Third Sunday in Lent, Year B, March 4, 2018; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

O mysterious God, may we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth – come when it may and cost what it will.

Many of you know that one of my life projects is increasing Biblical literacy, so I’m always on the lookout for books and articles that are accessible to people who are interested in learning about our sacred texts. Episcopal priest Lauren Winner has recently written a slim volume in the new Episcopal Church teaching series, called A Word to Live By, about engaging scripture with curiosity and confidence. It’s less than a hundred pages, less than $10, and it’s fantastic. In her introduction Winner invites readers of Biblical literature to “expect to be delighted. Expect to be discomfited… .[and] expect to be puzzled… .because the Bible is opaque, and puzzlement means you’re paying attention to, rather than filtering out, the opaque bits.” [1]

We have three readings this morning that have plenty of opaque bits. It might not seem that way at first glance, but as those of you know who have heard me preach about what are commonly known as “The Ten Commandments,” there aren’t exactly ten and, except for two, they’re not exactly commandments. I keep saying it, because someone is always hearing it for the first time. The Torah does refer three other times to “the decade of words” delivered at Sinai, and that’s what gets translated as “Ten Commandments,” but it seems like a stretch.

The passage begins by telling us that God spoke all these words, reminding the people first that it was God Who brought the people out of the house of slavery (because people who accomplish things tend to think we’ve done it on our own). God brought the people out of the narrow place – mitzrayim – out of a very tight spot – also known as Egypt. There’s a special poignancy in this telling because this part of Exodus was most likely written a full thousand years after the departure from Egypt. This account was written in 500 BCE as the Israelites were coming back to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon (another narrow place, another tight spot, a different Egypt). This was their new beginning (a gift from God), a fresh start for the community – yet another chance to live free from oppression. They were writing down this story to remember again about God expressing God’s desire for well-being. “Listen,” they hear God saying, “I have moved you out from a place of dishonor and disrespect. You are free. You are no longer stuck. You are on your journey home. I have redeemed you. You are valuable. You are precious to me. And here’s how you, my beloved, will behave when you have no other gods more important to you than I AM. Here’s how it will be when you know deep in your hearts that you are my people.”

Now I know it’s hard not to think of what comes next as a list of regulations, these are not regulations. These words of the Holy One are proclamations, descriptions of a hoped for future, a vision of a just society. With the exception of two, the Hebrew verbs in these proclamations all indicate ongoing incomplete action. Grammatically, they’re not in a command form. The sense of these words is that God is saying, “When you have no other gods before me, here’s how you will behave.” Just listen to how different it sounds, “You shall not commit adultery.” vs. “When you have no other gods more important than I AM, you will not be committing adultery – you will not violate your primary commitments in relationship.” “When you have no other gods before me, you will not steal from one another –you will not even desire to steal. You won’t covet. You’re getting a fresh start. Here’s how I want it to be for you. These are my priorities for belonging in community.” If the Biblical definition of sin is “missing the mark,” these are the marks of living in Love for which we are to aim.

Now, I said that there are two exceptions where the verbs are in a command form. They are remember as in remember the sabbath day to be holy (infinitive absolute verb form). And honor as in honor your father and your mother (that’s purely a command). They might be in command form because they are the most difficult of all. They require our best attention and our best efforts. I’m going to start with the second one first. “Honor your father and your mother so that you can live long in the land God is giving you.” Honor is not the same as submission – it’s much more sublime than that. It has to do with dignity and integrity and respect. The word literally means “weigh heavily.” In other words, don’t take your parents lightly. Even if they did nothing else that was good, they gave you your life. Treat them (or if they are gone, treat their memory) with dignity and integrity and respect.

And then there’s the infinitive absolute verb “remember.” Remember the sabbath day to be holy. The word “holy” (in Hebrew: kaddosh) means “other.” When we sing the words of the prophet Isaiah, “holy holy holy” think to yourself, “other, other, other.” [2] To remember the sabbath day to be “other” means that it is set apart or withheld from ordinary use. It is for reverence, for rest, for refreshment. It’s not for anything productive. This is most challenging and counter-cultural and it always has been. It might be the most foolishly extravagant thing ever commanded in the history of the world – and the most necessary. It’s not so much about a long list of dos and don’ts – it’s about what Walter Brueggemann calls “a disciplined and regular disengagement from the systems of productivity whereby the world uses people up to exhaustion.” Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg writes that this is “not just counteractive but prophylactic …time has to be made for time.” [3] The restrictive qualities in Christian tradition and in popular imagination have generally obscured the purpose of cultivating joy of experiencing God’s pleasure in creation. Do you know that what Christians call “coffee hour,” Jews call oneg Shabbat – Sabbath delight. Doesn’t that sound so much more beautiful and delicious and playful? (It is.) You might try practicing extended sabbath joy for the remaining Sundays in Lent. If you can’t manage a whole day, start with a portion of a day and work your way up to Easter Sunday.

I started trying to name the opaque bits in our passage from First Corinthians and I thought: the whole thing is opaque! Paul begins this section with “the message about the cross.” The Greek word that gets translated “message” is logos – same word from the Prologue to the Gospel of John – the Word (capital W). This is not a message like one of those “while you were out” pink pieces of paper. This is the essential mystery of the Divine. It’s hard for us to get beneath the thick layers of Christian art and jewelry to remember that the cross was a torturous form of public humiliation for capital punishment, a gallows, a lynching. Preaching the cross, that is, preaching that somehow Jesus’ most important work was accomplished through his brutal execution is still utter nonsense according to the wisdom of the world, and a complete scandal to the people of God. I hear Paul explaining that the Otherness of God in the mystery of the cross cannot be known or demonstrated once and for all, by philosophical proofs or miraculous signs. God acts otherwise. [4]

Then there’s the opaque story in the Gospel of John that gets called “the cleansing of the temple.” Cleansing has always struck me as an odd descriptor for what sounds like the making of a huge mess. I do not like the violence in this story, although I cite it frequently as a rebuttal to the facile notion of Jesus meek and mild. Jesus took time to make a whip of cords and then used it. He ransacked the place. None of us would tolerate that kind of behavior in our houses of worship. In the Gospel of John, this fit of pique did not take place at the very end of Jesus’ life the way the other evangelists tell it. According to John, this was Jesus’ first public appearance.

When Jesus’ disciples looked back on this scene, according to John, through the experience of resurrection, it reminded them of holy scripture. They remembered Psalm 69:9, “zeal for your house has consumed me.” They remembered Nehemiah 13:9 in which Nehemiah was very angry and “liberated” the House of God by throwing out the furniture and cleaning out the chambers. [5] I imagine they remembered Malachi 3, which says, “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple…but who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire… and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness,” that is, in right relationship with others – especially with those who are poor.

John’s picture of Jesus is as an observant Jewish male who went not once, but a number of times to Jerusalem for the pilgrimage feasts. In this story he was in Jerusalem for the observance of Passover – the celebration of liberation.” His anger had to do with the Court of the Gentiles at the Temple being used for commerce, as an emporium. New Testament scholar Bruce Chilton points out that Jesus was not unique in his objection to vendors and money changers at the Temple, which had been recently moved from their previous location on the Mount of Olives, probably by Caiaphas who was probably the high priest. Other contemporary rabbis criticized the greed of those in authority. [6]

In A Word to Live By, Lauren Winner encourages one more expectation: “Above all,” she writes, “Expect to hear from God…we read the Bible because we want to hear from God.” [7] If we are paying attention, we might hear a challenge to be open to “a fresh revelation from God.” While this is a story about a challenge to the institution of the Temple in Jerusalem, it is most certainly not a challenge for Judaism, it’s a challenge for the Christian Church – it is our scripture, after all. And I want to suggest that God is speaking to us as individuals, as members of this parish and of a wider Church, as citizens of a nation. I hear Jesus is challenging us as individuals and as an institution to clear out the business – the busi-ness, to create space for worshiping the otherness of God, to create space for prayer, to make a clearing for the fresh revelation of God’s impassioned self. I hear the Divine challenging us to remember the Sabbath to be holy – to be other. I hear the Divine challenging us to remember that we have been created and freed by Otherness Who longs for us to live as if it is true, so that we will insist on right relationships with one another and dismantle whatever systems keep missing rather than making the marks of Love.

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