Pass it on
Resources to share for DIY discipleship
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To the leader: this page offers extracts from the ROOTS weekly resources to share with others in your church community to help them explore the Bible and grow as disciples.
Highlight and copy the text to print, email, or put it on your church website – pass it on! Please include the copyright acknowledgement to ROOTS that appears with the extracts.
When and where? ROOTS resources can be used all week. We’ve included some notes below to suggest when and where you might share them. Don’t forget house groups, youth groups, the housebound, care homes, toddler groups and school assemblies.
8 March 2015
Jesus and the Temple - John 2.13-22
Lectionary Bible readings RCL Lent 3 Year B
Exodus 20.1-17
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1.18-25
John 2.13-22
We explore: the importance of the Temple and the Commandments; Jesus’ anger; the significance of memory in religious practice.
Resources to share
To the leader: these brief notes help to set the scene for the readings.
When & where? Read out the notes before hearing the readings in worship; share on a weekly bulletin, church website, etc. with Bible references so that people can get more out of reading the passages for themselves.
The reader could use these words to provide some context.
The Ten Commandments are numbered differently by Jews, Catholics and Protestants. The writer of John’s Gospel places Jesus overturning the Temple tables at the beginning of his narrative, while the other gospels have it at the end. Both in the Scriptures and beyond, understanding our faith is an ongoing process, and not everyone will come to the same conclusions
© ROOTS for Churches Ltd 2002-2015. Reproduced with permission. www.rootsontheweb.com
Bible notes
To the leader: we offer two sets of Bible notes each week. The short version comes from the Children & Young People resources and the long version is from the Adult & All Age resources. You could share a version to help people learn more about the reading.
When & where? Before or after we hear the reading in worship; in a Bible study group; distributed to people who can’t get to the service; in a youth group.
John 2.13-22
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We have moved from the conciseness of Mark’s Gospel to the complex symbolism of John. Whereas Mark concentrates on how Jesus teaches and heals in his inexorable journey to Jerusalem, John writes big set-pieces and seems less interested in the details of events than in their significance in the bigger picture.
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John places Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple right at the start of his ministry, rather than just before his arrest, as in the accounts by Matthew, Mark and Luke. Jesus’ dramatic gesture wasn’t a wholesale condemnation of Temple worship, but he passionately believed, like other early first-century Jews, that the Temple was God’s dwelling place, the meeting place between heaven and earth, and needed to be treated accordingly.
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John’s Gospel was written 15-20 years after Mark’s, and in a very different context, after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. ‘His disciples remembered’ (vv.17,22) reminds us how the gospels were written. Communities who had known Jesus remembered and retold their stories, making connections between his life and the Scriptures. As the community behind John’s Gospel no longer had a temple, they transferred temple theology to Jesus, and speak of the ‘temple of his body’ (v.21).The reference to being raised up ‘in three days’ (v.20) clearly evokes the resurrection. By adding sheep and cattle to the story, John proclaims Jesus as the replacement for animal sacrifice and the new dwelling place of God.
© ROOTS for Churches Ltd 2002-2015. Reproduced with permission. www.rootsontheweb.com
Old Testament Exodus 20.1-17
Here are the Ten Commandments. Despite our familiarity with them, there are still questions to be asked. How do the 16 verses divide into ten commandments? The number ten comes from references to ‘ten words’ in Exodus 34.28, and Deuteronomy 4.13 and 10.4. In Jewish tradition, verse 2 – ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt…’ – is the first ‘word’. Verses 3 to 6 are then the second ‘word’. Roman Catholic tradition combines verses 2 and 3 into the first commandment, and tends to omit the reference to idols/images. Therefore verse 7 (taking the Lord’s name in vain) becomes the second commandment. The requisite ten commandments are achieved by distinguishing between coveting a neighbour’s wife, and coveting his property
(1). In most Protestant traditions, verse 3 is the first commandment, and verses 4 to 6 the second
(2). There are already discrepancies between the commandments in Exodus and those in Deuteronomy (5.6–21). In Exodus, the Sabbath is to be ‘remembered’, because God created heaven and earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. In Deuteronomy, the Sabbath is to be ‘observed’, in remembrance of Israel’s time as slaves in Egypt. There is no doubting the importance of the Sabbath, but there are different ways of understanding its significance.
1 www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/command.htm
2 www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/book-of-common-prayer/a-catechism.aspx
Gospel John 2.13-22
In Matthew, Mark and Luke (known as the Synoptic Gospels), Jesus overturns the Temple tables at the end of his ministry, provoking the chain of events that leads to his death. In Matthew (26.61) and Mark (14.58), his saying about destroying the Temple is quoted at his trial. In John, however, the incident occurs at the beginning of his ministry. This alerts us to the fact that the gospels are carefully constructed narratives, with different theological messages. Today’s reading explicitly states that making sense of Jesus’ identity only happened after the resurrection: ‘his disciples remembered (vv.17,22). That ‘remembering’ consisted of making connections between Jesus’ life and the Scriptures. By the time John’s Gospel was written, or perhaps we should say by the time of its final edition, the Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed. Since we now find it very difficult to understand the Temple and its sacrificial system, we tend to ascribe anachronistic views to Jesus, assuming that he condemned Temple worship wholesale. But like all other early first-century Jews, he viewed the Temple as God’s dwelling place, the meeting point of heaven and earth, the navel of the world. Following the prophets’ example, his dramatic gesture was a critique from within. The community behind John’s Gospel, however, were dealing with a new temple-less situation; a new world, where the Temple no longer existed. And so they transferred temple theology to Jesus. John (unlike the Synoptics) explicitly states that Jesus ‘was speaking of the temple of his body’ (v.21). He adds sheep and cattle to the story, saying that Jesus drove them out with a whip of cords. He is proclaiming Jesus as the replacement to sacrifice, the new dwelling place of God.
We tend to see the Bible as a monolithic whole. But it developed over long periods of time; and as new layers were laid down, new understandings of God were put forward. Even the Ten Commandments come in two versions, articulating different theologies of the Sabbath. The gospel writers constructed their narratives to exemplify their particular understanding of Jesus’ mission, even placing incidents at different points of his life. Within today’s Gospel we detect three layers: Jesus himself, the first disciples ‘remembering’, and the Johannine community making sense of the Temple’s destruction. There are casualties in this process: John’s Gospel seems to forget that Jesus was Jewish, and talks of ‘the Jews’ as though Jesus wasn’t one of them. How do you make sense of events in your life? Do you find meaning in retrospect? Do you, for example, now remember events in your childhood with a new adult understanding? Are there any casualties in this process?
© ROOTS for Churches Ltd 2002-2015. Reproduced with permission. www.rootsontheweb.com
PostScript
To the leader: this reflection and comment on current news and events is written afresh each week and appears on the ROOTS website by Thursday morning.
When & where? Useful for sermon preparation; includes a prayer that can be used in worship and questions for young people. You could share it after the Sunday service or use in house/youth groups sessions.
To the leader: these prayers support individual and family prayer life during the week.
When & where? Print/email them in a bulletin, post on your website.
A personal prayer
Jesus, help me to be wise,
not with human knowledge, but with the wisdom of God.
Help me to know you so well
that I know how to live with integrity.
Give me eyes to see what you see,
and a voice to speak your words
in a world that sees faith as foolish.
Amen.
© ROOTS for Churches Ltd 2002-2015. Reproduced with permission. www.rootsontheweb.com
A way into prayer
- Display lots of small crosses, in a variety of styles and materials.
- Invite people to pick up and hold a cross that speaks to them today, thinking about why that cross is important to them.
- Offer a printed card with this phrase based on 1 Corinthians 1.18: ‘The message of the cross is foolishness to the world, but the cross is salvation to me.’
© ROOTS for Churches Ltd 2002-2015. Reproduced with permission. www.rootsontheweb.com
A prayer for all ages together
In temper and storm, in tears and rain,
in joy and sunshine, Jesus has walked before us.
And Jesus still walks with us.
Jesus, let me know your presence in all I think or feel or do.
Amen.
© ROOTS for Churches Ltd 2002-2015. Reproduced with permission. www.rootsontheweb.com
A children’s prayer
Lord Jesus, you turned the tables on the things you saw were wrong.
Help me to stand up for the wrong things I see around me.
Amen.
© ROOTS for Churches Ltd 2002-2015. Reproduced with permission. www.rootsontheweb.com
To the leader: these are suggestions, linked to this week’s Bible reading, for putting faith into action.
When & where? Print/email them in a bulletin, post on your website.
For children
Encourage the children to reflect at the end of each day this week, on what has gone well and what they might have done differently.
© ROOTS for Churches Ltd 2002-2015. Reproduced with permission. www.rootsontheweb.com
For young people
‘Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!’ (John 2.16b)
Encourage the young people to try not to buy anything at all one day this week.
© ROOTS for Churches Ltd 2002-2015. Reproduced with permission. www.rootsontheweb.com
For adults
‘Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!’
One day this week, try not to buy anything at all.
© ROOTS for Churches Ltd 2002-2015. Reproduced with permission. www.rootsontheweb.com
To the leader: a question to ponder, a picture to colour, activities, a prayer, and a related book/film to share, aimed at 5–9 year olds.
When & where? Print it out for families to take away, email it to families each week.
This week's Children's sheets
To the leader: a picture from this week’s resources with questions for reflection and discussion.
When & where? Use in a house group, project as people prepare to worship, share after the Sunday service.
This week's images
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