Welcome to our Worship on the third Sunday of Lent. Our Sunday service has now resumed at St Thomas' Church, but if you, or members of your family, are in a vulnerable group you are strongly advised to remain at home to worship. This morning's Worship is led by Revd David Halford. If you can't be with us in person, you'll find everything you need to worship from home here on this page, or you can find links to other services on our facebook page - Leesfield Parish
Our first hymn today is "Be Thou My Guardian And My Guide"
Today's Gospel
John 2:13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 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. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”
His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 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.
Reflection
His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
This one line is at the heart of today’s Gospel reading. Jesus is at the beginning of his ministry and has come to Jerusalem for one of the most important celebrations of worship in the Jewish calendar, The Feast of Passover. He has come to give thanks to God for saving the Hebrews in Egypt and he has come to the Temple to worship God publicly with others.
It was very important to Jesus that people should worship the Father in corporate worship as well as privately. It was a reason to collectively show how much we appreciate God in our lives.
It is perhaps poignant that I am writing this reflection on the eve of a PCC meeting where we have the huge responsibility of deciding whether or not to re-open church for Sunday worship after the ‘lock-down’. It is not an easy decision and whilst we have a duty to ensure our church family in Lees are protected as much as possible, it is clear from the conversations and emails from many of you that we should get back to church as soon as it is safe. We have a yearning to worship the Father together as group – it’s not just something to do on Sunday because it’s the ’done thing’. I would even say that when we do get back to Sunday worship there will be an air of anticipation and excitement for many. Similarly, Jesus was excited to be going to the Passover celebrations at the Temple.
When he gets there what he sees infuriates him. If I were to ask you to describe Jesus as a person you would probably start saying adjectives such as compassionate, loving, caring and of course ‘meek and mild’. You probably would not start by describing him as violent, angry and destructive. So what could cause such a reaction?
It was customary for people to make a blood sacrifice as a mark of atonement for sins and depending one’s financial ability this might range from a small bird (pigeon or a dove), to a lamb or an Ox. But in this temple they were told what they had brought was not clean enough and had to buy another. Also, as gentiles the worshippers would not be allowed into the main temple area to worship but would be expected stay in the courtyard outside.
To put this into context, imagine on Easter Day you have walked all the way to Oldham Church, probably in the rain, for a special service. Firstly, you are told that you can’t actually go into church – you’ll have to worship in Tommyfield market at the side of the church building. Then having brought along your own things for religious rituals you are told they are not good enough, and you have to buy the official church approved goods at a massively over-inflated price. These approved items often being shoddy and much worse quality that what you had in the first place.
Next you have to pay the church a tax, but before you do you need to buy the official church currency to pay the tax. To do this you have to go to the money-changers and also pay a significant fee for doing it. A bit like foreign exchange commission.
Finally, the icing on the cake is that when you try to worship, it’s almost impossible because of the noise of the market, and the animals and people.
This is what Jesus saw in the Temple – the Temple officials and leaders had turned the opportunity for praising God into an unholy excuse for bartering, swindling and cheating the poor. This incensed Jesus so much that he ‘lost it – big style’ This was not an anger based on selfishness and sin as we might show if someone had upset us, rather it was a fury because these people were blatantly denigrating God and the Temple.
This was not any small rant. Jesus first take time to fashion a whip, a weapon and release God’s wrath such that everyone - man, beast and fowl were scattered.
Jesus could see that they had totally lost purpose and moved from worshipping God to worshipping money.
Money is of course essential but we all have to be careful to not let our hearts be consumed by the love of money rather than the love of God. May we all be consumed by Zeal for God and his house and I sincerely hope and pray that we will all be able to meet and worship together soon.
Our Prayers
Holy Father we give you thanks for our PCC members,
And ask that you will guide them and grant them wisdom
To deliberate and make the right decisions on our behalf.
God our Father,
You invite us all to be your chosen people
You gave us your son Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins
And through him built an eternal temple.
Let our hearts be filled with your love and zeal to worship you.
Amen
This morning's final hymn is " Forty Days and Forty Nights"
