Tearing Down Walls
Communion Thought: Gary Burke
Sermon: Rick Rossing
Scriptures: Isaiah 56; Jeremiah 7; Ephesians 2; Matthew 27
During the final week of Jesus’s earthly ministry, all of the gospels record that he entered the temple courts and drove out those buying and selling and converting currency. Mark’s gospel records that Jesus had gone into the temple and looked around the day before. John’s gospel adds the detail that he did so wielding a whip he himself had made out of cords. This was not only a premeditated act, but possibly the most violent act of Jesus’s ministry.
What motivated such an action from someone described in Isaiah 42 as one who will not break a bruised reed or extinguish a smouldering wick as he faithfully brings justice to the earth?
We don’t have to speculate; Jesus declares his reason: My house is supposed to be a house of prayer for all nations, but you’ve turned it into a den of thieves! In one sentence, Jesus calls them to think on two prophets: Isaiah, chapter 56, which has already been read, and Jeremiah 7.
I can remember a man who once served as treasurer back at Connecticut Valley, and how he had asked that people looking to be reimbursed for expenses should not approach him on Sundays with receipts, because he was there to worship, just like everyone else. It was an inconvenience, of course; we all were already there, so why should we have to make a special effort or trip? But we respected his wishes, and found a way to make it work. I don’t remember how, exactly, but his point was valid. There is a proper time and place to do business, and it isn’t during the assembly, nor in the sanctuary. Eventually, he stepped down and another took his place who was not as strict in the interpretation, but we continued to avoid doing earthly business while we should be focusing on the spiritual.
This same principle is why many of us who have been to other churches of Christ are well familiar with the phrase “separate and apart” as it pertains to the common practice of taking the collection following communion, as long as the ushers are already out of their seats.
Clearly, Jesus found their conducting business offensive. My house is a house of prayer, and you’re turning it into a den of thieves!
How can you claim to be God’s people, Jesus is saying, when you neglect justice? How can you ask for mercy while you abuse the very people you are called to be merciful toward?
Preserve justice and do what is right, says Isaiah. What does that look like? I can’t answer that for anyone else but me. I know I have sinned. I know I am forgiven. Justice requires that I be punished, but instead I am forgiven. How can that be? Maybe I don’t really understand what justice is, then. Maybe justice isn’t just punishment for crimes, but charting a new course. Preserve justice and do what is right. Blessed is the person who does this, Isaiah says.
It is not possible to do what is right if you are not preserving justice, because injustice is not right. It is not right that a person can have justice withheld for arbitrary reasons. The color of their skin; or how well they can speak the language; or their poverty level. We all have unconscious biases that cause us to size up a person and judge their character based on factors that they had no control over. How do we overcome that? We start by reminding ourselves that we are imperfect beings ourselves. Maybe being exactly like me isn’t the best thing for anyone to be… least of all, myself.
Under the law, eunuchs and foreigners could never enter the temple, but here is Isaiah saying that people such as these will have a place within the house of the Lord, and that makes me think there was something else about the temple that angered Jesus.
It was called the soreg, a dividing wall, emblazoned with signs in all common lanuages forbidding non-Jews from approaching the Temple. The English translation would sound like this: “No foreigner (and by that, it means not a Jew) may enter within the balustrade around the sanctuary and the enclosure. Whoever is caught, on himself shall he put blame for the death which will ensue.”
As far as I have been able to discern, this was no commandment from the Lord, so much as it was a human tradition codified into law. We should not blame them too harshly, since most of us are at least aware, if not well-versed, in the intertestamental period of history, the persecutions at the hand of Gentiles. Not to mention more recent persecutions. And more modern walls.
But how could the temple ever be a place of prayer for all nations if all nations were excluded from the inner courts?
For that matter, how can anyone come into the presence of the Lord if He dwells only in the place that the high priest—and no one else—may enter?
The answer is not complicated. The Lord is not constrained to a 20-foot cube. He dwells where he wants. Today, there is no temple, nor should we expect it ever to be rebuilt, for the Lord is the temple. Buildings crumble, and can be torn down or burned. The Lord’s church cannot.
Still, there was that wall. I can’t help but imagine how insensed Jesus became as he reflected on his mission, and this wall that made it futile. Jesus had come to remove that wall. “For he is our peace, who made both groups (that is, Jews and Gentiles) one, tearing down the dividing wall of hostility.” How did he do it? Through his death, burial, and resurrection. Read Ephesians, chapter 2 if you need to be reminded. Jesus tore down walls.
At his death, another wall was destroyed: the curtain in the temple that covered the entrance to the holy of holies was torn in two from top to bottom. Read Matthew’s account of his death, near the end of chapter 27. Jesus tore down walls.
Mark recorded that after this cleansing of the temple, the chief priests and scribes started looking for ways to kill him, if they hadn’t been already. I’m guessing the lesson didn’t sink in.
What are we supposed to take away from this story? How do we apply it to our own walk with the Lord?
Well, first, we should separate the Lord’s work from the world’s. We are to be about the business of seeking and saving the lost, by whatever means are necessary. That means going out and serving. Yes, teaching is important, but it is hard to hear platitudes over one’s own suffering. We aren’t always very good at balancing meeting physical needs as well as spiritual.
But even more importantly, we need to be people who tear down walls instead of erecting them. We can’t be inviting people in while simultaneously pushing them away.
Jesus tore down walls. Let us be like Jesus.
