Message: Cleasing the Temple / John 2:13-22
During the summer vacation of 2022, my wife Sena and I took a trip from Wawa, where we lived, to PEI. We followed the St. Lawrence River from Brockville, through Cornwall, all the way to Montreal. We found the road very beautiful. The best part was driving along the Long Sault Parkway. As we drove, I said, "The people who live here are so blessed." And just a year later, we moved here and became part of those who are blessed. After settling in this area, I realized that the beauty is not just in nature, but also in the people here.
I have been working in ministry at South Stormont Pastoral Charge for about six months now. I still have a lot to learn and experience about this faith community. Memorizing everyone's names and pronouncing them correctly is still a challenge for me. But, I see hope. When I see the hearts of those who have the compassion of God, when I see the hands of those who are committed to the work of our congregation, when I see the eyes of those who are eager to share God’s hope and love with others, I experience God's presence in our congregation.
Today, the Long Sault congregation is having its Annual Meeting to review what we did in 2023 and discuss our plans for 2024. Next Sunday, it will be the Ingleside congregation's turn. After the COVID-19 pandemic, many churches have faced challenges: fewer people are attending worship, and church events and activities have been scaled back. Some have even closed their doors.
Our faith community must have also been going through very tough times. However, you have managed to keep this spiritual sanctuary strong despite those challenges. Thanks to your dedication and hard work, we are able to worship here now. So, I want to express my respect and gratitude to each one of you here.
Today's Gospel reading is about when Jesus cleansed the temple. The temple was where people celebrated God's presence. It was a place to remember how God showed compassion, love, and grace by liberating the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt. It was also a place to thank God and help the poor and vulnerable in their community by giving offerings.
But in Jesus' time, it was not easy to experience God's presence in the temple. The reconstruction made it bigger and more beautiful, but the poor struggled with the temple tax and offerings demanded by religious leaders. The temple was noisy with money changers who were exchanging Roman money for money acceptable in the temple and people who were selling animals for sacrifice. They were connected to religious leaders and were taking unfair advantage of the exchange of money and the sale of animals.
Most importantly, Jesus noticed that the animals in the temple were being treated like objects, not as living creatures. In the Bible, God reminds people many times to respect animals as part of God’s creation. For instance, livestock were supposed to rest on the Sabbath just like humans, and during the Sabbatical year, which occurred every seven years, the fields' produce should not be harvested for wild animals. Even though these animals were necessary for humans to survive, the Law commands that their blood should not be consumed. This is because, in ancient times, life was believed to reside in the blood, and drinking it was seen as disrespectful to the animals.
But the animals in the temple were tied up and kept in cages without any respect. They were treated like tools for a ritual without any regard or appreciation for their lives. For this reason, Jesus took up the whip and overturned the tables. Jesus removed the barriers that were stopping people from experiencing God's presence and the obstacles that were blocking God's love for all humans and creation. In Jesus' actions, we hear God's voice echoing through the words of the prophet Amos from the 8th century BCE:
“I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:21-24).
One of the important purposes of the Annual Meeting is to discern whether our faith community is heading in a better direction as a spiritual sanctuary. We appreciate what we are doing well and encourage changing what needs to be changed. In the Joint Board Report for this Annual Meeting, I read that during the Joint Pastoral Charge congregational meeting on October 2, 2022, it was passed in favour of "the minister can perform same-sex marriages in the church." The process of making that decision would certainly not have been easy. However, such a bold decision is akin to Jesus’ action of cleansing the temple because it made our faith community a more inclusive and welcoming place for everyone. I am really proud and hopeful to be part of this faith community.
To wrap up, I want to remind us of what the church means as we approach the Annual Meeting by reading a part about the church from A Song of Faith (2006), one of the United Church of Canada's faith statements. I hope this will help us remember the purpose and mission of our congregation.
seeking to continue the story of Jesus
by embodying Christ’s presence in the world.
We are called together by Christ
as a community of broken but hopeful believers,
loving what he loved,
living what he taught,
striving to be faithful servants of God
in our time and place.
Our ancestors in faith
bequeath to us experiences of their faithful living;
upon their lives our lives are built.
Our living of the gospel makes us a part of this communion of saints,
experiencing the fulfillment of God’s reign
even as we actively anticipate a new heaven and a new earth.
The church has not always lived up to its vision.
It requires the Spirit to reorient it,
helping it to live an emerging faith while honouring tradition,
challenging it to live by grace rather than entitlement,
for we are called to be a blessing to the earth.
We sing of God’s good news lived out,
a church with purpose:
faith nurtured and hearts comforted,
gifts shared for the good of all,
resistance to the forces that exploit and marginalize,
fierce love in the face of violence,
human dignity defended,
members of a community held and inspired by God,
corrected and comforted,
instrument of the loving Spirit of Christ,
creation’s mending.
We sing of God’s mission.
We are each given particular gifts of the Spirit.
For the sake of the world,
God calls all followers of Jesus to Christian ministry.
In the church,
some are called to specific ministries of leadership,
both lay and ordered;
some witness to the good news;
some uphold the art of worship;
some comfort the grieving and guide the wandering;
some build up the community of wisdom;
some stand with the oppressed and work for justice.
To embody God’s love in the world,
the work of the church requires the ministry and discipleship
of all believers.
In grateful response to God’s abundant love,
we bear in mind our integral connection
to the earth and one another;
we participate in God’s work of healing and mending creation.
To point to the presence of the holy in the world,
the church receives, consecrates, and shares
visible signs of the grace of God.
In company with the churches
of the Reformed and Methodist traditions,
we celebrate two sacraments as gifts of Christ:
baptism and holy communion.
In these sacraments the ordinary things of life
—water, bread, wine—
point beyond themselves to God and God’s love,
teaching us to be alert
to the sacred in the midst of life.
Before conscious thought or action on our part,
we are born into the brokenness of this world.
Before conscious thought or action on our part,
we are surrounded by God’s redeeming love.
Baptism by water in the name of the Holy Trinity
is the means by which we are received, at any age,
into the covenanted community of the church.
It is the ritual that signifies our rebirth in faith
and cleansing by the power of God.
Baptism signifies the nurturing, sustaining,
and transforming power of God’s love
and our grateful response to that grace.
Carrying a vision of creation healed and restored,
we welcome all in the name of Christ.
Invited to the table where none shall go hungry,
we gather as Christ’s guests and friends.
In holy communion
we are commissioned to feed as we have been fed,
forgive as we have been forgiven,
love as we have been loved.
The open table speaks of the shining promise
of barriers broken and creation healed.
In the communion meal, wine poured out and bread broken,
we remember Jesus.
We remember not only the promise but also the price that he paid
for who he was,
for what he did and said,
and for the world’s brokenness.
We taste the mystery of God’s great love for us,
and are renewed in faith and hope.”
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