Overturning Tables

Dave Brisbin | 3.19.17 On the third Sunday of Lent, looking at Lent as a positive-negative: an affirmative stripping away of anything that distracts, obscures, or keeps us away from God’s presence, we use Jesus’ cleansing of the temple to give us our next Lenten principle. When Jesus rampages through the Temple court overturning tables, he is, in effect, calling into question a given in the daily life of first century Jews: that the Temple, the Temple priests, the Temple system were as good as God, were their means to connection with God and community. Jesus underscores the obvious—says right out loud what any thinking person could see but was afraid to say: that the system had become corrupt and instead of being a means to God’s presence, had become a hindrance, a limitation, a wall between the people and their God. Making the principle personal, what tables to do we need to overturn in our lives? What “givens” that we take for granted as established truth do we need to question to discern whether they are still leading or have ever led us to the experience of God’s presence? And not just truths or institutions or people external to us, but what internal beliefs, attitudes, and patterns of behavior need to be overturned as well? Giving ourselves permission to begin the process of questioning, the courage to be disoriented and disturbed as we clear the courtyard in preparation for new life.