Text used – John 2:13-22

• I spent a lot of my spare time on Pinterest this weekend looking up butterfly stuff because Julia’s decided she wants a butterfly birthday this year.
  • Butterfly cake
  • Butterfly party
    • Decorations
    • Snacks
    • Favors
    • Games
  • All butterflies … all the time. Such is the life of an almost-6-year-old girl mom, right? But really, there’s something almost magical about butterflies, isn’t there?
    • Delicate
    • Dazzlingly colorful
    • Watching a butterfly flit through your garden or dance across your lawn just sort of brings a smile to your face, right?
  • But what got me thinking about butterflies with our Scripture reading this morning has more to do with what makes the butterfly in the first place – the process a caterpillar has to undergo in order to become a butterfly.
    • Description of the process from Labroots.com: The chrysalis is actually part of the caterpillar’s body created by increased production of a hormone dubbed ecdysone, and once enveloped, a number of gut-wrenching processes occur to the caterpillar that transform it into a beautiful butterfly. For starters, the caterpillar’s outer coating separates from the body much like a snakeskin, and this creates the chrysalis. After the chrysalis forms, the body released enzymes called caspases that dissolve cells in the insect’s muscles and organs, leaving behind only the most vital life-supporting cells. It’s from this point that a group of specialized cells called imaginal discs get to work, developing the insect’s new body and wings in a short time period. When the fully developed butterfly emerges, it often leaves behind a gooey fluid in the spent chrysalis. This fluid is the waste that was produced during the transformation, including the bodily fluids that the butterfly won’t need anymore. Indeed, the life of a caterpillar is nothing much to write home about, but becoming a butterfly, on the other hand, it somewhat spectacular.[1] → Yup. In order for a caterpillar to become a butterfly, nearly its entire being needs to dissolve into goo, “leaving behind only the most vital life-supporting cells.” Destruction … that brings life.

• This morning’s Scripture passage = similar to last week → another one of those tough ones … another one of those not-easy, not-heart-warming, not-pick-you-up sort of passages
  • Text: [Jesus] found in the temple those who were selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as those involved in exchanging currency sitting there. He made a whip from ropes and chased them all out of the temple, including the cattle and the sheep. He scattered the coins and overturned the tables of those who exchanged currency. He said to the dove sellers, “Get these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a place of business.”[2] → Now, I know I can’t be the only one who finds at least some comfort in the fact that even Jesus – Emmanuel, God-With-Us, Son of God, Savior of the world Jesus – got table-flippin’ mad sometimes. Right?
    • Another window into Jesus’ humanity
    • Another element that helps us relate to Jesus → helps draw us deeper into a more authentic, open-and-honest relationship with Jesus
    • Of course, the whole point is why Jesus got table-flippin’ mad in the first place. It was all about why all those money changes and vendors selling cattle, sheep, and doves were even there in the Temple. → all related to the practice of worship in the Temple
      • Part of the right practice of Judaism as laid out in the First Testament (mostly Deut and Lev) = practice of animal sacrifice à various sacrifices required to cleans the people of various different kinds of sin
        • 5 basic categories of sacrifices (found in Lev 1-5)[3]:
          • Burnt: gift to express thanks, worship, devotion, commitment to God AND atonement for unintentional sin (important distinction) → VOLUNTARY → animal offering – completely burn all but hide which was given to the Levites (priests) who earned money by selling it
          • Grain: expression gratitude and thanksgiving God, recognition of God’s unearned favor and goodwill → VOLUNTARY → fruit of the field, generally in the form of a cake or baked bread and accompanied by drink offering of wine – usually given with a burnt offering
          • Peace: expressed thanksgiving with an emphasis on fellowship/relationship → VOLUNTARY → followed by shared meal → animal offering with various parts being designated for God, for the priests, and for the people
          • Trespass: atonement for unintentional sins committed against someone that required reimbursement or recompense → MANDATORY → always a ram – various parts designated for God, other parts shared by those giving the offering
          • Sin: forgiveness of intentional sins and cleansing from defilement → MANDATORY → tiers of offerings dependent on financial situation (common person: female goat, poor person: fine flour)
    • This last one, the sin offering, is the offering that most concerns our gospel story this morning. It’s these animals – the animals for the sin offering, the mandatory sin offering – that were being sold in the Temple that morning.
      • Scholar highlights why this whole tableau was so problematic: Entering the Temple precincts Jesus found little in the way of sacred space. The Court of the Gentiles looked and sounded like an open-air market. Cattle bellowing, sheep bleating, turtledoves cooing, people yelling, coins clanging. Ironically, the activity was necessary for the functioning of the temple! The temple tax had to be paid in temple coinage, so money changers were necessary. Because sacrificial animals had to be without blemish, sellers of sacrificial animals were necessary. After all, who could make it all the way to Jerusalem with an unblemished animal? All of this activity was in service to the temple, but … did these services have to be rendered inside the temple precincts? Was it necessary to rob the Gentiles of the one area in the temple precincts they were allowed to enter and pray?[4] → It wasn’t the practice of sacrifice that had Jesus flipping tables that morning. It was that this spiritual practice had been monetized and consumerized to the point of not just losing its own spirituality but interfering with the spirituality of others. As the church, this passage should cause us to examine our own practices and treasures as a body. Are there practices that we cling to that have become a stumbling block of others?
        • Not necessarily intentional → I don’t think the Levites and Temple officials set out to corrupt their faith practice with this commercialism. They just let one thing slide after another until the slippery slope had consumed the whole practice. So is there anything that we’re turning a blind eye to because it’s easier not to deal with it? It’s easier not to confront it and try to correct it?
• Challenge that Jesus receives from the Jewish leaders after his table flipping brings about another crucial point – text: Then the Jewish leaders asked him, “By what authority are you doing these things? What miraculous sign will you show us?” Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up.” The Jewish leaders replied, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days?” But the temple Jesus was talking about was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered what he had said, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.[5] → “Destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up.” This is where the butterfly comes in.
  • Brandan Robertson: The author of the Gospel tells us that Jesus was cryptically prophesying about what would be done to his body in his inevitable crucifixion and subsequent resurrection. This may be true, but there is an even deeper meaning contained in this passage. Jesus is making a statement that is reiterated time and time again throughout the New Testament: that the Spirit of God doesn’t dwell in temples of systems or organizations, but rather in flesh-and-blood human beings. … So, when Jesus speaks of destroying the temple, as radical as it would have sounded to his listeners, he’s also hinting at a deeper reality: that institutions, religion, and hierarchies were not necessary at all, that God was available to all and through all, if we would only open our eyes and behold.[6]
    • Important distinction: religion faith
      • Religion: a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or groups
      • Faith: confidence or truth in a person or thing, belief not based on proof
      • “Religion” is the corporate adoption and practice of individual faith. At its best, religion is the body of Christ expressing and engaging with everyone’s individual faith together – living and praying and working and worshiping and believing together. But at its worst, religion becomes so concerned with “correctness” – correct practice, correct belief, correct conformity – that it forgets all about love and compassion and the moving and working of the Holy Spirit. The striving for correctness wrings all the authentic spirituality out of it. When that happens, it’s time for us to take a good, hard, uncomfortable look at our practices and figure out what we need to sacrifice to bring ourselves back into true, faithful relationship with God.
        • Scholar: [This] text pushes us to imagine Jesus entering our own sanctuaries, overturning our own cherished rationalizations and driving us out in the name of God. Surely we can be honest enough to acknowledge that often enough we put ourselves and our institutions at the service of powers that are decidedly less than God.[7] → Remember me saying last week that the gospel is meant to be uncomfortable? It is meant to bring us hope and comfort through the love and grace of God … but being comforted is not the same being comfortable. Being comforted lifts us up and gives us strength in moments of weakness and despair. Being comfortable leads to stasis. Being comfortable leads us to try to maintain our current state. But the gospel is not about maintaining and “holding steady.” It’s also meant to stir us to action and self-examination. It’s meant to bring about change – for ourselves, for our neighbors, for the world. And a lot of the time, change is uncomfortable. But today’s passage makes it clear that when it comes to living a life of authentic faith, the status quo just doesn’t cut it. So what do we need to shed? What part of our religious practices needs to dissolve into goo to let the delicate beauty of our true faith flit and dance through the world? What destruction do we need to enact in order to bring true life? Amen.

[1] https://www.labroots.com/trending/plants-and-animals/15714/here-s-happens-inside-caterpillar-s-chrysalis.

[2] Jn 2:14-16.

[3] https://firmisrael.org/learn/sacrifice-in-the-bible-5-types-of-offerings-israel-made/.

[4] W. Hulitt Gloer. “Third Sunday in Lent – John 2:13-22 – Homiletical Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year B, vol. 2. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 93, 95.

[5] Jn 2:18-22.

[6] Brandan J. Robertson. “Lenten Series: The Power of Sacrifice” in A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series: Thematic Plans for Years A, B, and C, vol. 2. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2019), 102, 103.

[7] Paul C. Shupe. “Third Sunday in Lent – John 2:13-22 – Pastoral Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year B, vol. 2. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 94.