Body
The Holy Gospel according to St. John, the 2nd chapter.
Glory to you, O Lord.
13The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15Making 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. 16He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After 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.
The Gospel of our Lord. Praise to you, O Christ.
Body
Grace to you and peace from God our Creator, from our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and from our Sustainer, the Holy Spirit. Amen.
His body is broken. His body is in pain. His body is suffering. When I read about what happened to him I was angry. I was angry. Most likely you have not heard this news story unless you are a church newsy-nerd who reads churchy/theological/nerdy kind of magazines like I do.
I read this story in The Christian Century. It’s about a man named William Barber – the Reverend William Barber – who happens to be respected and known in the church as a present day Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, kind of pastor. He’s a Disciples of Christ minister and civil rights organizer who has been arrested multiple times for non-violent demonstrations. Simply put, he is a great man, a powerful preacher and an icon not only in the black church but far beyond.
He also happens to suffer from a painful chronic form of arthritis in his spine called ankylosing spondylitis. To walk he uses two canes and is unable to sit in a wheelchair or regular height chair due to his condition. Everywhere he goes he brings a special chair which enables him to sit comfortably.
On the day after Christmas last year he along with friends went to a movie theater to see “The Color Purple.” His chair came along with him and was set in one of the cutaways for wheelchairs in the theater so his chair wouldn’t obstruct the aisle. No sooner had he got comfortable when theater management showed up telling him his chair wasn’t allowed and he’d have to leave. He refused to budge. He said, “My chair has been everywhere. In hospitals, in restaurants, in airports, in the White House and in Congress. It’s a need I have because I face a very debilitating arthritic condition.”
Management called the police and when they arrived one said to him, “I’m going to take you out.” I’m going to take you out, said a police officer to a black man – who happens to be one of the most prominent pastors in America. The video then shows the officers escorting Rev. William Barber out of the theater. My reaction – anger, disgust, rage.
Jesus was angry, too and there was no doubt about his anger – there in the temple of all places – the house of worship. Now please note that it is a bit befuddling, a bit confusing why Jesus was so angry because what was going on in the temple was pretty normal and expected. “Merchants bustle among their animals, moneychangers busily exchange coins, and pilgrims check out the stalls, bartering with the tradespeople and seeking priests to complete sacrificial rituals of the animals.”
It was all in the normal, routine preparations for Passover not unlike our own Lent and Holy Week preparations for Easter. Meaningful rituals we deliberately enter into at the same time each year – like gathering on Wednesdays evenings here at church during the season of Lent for a meager supper of soup and bread. Through prayer and scripture we focus on our broken nature, our human condition. We focus on righting wrongs, on repentance, on renewal we seek forgiveness and healing through beautiful music.
So why was Jesus so angry? By the way in his anger he even says to those in the temple that it will take them only three days to destroy that very temple. That is outrageous for the people to hear due to the sobering fact that they have been – as we read in scripture – building that very temple for 46 years! Jesus says it is to be destroyed in three days!
But then we hear these words which to the people made absolutely no sense at the time. Yes, the temple was to be destroyed in three days. “But he was speaking of the temple of his body.” Jesus was not referring to the physical destruction of the actual temple but rather the physical destruction of his own body. Jesus was angry because he knows (and only he knows at this point) that the world as the people in the temple knew it was going to be turned upside down by what was about to happen. Jesus was angry because they just didn’t get the fact that radical change was coming.
His body is broken. His body is in pain. His body is suffering. Not Reverend William Barber, but this time it is a man whose first name is Ahmad. We don’t know his last name. Ahmad simply wanted to get food to feed his starving children. So this man, this Palestinian in Gaza went to where he heard there would be a convoy of trucks filled with food. When he arrived – nothing but chaos and then violence. Shots fired allegedly by the Israeli Defense Forces. Ahmad was shot in the leg. Then he was shot in the hand. Then he was run over by a truck – all for trying to get food for his starving children.
His body is broken. His body is in pain. His body is suffering. This time it is not Reverend William Barber or Ahmad, the Palestinian but rather it was scores of bodies, hundreds of bodies, thousands of bodies of Israelites. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January there was one item on the agenda focusing on global rising antisemitism – just one session on the global rise of antisemitism. At that session a film created by the Israeli Defense Force was shown but it was advertised as the most painful 45 minute film you will ever see – terrifying, actual footage of the brutal attacks carried out by Hamas last October on innocent civilians in Israel. Too horrific to describe here except to say that the bodies of babies, the bodies of children, the bodies of women, the bodies of the elderly, the bodies of men were horribly violated and broken. The pain unimaginable. The suffering intolerable. Bodies broken. Bodies in pain. Bodies suffering.
When the film ended it was reported that “People walked out of the room in silence simply crying or shell shocked.” That same reporter said this, “Having now attended several such screenings of this exact same film, I saw people react in similar horror to the visual evidence of the butchery (of the Israelis by Hamas) which once witnessed can never be unseen.”
Bodies broken. Bodies in pain. Bodies suffering. What was Jesus so angry about in the temple? In today’s first lesson from Exodus, God said this, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath…You shall not bow down to them or worship them…”
Jesus is angry at the idols we create – idols we worship, idols we venerate, idols contradicting God’s law – idols like violence, power, war, racism, hate. Jesus’ anger – his exasperation reflects what he knew was to come and what he knew that we, the people did not get – did not understand – cannot seem to accept – that he, Jesus was about to give up his body on a cross – quite simply – because the law did not work. The 10 commandments did not work. We could not keep them. We inflict too much pain on each other – on each other’s bodies.
It’s as if Jesus is saying in that temple, “Nothing is ever going to be the same. Everything that you are doing here in the temple will not prevent, will not block what has to happen, and frankly, considering what is about to happen nothing going on in the temple right now matters.”
It’s as if Jesus is saying under his breath, “I am on my way to Jerusalem. I am on my way to Golgotha. I am about to have a crown of thorns placed on my head. I am about to have nails pounded into my hands and feet, I am about to have a sword pierce my side – all for you – so you can stop this madness – so you can stop hurting one another and hating one another and bullying one another and killing one another. All this is about to happen so I can forgive you for how you treat one another – so that God’s love has the last and final word – not your selfishness, not your cruelty, not your hate – but God’s goodness.” Jesus says to you and me, “This is my journey of Lent. This is our journey of Lent.”
One writer put it quite eloquently, “Lent is a body anointed. Lent is a body beaten. Lent is a body on a cross. Lent is a body laid in a tomb.”
After his broken, lifeless body was laid in the tomb where is Christ now? He is incarnate. He is in the flesh. He is your body. Your body is Jesus.
You see God chose incarnation. God chose first to be in the flesh in a man called Jesus. But since Jesus’ lifeless body was laid in a tomb, God chooses to be in the flesh in your body.
Now just think about that – your body. You know in church we don’t usually talk about our bodies – right? You are probably like me. If asked to think about my body, I’ll first think about everything wrong with my body. It’s too this. It’s too that. This hurts. That doesn’t work right. But that’s what it means to be loved unconditionally! Jesus chooses to dwell in our bodies as imperfect as they are because that’s how God chooses to be in the world. With Christ dwelling within us nothing is impossible. As you interact with others think about Christ dwelling in your very body, and what a difference that makes. What potential you have to love and serve and help and care – with your body.
Recently Tony who is in 2nd grade came to church with his grandmother who is our custodian. While she’s working he usually hangs out in the lounge and plays with whatever he brings along, but this time he chose to clean the processional cross that he carries down the center aisle on Sunday mornings because he noticed it needed cleaning. It was his idea! So he scrubbed it with his little hands, his little body, and then he did the same with our marble altar. With his little hands, with his body, he polished our marble altar until it shined!
Christ dwelling in Tony – so much so that Tony shines! That’s the life God intends us to live – a life where the Rev. William Barbers of the world whose bodies are broken are treated with nothing but kindness. A way of life in which we shine with the light of Christ and feed each other so no one goes hungry –no dad like Ahmad gets shot while searching for food for his children. A way of life in which where there are no films depicting how cruel people can be to one another that leave viewers shell-shocked and in tears. A way of life in which people of different religions can live side by side in peace.
Do you believe this about your body? That these bodies of ours – as imperfect and flawed as they are – are the new body of Christ? Well, one of the amazing, cool, and out-of-this world things about faith – is that you don’t really have to get it or even be able to accept that outlandish idea – that our bodies are the body of Christ. Just come to the altar. Come to the altar and receive the body of Christ, the bread and the wine. Receive the body of Christ himself and you will see. You will see! Amen.
Sources:
“Working Preacher” – Website, March 3, 2024 Commentary by Alicia D. Myers
Time Magazine – Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, January 23, 2024
Reuters March 3, 2024