Calling a Spade a Spade

To begin our Lenten series, “Welcome to the Resistance,” we find ourselves in the Temple with Jesus turning over the tables (Mark 11:15-18). Let’s start with a little background.

Scholars are clear that the activities in the temple were both necessary and normal activities of the Temple. It was tradition for Jews to make pilgrimage to the Temple to make a sacrificial offering. They did not bring animals with them because they came from some distance. However, coins that bore any image of a pagan god, or the emperor, were not permitted by Jewish law (which says you shall not make graven images) to be used to purchase sacrificial offerings. Pilgrims would come to the temple, exchange their coins with graven images for coins minted specifically for the purpose of making a Temple offering, and use the new coins to buy animals for offering. They had been doing this for hundreds of years.

Turning over the tables of the moneychangers and animal sellers was not about the practice, it was about Jesus’ disgust at what the Temple had become because of those in charge.

The clue to our understanding is in the last line of the passage: “Doesn’t scripture say that my house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples?” This is a reference to Isaiah 56:6-7 which says just that and more.

Here’s a condensed version of Isaiah 56:

Thus says Yahweh: “Do what is right! Work for justice!”

Foreigners who would follow Yahweh should not say, “Yahweh will surely exclude me from this people.” Nor should the eunuch say, “And I am a dried up tree.’”

“For thus says Yahweh:
‘To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath…
And the foreigners who join themselves to me…
these I will bring to my holy mountain…
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on my altar,
for my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples!’”

John Dominic Crossan conjectures that Jesus has been preaching and teaching ALL people, not just faithful, law-abiding Jews. That is how it was supposed to be, that was Isaiah’s vision for the people of God. All were to be welcomed, even the outcast eunuchs and foreigners. Jesus’ God is available to everyone. Everything he has been preaching and teaching has just come into a head-on collision with the exclusivity of the Temple, the business of the temple, and the high priest in the pocket of the Romans. Crossan writes, “the spiritual and economic egalitarianism he preached in Galilee exploded in indignation at the Temple as the seat and symbol of all that was nonegalitarian, patronal, and even oppressive on both the religious and the political level. Jesus’ symbolic destruction simply actualized what he had already said in his teachings, effected in his healings, and realized in his mission of open commensality.”

For Jesus, this was where the proverbial rubber met the road, where words became actions. He not only spoke truth to power, he now followed it up with action.

I took a vote on Sunday and we really like this Jesus because he’s truly at his most human here. He lost his cool, for a moment. He got angry. He made an overt statement (not a nice safe parable) about justice and doing what is right and standing up against systems of power that keep people out and oppress others. And in doing so he’s a hero for the underdog, a member of God’s justice league.

Welcome to the Resistance! This is the table-turning prophet we’re called to follow. One who stands up, speaks up, takes action. The one who calls a spade a spade and speaks truth. The consequences for his actions was much harsher than any of us will ever need to worry about. The question is, will we do what is right and join God’s justice league?

We opened the service yesterday with the song “If I Had a Hammer” which was written by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays in 1949 as a protest song for the Labor Movement that was working for higher wages, safer work conditions, health care and ending child labor, among other things. After it was recorded by Peter, Paul & Mary in 1962 it became an anthem of the civil rights movement. Peter, Paul & Mary performed the song in 1963 at the March on Washington where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

The song was controversial because it advocated for peace, freedom and justice. What an odd thing to be controversial. But it suggested that the status quo was not those things, and it threatened the people in power as folks began to assemble and protest.

Many of us are appalled – daily – by the actions of our government. There is injustice happening on a daily basis. Whatever we may each hold specifically about politics, as those who follow the Christ tradition, we are called to stand for those who are the most vulnerable. We cannot stand by and do nothing in the face of the extreme firings, dismantling, tariffs and policy changes that will affect everyone, but especially people of color, the young and elderly, the poor and struggling.

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, in her sermon on inauguration day, provides us with a powerful example.

She began by talking about unity, admitting it is not an easy thing and is most likely possible only in part. But she insists on its centrality to communities and nations. We must try to come together in what she calls the “three foundations” of unity — dignity, honesty, and humility.

• Honor the dignity of every human being
• Speak the truth to one another in love
• Walk humbly with each other and our God

Budde preached a strong message, pointing out that "There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives."

She continued, "The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants; who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals, they – they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation. But the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors."

Towards the end of her sermon Budde said, "I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land."

Diana Butler Bass, historian and theologian, the next day called it the “First Sermon” for these times, asserting that many more would be needed. Who else will have the courage, not just in churches, but in our homes, on our streets, with our neighbors, in town hall meetings to “speak the truth in love”?

Turning over the tables today, or picking up the hammer, may take many forms. It may be a protest, it may be phone calls or signing petitions or sending postcards. Heroes today take many forms, including some that are amusing, but make a clear point of protest.

Philip Gulley brought a young woman to my attention a few weeks ago. Her name is Britt Boril, from Casper, Wyoming. She was his hero of the week a few weeks ago.  Why? Well, I’ll let you hear it in his words:

“[T]he Wyoming legislature passed a law that ‘preferred pronouns could not be compelled,’ because we all know that being asked to call someone ‘they’ is the most pressing problem in our nation right now. So they passed this ignorant law saying you cannot compel someone else to refer to you by a specific pronoun.

Well, this week in a Zoom call with Wyoming state senator Tim French, a woman named Britt Boril addressed Senator Tim French as “Madam Chairwoman.” French interrupted her to say that she should call him “Mr. Chairman” and she replied: “I cannot be compelled to use your preferred pronouns. You just passed a law saying so.”

He said again, “I’m asking you to call me Chairman French.”

“Madame Chairwoman, you just passed a law saying preferred pronouns cannot be compelled speech,” Britt Boril said.

It takes everyone of us to continue to hold the powers that be accountable for their role on the side of injustice.

Our scripture from today is framed by the story of the fig tree. On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was hungry and saw a fig tree, but it didn’t have any fruit. Jesus said to the tree “No one will ever eat fruit from you again!”

And then after turning over the tables, on their way back out of Jerusalem, they pass that same fig tree that is now dead. I always personally felt kind of bad for the fig tree. But the story was meant as a metaphor for the temple, a religious system that did not bear fruit, did not assuage the hungry soul. Its time needed to be over. Turning over the tables was an act of destruction of the temple, not a cleansing. It was a declaration that oppression should not be tolerated, that justice must happen, that all people are of sacred worth.

The chief priests and religious scholars didn’t see things quite the same way and began to plot for a way to get rid of Jesus.

The time has come again for us to stand up for others, to speak the truth to power, to rattle cages and turn over tables. As a follower of Jesus, we can not be silent. Welcome to the Resistance!

Kaye