The week in focus
Connecting to the world right now
In touch: Disruption, challenge and change
Up-to-the-minute jumping-off points for sermons, linking the reading to the latest news and global issues.
Jesus’ presence always brings challenge and change to lives (John 2.13-22).
Context
- Workers are expected to return to the office later this month as COVID-19 restrictions begin to lift.
- The schools minister, Nick Gibb, has rejected compulsory lessons about slavery and the Empire by claiming they would risk lowering ‘standards’.
Ideas for sermons or interactive talks
- Traditionally, a ‘good’ Budget (one that garners favourable news headlines) sees the Chancellor of the Exchequer ‘giving away’ things. This invariably means reducing, and in some instances, abolishing certain taxes and duties on items that we all use. However, a famous Russian saying suggests that the ‘only place you find free cheese is in a mouse trap’! And often, it is only after the economists and financial experts have scrutinised the Chancellor’s handiwork, that the ‘fine print’ reveals that certain other taxes were raised or imposed. This should be expected as there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch’ – everything has a cost or price.
Jesus’ activities in the Temple appear at the start of his earthly ministry in John’s Gospel, but occur near the end of his life, in the others. They foreshadow his eternal sacrifice – him paying the cost for taking away our sins. While salvation is free for us; there was a price to pay for our Lord. Moreover, Jesus also reminds us that if we are sincere about following him, there is a price we also have to pay; we must take up our cross daily. What does this mean for us in our current situation? And how does this square with our ‘something for nothing’ culture?
- It can be argued that Jesus was an arch-disrupter – he shook up the status quo of his day in so many ways. After he turned over the tables of those selling animals and exchanging money in the Temple, it was no longer business as usual for them. Everything had changed.
Although British workers are being encouraged to return to the office, there is little doubt that this will not be business as usual. For some, the ‘lockdown look’ means they will not be able to fit into their work clothes. Notwithstanding that, offices will need to be adapted to meet social distancing requirements, and some staff will still be required to work from home due to space issues. Aside from work, our overall new normal will be, in the immortal words of Star Trek’s Science Officer Spock (to Captain Kirk), ‘Life Jim, but not as we know it!’ Much has been said about our ‘BC’ – Before Covid – being replaced by something unfamiliar that is prone to change. Jesus’ actions in the Temple forced the traders to confront their way of life, thus presenting them with another way of living – a better one. How is Jesus speaking to us at this time? What is his better way for us?
- Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, got her opportunity to give her side of the story at the Alex Salmond Inquiry on Wednesday. Her one-time ally, Alex Salmond, gave his damning evidence last week. Regardless of how this turns out, one suspects that the Scottish National Party itself, will be the real losers in this case. The political infighting and scandal of the case may prove very off putting to Scottish voters. Political pundits have argued that a strong showing by the Party at the upcoming elections could see them press the case for a second independence vote. Such a turn of events, naturally strikes real fear in anyone who wants to see the maintenance of our ‘Union’ of nations.
In the Gospels, we can see that the Jewish leaders feared Jesus; they feared not only his message but also his influence or hold over the people. After he turned over the tables and ran out the money men, they asked him by what authority was he doing this. Indeed, later in John 11:48 the self-same people pointed out that: ‘If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our Temple and nation.’
Change, or what we consider to be the wrong type of change, always engenders nervousness and fear. The obvious question in Jesus’ time was, should the people have feared about the ‘Romans’ if the ‘Messiah’ was in their presence? Equally, what views, ideas and behaviours is Jesus, the disrupter, asking us to change in our lives? Moreover, are we fearful of making those changes?
- During Jesus’ earthly ministry, the people often responded to his message as if it appeared out of nowhere, rather than being firmly grounded in the very same Scriptures to which they supposedly adhered. It would be easy to suggest that a combination of interpretation, ‘spiritual myopia’ and jealously led to this confusion. However, it should also be noted that Jesus’ teachings had a unique way of turning people’s idea of who God was on its head, leading to confusion, embarrassment, anger and guilt. In short, they could not handle the truth about God, which Jesus presented.
The debate in this country about ‘slavery and the Empire’ being put on the national curriculum in schools is fascinating. Both topics are often regarded as some new-fangled aspect of ‘Black’ history, when in reality, they are inherently British history, given that they occurred in locales that were British at the time. As such, there is no reason why they should not take their place alongside lessons on ‘Henry VIII’, ‘the Victorians’ and ‘World War Two’. However, it can be argued that there is no desire, among some, for us to study what may prove to be an unsavoury, but real, aspect of our past.
There is little doubt that we should never be afraid of the truth, but do we sometimes prefer to shy away from it? In John 14.6 Jesus describes himself, among other things, as ‘the truth’, and in John 18.39, Pontius Pilate famously asks Jesus, ‘What is truth?’ According to former US President, Barrack Obama, we now live in an age of ‘truth decay’, in which fact and fiction are not strange bedfellows. How can we, as God’s people, avoid this?
Questions for discussion
- The ‘disruption’ that Jesus caused invariably led to change. Can it be argued that we only prefer change on our terms, when we are the beneficiaries?
- As we move out of lockdown, what would you want the new normal to look like?
- Jesus described himself as the ‘truth’ and famously said that ‘the truth will set you free’. How can knowing more about the truth about our history, set us free?
Richard Reddie is the Director of Justice and Inclusion for Churches Together in Britain and Ireland . He worships at St James Church, West Streatham in London.
Check-in
Connecting faith with everyday, real-life issues for young people
What place have you missed most over lockdown? School? College? Your favourite coffee shop? Friends’ houses? Church? Connecting over a screen is all very well, and we’re lucky to have that option (imagine lockdown 100 years ago!) – but it can’t quite take the place of the real face-to-face 'there-ness' of other people, or the reassuring solidity of the places we love.
As pupils across the country head back into their school buildings this week, and some other places – including churches – prepare to open up, it’s worth reminding ourselves about the role of places; and what God designed the church, and us, to be.
What God definitely didn’t have in mind was what we read about in John 2.13-22: people going through the motions of worship, not to connect with God, but to impress other people, and traders exploiting the situation to make some quick money. Often, in this passage, it’s Jesus’s action that gets all the press but, actually, it’s in Jesus’s words, that the real challenge lies.
When Jesus talks about rebuilding the Temple in three days, he’s talking about himself. Jesus is the Temple – the living presence of God, not in bricks and mortar but in flesh and blood. And today, through God’s Spirit living in us, so are we.
Looking back over the past year, how have you ‘done’ church and been church to others? What is it you need in order to live out your faith? How important are the physical buildings to you? As you return to school or college, and/or to church, in what ways will you be a ‘living temple’ – the living presence of God – in those places?
Lucy Carman is a freelance writer and editor and also works as the Office Manager at her local Anglican church. Like many others, she’s been challenged during lockdown to find new ways to enable people to do and be church outside of their buildings.
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