forth the virtues of Him that hath called them.

So that men shall not put out our life, nor put out our light, nor sever us from the love and power of God; but the more need we find of our God, and of his help and strength, the nearer shall we be driven to him, and dwell more closely in union with him, and in holy and humble dependence upon him. And in this temper shall we draw and receive more from him: and the more we draw from him, the better will it be with us, and the more like him shall we be.

via Isaac Penington to Elizabeth Walmsley 1670.

The politics of Scapegoating or “Scapegoating, Treyvon Martin and Seeds Falling” // The message I gave on March 25, 2012 (John 12:20-33)

_Headlines of a Scapegoat

There are a lot of things happening that have caught my attention in the news recently:

One of the recent news pieces that has captured us all had a headline that read: US Army Sergeant Kills 16 In Afghan Villages (Link). “U.S. officials said the shooter, identified as an Army staff sergeant, acted alone, leaving his base in southern Afghanistan and opening fire on sleeping families in two villages.”

Alabama followed Arizona’s lead by passing a law last year aimed at making everyday life difficult for the state’s estimated 120,000 illegal immigrants. The Alabama law, known as H.B. 56, allowed local police to check the immigration status of people stopped for other crimes, required public school officials to collect data on the number of illegal immigrants enrolling, and forbade illegal immigrants from entering into private contracts or conducting any business with the state (There was a recent This American Life episode on the unintended consequences this is having in AL).

Detroit Free Press headline read: Unhappy public not sure who to blame for high gas

We’re all very familiar with the Sandra Fluke contraception hearing and Rush Limbaugh’s demeaning and hurtful comments.

OneGeorgeFox is a group of LGBTQ students who have recently written a letter to George Fox asking to not be discriminated against any longer. They want to be allowed to have an open conversation about homosexuality on the campus of George Fox, and want discrimination ended. This has created a stir in local churches and is (hopefully) prompting healthy discussions around these things. Right alongside this the new headline runs – Ex-Student Convicted In Rutgers Spying Case: ‘I’m Very Sorry About Tyler (Clementi)’ (Link).

And Most strikingly, and heartbreakingly was the murder of Treyvon Martin, a 17 yr-old African-American who was shot in the chest while walking home from a convenience store. He was killed by a man who was on neighborhood watch. Treyvon was armed only with skittles and a can of iced tea (Link).

What do we notice about all of these things? Each of these recent news stories share a common thread and a modern tendency, and that tendency is to find a scapegoat for our problems. Our subject today is “the politics of scapegoating” and how to address it.

Okay so what is A Scapegoat?

We are all probably familiar with the basic idea of a scapegoat:

A Scapegoat was used back in the Old Testament. In those times during the Jewish Day of Atonement there was a goat offered for the people’s sins. But it is important to note that the goat was never killed.

[slide] Marcus Borg writes “The sins of the people were symbolically placed upon the goat, which was then driven into the wilderness (Lev. 16:20-22). The goat was a “sin-bearer” — but it was not killed, not sacrificed. Indeed, to have offered up a scapegoat laden with sin as a gift to God would have been sacrilege.” (103)

Scapegoating — It is when a person or a group is:

“singled out as the cause of the trouble and is expelled or killed by the group…Social order is restored as people are contented that they have solved the cause of their problems by removing the scapegoated individual, and the cycle begins again. The keyword here is “content”, scapegoating serves as a psychological relief for a group of people. (Wiki)

This morning I am interested in this connection with scapegoats being our “sin-bearers” and offering “psychological relief.”

This is all around us. We do it in our families, we do it at work with our bosses and co-workers. We cast our spouses as scapegoats. We cast “the world” as the real problem. We often make the poor our scapegoats. We are convinced that the problems of society come down to these individuals over here, or those over there.

This constant drive to blame is deeply psychological:

Anything we can do to find some psychological relief, anyone we can strap “sin” onto and send out into the wilderness will be quickly grabbed in exchanged for turning around to look at ourselves.

Obviously these situations are far more complex than anyone problem, any “lone shooter” but to get at the complexities we have to ask questions like: who is being blamed here, and who is being protected? Who is playing the scapegoat? Who do they represent within society? Who are the ones casting the image of “scapegoat” on another? Through questions like this we will begin to see the power dynamics (and often the money) at work.

So here, in the headlines I’ve offered, you have a whirlwind of issues from Gay-rights, to immigrants, to african-americans, politics, sexuality, women’s rights, consumerism and war. These are pretty much the makings of a perfect storm. And in every instance we find ourselves given the opportunity to respond in a variety of ways.

We can root for the underdog, the outsider; we can look for ways to bring about change within the system that creates these problems, we can ignore the problem and hope it goes away, we can look for someone to blame and the list goes on.

Treyvon Martin was a scapegoat, for a neighborhood who was trapped by its fearfulness, and the rage of one man.

1 US soldier will be the scapegoat for a military system that deployed him 4 times knowing that he had PTSD.

The president is the scapegoat for whatever we think is wrong with the country.

Gays and Lesbians are often pegged as the scapegoats for failing heterosexual marriages.

Immigrants are scapegoats for our anxieties around economics and race.

Our children or our spouses are often the scapegoats for our own unhappiness and struggling relationships.

We want someone to blame. We need relief from just how troubling all of this really is.

Even Adam in the garden quickly turned and pointed his finger at Eve:

“The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.”

Abraham and Sarah, even Moses blames others. It’s everywhere, but nowhere are we led to believe that this is the way of Christian discipleship.

Jesus didn’t say you will know my followers by their ability to scapegoat, right? He said you will know them by their love [unconditional] Love. This hardly needs to be stated, but Jesus does not want us to make scapegoats of one another.

Here’s an aside:

I have a question: Where does our need to blame someone else come from?

I think it can come from our understanding of faith. If we understand faith in terms that God is a punitive God who must punish sinners, then God needs someone to blame. In this framework, Jesus becomes a kind of divine Scapegoat; or maybe our Scapegoat is Satan or a Demon (the voices in my head); maybe it is Adam and Eve and the idea of “original sin;” maybe it is this or that…

It should be clear that I do not believe this is how we are to understand faith. We do not get into faith in Christ, so we can get out of being the ones to “blame,” because God is not someone we need to be saved from. In fact, it’s not about blame at all. Growing in faith is about ourselves being transformed into the people who live like Jesus and our society being transformed into a more just and loving place.

As long as we can find “psychological relief” (whether it is Jesus or Treyvon) so that we no longer feel the anxiety to change, then we won’t change.

Scapegoating is about ‘othering,’ while Christianity is about ‘gathering.’

_Seeds Falling

In closing, I should probably say something about John 12. Here Jesus tells one of his shortest parables and it is one of my most favorite:

“Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Then comes the interpretation:

Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.” (John 12:23–26 NRSV)

Here we have Jesus talk directly about what is about to take place with his own life. Like a grain of wheat, he will fall into the earth and die, so that more fruit will be birthed.

Death in this parable is not about a scapegoat, but about a deep transition into something new.

We can let other people take the fall for the injustices all around us, and in doing so the seed only falls and dies. But Jesus tells us, if the seed can fall “into the earth,” that is good soil, soil ready and prepared to do its work, then transformation can take.

This parable is about the process of a metaphorical death that brings about an entirely new way of living and relating in the world. When Jesus dies, it is his Spirit that comes and scatters as though seed, all around the world. John 1 says “the Light enlightens everyone.”

This passage doesn’t stop with Jesus, it is an invitation into death for his followers.

For us, to be like a grain of wheat is to find those ways that we seek to “save our lives” and in the process lose it.

Scapegoating others is a seeking to save our own lives and in the process we die. It is a seeking to protect ourselves from shame, guilt, our own complicities. Scapegoating causes a relief that keeps us from ever feeling the need to change.

So we are invited in parabolic form to lose our lives as though a seed falling to the ground.

As a seed falling to the ground we are asked: why does this person or issue create a strong reaction in me and am I willing to own up to that feelings and work through them?

As a seed falling to the ground we are asked: what attitudes and beliefs do I have that alienate others that God may be asking me to change?

As a seed falling to the ground we are asked: how am I being threatened here, my position, my status, my power, my comforts, and why do I have such a strong allegience to these things when I am invited to come and lose my life that I might live.

As a seed falling to the ground we are asked: why am I so resistant to others who are unlike me, why am I so quick to assume they are wrong, or that they are out to hurt me?

As a seed falling to the ground we are asked: why am I so resisted to letting go of the branch, which keeps me from falling into the earth and being made new?

Open Worship

We must awaken to hope, resisting the temptation to despair that history cannot be any different, that another world is not in fact possible. Here we must remember our sisters Shiphrah and Purah [Hebrew midwives who disobeyed the king of Egypt] and all who have danced defiantly in their footsteps through the ages – women like Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day and Guatemalan poet and Presbyterian human rights activist Julia Esquivel, like Methodist pastor Myrna Bethke, who responded to the loss of her brother in the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York by travelling to Afghanistan to stand with civilian victims of U.S. retaliatory bombing; or like Catholic lay woman Marietta Jaeger, who responded to the brutal murder of her daughter by campaigning against the death penalty. -Ched Myers (From Geez Magazine Spring 2012)

They Have Threatened Us With Resurrection (1980)
by Julia Esquivel; translated by Ann Woehrle

It isn’t the noise in the streets
that keeps us from resting, my friend,
nor is it the shouts of the young people
coming out drunk from the “St. Pauli,”
nor is it the tumult of those who pass by excitedly
on their way to the mountains.

It is something within us that doesn’t let us sleep,
that doesn’t let us rest,
that won’t stop pounding
deep inside,
it is the silent, warm weeping
of Indian women without their husbands,
it is the sad gaze of the children
fixed somewhere beyond memory,
precious in our eyes
which during sleep,
though closed, keep watch,
systole,
diastole,
awake.

Now six have left us,
and nine in Rabinal,* and two, plus two, plus two,
and ten, a hundred, a thousand,
a whole army
witness to our pain,
our fear,
our courage,
our hope!

What keeps us from sleeping
is that they have threatened us with Resurrection!
Because every evening
though weary of killings,
an endless inventory since 1954,**
yet we go on loving life
and do not accept their death!

They have threatened us with Resurrection
Because we have felt their inert bodies,
and their souls penetrated ours
doubly fortified,
because in this marathon of Hope,
there are always others to relieve us
who carry the strength
to reach the finish line
which lies beyond death.

They have threatened us with Resurrection
because they will not be able to take away from us
their bodies,
their souls,
their strength,
their spirit,
nor even their death
and least of all their life.
Because they live
today, tomorrow, and always
in the streets baptized with their blood,
in the air that absorbed their cry,
in the jungle that hid their shadows,
in the river that gathered up their laughter,
in the ocean that holds their secrets,
in the craters of the volcanoes,
Pyramids of the New Day,
which swallowed up their ashes.

They have threatened us with Resurrection
because they are more alive than ever before,
because they transform our agonies
and fertilize our struggle,
because they pick us up when we fall,
because they loom like giants
before the crazed gorillas’ fear.

They have threatened us with Resurrection,
because they do not know life (poor things!).

That is the whirlwind
which does not let us sleep,
the reason why sleeping, we keep watch,
and awake, we dream.

No, its not the street noises,
nor the shouts from the drunks in the “St. Pauli,”
nor the noise from the fans at the ball park.

It is the internal cyclone of kaleidoscopic struggle
which will heal that wound of the quetzal***
fallen in Ixcan,
it is the earthquake soon to come
that will shake the world
and put everything in its place.

No, brother,
it is not the noise in the streets
which does not let us sleep.

Join us in this vigil
and you will know what it is to dream!
Then you will know how marvelous it is
to live threatened with Resurrection!

To dream awake,
to keep watch asleep,
to live while dying,
and to know ourselves already
resurrected!

* Rabinal is a town in the province of Baja Varahaz where a massacre against indigenous people took place, perpetrated by the military dictatorship.

** The phrase “inventory since 1954″ refers to the year in which the government of President Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown by a CIA-backed mercenary army coup, which initiated the unrelenting and ever-mounting repression by the military regimes who took over power.

*** The quetzal is an embarrassingly beautiful bird found in the forests and woodlands of Central America. The name is from Nahuatl quetzalli, which means “large brilliant tail feather.” The quetzal is the national bird of Guatemala and figures in the oral traditions of the indigenous people of that area.

From Big News Brighton.

The Dictionary is especially helpful for those working on academic areas of Quakerism, though it would be nice to have something like this in every Quaker meeting house just to help keep terms and people straight. Unfortunately, the way it is currently priced it is geared more towards institutions and libraries. If you want a cheaper version of something very similar see if you can pick up a used copy of A To Z Of The Friends (quakers), which is the first edition of the dictionary.

A blurb about the book:

The modern reputation of Friends in the United States and Europe is grounded in the relief work they have conducted in the presence and aftermath of war. Friends also known as Quakers have coordinated the feeding and evacuation of children from war zones around the world. They have helped displaced persons without regard to politics. They have engaged in the relief of suffering in places as far-flung as Ireland, France, Germany, Ethiopia, Egypt, China, and India. Their work was acknowledged with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947 to the American Friends Service Committee AFSC and the Friends Service Council of Great Britain. More often, however, Quakers live, worship, and work quietly, without seeking public attention for themselves. Now, the Friends are a truly worldwide body and are recognized by their Christ-centered message of integrity and simplicity, as well as their nonviolent stance and affirmation of the belief that all people—women as well as men—may be called to the ministry.The expanded second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Friends Quakers relates the history of the Friends through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and over 700 cross-referenced dictionary entries on concepts, significant figures, places, activities, and periods. This book is an excellent access point for scholars and students, who will find the overviews and sources for further research provided by this book to be enormously helpful.

via Rowman.com: 9780810870888 – Historical Dictionary of the Friends Quakers, Second Edition.

you must cease to be afraid

of the poor.

We experience your fear as the least pardonable of

humiliations; in the past

it has sent us scurrying off

daunted and ashamed

into the shadows.

Now,

the world ending

the only one all of us have known

we seek the same

fresh light

you do:

the same high place

and ample table.

The poor always believe

there is room enough

for all of us;

the very rich never seem to have heard

of this.

In us there is wisdom of how to share

loaves and fishes

however few;

we do this everyday.

Learn from us,

we ask you.

We enter now

the dreaded location

of Earth’s reckoning;

no longer far

off

or hidden in books

that claim to disclose

revelations;

it is here.

We must walk together without fear.

There is no path without us.

Find more on Alice Walker’s website.

This is the word of the ministry in the Spirit –
In the Spirit that gave forth the scriptures
and so brought people into the life

that gave them forth, with which
they were able to instruct one another,
and to stir up the pure in one another.

The work of the apostles, the ministers
of the gospel, and Christ, was to bring people people
into the life that gave forth the scriptures,

and into the substance, Christ Jesus, that
the scripture testified of. But you who are fain
to seek the life and the substance in the letter,

in the letter of scripture for it
and have it not from within,
and never like to beget to God.

George Fox (quoted in THS Wallace Have Salt In Yourselves 2010: 67)

“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. When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing.” (John 2:13–23 NRSV)

A. The Hammer of Justice

This week we’re looking at a pretty interesting passage about Jesus. This text about Jesus in the temple appears in all four gospels but the other three happen at the end of each of the gospel stories, whereas the book of John puts it in Chapter 2. This moving the story around and relocating it is meant to teach us something very specific about Jesus’ ministry.

In the Gospel of John, This is only Jesus’ second real action and it is very dramatic. Apparently no one taught Jesus you’re supposed to ease into your career as a traveling minister here. Marching into the temple and flipping over some tables wasn’t the best way to get people to want to take your business cards. It’s probably more like careericide. If this had been his first day at kindergarten he would have been sent home early.

Instead, we’re taught something extremely important about all that will follow in the Gospel of John concerning Jesus. Everything that will follow is meant to be understood in light of Jesus as prophet in the old testament sense. Like Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, Jesus is calling his people back to the roots of their faith – those roots being true worship of God, care for the poor and the outsider, and liberation from corrupt powers (Exodus).#

If this is what Jesus ultimately wants to be about then the temple is the perfect because all three of these things come into focus here. In these times, the temple was thought to be the center of the universe, the place where heaven and earth collided, the place where politics, economics and religion were the most visible and influential.

Even today we see these things often at play within religious communities. Love of God, care for our neighbors (especially the poor and the marginalized), and liberation or justice from corrupt powers are not so easily followed by our communities and are easily forgotten when money and power are involved.

We see corruption when “love of God” is to worship in a way that reinforces their own positions and establishments, and is done in a way that accumulates power. We see corruption when “To love Neighbors” is practiced in a way that we simply love people who are just like us, who can help to serve our own purposes, who can make us look good for when they are in the picture with us. Finally, we see corruption when we forget the story of exodus and liberation and the central role it plays in our understanding of faith.

John 2 gives us a very clear picture of how Jesus feels about these kind of corruptions: Jesus comes to town and brings a hammer. Okay, well not literally. It says he actually makes a “cord of ropes” but for sake of imagery let’s consider it like a hammer for a minute.

There’s a well-known song that I think sheds some light on what is taking place at the temple in John 2. It was written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, so my guess is that at least some of you’ve heard it before – “If I had a Hammer.” It was originally written in 1949 in support of social, political and economic reform in the US. It is well-known that Seegar, and many others in the folk music movement, were interested in supporting workers rights who faced harsh working conditions, especially woman and children.

The song became fairly well-known, especially in circles struggling for social justice. “If I Had a Hammer” became an anthem of the American Civil Rights movement. Plus, the song has been covered countless times by musical acts as diverse as Peter, Paul, and Mary; Johnny Cash; Sam Cooke and Trini Lopez. Even the The Von Trapp Children recorded a version.

It’s very possible that this was the song running through Jesus’ head while this event at the temple too place, or maybe he had it on his iPod while he was walking up.

I’d hammer out danger
I’d hammer out a warning
I’d hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters

This song helps us see that certain acts (like the one at the temple) can be out of justice and love, but also of warning, of danger.

B. The Prophetic Act at the Temple

Just as in the stream of old testament prophets, Jesus participates in what we might call out a dramatic prophetic act, or even a live action parable here (Actually you get this a decent amount in John – Jn. 4 and Jn 9). The temple had become corrupt, abusing and taking advantage of the poor – you’ll remember – taking the widow’s last two coins (Lk 21) – this corruption, especially corruption that uses God’s name to justify what it does will be brought down, will be overturned just like the tables in the temple.# So Jesus enacts, on a small scale, with his hammer of justice, what this will look like.

Now, as you might have guessed, this would not have gone over very well because the temple was a very special place.

One NT scholar says:

“The temple was, in Jesus’ day, the central symbol of Judaism, the location of Israel’s most characteristic praxis, the topic of some of her most vital stories, the answer to her deepest questions, the subject of some of her most beautiful songs.And it was the place Jesus chose for his most dramatic public action” (Wright 406).

And it’s passover, the time when Jews from around the Middle-East flow into Jerusalem. During the passover Jews from all over the middle east would participate in a pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem. While there they would recite the entire story of Exodus, which is for them the paradigmatic story of liberation (Write 407). It was thought that the population of Jerusalem would triple during passover (from 50,000 to 180,000) during this time.

So do engage in this kind of act spells trouble. In the middle of the temple, during passover, Jesus is as an “unsettling force,” holding a whip, angered by the injustice and corruption that has gone on for too long in the temple and he’s had enough.

Can you imagine how we might respond today to this? Some man or woman walking in holding a whip, or a hammer, and flipping over our tables telling us to get rid of all of this stuff, that we turned God’s house and God’s name into a sales pitch? That we’ve used this to exploit the poor and for the benefit of our own power and prestige.

What is interesting to me here is this:

The temple in the Gospels represents an accumulation of power, it truly is “the establishment” and they have used their understanding of faith to reinforce the establishment.

Then Jesus comes along, walks into the middle of this establishment and flips the script. He calls judgement down on it, he shows that true faith in God is not one that continues to reinforce everything we know and do, religion isn’t about buttressing “the establishment” it’s about calling it into question. It’s about calling us, continually, into transformation. Constantly challenging us to grow and push beyond where we are at.

So we could say that Jesus’ dramatic prophetic act in the temple was one that was not just justice oriented but, but was calling for deep transformation. It was a call to a radical new orientation to God and neighbor because it said essentially to remove what has become corrupted by power.

To put it in the words of Dorothy Day (who was an iconoclast in her own time): Nothing is going to change unless we stop accepting this dirty rotten system.

He could have walked in and said, “Ah yes, lovely limestone arches here, I love how you have organized the different people into groups, containing the poor ones over there where they can purchase their doves and then quickly move on, oh and how you’ve provided the sheep and the cattle for those who can spend a little more money. I see your coin bags are already full, it seems like you have kept your cost down and have a good model for growing. Keep it up.”

Instead he shows up with a hammer and starts to overturn tables.

C. Overturning Tables

In his 1948 William Penn Lecture, Bayard Rustin asked, “How can we love God, whom we have not seen, if we cannot, in time of crisis, find the way to love our brothers whom we have seen?”

And I believe that this is the crux of the problem for Jesus.

How can we love God, who is invisible to us, when we do not first find ways to care for and love our brothers and sisters right in front of us?

The temple was understood to quite literally be God’s physical house here on Earth. And people were being exploited there. The very thing that should cause deep love, sacrifice and generosity had become a matter of greed, control and exploitation.

This is why Jesus was angry.

It was not simply because someone had started selling objects in God’s house and God is someone who is against selling cheaply made plastic junk [Pic], though that might be true as well, it is that people (and animals) were being taken advantage of in the name of God [Note: Animals that had become objects of exploitation are also released].

Imagine this…

Jesus goes to the temple and he finds people selling:
cattle
sheep
doves
there are money changers conducting their business as usual, funding the establishment from their tables.

He makes a cord of ropes. The passage is filled with verbs. It is an passage of action.

He drives “all of them” out of the temple:
both the sheep and the cattle.
He poured out the money
He turned over the tables
He told those selling doves “Take those things out of here!”

Those selling doves get the major attention and get the full rebuke of Jesus because doves were the sacrificial animal of the poor, it was all they could afford, if they could afford anything at all. Here the doves are a symbol of all that has gone wrong here.

He says: “Stop making my father’s house a market-place.”

Then he goes on to say the temple will now be internalized, consumed into his body, which will be then shared by communities of people in the first century and beyond known as the “body of Christ” or the “resurrection community.” In John, Jesus wishes to replace the temple with a new way of relating to God that doesn’t need religious goods, or a physical temple, or another other signs or symbols, this new community will be gathered around the presence of Christ in their midst. The new community will be one that will be an unsettling force, it will be a community that doesn’t seek to exploit others for its own gain, but will welcome all. It will be a transformative force in the world. It will be a community gathered to love of God, care for neighbors and work for liberation from corrupt powers. In a word, they will continually embody an alternative kind of temple.

What Jesus has done in John 2 should be difficult for all of us to grasp. Jesus’ act here is not a civil religion, if anything it is civil disobedience. And we have to come to terms with this.

In closing – This morning Jesus shows us that the good news is sometimes about overturning tables.

Jesus overturns the tables of religious-inspired injustice this morning.

This morning Jesus does not attack individuals or use faith to pit people against people, he challenges and overturns the tables of unjust systems and those who represent those structures.

Jesus overturns the tables of a structure that professes to be from God, all the while rejecting the reality of God.

“How can we love God, whom we have not seen, if we cannot, in time of crisis, find the way to love our brothers [and sisters] whom we have seen?”

In overturning the tables, Jesus showed us what it means to truly love of God. And that is a love that stands with those in need, it is a love that is sacrificial, and sometimes it is even indigent.

In overturning the tables, Jesus showed us that loving our neighbors can be a costly act.

—

I can imagine that shortly after this episode in the temple that it was absolutely quiet.

Once the hammer of justice, the bell of freedom and the song of love stop ringing, there is a silence that falls. A silence that allows space for us to reflect on the old world passing away, and the possibility of a new world in which we can live. That is the good news Jesus brought.