Lent 3b 8-3-15
(Ex 20 1-17 Ps 19 1 Cor 1 18-25 Jn 2 13-22)
‘Cut a deal’—mutual trust
Lord our God, by your Holy Spirit, write your commandments upon our hearts, and grant us the wisdom and power of the cross, so that, cleansed from greed and selfishness, we may become a living temple of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This is a beautiful, rich collect prayer; a precious string of pearls which gathers the themes of today’s readings and also threads through other Biblical themes in a remarkable way. It opens with the invocation Lord our God. It’s a simple but amazing statement that our life with God is one of mutual belonging and trust; and this gives meaning to everything else.
By your Holy Spirit, write your commandments upon our hearts. Linking Holy Spirit and our hearts recalls Rom 826-27 where we learn how the Spirit lives within us, praying for us in those agonising longings which never find words, and that God, who knows the heart’s secrets, understands these prayers. (J B Phillips tr.) It’s a beautiful picture of how our mutual belonging with God finds expression—it’s an utter gift of God.
Here we ask the Holy Spirit to inscribe God’s commandments on our hearts; very different from how God’s commandments were first given. As we read, they were first given through Moses to the people of Israel—a written covenant of mutual care. In Ex 3118 we’re told they were written with the finger of God on tablets of stone and given to Moses.
But in our collect prayer this morning, we prayed that God the Holy Spirit might inscribe them not on tablets of stone, but directly onto our hearts. This evokes the new covenant in Jer 31, where the Law of God would be inscribed onto the very hearts of the people of Israel.
Can the finger of God touch our hearts? We’ve just prayed in confidence that this should happen. What will this do for us? Will it grant us the wisdom and power of the cross The collect prayer links the touch of God’s finger on our hearts with blessings of wisdom and power. Here, it echoes the Psalmist’s love-song to God’s Law. Psalm 19 celebrates the way God’s commandments revive our souls, how they give us wisdom and joy, clear our vision, and purify us, leaving us with the sweetest taste in our mouths—so much more than much fine gold can do for us.
Is that an odd move for you? The Psalmist is simply contrasting the gift of the Law with the other standard measure of value, fine gold, which comes off a poor second. Law and gold—relationships and power–represent the two sets of values competing within us. Do we begin to hear the distant, muffled chink of coins falling from the money-changers’ tables here?
Paul also picks up this wisdom and power theme in his comparison of the wisdom of the Cross with the other wisdoms it confronts: the empirical proofs of signs, and the idolising of rhetorical prowess and learning. Here, he speaks directly into our time. Our culture gags anyone who doesn’t use what we might call a scientific methodology, and by doing that, we write off and destroy whole civilizations and races. Paul knows that neither signs nor learning speak with anything like the power of God’s love; a love we encounter uniquely in the Cross of Christ.
I knew a young man who valued philosophical wisdom far more highly than any religious belief. He angrily rejected the notion that people might be in any way answerable to God, or owe anything to Jesus.
He set upon any Christian he encountered with a furious zeal, in his own mind shredding the delusional logic of their faith, and attacking the God who seemed to cruelly demand so much perfection from such frail vessels. One day, he picked the wrong victim. This one, far from joining the argument, began to weep at this misrepresentation of the God who gives everything. That day, the young man began the journey from dead-end wisdom to the true freedom, wisdom and power of the Cross.
Grant us the wisdom and power of the cross, so that, cleansed from greed and selfishness, we may become a living temple of your love. Cleanse. The collect prayer now links us to the Gospel, where Jesus cleanses the Temple of commerce. Here is the same Law and gold tension we heard in the Psalm. Now the distant cascade of falling coins is drowned by the thumps of falling tables, the lowing, bleating and clattering hooves of startled beasts, and the anguished roars of Jesus, the sellers of the birds and animals and the outraged money changers.
Cleansing greed and selfishness is a roaring battle which Jesus fights for and with us. It’s an inner battle. And today, we see a dramatic picture of it in his cleansing of the Temple.
We know this, because when the officials ask him what sign he can show them to justify his outrageous behaviour—yes, they do require empirical proof—he tries to teach them that the cleansing was the sign. It was a sign of the inner cleansing we all need so that our bodies might become living temples of God’s love—worthy temples of the Holy Spirit we have asked to inscribe God’s Law on our hearts. And because we are his body, we ask God to do this for us in his name; in Jesus’ name. Amen