John 2.13-22: Spiritual Spring Cleaning - Getting the Centre, the Mind and the Passion Right

John 2.13-22
It is getting a bit warmer – we hope – and maybe a bit dryer.
And it is time to begin to do some spring cleaning
But not just of our houses or places where we work, or even our churches.
This is a time to do some spiritual spring cleaning
1. Getting the heart right
Jesus cleanses the temple
The temple was the gift of God to his people. It was the place where God had said that his presence would dwell. It was place where men and women came together to meet with God.
Jesus describes the temple as ‘my Father’s house’. That is not just a claim to unique authority. It is – again John writes in John 1, ‘we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son’. But it is also a relational term: we too are invited to come into the temple and to call God ‘Father’.
But they had turned this gift of God, the temple, into a stock exchange, a trading market, a bazaar
One of the recurring themes through my ministry is what should we do in our buildings, especially because we have to pay the bills.
St Mary’s, Bury St Edmunds, we put on concerts and exhibitions. Once a year we became part of the town Christmas market. And there was always the question, what sort of music? I notice that some cathedrals are now putting on silent discos
St Andrew’s in Moscow – it was both more complex and simpler.
It was more complex because more people came to us. There are not many gothic style churches with towers in Moscow. Many organisations filmed in the church, we had many requests and I had to try and decide what was suitable and what wasn’t. On one occasion a Russian megastar (well, his minions!) asked if he could film a video in the church. They said it was a dance routine, but when they explained to me what they wanted, it sounded to me more like women rolling around on the floor with hardly any clothes on. I thought that we should probably not do that. It was a good call, because when I saw the final video, recorded elsewhere, it was not just women rolling around the floor with hardly on clothes any, but nuns rolling around on the floor with hardly any clothes on.
It was also simpler, because whereas for us in the UK, our historic church buildings have always been both community spaces and sanctuary, Orthodox churches would never be used for anything that was not worship, and wider society would be more quickly scandalised if something happened in church that was not considered appropriate. And so it was easier to say no when we needed to say no.
I was probably over cautious, and there was little consistency. I said no to a high-end fashion show, to a dinner for wealthy people, to a whiskey tasting day, but yes to concerts (most evenings), filmings, bazaars and summer fairs.
Our church buildings do matter.
They don’t matter in the same way that the temple matters
The temple was the unique meeting point between God and humanity
But with Jesus something dramatic happens
Jesus becomes the new temple. That is what he is getting at here when he says. ‘“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19).
He is talking about his own body.
He is the meeting point between men and women and God.
In John 1 he has told Nathaniel that he will see angels going up into heaven and coming down from heaven on him. He is the ladder between God and us.
And Jesus says that where two or three people meet in his name, wherever they are, then he is there.
But that doesn’t mean that our church buildings are not important.
They are not necessarily important in terms of how we meet with God, but they are important for us in what we are saying about God.
That is why what is at the center of our church buildings is important. It is saying that this is what is important to us. Now we can argue whether what is central is the table or the altar, the place that we meet around to receive Christ. It might be, as in many non-conformist churches, the lectern and the pulpit: it is the word of God that is at the center. It might be a cross: as Paul states, ‘we proclaim Christ crucified … Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.’ (1 Cor 1:23,24)
I noticed the other day a picture of St Paul’s taken from the air with the buildings enhanced, and what we see in the center of the City of London is a huge cross.
I am not sure that it matters if the center is a cross or a table or a pulpit. They are each symbols pointing to Christ. But my own feeling is that we should be concerned when the visible center is a person, or a music group or a choir or a political symbol
Jesus could have gone into the temple, looked around and then come out and said, ‘The temple has become corrupt. It is not serving as a meeting point between God and humanity. And it is being replaced by me. So what goes on in the temple doesn’t matter. They want to treat it like a market – let them treat it like a market.
But he doesn’t. He wants the temple to fulfill the role for which it was built – to be that meeting place where all peoples can come and worship God. He wants it to be a place where God, and God things, are at the very center. And he gets angry when we put things in the place of God that are not God.
I wonder if Jesus came to our churches – I wonder what he would say.
Would he be angry? What is at the centre? Have we replaced him with money or business?
They are not necessarily the same thing. It is possible to go about your busi-ness and not make any money, because it makes us feel important and gives us meaning. Or have we replaced him with entertainment or comfort or the particular service that I like?
It is not, I hasten to add, that the marketplace is wrong. Far from it. It is just that things need to be in their right place.
When I was a student in Durham I attended St Nics. They called it the church in the marketplace. I like that. We pray that we can put, in our society, the church, a place of prayer – not the place of prayer – in the center of the marketplace – so that our society is, in our prayers if not in reality, centred on the communion table, the word of God, the message of the cross.
But let’s keep it that way round. The church in the marketplace. Not the marketplace in the church.
And what about if Jesus came to our homes. What would he say? What does our home say about us – about the most important things in our life? What takes center place? There is a lot to be said for putting a cross or some Christian symbol in a prominent place in our home.
It is not coincidental that we have this reading during Lent. This is the ideal time to ask the Holy Spirit to do a spring clean in our lives. Just as Jesus came in and cleansed the temple, so we ask Holy Spirit to help us as we self-examine, as we confess and repent of the rubbish, and as we allow Holy Spirit to do a spring clean
2. Getting the mind right

Twice in John 2.12-22 we are told ‘his disciples remembered ..’ (v17,21)
The first remembering is a passage of scripture: ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’ (It is a quote from Psalm 69.9)
The second remembering is the saying of Jesus, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’.
“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 2:22
There is so much here.
First, Jesus’ words are identified with scripture: ‘they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken’
Secondly, it is the collective disciples who remember: that is very good news for those of us who despair of our individual memories. It is the whole Church, people of God, that remembers. What we will do in a few minutes around the Lord’s table today is collectively remembering.
Thirdly, they remember Jesus words in the light of the resurrection.
It was only after Jesus rose from the dead that those words began to make sense. No doubt one of the disciples – maybe it was John – after the resurrection said, ‘Didn’t Jesus say ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up’? I get it!
At the end of John’s gospel, we are told – and it is the other book end to this particular text – ‘Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.’ (John 20:8-9)
They saw and believed and understood the scripture.
We, 2000 years later, have not seen (most of us), but we have their words, we have the scripture, and we are invited to receive the scripture and believe.
Forgive me, that is quite complicated – but also exciting
It means that if we want to get our minds right then we have all that we need here (in the scriptures) and here (in each other).But we need each other for this. Because otherwise our ‘remembering’ is going to be very lopsided.
The world has recently discovered book groups.
The people of God discovered book groups thousands of years ago: gathering together to listen and to talk about what it is that we read.
But there is a difference.
When we read scripture together, when we study scripture together (on a Sunday or in a Lent course) we are not reading words about someone who was an inspiring teacher but who died 2000 years ago. We are reading the words about someone, of someone, who was crucified, but who rose from the dead and is alive now. And by reading, and putting our trust in those who wrote, and in the word, we meet with the risen Jesus.
We read believing that the one of whom it speaks, the one who speaks is still alive, indeed is with us.
‘Therefore, says Paul, be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God’.
3. If we get the heart right and the mind right, then we will get the passion right
Jesus was angry. But it was a right anger.
It came from a heart centred on God and a mind set on God.
‘Zeal for your house will consume me’.
So often I find that I speak from here [my gut] when my brain is not in gear.
We need passion, but we need godly passion. And it is that passion that will drive us. At times it will eat us up.
At times there will be anger. At other times profound sorrowing. At other times deep longing, And at other times great joy.
And I note here that Jesus’ deep deep passion, the reason that he came from heaven to earth, the reason that he went to the cross, was – and I’m using John’s language here – his love for the world. He came to draw us to himself and to his Father in heaven, so that we could be in communion with each other, with him and with his Father.
My prayer is that this time of lent, this time of spiritual spring cleaning, will help us get the center right, and help us as we allow God to continue to shape the mind right – then we will, by the power of the Holy Spirit, be driven by the passion of God.