3/8/15
Jeremy and Mario and the choir and Bob |
This
is the third Sunday of Lent. The weekend of the 50th anniversary of
the crossing of The Edmund Petttis bridge. Mario and the Work Center’s Open
Choir are with us this morning. Sean is
asleep on the steps. I saw a body there last night as I passed by. This
morning, I saw the blankets. Had no idea it was him. Politely asked the person
to move. Didn’t realize it was him. The printer’s not working have to run to
the Bangladeshi copy shop to print the bulletins.
We begin by singing Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a
right spirit within my soul. And after the greetings
and announcements, we begin with Psalm 19: 1-14 and use Bob Marley’s O let the words of my mouth and the
meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, which comes at
verse 14, as our refrain.
Then our gospel lesson, John 2: 13-22:
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.
I lift up the anniversary of the bridge crossing. And
last week’s anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. Our theme today is
righteous anger. We’ve been through a season of anger. With the murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and the failure
to indict any of the police involved. And the Black Lives Movement that spontaneously erupted in response. The
headline last week in the Times
referencing a pattern of bias in the Ferguson police force. To which one would
say, Ya think?
When the Ferguson community first erupted, the
Presbyterian national leadership sent out a letter calling for calm and prayer. My son in Berlin
e-mailed me, seriously? Sometimes anger
is the only right response. Even as
Jesus flew into rage in the Temple. Why?
The money changers were there because the law forbade
human images and the Roman coins all bore impressions of Caesar. To purchase
the doves and other small animals needed for sacrifices, the Roman money had to
be exchanged for temple money. Some
of that’s not so foreign…when this sanctuary was first constructed in 1889, our
ancestors did not believe in human images. If you look at our north and south
Tiffanies, what you see is Celtic iconography. It wasn’t until 1929 that
someone with enough money could persuade the congregation to commission this
Jesus and children you see behind me.
It wasn’t that the money changers were short changing
people has tradition has it. Even if they were giving full value, that was not
the point. It was the whole temple establishment and system that offended
Jesus. It wasn’t the selling of doves but the selling of souls that offended Jesus.
It was the temple establishment’s collaboration with the empire that
drew Jesus’ ire. It was oppressed and
sold out humanity that was symbolized in his body and that would inevitably
wind up in political execution. It is a
liberated humanity that will be rising again after his paradigmatic death.
The songs we will hear later come from a particular
place, the African diaspora of the Southern United States where the experience
of worship carved out liberated territory in the midst of chattel slavery. As
James Cone has said, in the African-American worship experience, the canon is
more than the Bible, it is prayers and sermons and songs as well. These are
those songs that created liberated territory until existential liberation could
be achieved, the full realization of which still awaits.
Dr. King in Selma, at the bridge, was angry. Non-violent
direct action is not passive, it is active. And strong. Sometimes the greatest
expression of love is anger.
As I finish, Mario and the open choir come forward. Begin
their songs, moving to the music, call and response, swaying, moving. Songs rising and falling in a movement like
the ups and downs of the long road to freedom.
Singing freedom |
…all along my pilgrim journey, I want Jesus to walk with
me…we sing as we prepare for prayer.
Congregation and choir join in our circle of blessing.
The Session meets. The existential challenges are big and
stressful. You fix one thing, a dozen more arise. Sisyphus wears out,
eventually. There can be anger. Not always righteous. Somewhere in this is
love.
Outside, Sean still asleep on the steps.
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