Tearing Down the Temple

“Tearing Down the Temple”
The Rev. Dr. Fred G. Garry

Matthew 26.57-68

I must confess a temptation. This lesson from Matthew today has something so tempting. It's an irony difficult to resist. There is a flame here and I am a moth. The temptation is this: the Pharisees and the religious have answers without questions; they have a verdict, and they are trying to figure out a crime. They have an outrage in need of an offence. The temptation is how close this is to our world today.

We are the deeply offended in need of an offender; an outrage in need of someone to hate; an angry mob just looking for a castle. Because scripture describes us and teaches us about ourselves, it is likely that what was true about the Pharisees and the religious 2000 years ago, may be true today because this outrage, anger, and offence can always happen in us. It's just a matter of how true, how close this is to our world today.

I would suggest this is very true right now. Hence the temptation. It's tempting to rant about the ranting, to take offence with the offended, to see hypocrisy in our passage and say, "same as it ever was." Tempting, but not necessary. You don't need help seeing hypocrites; you do not need my rant to know we live in a time where we are clear about verdicts, we just need to figure out the crime.

The Pharisees and the religious in our reading today are awful. It is not hard to see this, to look at their actions and their violence, their fear, and realize, this is what power does, this is corruption, this is the pitfall of anyone with authority. A clear picture of control, how to stay in control, no matter how false you must be or how little control you have, you do whatever it takes. Again, this is perennial truth. This sort of self-serving violence, this type of corruption, it just happens. The cynic will tell you, this is inevitable. People do bad stuff in the name of religion. They kill to protect their truth.

This is why we need to resist this. But there's no need to say, what need not be said. Is it true today, this irony of power and control, the verdict in search of crimes; is this what we see around us? Yes. But this is not new. This is the inevitable consequence of power and greed. All means are justified when you are your own judge and jury. Irony doesn't need to be pointed out.

There is though something in our reading today, something true in the accusations about Jesus. It's strange to say this, but the most important teaching here is the accusation that was true. Two people claim, which equals a corroborating witness, two people claimed, he said, "the temple will be torn down." Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Jesus saying just that. They are three witnesses so to speak. Tear down temple, I can, rebuild it in three days, I will, records John, a fourth witness.

Each of the gospels record this claim of Jesus. Yet, in each it means something different. In the gospel of Mark, like the rest of his gospel, this claim of tearing down the temple is all about the power of God, the sheer, immediate overwhelming of the Almighty come to earth. Tearing down the temple in Mark is a mystery in our midst, "they ran away, and they were afraid." A force blowing through the world: Here begins the gospel. No introduction, no warning because you can't control it; can't predict it. The resurrection is the power of God redeeming the world. Be careful you don't get in the way.

In Luke this claim of Jesus is as much about Jerusalem as it is the temple. The city, the temple, would be razed, torn down, and never to be rebuilt in a physical form. But spiritually, the church is the new Jerusalem for you; you are the temple. Tear this one down, I'll build another in three days. The church was the new Jerusalem, the new Eden and we are new temples, the temples of the Holy Spirit. In Luke the teaching is about the church as the inheritors of the covenant. Promises torn down were remade.

Matthew as was his course takes this teaching and makes it how we are to be born anew. It's not a power overwhelming us or an ideal about love and fellowship; to tear it down and build it back up is the hard work of the kingdom, this is the row to hoe, the field to mend, soil turned over, so the seed takes root in us. Tearing down the temple, for Matthew, is losing what we hold most dear, what we trust and know for sure (if you want to follow me, deny yourself); building the temple is finding new life where we lay aside pride and falsity, fear and anger, possessive desire, and the delusion of control (the taking up of our cross).

I was in the home of a teacher in a village on the shore of Lake Malawi. We were talking about malaria. Which was fitting as this is one of the most dangerous places in the world where malaria is concerned. Malaria kills a million people a year, mostly because they don't have access to Tylenol. Those million are spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but the shore of Lake Malawi is thick with this preventable malady.

To prevent this is possible. It's really about bed nets and quick intervention and people caring about the least. Screens on windows would help. There is sincere hope for a vaccine. To me these are a matter of leverage and distribution and compassion. Bed nets costs about a dollar. Tylenol even less for what is needed to keep the fever down, preventing cerebral palsy. Easy? No. Possible, sure.

Maybe it was this sense of possibility, a surety that infuriated the teacher, but, boy, she was mad. Came at me with a ferocity born of suffering far beyond my life. It was as if she needed me to feel the pain and heartbreak of watching her students die of a mosquito bite when all the world just gets a rash. Needed my sense of possibility to encounter the unthinkable. Maybe she needed to lash out at someone who can step into the misery for a day or two and then head home to paradise. Whatever the motive, the effect was to tear down the temple.

With God all things are possible. Maybe, but I'll let you tell the teacher on the shore of Lake Malawi. Fair warning. She will shoot the messenger.

What got shot down was easy hope, misplaced confidence, the largesse of wealth, "surely this can be done. Let's all just work together." Her diatribe was meant to tear down this shoddy temple, this poorly constructed compassion. And it was torn down.

From the ruins I rebuilt a much better house for hope. And, as I have walked with Matthew and listened to Jesus, I can tell you what was rebuilt has yet again been torn down and rebuilt again. Sometimes I wonder how many times I will find myself with that teacher in her living room dismantling my faith so it can be reborn. How many times must I be born anew?

Being born anew begins in humility. Henri Nouwen said it best. To be ready to live a life of Christian faith and service is to find yourself as the wrong person, in the wrong place, without the answers. Sitting on a couch with the angry teacher, I was the wrong person, in the wrong place, who needed to understand I didn't have the answers.

This truth about tearing down the temple and rebuilding, being willing to be the wrong person in the wrong place without the answers was just a very popular tv show. Ted Lasso, love Ted Lasso. The show was funny and poignant and had great lines, "Futbol is life" and Sometimes Futbol is death. But mostly life. “Ted, do you believe in ghosts. I do, but the real question is do they believe in themselves.” Great question.

What made this comedy series something different though was how it embodied the great truth of the gospel without ever quoting the Bible or preaching a sermon. Ted Lasso was the wrong person, in the wrong place, without the answers. It was a long study in rebirth. Being torn down and rebuilt.

If you haven't watched the show the premise is this: a midwestern college football coach moves to England to lead a professional soccer team. No problems there. One sport is just like another. A winning coach can win no matter the contest. There were three seasons, and a bit more than 30 episodes. There were wins and losses. I learned lots of new terms like relegation and gaffer. A perennial theme is the inability of Americans to really understand the passion and devotion this game evokes in the rest of the world. Yet, the point, which was not subtle, was this: would you be willing to risk your life, to be wrong, to be without the answers, but in desperate need of them for all to see?

There is a desperate need today for people to hear their answer. Real questions, moments where you confess in all humility how little we know for sure, that's becoming a rare commodity. The need to find the crimes to match our verdicts, the sense of absolute right to know all about whatever we want to know without the demand of responsibility is how live. We want to know everything about everyone but have no demand on us about what we will do with that knowledge.

Power and control but without the devotion and humility to hold such without hypocrisy. That's what made Ted Lasso such a transparent image of rebirth. You need to deny yourself (I don't have the answers, I am not the right person, I am willing to be in the wrong place) to be all these things before you take up a cross (before you serve). Gotta tear down that temple before it is reborn.

I must be honest here. Sitting on the couch with the teacher who shouted at me and made it clear to all concerned that my hope was some weak sauce was unpleasant. I didn't go looking to have my hope dismantled, to find my faith in ruins as I sipped an orange Fanta and ate butter cookies. It was painful, being reborn that is. Not easy.

No one can read the account of Jesus before the high priest and the religious and say, well that was pleasant. I am glad we had this talk. No. This was painful. His life, his body, is about to be torn apart. He is coming face to face with falsity and corruption and fear. The Pharisees are afraid and with their fear comes violence. They demand truth instead of waiting for truth to be revealed. And Jesus, Jesus is as humble as they are arrogant.

I don't know if this is giving in to the temptation, but I want to say, we must be reborn today unto humility; arrogance must be torn down, and patience built in its place. Our demand for understanding without responsibility must be dismantled and a new temple of sincerity built in its place. We have verdicts and we search for crimes. Let that be torn down. Let our surety be seen in the truth: to serve Christ we must be willing to be the wrong person, in the wrong place, without the answers.

Not an easy path, not a simple thing to undo the categories of success, the need to control. Easier to be a Pharisee. But to be reborn, well, that is what faith is meant to be. Amen.