(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “How to Excel in Lent”, originally shared on February 28, 2024. It was the 300th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Is there a way to
excel in Lent? The Roman numeral XL stands for 40. Maybe that’s a clue. Today,
we’re going to find out.
Sally and I began doing regular videos,
podcasts, and blogs as Streams of Living Water during the pandemic to help
bring Christians in the LA area and beyond a sense of connection and
encouragement Today, we are releasing our 300th!
When many people
think of the number 300, they think of the Spartans who, with others, fought to
the death to hold off a vastly superior force of Persians at the Battle of
Thermopylae in 480 BC.
But today, we’re
going to think of one who gave his life for the sake of the world, and another
number. The Roman numeral XL.
The numeral XL
stands for our number 40 (or the number of days in the season of Lent), or
Extra Large, or Extra Lent, or excelling in Lent.
Lent is a time to
reflect on what’s real, and important in life, and to return to the LORD.
Paul wrote to the
church at Philippi, in Philippians 4:8,
8 Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is
honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever
is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of
praise, think about these things.
That’s an
“excel-lent” model for how to excel in Lent.
It’s also at the
core of the reading from the Gospels that will be read in the vast majority of
churches in the world this coming Sunday, John
2:13-22.
Do you recall the story of Jesus driving the
merchants and money changers out of the Temple using a whip of cords ever being
read out loud in church?
Probably. Even though, unless we read it on
our own, we only hear it read at church once every three years!
It’s such a vivid image. It’s so
uncharacteristic of the way most of us picture Jesus behaving. It makes a
pretty deep impression.
And yet, what has been called “the cleansing
of the Temple” isn’t about reforming a certain kind of worship, but about
replacing it. It’s not about the destruction in a Temple, but about the
destruction of Jesus. And only one of them will rise in three days.
Here’s what happened.
Just after Jesus’ first miracle, changing
water into wine in Cana in Galilee, Jesus goes over to Capernaum with his
mother, his brothers, and his disciples for a few days. Then he walks the
90-105 miles, depending on the route he took, to Jerusalem, to celebrate the
Passover festival.
Fun fact: Jesus walked at least 15,000 miles
in his lifetime.
Funner fact: Jesus walked from the north to
the south on this trip, but the Bible says that “he went up to Jerusalem”. Why?
Because Jerusalem is built on, and is synonymous with, Mt. Zion.
When he gets there, this happens, in John
2:13-17
13 The
Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In
the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money
changers seated at their tables. 15 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. 16 He
told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop
making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17 His
disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume
me.”
It’s Lent, and it’s
also Girl Scout Cookie season, which seems weird, because that seems
like temptation, but maybe that’s just me. 😊
Our son was looking
at a table of cookies the other day and was considering a box of “Samoas”. The
Girl Scout asked, “Do you know what they say about ‘Samoas’?
“What?” our son
replied.
“If you only buy one
box of ‘Samoas’, you’re going to want some-mo-a.” 😊
Salesmanship and the lengths to which some
people will go to persuade you to buy their product are central to today’s
text.
Animal sacrifice had been a part of Temple
worship for hundreds of years. The animal blood was poured out on an altar.
Sacrifices could be made to glorify God, in thanksgiving, and/or as a
requirement for the forgiveness of sins. The greater the praise, or thanks, or
the bigger the sin, or the wealthier the donor, the bigger the animal.
There was only one place in the world where
the Jews could do this, and that was in the Temple in Jerusalem. Jews came to
the Temple from all over the world, so the transportation of animals that were
acceptable for sacrifice was a problem.
Solution! Buy the animals when you get
there! Animal dealers were set up outside the Temple. And they inflated the
prices.
But only acceptable Temple money could be
used to buy them and to pay the required Temple tax, because every other money
was unclean.
Solution! Money changers were also available
when you got there! And they charged a fee.
And people being people, the animal sellers
and money changers competed for your business. And maybe sometimes, they got
loud, and could be heard inside the Temple.
And it appears that some of them gradually
crept closer to the entrance for a competitive advantage, and then inside the
Temple. Can you imagine what Jesus saw when he got there? The chaos of sights
and sounds? The smell? The yelling of the sellers and the buyers and the
panicked animals?
He found a whip and drove the whole business
out. He dumped the money and flipped the tables. Can you imagine the response
of the animal sellers and money changers, the worshippers and priests? Even
more chaos!
And the disciples missed the point. Again.
They thought that Jesus was reforming the Temple sacrifice system.
Jesus was replacing it.
Jesus was about to be the final sacrifice.
His blood would be poured out for the sake of the world.
The reading concludes in John 2:18-22,
18 The
Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19 Jesus
answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The
Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But
he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 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.
I spent a summer when I was in seminary
doing a quarter of Clinical Pastoral Education. CPE is a program training
prospective pastors to do hospital visits and counseling. It’s very intense and
exposes seminarians to a lot of different kinds of life experiences.
The program I was a part of was held at
Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois.
One night, there was a humongous
thunderstorm and a lightning bolt hit a transformer that knocked out power to
the hospital. The emergency generators kicked in and all essential services
like the operating carols, the Natal Intensive Care Units, respirators, and so
on, received power.
Almost immediately, the switchboard was lit
up with calls from very agitated air traffic controllers from the nearby O’Hare
International Airport asking what had happened to the florescent cross on the
top of the hospital.
Pilots coming in for landings had used that
cross as a visual reference point as they descended and, seeing no cross, had
been thinking that they were coming in from the wrong side of the airport. They
were pulling up and flying in stacks over O’Hare.
From that night onward, the cross was
included in the emergency power network.
The cross is our reference point. We see the
love of God on it, what God did to restore the living relationship with God for
which we were created.
But there are always other things that creep
close to our hearts, and then bring their chaos even into our churches.
The world is always shouting for the
theology of the cross to be replaced by a theology of glory.
Tim Keller, the presbyterian pastor who
started a healthy church in Manhattan, in the City of New York, and who was a
respected author, once wrote, “Churches
that are too heavily invested in the political agenda of a particular party or
candidate can appear to others to be captive to an ideology instead of the
Lordship of Christ.”
I think that, beyond
how perceptions might influence our mission, the danger goes beyond
appearances.
And the danger can
come from the Right or from the Left, especially when our beliefs and practices
are formed by whatever is currently in vogue among the members of our political
party or ideological cohort.
President Gerald
Ford once said,” "There
are only three major vehicles to keep us informed as to what is going on in
Washington: the electronic media, the print media, and Doonesbury,
not necessarily in that order."
I thought of that
when a colleague recently posted a copy of the Doonesbury comic strip from
April 22, 2018.
It shows a mature
pastor, with his back to the congregation, examining a written report and
thinking, “This can’t be right. My flock can’t handle this much sin!”
He then turns to the
congregation and says, “One final announcement from the Board of Elders… There
has been some confusion among Evangelicals as to what currently constitutes sin
in the eyes of the church. So to clarify, we now condone the following conduct:
profanity, adultery and sexual assault.”
The next panel shows
the congregation hearing him say, “Exemptions to Christian values also include
greed, bullying, conspiring, boasting, lying, cheating, sloth, envy, wrath,
gluttony and pride. Others TBA.”
The pastor
concludes, “Lastly, we’re willing to overlook Biblical illiteracy, church
non-attendance, and no credible sign of faith.”
In the last panel,
the congregation is filing out, shaking the pastor’s hand, and saying, “Lovin’
the lower bar, Pastor” and “Me, too. I feel like a freakin’ saint now!”
The pastor replies,
“Enjoy.”
Is this where the
Church is now? Or are we called to excel in Lent? To lower the bar, or to
return to the Lord our God?
Is it to live to
gain worldly power, or to live in response to having received the great gift of
Jesus Christ on the cross for the salvation of the world?
Or is it to resist beliefs
and organizations in our lives that oppose God’s will, creeping commercialism,
and the lust to rule in the place of God?
Is there a still
more “excel-lent” way?
Paul talks about the
Christian life and about receiving and giving in response, regarding his
collection of money for the Macedonian churches, in his second letter to the
church at Corinth, in 2 Corinthians 8:7,
7 Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and
in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous
undertaking.
There are 40 days in
Lent between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. Let us use those 40 days, written
as an “XL” in Roman numerals, to excel in whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just,
whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, in any
excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, in generosity in faith,
in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for one another.
Let us excel in
Lent.
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