John 2:13-17
Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple those who were selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as those involved in exchanging currency sitting there. He made a whip from ropes and chased them all out of the temple, including the cattle and the sheep. He scattered the coins and overturned the tables of those who exchanged currency. He said to the dove sellers, “Get these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a place of business.” His disciples remembered that it is written, “Passion for your house consumes me.”
The Gospel of John marches to its own timeline. This story occurs in all four gospels, but in Matthew, Mark, and Luke it takes place near the ending—immediately after the Palm Sunday procession into Jerusalem, and shortly before the Last Supper. John alone places this event near the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Remember, we only into the second chapter here.
Why the difference? The brief answer is that the three Synoptics were writing historical narratives about the life of Jesus. John wrote a theological narrative. Chronological time meant less to him. What mattered to John was that Jesus is not merely a chosen human, not just the Messiah, but divine himself--God the Son, the second person of the Trinity. Everything about John’s narrative is designed to explain and enforce that position.
This is a long and theologically complicated reading that we don’t have time or space to cover here. If you want to read the lengthier version of what I just read, read the same reading—John 2:13-17—but this time read through to verse 22. I won’t be talking about what takes place in the extra paragraph, but what is here definitely influences the part I will be speaking about.
I want to focus on one line — actually, one word — from verse 17 — “Passion for your house consumes me.” Some translations replace the word ‘passion’ with ‘zeal’. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines zeal as: fervor or eagerness and ardent interest in pursuit of something, and that’s what we’re discussing today. The writer of John’s gospel is quoting here from Psalm 69, verse 9: “Because passion for your house has consumed me, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me!”
Merchants have taken the Temple, which should be their center of worship, their holiest place, and turned it into a cheap marketplace — focused on money, not God. The temple authorities allow this, probably because they get a cut of the profits.
But Jesus is having none of it. This is his Father’s house and they are profaning and insulting it with their greed — and “the insults of those who insult you (God) have fallen on me (Jesus),” thus, his rage at them and his determination that they must go and go now. The passion, the zeal — the love he feels for his Father and his Father’s House drives him to this action. Jesus felt the absolute wrongness of what was happening there – he felt it so strongly that he was driven to taking what seems to us a most un-Jesus-like action by physically assaulting the sellers and money-changers.
Have you ever felt this much passion, this much zeal for anything? Have you looked at a situation and said, “Someone has to do something about this,” and realized that someone is you? Maybe you have even heard the Spirit whispering to you that, this one is for you, this is the time for you to take action.
Perhaps you’ve heard someone telling lies about another person and, instead of just letting it go by, felt moved to stand up and, “No. That’s not how it happened. I was there and that did not happen that way,” even if you know it’s going to result in grief being thrown back at you.
Maybe you watched a documentary about people living in a country with no access to clean water and felt so moved that you immediately made a donation to help offset the cost of a new water system. Maybe you even volunteered to help.
Love is the thing that drives us to action. We look at hungry children and the love and pity we feel drives us to take some sort of action. We see brothers and sisters being bullied and abused for the color of their skin, and it is love for them that drives us to act.
It doesn’t always require whips and chasing people out of buildings. It may require life-changing acts of great courage or maybe just standing up and saying “Enough,” and then backing up that word with action.
Love is not just a matter of praying and “being nice.” Love is not just a feeling—it is an action word. Love involves doing—sometimes small deeds, sometimes great ones.
Sometimes, love can even call us to what the late, great US Rep. John Lewis, famously used to say: to get into “Good Trouble.” If we one day find ourselves getting into that "good trouble," remember, that Jesus reached that point himself. He understands.
Amen
Why the difference? The brief answer is that the three Synoptics were writing historical narratives about the life of Jesus. John wrote a theological narrative. Chronological time meant less to him. What mattered to John was that Jesus is not merely a chosen human, not just the Messiah, but divine himself--God the Son, the second person of the Trinity. Everything about John’s narrative is designed to explain and enforce that position.
This is a long and theologically complicated reading that we don’t have time or space to cover here. If you want to read the lengthier version of what I just read, read the same reading—John 2:13-17—but this time read through to verse 22. I won’t be talking about what takes place in the extra paragraph, but what is here definitely influences the part I will be speaking about.
I want to focus on one line — actually, one word — from verse 17 — “Passion for your house consumes me.” Some translations replace the word ‘passion’ with ‘zeal’. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines zeal as: fervor or eagerness and ardent interest in pursuit of something, and that’s what we’re discussing today. The writer of John’s gospel is quoting here from Psalm 69, verse 9: “Because passion for your house has consumed me, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me!”
Merchants have taken the Temple, which should be their center of worship, their holiest place, and turned it into a cheap marketplace — focused on money, not God. The temple authorities allow this, probably because they get a cut of the profits.
But Jesus is having none of it. This is his Father’s house and they are profaning and insulting it with their greed — and “the insults of those who insult you (God) have fallen on me (Jesus),” thus, his rage at them and his determination that they must go and go now. The passion, the zeal — the love he feels for his Father and his Father’s House drives him to this action. Jesus felt the absolute wrongness of what was happening there – he felt it so strongly that he was driven to taking what seems to us a most un-Jesus-like action by physically assaulting the sellers and money-changers.
Have you ever felt this much passion, this much zeal for anything? Have you looked at a situation and said, “Someone has to do something about this,” and realized that someone is you? Maybe you have even heard the Spirit whispering to you that, this one is for you, this is the time for you to take action.
Perhaps you’ve heard someone telling lies about another person and, instead of just letting it go by, felt moved to stand up and, “No. That’s not how it happened. I was there and that did not happen that way,” even if you know it’s going to result in grief being thrown back at you.
Maybe you watched a documentary about people living in a country with no access to clean water and felt so moved that you immediately made a donation to help offset the cost of a new water system. Maybe you even volunteered to help.
Love is the thing that drives us to action. We look at hungry children and the love and pity we feel drives us to take some sort of action. We see brothers and sisters being bullied and abused for the color of their skin, and it is love for them that drives us to act.
It doesn’t always require whips and chasing people out of buildings. It may require life-changing acts of great courage or maybe just standing up and saying “Enough,” and then backing up that word with action.
Love is not just a matter of praying and “being nice.” Love is not just a feeling—it is an action word. Love involves doing—sometimes small deeds, sometimes great ones.
Sometimes, love can even call us to what the late, great US Rep. John Lewis, famously used to say: to get into “Good Trouble.” If we one day find ourselves getting into that "good trouble," remember, that Jesus reached that point himself. He understands.
Amen
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