Monday’s Passion: Following an Anti-Religion Activist (Mk. 11:12-19)

 

11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.  12 The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14 Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.  15 On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, 16 and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. 17 And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’ ? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’ ”  (Mk. 11:11-17 TNIV).

 

 

A few weeks ago I read an old “Peanuts” cartoon.[i]  Lucy has been talking with Charlie Brown.  She finishes the conversation by saying, You know…A princess sort of thing…A white dress and nice slippers…  Sitting, she concludes: But I guess that’s kind of silly, isn’t it, Charlie Brown?  Charlie Brown answers, No…Oh no…Not at all.  I mean…well…we all have our little daydreams or ambitions or whatever you want to call them.  I mean there’s one I’ve had myself for years, but I’ve never told anyone…  Lucy asks, What, Charlie Brown?  You can tell me…  Charlie Brown hesitates: Oh, no…It’s not the sort of thing I should tell…No, I don’t think I should…  Lucy prods, Oh, come on…I wouldn’t give it away…come on…Please?  Charlie Brown responds, Well…I’ve always wanted to be called “Flash”…I hate the name “Charlie”…I’d like to be real athletic and have everybody call me, “Flash”…I’d like to be so good at everything that all around school I’d be known as “Flash,” and…  Suddenly Lucy runs off, Hey, Violet!  Listen to this!  She tells Violet Charlie Brown’s ambition and Violet says, “Flash”?  Lucy and Violet fall to the ground giggling and Charlie Brown mopes away saying, I can’t stand it.

Like Charlie Brown, most of are passionate about something.  Others may find it laughable.  But most of us have a dream or an ambition that gets our hearts racing.  It may be silly.  But most of us are passionate about something. 

As I mentioned last Sunday, our passions tend to fall into one of four areas.  First, some of us are passionate for people.  It may be a close friend.  It may be a child.  Second, some of us are passionate for our pursuits.  Like Charlie Brown we passionately pursue being athletic.  Or we passionately pursue becoming a CEO.  Third, some of us are passionate for pay.  What makes our heart pump is our pay and the things it buys.  Finally, some of us are passionate about play.  What we do in our recreational time is what we really live for.

 

As I mentioned last Sunday the Bible says a great deal about passion.  Peter describes those who follow Jesus as people who do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.  (1 Pet. 4:2 TNIV).  In other words, followers of Jesus are not passionate for evil things but are passionate for God.  The Christian faith is about growing into a passion for Jesus and God which exceeds our passion for people, pursuits, pay, and play.

This morning is part two of a series which explores passion.  The series is designed to fan the flame of our desire for Jesus.  We’ll be exploring the Passion Week of Jesus, the week in the Gospels that runs from what is called Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday.  Each Sunday’s message will explore one day from the Passion Week.   To accompany the messages, we’ve produced a booklet.  Its daily readings allow you to read everything the Gospels write about Passion Week.  It also includes texts to memorize and questions to answer privately or with others.  I can almost guarantee that if you’ll spend these seven weeks engaged in these habits, your passion for Jesus will increase.

Last Sunday I mentioned that passion is accompanied by waiting.  We often have to wait for that for which we are passionate.  This morning we’ll see that passion is also accompanied by fighting.  We often fight for those things for which we have passion.  Think about it.  When’s the last time you got in a heated argument?  It likely had to do with something you are passionate about.  Maybe a person you care about was being hurt.  Perhaps someone was getting in the way of one of your pursuits.  Perhaps something you paid for was being misused.  Perhaps someone was interfering with something you play at.  The things that cause us to fight are often the things about which we have great passion. 

This morning we will see Jesus fight.  It’s a fight rooted in things about which Jesus has great passion.  Last Sunday we watched Jesus on Palm Sunday.  Let’s return to that day.  Jesus has entered Jerusalem as the long-awaited king.  But now it’s late.  And here’s what Mark writes about these closing hours of Palm Sunday: Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts.  He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. (Mk. 11:11 TNIV).  It’s the close of the day.  But Jesus goes to the temple.  And Mark tells us that Jesus looked around at everything.  That seems to be Mark’s way of saying that what Jesus saw at the temple that evening is exactly what he would see at the temple the next day.[ii]  Mark doesn’t tell us what Jesus saw this late Palm Sunday.  But he is going to tell us what Jesus saw on Monday.  And most likely, what Jesus saw on Palm Sunday is the same thing he saw on Monday.  What did Jesus see?

First, consider where Jesus looked.  Mark tells us that Jesus looked at the temple courts.  Most of us have never been to a temple.  What was this temple?  In short, the temple was where people came to pray and worship.  They came as individuals.  But they also came corporately.  The temple was where you could join other people, and together, draw near to God.  In Mk. 11:17 Jesus uses a phrase to describe this temple.  Jesus calls this temple “a house of prayer for all nations.”  That line comes from Is. 56.  There God is describing his dream for this temple.  God dreams that it would be a “house of prayer for all nations.”

Let’s look at the first part of that phrase: “house of prayer.”  God’s dream, as he shared it with Isaiah, was that the temple would be a “house of prayer.”  The temple would be a place where you could talk to God honestly about struggles, beg God for help, or experience God’s presence through prayer.  And Jesus shared that dream.  To him, the temple was first and foremost a sacred place of prayer.  It was a place where people could connect with the One who created them.  It was a sacred place of prayer.

And for many of us, that image is appealing.  Because we too long for a sacred place of prayer.  We too want to connect with the One who made us. We too want to experience the presence of God. We long for sacred places of prayer.

 

 

Friar and author Simon Tugwell writes this:[iii] It is the desire for God which is the most fundamental appetite of all, and it is an appetite we can never eliminate. We may seek to disown it, but it will not go away.  Our greatest longing is for God. 

 

 

Becky Tirabassi writes about the way she’s seen this longing in college students.[iv]  In 2004 she gave a speech to thousands of students at Azuza Pacific University and hundreds came and confessed their desire for spiritual renewal.   She points to the 2005 gathering of 70,000 students Nashville, TN where they prayed for 12 hours for revival.  She writes of how in 2006 she visited universities over 40 days leading students in a total of 900 hours of prayer.  After these experiences, she concludes that young people don’t need more programs.  They want prayer and revival for their generation.  Young people today hunger for these sacred places of prayer, for authentic connection with God.

And that’s why God created the temple.  It was a place where that appetite could be fulfilled, especially through prayer.  That’s why Jesus called it a “house of prayer.”

But Jesus also calls it a “house of prayer for all nations.”  When Isaiah wrote that line, he was in the midst of talking about how some feel excluded from the community of faith.  They feel like they don’t belong in that community.  So God states that his dream is to create a place where “all nations” could gather—a place where everyone belongs, no matter your ethnicity.  And that place would be the temple.  It would be a house of prayer “for all nations.”  The temple was a place where every person of every ethnicity could participate in community and pray to God.  It wasn’t just a sacred place of prayer.  It was a special place of belonging. 

The place in the temple where that dream became real was known as the Court of the Gentiles.  This was an area where non Jewish people could worship and pray.  The Court of the Gentiles ensured that even they had a place in the praying community. 

 

 

In fact, this scene late on Palm Sunday and on Monday takes place in the Court of the Gentiles.[v]  Jesus is standing in the midst of this unique place which was dreamed of by God as a way of making sure that everyone belonged in the praying community.  Those who may have feared they didn’t belong and wouldn’t be accepted were accepted in the Court of the Gentiles.  It was a special place of belonging.

And besides our longing for God, our longing for belonging may be among our greatest desires.  The Highland Youth Group recognizes this.  When I was at Genesis a few Wednesdays ago, Donnie gave a little speech about HYG’s “ABC’s.”  The youth group wants to make sure each person feels Accepted, feels like they Belong, and feels Cared for.  They know that young people especially need and want to belong.  We all do.  We long to feel accepted.  We long to feel like we belong.  We long to be cared for.  And that was God’s dream for the temple.  The temple was where those ABC’s came together.  It was a special place of belonging. 

 

 

And Jesus shared that dream.  The community he established, the church, was built on these two ideas: a sacred place of prayer and a special place to belong.  What the temple originally provided, Jesus’ church more fully provided.  Paul writes this: 18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.  19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household… (Eph. 2:18-19 TNIV).  As Paul looks at the church, he sees it as a place where access to God is granted and where those who once felt like foreigners and strangers become part of the community.  Jesus shared God’s dream for the temple so much that he founded the church on the same dream.  The church would be a sacred place of prayer and a special place of belonging. 

All of that is what is what Jesus saw that late afternoon in the temple courts.  Jesus saw the beginning of his dream for a community where everyone could have a sense of belonging and access to the God who made them.

 

 

But Jesus saw something else that afternoon.  He saw two obstacles keeping people from experiencing connection with God and belonging in the community.  First, according to Mk. 11:16 Jesus saw people carrying merchandise through the Court of the Gentiles.  Jesus saw crowds.  These were people going from one place in the city to another.  And they found a shortcut through the Court of the Gentiles.  They weren’t coming to pray.  They weren’t looking for belonging.  There were merely consumers carrying their goods through the temple as a kind of short cut. This was the area designed by God to provide even outsiders like Gentiles a place of belonging and a place where they could pray.  But now, these Gentiles so hungry for God, so longing for belonging, can’t pray and can’t stay in these courts because there is a constant rush of crowds walking back and forth.

Second, Jesus saw commerce.  According to Mk. 11:15 Jesus saw tables in the Court of Gentiles manned with people exchanging money and selling sacrificial animals.  Both were legitimate businesses.  The temple tax had to be paid in a certain coinage which was not part of the common coinage of the day.  So you had to find a currency exchange office. [vi]  Some of the tables in the temple courts served that purpose.  In addition, there were tables manned with people selling animals for sacrifice.  If you were a pilgrim traveling to this temple, you might not want to bring your own animal all that way.  So when you got to the city you needed to purchase an animal for sacrifice.  In addition if you were local you might not want to run the risk of having your own animal declared unfit for sacrifice.  So you could purchase one which was guaranteed to be fit for sacrifice. [vii]  These legitimate services could be found elsewhere in the city.  But Jesus sees these services taking place in the Court of the Gentiles.  This sacred place of prayer and this special place of belonging are filled with tables and customers and animals and coins.  And now, these Gentiles so hungry for God, so longing for belonging, can’t pray and can’t stay in these courts because there is a constant rush of crowds and there is the buzz and chaos of commerce being conducted.

Imagine if you came to the temple that day as a Gentile worshipper.  You were hungry for God.  You were longing for community.  But now, neither can happen, because there are crowds walking back and forth and there is commerce being conducted.  Consider what that would look like today.  Imagine if you came to this building hoping to encounter God and hoping to find friendship.  But you couldn’t find any of that because all sorts of distractions were taking place.  Imagine trying to focus on the words of a song, but someone’s on stage moving things around.  Imagine trying to share a prayer need with someone after the sermon but someone’s walking up and down that aisle selling something.  Imagine trying to listen to God’s word but someone’s shouting drowns the preaching out.  Something like that was taking place in the temple.

And the truth is that things like that are still taking place.  It’s not as obvious and explicit as people moving things on stage or selling items during a worship service.  But there are still many things that keep people from finding in Jesus’ church an intimate connection with God and a genuine sense of community. 

A few years ago a friend of mine from California came to a Sunday morning service at Highland.  From the moment he entered the building to the moment he left the building, not a single person welcomed him, shook his hand, or offered to help him find his way.  His experience was abnormal for Highland.  Generally we are friendlier than that.  Yet it was an occasion on which we became the obstacle.  We made it hard for that person to find community in this church.

I spoke recently with a young married woman.  She was thinking of leaving her church.  She had great friendships there, many of them life-long.  It was definitely a place of belonging for her.  But the reason she was leaving was because of the way in which the traditions of that church were making hard for her to draw near to God during the corporate worship service.  Members and leaders were unwilling to break with tradition when it came to corporate worship.  And she felt stifled by it.  She wanted to draw near to God in new ways, but the church wouldn’t allow it.  It was another case of people putting obstacles in the way.  That church was making it hard for that person to find within it a sacred place of prayer.

 

 

In his book Simple Christianity, Chris Heuertz writes about walking the streets of Kolkata, a destitute region in South Asia.[viii] Heuertz and his friends came across a person in the street covered with a filthy blanket.  He appeared to be dead or dying.  Heuertz’s friend tapped on the body.  It moved.  He pulled the blanket down and saw a helpless young man.  He was covered with filth, crying uncontrollably, and was as thin as a skeleton.  A crowd gathered as Heuertz and his friends gave some bottled water to the man.  They hailed a taxi but none would stop.  The crowd grew.  No one else stepped forward to help.  Finally they persuaded a taxi to stop and they paid for the dying man to be taken to a shelter.  When the ordeal was over Heuertz looked up and caught sight of a sign.  The sign was less than five feet from where the dying man had been lying.  It was a church sign.  It said, “All are welcome here.”  Perhaps the promising sign inspired someone to drop the dying man right there.  But members of that church had been in the crowd.  And they hadn’t helped. They hadn’t welcomed.  They left the man to die.  There are many obstacles today to finding true spirituality and true community in a church.

That’s what Jesus sees that late afternoon on Palm Sunday.  He sees those obstacles.

But there’s nothing he can do about it right now.  It’s getting late.  Mk. 11:15 tells us that Jesus became very upset about this the next day.  It’s likely that he’s upset about it this evening.  And you have to wonder as Jesus walked the two miles back to Bethany if he didn’t think about this every step of the way.  Maybe he clenched his fists and ground his teeth all the way back. 

And maybe when he got up the next morning, on Monday, he had hardly slept a wink.  And he was so upset, and so ready to get back to those temple courts that he left the house without eating.  And as he walks the two miles back to the temple, he starts to get hungry.  He’s angry and he’s hungry.  That’s a dangerous combination. 

 

 

Along the way, off in the distance, he sees a fig tree.  People in Jesus’ day loved ripe figs.  This time of year, however, is not the time for ripe figs.  But it was a time when fig trees would grow olive-sized buds. And these buds were not great eating, but they were edible.[ix]  They were sort of like the small black berries that grew in the woods where I lived as a child. They were bitter.  But in a pinch, when we’d be out playing and we got hungry, you could eat them. The same was true with these fig buds.  And Jesus is hungry and angry.  So he makes his way to this fig tree hoping to find some buds to eat.  But the tree has nothing.

So Jesus unleashes his anger.  He curses the fig tree.  He says, “Fine!  You don’t even have buds to eat.  You’ll never bear fruit again!”  Jesus curses the fig tree.  Yes he’s mad because he needs something to eat.  But he’s also mad because the fig tree reminds of what he saw in the temple.  God’s dream had been for those temple courts to give people the refreshing fruit of a sacred place of prayer and a special place of belonging.  But when Jesus was there last night, the temple was like this fig tree.  There wasn’t even the smallest bit of a sacred place of prayer. There wasn’t even the inkling of a special place of belonging.  So Jesus curses the barren fig tree as a foreshadowing of how he will cleanse the barren temple.

Finally Jesus finishes the two mile journey and enters the Court of the Gentiles.  And he unleashes like we’ve never seen Jesus unleash.  He physically drives out the merchants and the money changers.  He tosses their tables on their sides.  He forcibly prevents shoppers from cutting through the courts. And Mark tells us in Mk. 11:17 that as Jesus is doing of this, he is also teaching.  Jesus has been working up this sermon.  Maybe all two miles back to Bethany last night he was working up this sermon.  Maybe all two miles back to Jerusalem he’s been working up this sermon.  And as drives out merchants and money changers, tosses tables on their sides, and stops these shoppers, Jesus shouts out these words: Is it not written: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations”?  But you have made it a “den of robbers.”

On this day, the day after Palm Sunday, here’s what Jesus fights for: a sacred place for prayer and a special place of belonging.  Jesus fights to bring an end to the barriers keeping people from experiencing intimacy with God and a sense of community. 

Some of you here this morning are like those Gentile worshipers.  You long for God.  You hunger for belonging.  But there are things standing in the way.  There are obstacles keeping you from experiencing God and community.  There are things that even churches and Christians are doing that make it difficult for you to find spirituality and community within the church.  But here’s the good news from this text:  Jesus fights for us to overcome those obstacles keeping us from the sacred place of prayer and the special place of belonging.  Whatever obstacle is keeping you from experiencing spirituality and community in this church, Jesus is fighting for you.  He is passionate about overcoming those obstacles.  You can trust that he is at work and he will not allow those obstacles to remain.

But some of us here are like those Israelite crowds and those Israelites conducting commerce.  We’re the ones making barriers.  We’re the ones making it hard for others to find even at Highland a sacred place of prayer and a special place of belonging.  And here’s the bad news of this text: Jesus fights against us to overcome those obstacles we use to keep others from the sacred place of prayer and the special place of belonging. Maybe it’s our inward focus and reluctance to reach out to newcomers and make them feel welcome.  Maybe it’s our insistence that worship be done according to our personal preferences.  But we can be sure that Jesus will take up a fight against us.  He is so passionate about those two things that he will fight against us.

Can you identify something you are doing that may be keeping others at Highland from finding a sacred place of prayer here or a special place of belonging here?  This week pray for Jesus to help you change and no longer be that obstacle.  Can you identify something others are doing that is keeping you from finding a sacred place of prayer here or a special place of belonging here?  This week pray for Jesus to fight against that obstacle for you and trust that he will.  And let’s all of us recommit ourselves to doing all we can to make this church a place of prayer and community.  Let’s recommit ourselves to ensuring that everyone who comes here feels Accepted, feels like they Belong, and feels Cared for.  Let’s recommit ourselves to this great dream about which Jesus is so passionate—let’s be that sacred place of prayer and that special place of belonging.