Jesus is in the temple and he means business. He has come to proclaim the New Covenant, even though he knows it will ultimately cost him his life. But Jesus is different…he is not a go-along-get-along guy. For openers, he won’t preach the good news surrounded by the corruption that permeates the house of the Lord. So he overturns counters, dumps the cash drawers and drives the merchants and their livestock from the temple. It seems straight forward enough, ‘til we realize that once again Jesus is operating on more than one level. The temple that he says will be destroyed and rebuilt is a direct reference to his own approaching sacrificial death and resurrection. And indirectly he is also telling us to get our spiritual house in order. That’s why there is a Lent… a time to take inventory… a time to repent… a time to get our priorities straight. As the disciples suddenly remember, Christ’s cleansing the temple was prophesized in Psalms: Zeal for (God’s) house will consume me. In fulfilling this prophecy, Jesus is not consumed with love of the temple’s architecture, its construction or even its sanctuary. When Joshua pledged: As for me and my house… he wasn’t dedicating bricks and mortar. The Greek word for house, oikus, means household. And it is for the household of God, his errant misguided people that Jesus laments. He calls on his people to recoil from sin, to purge themselves… to repent. This translation also reinforces Christ identifying himself as a temple that will be destroyed and rise again in three days. As a kid, hearing this gospel for the first time, naturally I identified with the good guy… the righteous Jesus. And I looked down on the bad guys… the money changers who were fouling the temple. Over time I came to realize a deeper meaning. The people that Jesus drove from the temple are the very same people he came to save. They are sinners. They are us. The people who mocked him are the same people he would lay down his life for. They are sinners… no different from us… especially when we mock him with indifferent lip-service and call it prayer… especially when we live proud, self-centered lives and call ourselves Christians. Jesus was not deceived by the faux piety of the money changers. He saw through them as he sees through us. And yet, even in his wrath, he loved them as he loves us. He died for us all: in our sins… in our pride, in our greed, in our neglect. Jesus does not love us for whom we ought to be. He loves us as we are… in our falls and in our resurrections. He does not drive us out. He gathers us in… to live in his love. Jesus uses this gospel to tell us that we have a lot of cleaning-up to do. Paul tells us: Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? Lent is set aside for each of us to give our temples a really thorough cleanup. Sure, we’re spiritually sprucing up all year round. But Lent is not here for light dusting. It’s time for heavy-duty scrubbing… purging the temple that God gave us, rededicating ourselves to God’s service. Start with a rigorous spiritual inventory: What are your priorities? How do you spend your time? Do you truly accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Is he at the center of your life or on the periphery? How and when do you pray? Are you in continuous conversation with Jesus or have you silently drifted away? What fences need mending? What habits need breaking? What strengths need building? What relationships need fixing? Who needs your help today? This isn’t a complete list. But it is a good start to putting your temple in order… to tackling your own spiritual spring cleaning. So, roll up your sleeves and pitch in. It will make your life healthier, happier… holier. Ask Jesus to lend you a hand… throwing out the guilt, polishing up the joy, making room for love. Spring cleaning with Jesus… that’s what Lent is for.

Dear Friends,

Once again Ash Wednesday inaugurates the season of self-examination and self-denial we call Lent -- a name derived from the Old English “lencten” which means “lengthen”, referring to the longer period of daylight in the transition from late winter to early spring. In recent years self-denial has become the more readily identified aspect of Lent, as in: “I’m giving up champagne and caviar for Lent.”…Or some other, more serious, expression of sacrifice. In our gospel for Ash Wednesday Jesus focuses on self examination. He does not ask us to nit-pick petty flaws. He asks us to take on the big one, the ubiquitous one, the invasive and pernicious one…Pride. Pride is the crabgrass in the garden of our souls. It produces no fruit while it overgrows grace and strangles goodness. And in this gospel, Jesus warns us sternly not to let pride choke the love out of our worship and generosity. As Jesus shows us, pride has the ability to make a pious fraud of our prayer. It can flip our charity on its head and turn it into self-aggrandizing cant. Ultimately, it threatens to transform our entire spiritual journey into a squalid little ego trip. What makes pride so powerful? The answer is amply documented in scripture and literature. And in an increasingly exhibitionist culture, it is in our faces every day. In Genesis, pride destroyed the innocence of Adam and Eve. They wanted to usurp God’s power. They got shame and banishment instead. In Exodus it drove pharaoh’s chariots into the sea. In Greek drama pride always leads to destruction. Avenging Nemesis always follows hubris. In Shakespeare pride haunts the histories and initiates the tragedies; while American literature is littered with proud victims from Ahab to Charles Foster Cain. Spend some time examining the pathology of pride and you begin to grasp its power. Pride springs from our primordial will to survive. We’ve all got it. Some of us learn to channel it. Others don’t. Healthy self-esteem is built on understanding our worth as beloved children of God. It‘s the cornerstone of well-being. Unbridled pride is the threshold sin to a host of iniquities. It destroys with a smiling face. Jesus is the antidote for pride. Humility permeates what he says and how he lives. Today we’d say that he’s comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is and why he is here. He’s got infinitely more reason to swell and to strut than anyone who has ever walked the earth. But that’s not Jesus. His every word, his every move is a well-studied lesson in living the good life. Search the gospels for the proud Jesus, the vain Jesus, the self-centered Jesus… you’ll never find him. He’s not there. You’ll only find the humble, loving and gentle Jesus. Even in his wrath, he is humble; in righteous obedience to the will of the Father. Ask any gardener: What keeps the crabgrass at bay? There’s only one answer…constant vigilance. The same is true of pride. But rather being in a reactive mode, just watching for the grass to grow, Jesus wants us to be active, to live productive, fruitful Christian lives. He wants us to vigorously witness his love in the world. Live humbly for and in Christ. And the grass will take care of itself.

God love you!

Dear Friends,