3-3-2024 Overturning Tables by Rev. Marie Duquette

Take Off Your Shoes By Marie Duquette

Find video at https://youtu.be/8mUnj38JO3s
Website for more sermons, blogs, and stories at https://marinawell.com/
Transcript: Before I begin to read the gospel, I want to mention Jesus died somewhere around the year 33; John’s Gospel is dated closer to 90 AD. By the time they began to read the gospel of John, the temple had been destroyed for 20 years; Jesus had been crucified, risen, ascended into heaven after his resurrection.

So, listen to this Gospel from the perspective of knowing the temple in fact had been destroyed, and knowing in fact, what happened to Jesus after this event.

This is the holy gospel according to John.

Glory to you, O Lord.

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, with 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.

The gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, O Christ.

So let’s make sure we have the facts about this gospel story: One – When did this happen? Matthew, Mark, and Luke put this story at the end of Jesus ministry – as one of the catalysts that led him to being arrested as a final straw perhaps that caused that arrest and led to him being crucified by the empire.

John puts this story at the beginning of Jesus ministry, immediately following the wedding at Cana when Jesus came out as being God’s son, the miracle-worker.

That means that Jesus could have overturned the tables at the end of his ministry. He could have overturned them at the beginning of his ministry, an ill-advised move to start out one might think, or he could have done this act twice. He could have overturned the tables twice. Driven out the moneychangers and animals twice. Unlikely? If you think it’s unlikely, I invite you to consider how many times in the church you have discussed and reconsidered and tried to change the exact same thing.

Pause

It’s possible he did it twice, right?

Why did Jesus overturn the tables & drive out the moneychangers and animals? He did it out of disgust honestly. He is disgusted at what the people had made of God's House of prayer. And as with most things that get out of hand, the practice of the moneychangers started out simply enough. Judea was under the rule of the Romans. The money in current use was Roman coinage. The Jewish law required that every man should pay a tribute to the service of the sanctuary of half a shekel. A Jewish coin, therefore, it became a matter of convenience to have a place where Roman coins could be exchanged for Jewish half shekels. The money changers provided this convenience but of course, required a small fee for the convenience—not unlike the price a church pays for offering envelopes each year.

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