LIVING THE STORY

March 11, 2012
Lent 3
Psalm 19
John 2:13-22

Prayer: [May] the words of my mouth and meditation of [all our hearts] be acceptable to you, O LORD, [our] rock and [our] redeemer. (Ps19:14)

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It is important to tell the story of Jesus being overly emotional at what he saw at the temple. This was such a significant story to the people of the early church that it is only one of a handful of stories told in all four of the Biblical Gospels.


By all standards of preferred, appropriate communication and conflict management/anger management techniques, Jesus went over the line. He yelled and screamed into a crowd. John says that he fashioned a whip and used it as a threatening weapon. Jesus’ emotions clearly got the better of him and he ‘snapped’.

What did he see that upset him? People selling animals for sacrifice (not for animal cruelty reasons, but because of the ‘selling’ of animals); money changers selling temple currency. Why did this bother him? Was the temple courtyard an inappropriate place for commerce? Was Jesus concerned that foreign pilgrims were not permitted access unless they bought local currency? Did this create a barrier for some people? Was he bothered that people did not take the ritual seriously, in that they had not come prepared for the ritual with the actual fruits of their own labour, choosing instead to buy what they needed when they arrived? Did Jesus just want to find an occasion to quote Isaiah 56:7 (My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people) and Jeremiah 7:11 (Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight?)?

In Jesus Christ Superstar, Jesus sings those OT quotes: “my temple should be a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves”. That play and movie reflect the late nineteen sixties, early seventies, the Vietnam era – the market place included guns of war for sale alongside the animal and currency merchants: images intended to help the audience understand the outrage by bringing it into their context.

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The truth is that Jesus reacted angrily to some injustice he saw and that may not be what the best self-help books tell us to do.

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But...injustice should upset us. Sometimes, we are so bothered to the core of our being that a well-reasoned, logical response isn’t always the first thing that comes to mind...or out of our mouths.

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If you have been anywhere the internet this week, particularly if you spent some time on news sites or social media sites, you likely have heard about Kony2012. On Monday, a little known US charity that seeks to help victims of African conflict (Invisible Children) uploaded a 30 minute video to YouTube. In less than a day, it had over one million views.

And then...it really went “viral” as people shared it on facebook and twitter and blogs of all sorts. I just checked just before 10 o’clock this morning and that original YouTube posting from Monday now has 71,279,533 views (that does not include all of the views of the copies that others have posted with different YouTube accounts).

The Kony2012 video’s content (and its meteoric spread) was a topic on radio talk shows, newspapers, websites, tv.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about Kony2012 concerns an attempt to shed light on a rebel warlord in north Uganda and neighbouring countries tribal regions: the head of the Lord’s Resistance Army (the LRA): Joseph Kony.

I’ve edited a couple minutes from of the video for you to see this morning. I will post a link to the full video with my sermon notes on the church website.
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Khadafy was #24,

Joseph Kony is #1.

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Also going viral are the questions of discomfort that this video have raised.

“This Kony guy might be a bad guy, but he’s pretty small potatoes, isn’t he?”

“Are the ‘legitimate’ armies in the region any better?”

“Is this charity legit?”

“What percent of donations go to administration?”

“Besides, is it any of our business?”

“How does this hurt Canada’s economy?”

“Look it doesn’t affect me directly, so it’s none of my business.”

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“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

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Biblical answer to that last one:

“YEEESSS!”

Genesis 4: when Cain was questioned about the whereabouts of his brother (who he had just killed), he lied and said “I don’t know”, but then he attempted to deflect the question by invoking what he hoped would be a societal norm: “I don’t have to look out for my brother, do I?”

Matthew 25: Jesus said that the ultimate test of our faithfulness will be: ‘when I [Jesus] was hungry or thirsty, when I was a stranger, or naked, or sick or in prison, did you help me? And by the way, when you help the least of my brothers and sisters (the most vulnerable, the least powerful), you do it to ME!’





(to centre) 

(in raised tone) Am I my brother’s keeper? You’re damn right I am. Now, what the hell are we going to do about this shit!?”  [note: as I was preaching live in church, I had planned on using a different word than 'hell' - another monosylabic four letter swearword, starting with 'f'', but I chickened out at the last minute]

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Social Question: What upsets you more: my ‘colourful’ language or the injustices in our world, like what’s going on in Syria, or 26 years of war crimes committed by Joseph Kony?

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Initially, I was bothered that the charity behind Kony2012 has a two star rating compared to more traditional overseas outreach charities. I know that they are unapologetically a different kind of charity, but I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that the charity’s work includes such high travel and promotional costs that they only dedicate about one-third of their resources go to on-the-ground projects in Africa: although what they’ve done in terms of building schools and homes is amazing.

And...I have to admit that when I watched the video, it bothered me that the big Kony2012 awareness day will be April 20th (4-20: it’s never mentioned, but 420 is the day that marijuana advocates make their very public pleas for decriminalization).

I’m a pretty liberal guy, but I’m not an advocate of free and open pot use. In the end, to me, all mind-altering endeavours are signs of a desire to escape some bothersome reality in life that would be better dealt with, rather than avoided.

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But these are all side issues to the passion within the message of the video. It is so easy to get distracted.

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Our passion about something can get us a bit off-centred. The method of our passion can get in the way of the message we are passionate about.

Having said that, we need to be able to see that nature in ourselves (and others) and not use our concerns over method as an excuse to ignore the message’s validity.

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I apologize for my language earlier – I hope you know that I spoke that way for dramatic effect this morning: not out of disrespect for you or this sanctuary.

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All that aside...when I watched the Ko ny2012 video, I was moved by (what I would describe as) the Invisible-Children-Charity’s motivational credo:

“Where you live shouldn’t determine whether you live.”
"Where you live shouldn’t determine whether you live.”

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I’m not a fan of violence and angry talk (I’m not innocent of it either - ask my family). I know (from hard experience) that it can be distracting to a message!

We (you and I) will always be better off when we can choose our words and actions carefully.

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How do we imagine people reacted to Jesus’ words and actions?

Did his method get in the way of his message? Was anyone talking about the injustices at the temple or just about that Galilean who went a little nuts with a whip?

It is likely that Jesus’ opponents tried to convince Pilate to crucify him by saying that he had been ‘causing riots at the temple’.

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As we live out our faith as followers of Jesus, our Christ, we will do well to keep our passion for the message, without the distracting methods.

Tell the story. But more so...

Live the story.

Live it out so that others get the message of what it is you believe.

Authenticity is a powerful messenger.

That is the essence of the promises we all made as part of the baptisms this morning. We told Shay and Sophia and Vasyl that we were going to show them what faith can mean in their lives by living it out in ours.

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It is significant that the story of Jesus’ final week (which, in all of the gospels except John, is where the story of the temple cleansing is told) [Jesus’ final week] is called Jesus’ Passion.

There is an emotional, deeply motivated (passionate) aspect to how Jesus speaks and acts in those days.

I like to define ‘passion’ as “focused angst, focused outrage”.

We are called to be passionate followers of Jesus: to use a focused outrage that looks at injustice and screams: “this cannot continue; this must stop.”

Injustice can be met with a heartfelt and honest passion for a just world.

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We pray for God’s encouragement and support as we “seek justice and resist evil”: Come into our lives, Holy Spirit. Come and enliven our message for the world to see.

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We should care about the kind of things Jesus cared about; we should love the kind of people Jesus loved; we should challenge injustice like Jesus did and seek changes that are needed. We should do this – not because it’s cost effective or comfortable – but because (among other things) ‘where you live shouldn’t determine whether you live’.

Let us live out our faith!

L’chaim! To life!



[prayer]

 

Let us pray:

Help us, O God, live out such a grace in our harmony with one another, that all people will know that they have value and deserve the highest dignity this world can offer. Amen.



#6MV “Holy Spirit, Come”