The Ten Commandments play a foundational role not just in the life of Christians but in society also. But it depends from which angle you look at them as to whether you truly appreciate them or not. From one angle they might appear restrictive.
You know how it goes – Christians are party poopers and kill joys – you can’t do this, you can’t do that. Always critical and judging of others. But from a different angle they appear as a blessing protecting us from harm. For example – you shall not steal is as much as a commandment that protects us from others stealing our property as it is a direction to us limiting our behaviour. But is that all the Christian Church stands for? Is that the sole purpose for our existence – to ensure that people do the right thing and refrain from the wrong thing? Of course not.
The Christian Church is to be where people are able to find a relationship with God. When Jesus comes into the temple today he is furious that the people are misusing the temple for what its purpose was intended. The temple, like the church today, was where people found their relationship with God. Again, as in previous weeks, Mark’s gospel is rather brief in its narrative but from Matthew’s Gospel we hear what Jesus said to the people misusing the Temple: My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers. Prayer is our communication in our relationship with God. Jesus saw the temple as a house of prayer – a place where people come to be with God. A place of peace and serenity but it was anything but that when Jesus arrived. And we also know that the temple, because of Jesus’ death is no longer the physical building where people gather, which is what Jesus meant when he said he would rebuild the temple in 3 days. Likewise the church, in today’s understanding, is not the physical building where Christians gather but rather it is the gathering of Christians together irrespective of where we meet. Remember Paul’s teaching – that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Hence Jesus comment – wherever 2 or 3 are gathered there I am in the midst of them.
In the early church Christians would gather in homes – in smaller groups. As the church grew it became necessary to build purpose built buildings to gather Christians together and somewhere along the line the church building became our understanding of the church. And as we saw during the height of the pandemic we had to rethink our understanding of church because our church buildings were closed for public gatherings and we therefore thought our churches were closed.
We discovered ways to connect through zoom and YouTube but that didn’t really help those who didn’t have that technology. We also struggled with the idea of whether consecrating the bread and wine through that technology was valid or not – and we are still trying to understand that and whether that excludes those who don’t have that technology or don’t feel comfortable with it.
So, as you can see, we are moving in a direction that is challenging our understanding of church and community especially when we have challenges still ahead of us even though restrictions have been eased. Limits on numbers. Many not comfortable returning. Possibilities of further lockdowns. People whose health is compromised. And when you consider that our church buildings mostly remain empty for the week except for around 2 hours a week we are challenged to perhaps rethink – what is church. Perhaps part of our problem is that we have associated the church building with the church to the point that the bigger the church the more successful and blessed we believe we are. Even to the point that those who do not attend church we have considered as lapsed Christians – simply because they are not in the church building on a Sunday.
As a result we have often times been more concerned about building up our numbers rather than building up our faith. And I know that a lot of this has to do with finances. The more we can get into our church buildings the more offerings we can receive. But are we falling into the category of what Jesus encountered today. Their temple had become a place that was focused on money first. The money changers had entered the temple in order to exchange the roman currency which was considered unclean to temple funds. And, as a result, have we focused more on human strength as signs of success in the church rather than God’s strength.
When we look at churches side by side – and we see a church that gathers a thousand on a Sunday compared to a church that gathers under a hundred – don’t we start to ask – how come they are so successful – what are we doing wrong. Paul warned against that reminding us that God’s weakness is more powerful that human strength. Remember Jesus’ telling us about the poor widow who put into the temple treasury – the church offering – 2 small copper coins – while the rich put in thousands of dollars – and he proclaimed that she put in more than all the rest because of her faith in God. Is it time for the church to look again at what it means to be church? To look again to what it means to be community?
I don’t know what the answer is but I do know that I have been called to serve you with Word and Sacrament and to preach Christ crucified – which is the power of salvation to us who are being saved. That’s not saying at all that our Sunday church gatherings here are not important but if this pandemic has taught us anything it has taught us to think again about where the church is – who the church is and why the church is.
Where is the church? Our Lutheran Confessions say that wherever the Gospel is proclaimed and where the Sacraments are administered according to the Gospel – there is church.
Who is church? You are the church. You are the body of Christ. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
And the why question of the church. To proclaim Christ crucified, the power of God to save. So let us look to see how we can let Christ rebuild this temple to reflect his image and be the true body of Christ to us and the world.
