No building? No problem.
You have to wait until the later chapters of Matthew, Mark, and Luke for Jesus to travel to Jerusalem, but in John’s gospel he does it in chapter 2. Before this point in that narrative, Jesus has been recognized by John the Baptist as the Son of God, has called some disciples, and has turned water to wine at a wedding banquet. In today’s scripture passage we find him in Jerusalem for the Passover pilgrimage, and he takes issue with what he sees in the temple. There are people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as money changers.
Was the problem that these sales and exchanges were taking place? I doubt those who traveled to Jerusalem thought so. They didn’t want to transport animals with them — their journeys were difficult enough — and they needed to exchange their coins to participate in the festival. The vendors were offering convenience to the pious.
Nonetheless, Jesus was angered. He made a whip of cords and began driving people, sheep, and cattle from the temple. He poured out coins and flipped over the tables of the money changers. He accuses the vendors of making his papa’s house a “house of commerce.” Gail O’Day writes that “Jesus throws the mechanics of temple worship into chaos, disrupting the temple system during one of the most significant feasts of the year so that neither sacrifices nor tithes could be offered that day.” (O’Day, 465)
Something was clearly wrong in the eyes of Jesus, and his disciples try to help us decode what that was in their reflection on these events. They remember the line in Psalm 69 that says “zeal for your house will consume me.” Perhaps the temple authorities, those who were facilitating the festival, were so wrapped up in the logistics of Passover that they forgot what it was about. Perhaps the vendors who made things easier for some pilgrims had become a barrier for others.
This passage has been interpreted in a variety of ways over the years, and sadly, the focus for some has been on Jesus getting angry and possibly inflicting violence on people. Some have seen this as license to do harm to others, and have even used it to justify war. (Croy; Klay) This without evidence that Jesus struck any people at all with his whip, which was fashioned on-site with cords and most likely used to herd the animals from the temple.
What’s more clear is that Jesus was angry. He was echoing Hebrew prophets who warned about the people becoming overzealous about ceremony at the expense of the pursuit of love and justice. Maybe the temple authorities and vendors had become too comfortable with their Passover arrangements, and Jesus was reminding them that their focus belonged elsewhere.
I grew up a churched person. For the most part, my life experiences in church buildings have been positive, from Sunday School classes to worship services to some excellent potluck meals. I enjoy visiting church buildings; in fact, I seek them out when exploring an unfamiliar town or city. I like the way church steeples stand out in landscapes, seemingly gesturing toward the heavens.
Thus it might strike you as odd that I was called to build a faith community that does not have a building — it does me, anyway. I miss going early to the sanctuary on Sunday mornings, like I did during my pastoral internship. It would be nice to have a dedicated space to store the items used for gatherings, rather than having to transport them to City Island on Sunday afternoons. I would enjoy having a pastor’s study, perhaps even one that smelled of rich mahogany. And it’s hard to accommodate a potluck meal without a kitchen or fellowship hall.
On the other hand, I’ve long had this nagging feeling about church buildings that has grown over time. During a conversation with a friend last week, she reminded me that I used to frequently refer to paying the costs associated with the church building we attended as “feeding the beast.” Like so many of the church buildings in this area, it was built at a time when church attendance was higher, and a smaller portion of the budget was required to keep it operational. More of the rooms were used on a regular basis, both by church groups and other community organizations. It was built to serve those in the immediate area; now most people pass by multiple church buildings on Sunday mornings before they reach their own.
Like so many of the church buildings in our country, it was designed to accommodate a context that no longer exists.
Some faith communities have endowments or foundations to preserve their ministries. They help make ends meet when donations fall short of the budget. What this often equates to, though, is preservation of the church’s building. If you’ve ever worked in ministry, or served on a church committee, or owned a house, you know how much effort is required when you manage property. Is it time to rethink what that property should like in our current context? On an increasing basis, especially among younger generations, the costs involved in paying the everyday expenses for a structure that is used one day a week are being questioned.
Thankfully, some faith communities are forging a way forward. Some church buildings are used most days for preschools. Others house aid organizations and food pantries. Some are being built or repurposed primarily to meet a community need, such as providing low-income housing, while also allowing space for the church to gather on Sundays.
If you look at the instructions Jesus provided his disciples, construction and ongoing preservation of buildings doesn’t make the short list. But that doesn’t mean church buildings can’t play a role in furthering the kin-dom. We just need to keep an eye out for those situations where the tail might be wagging the dog.
Returning to today’s passage, it seems there was too much dog-wagging going on in Jerusalem. The leaders of the temple, however, questioned the authority of Jesus to make that call. They asked for a sign, and he said if they were to destroy the temple — a structure that had been under renovation for decades — he would raise it in three days. This was understandably confusing to those present, but the author of John again offers us a reflection on that statement. When Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day, his disciples remembered what he’d said about the temple.
This can be interpreted as suggesting that Jesus represented a replacement for worship in the temple. O’Day writes that “since for Judaism the Temple is the locus of God’s presence on earth, [this] suggests that Jesus’ body is now the locus of God.” (O’Day, 465) That said, followers of Jesus did not abandon the temple immediately following his resurrection. They continued to worship there, and we know Paul continued to make pilgrimages there. (Gafney, 320) There are references to conflict between those Jews who chose to follow Jesus and those who did not, but any arguments regarding the temple would have largely ended when it was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. After that, both groups were required to adapt their theologies.
The idea of a center of worship was not eliminated, however. As Wilda Gafney writes, “The necessity of a temple in which God may dwell with her people remains and is redeveloped in the Epistles and in the Gospels. In Ephesians it is the community of believers that are corporately the temple of God. In other passages, the bodies of individual believers are also identified as temples of the living God (1 Corinthians 6:19). In the Gospel reading Jesus makes clear that the fullness of God dwells in him every bit as much as it dwelled in their ancestral temple.” (Gafney, 321)
It’s important to look at this passage in light of an expansive history of our spiritual ancestors. The Israelites who escaped slavery in Egypt had no temple, but were given the Ten Commandments carved in stone to accompany their time in the desert. Those stone tablets were housed in the Ark of the Covenant, which eventually came to reside in the first temple, built during Solomon’s reign. That temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BCE, and though a new temple was built a few decades later, it “failed to live up to the glories of the first (Ezra 3:10–13). For many, the loss of the Ark of the Covenant meant that God would never dwell in successive temples in the same way as in the [original].” (Gafney, 320)
Thus, Jesus was not the first to demand a re-evaluation of the role of the temple. Sometimes this came about due to circumstances, and sometimes it came about via prophecy from the likes of Amos and Jeremiah. (O’Day, 466) When the focus of the people leaned too heavily toward ceremony and tradition at the expense of God’s will for love and justice, a sign was provided.
There’s certainly a place for church buildings in the kin-dom, and there’s a place for communities without buildings. Intertwined is one of the latter, for pragmatic reasons and for theological reasons.
For most months of the year, we hold our Sunday gatherings outdoors. We meet in a public setting without control over the temperature, ambient noise, or non-human creatures who share that patch of earth. We have to adapt plans when it rains. We bring our own seats. We have to build our sacred space from scratch, and then leave no trace of our presence after our time together concludes.
Why do we welcome those challenges? Because for some, it’s easier to encounter the divine outside of a traditional church building. For some, being immersed in nature makes it easier to witness our Creator’s handiwork. For some, they’re better able to sense their connection to the rest of God’s creation outdoors.
For some of those with children, it is more accommodating than a church sanctuary, and offers uncommon opportunities for young people to be involved in our gathering.
For those who have experienced hurt in a church building, it offers a different space that might allow more emotional and embodied comfort, as well as healing.
For those who question the expense or ecological impact of a church building, it offers freedom from those concerns.
For those who believe in taking the church into the public sphere, it does exactly that.
When we meet outdoors, the dynamic natural environment is incorporated into our shared experience. The people and vehicles passing by, the sounds of the birds, the leaves on the trees, the position of the sun in the sky, the flow of the river, and even whatever is growing under our feet — it all changes from week to week. We’re reminded of the cycles of the seasons, and by extension the cycles of God’s people, and of life.
In the middle of perhaps the oldest river in the world, on land once inhabited by the Susquehannock people, we gather for a countercultural time of centering, sacred readings, prayer, and fellowship. We experience peace in community, even in the midst of a society that seemingly seeks to deny it. We distance ourselves from everyday concerns to focus on greater purpose.
Is it for everyone? No, and it wasn’t meant to be. Many church communities do music and physical accessibility and comfortable accommodations and a variety of other things better than we do them at Intertwined. But for those who haven’t found a home in an existing faith community, Intertwined provides another option, one that I hope is welcoming to some who have encountered barriers elsewhere.
Returning to thoughts about the temple, Wilda Gafney writes about its portrayal in one of Paul’s letters: “The image of the temple in Ephesians requires the inclusion of every sort of human believer, including women and girls in the ancient understanding of gender and nonbinary persons and others in ours. We are all the building blocks of God. In this imagery no bodies are excluded or disqualified due to age or gender or ability or culture of origin. Indeed, all human bodies are fit and worthy vessels for the habitation of God and God’s dwelling among us is incomplete with the exclusion of any human body.” (Gafney, 321)
Siblings in Christ, the ultimate restoration God promises does not involve fixing leaky roofs or removing asbestos or replacing carpeting or padding pews or keeping the lights on in a structure that has finished serving its purpose. It’s about people, not properties. When we gather as image-bearers and habitations of God, we reflect the kin-dom better than any building ever could. And we offer a gesture toward the heavens, even without a steeple pointing the way.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Works Referenced
Croy, N. Clayton. “The Messianic Whippersnapper: Did Jesus Use a Whip on People in the Temple (John 2:15)?” Journal of Biblical Leadership Vol. 128, №9 (2009): 555–568.
Culpepper, R. Alan. The Gospel and Letters of John. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1998.
Gafney, Wilda C. A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W. New York City: Church Publishing, 2021.
Klay, Phil. “A Whip of Cords.” Commonweal Vol. 149, Issue 5 (May 2022): 16–21.
O’Day, Gail R. “The Gospel of John.” In New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015.
Reinhartz, Adele. “John.” In Fortress Commentary on the Bible: The Old Testament and Apocrypha, edited by Gale A. Yee, Hugh R. Page, Jr., Matthew J. M. Coomber. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014. Kindle edition.
