Sermon: Keep It Holy

Psalm 46 – John 2:13-22

Sermon preached by Dr. Mark Smutny

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Pasadena Presbyterian Church

Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; 3 though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. 4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. 5 God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. 6 The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. 7 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Come, behold the works of the LORD; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. 9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire. 10 “Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.” 11 The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

John 2:13-22

13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making 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. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 After 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.

What Jesus saw was an outrage! Moving through the Jerusalem central market to the temple with a whip, he created holy havoc. No tables did he leave unturned. No one was left untouched. Imagine the scene: tables over turned, coins rolling across the floors, sheep bleating, cows bellowing, the sound of dove wings flapping in the temple timbers! “The man’s going crazy,” some thought. However, if you looked in his eyes, he was pure strength. “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” That’s what he said and you could hear him everywhere. The Bible says he cried it out. No P.A. system back then. His strong voice was so loud it penetrated every corner of temple. It was God’s temple, God’s holy temple, his Father’s house.

It was a house with a history:

long before the day when Jesus drove through his Father’s house, cleansing it a whip of cords, long before the day when the Jerusalem holy house was turned day by day into a market place instead of house of prayer, long before the day when that holy house, the temple in Jerusalem had been built, Jesus’ people, the Hebrews, his ancestors, had promised one day before God and one another that they would keep one day sacred. They promised to keep the Sabbath day holy. They would keep the Sabbath day holy.

The key idea behind keeping a day holy was a commitment to honor God for what God had done for them. God had liberated the Hebrew people from bondage and brought them freedom. This activity of God they were never to forget. To keep the Sabbath day holy was a way to honor God for what God had done; for what God continues to do which is to free, liberate and save them. This is why they were to be keep the Sabbath day holy. God was a liberating, freeing, saving God. Likewise when they built the temple, the holy house, Jesus’ Father’s house, it was to be kept holy. They were to keep God’s house holy.

This practice of keeping the Sabbath holy is especially highlighted in the Ten Commandments. Quoting from Exodus, the 20^th chapter it says, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make yourself and idol. You shall not bow down to them. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God. And hear this especially, “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.”

“Keep it holy.” This idea, this practice, this habit of the heart of keeping holiness is at the very center of what drives Jesus to cleanse the temple in the account from John’s Gospel. Jesus comes to Jerusalem because it is a time that is pregnant with possibilities. The Passover draws near. The most significant religious festival season in all of Judaism, the Passover, the celebration of the Hebrews deliverance from slavery is about to begin. The Hebrew people are never to forget their beginnings, their founding story of liberation, freedom and salvation. And what does Jesus encounter? Does he encounter a people honoring God, consecrating a day, a Sabbath day to the God who saved them?

No! He sees his Father’s house piled high with garbage! Money-changers, bleating sheep, bellowing cows, braying donkeys! Alongside the scrolls of the holy Torah the rabbis are hawking bingo tickets. There’s a pile of camel dung while the choir is rehearsing for next week’s concert. The stewardship committee is planning next fall’s capital campaign and the argument is over the size of the lead gifts. If you want to come into to pray you’re out of luck the church calendar is too crowded. It’s a busy place. That’s a good thing. However, if you need to pray to get close, to find your center, to thank, to forgive, to confess, to believe for the first time, to find, to get still, you’re out of luck. Keep it holy? His Father’s house had been turned into Grand Central Station or LAX at rush hour. There was no room for holiness.

The ways of the world where we forget what God has done for us to free us, to save us, invade our lives gradually, subtly, never intentionally. Our intentions are always good. We go along making choices to commit to one thing after another. We do one more thing: one more meeting, one more task, one more decision and we discover that we’ve packed our lives so full that we barely have room for God. I do this with my life and I’m supposed to be a professional holy man. I discover I’ve made no space for God. I crowd God from my life.

Then I remember Jesus clearing the temple with a whip of cords and I ask God to clear my temple with a whip of cords. I ask God to help me find space for grace, for God, for holiness, for a way clear. I hear his firm yet gentle voice, “Mark, keep it holy; keep it holy.” That strong inner voice speaks and clears a pathway for prayer and Sabbath. My Sabbath day doesn’t always happen easily on Sundays. I work on Sundays and it can be difficult to make room except when I listen to our Kirk Choir and make room to receive. Sundays may be your Sabbath day. My Sabbath happens mostly during my early morning walks when I take my doggies for a good hike and I commune with nature and with God. I discover a deep seated grace, a peace and a grounding that comes only from keeping life holy, by cultivating a nearness to God who frees and liberates. I hear an inner voice that says, “Be still Mark. Be still.” To be still, is a big deal for me. I am a doer, a goer, a hurrier. To be still with God enables me to be a far more effective pastor of this large complicated congregation, what I like to call affectionately a multicultural, three-ring circus.

What prevents you from keeping it holy? What blocks you from making space for grace, for making space for God in your life? If you are like me I imagine many of you allow the world gradually to invade your life, not intentionally, but incrementally with the best of intentions. If you are like me, it’s subtle. You go along making ordinary choices to fill your life and you discover there is no room or the world just overwhelms you. You forget to set aside time each day to pray.

Or maybe you simply aren’t practiced in the art of walking intentionally with God. You allow other priorities and distractions to get in the way of one of the most important practices of people of faith: to keep it holy, to keep Sabbath. Soon you allow all the noise and craziness, all the metaphorical animals and material things to pull you away, to pull you away from God just like all the bleating sheep and bellowing cattle in Jesus’ day. You get lost in the confusion.

Then you need to hear his voice. Hear his strong voice. It has authority. It’s not angry. It’s firm. His voice can penetrate every corner of any temple, any sanctuary, any hidden place, any lost or confused or overburdened soul. He can cut through the noise, the pressure, the smell, the pain. He reached me. He still reaches me. He can reach you.

His voice says, “I will find you. I will seek you out. I will welcome you. I will bring you home. I will feed you. I will give you a new heart. I will raise you up. I will never let you go.”

My friends, here we are in the middle of Lent, preparing in a few weeks to celebrate the glorious feast of Easter, preparing our hearts and our lives to get right, to get ready, preparing to get ready for the cross, by recognizing that our Savior lived and died for our sake.

Prepare this day and in the days to come. Invite God to cleanse your temple. Clear away everything that keeps you from God: all the noise, the bleating sheep, the bellowing cattle, the flapping wings, the pressures, the distractions, the junk, the burdens that fill you up and push you away and that can keep you from God. Invite God to make a temple for you, a sanctuary, a holy place in your heart, a time of prayer, a place for Sabbath, a way to walk with God, a time to be still, a time to be still. Honor what God has done for you and keeps doing for you. God has liberated you, freed you and saved you. God continues to liberate you, free you, save you. Therefore, keep it holy. Keep it holy. Thanks be to God. Amen.