JESUS AT THE G-20 CONFERENCE?
A sermon by Rev. Dr. Jack E. Skiles

Mark 11:1-11;15: 21-39

I trust that many of us have paid at least a little extra attention this week to the debutante ball that was held this week in London, England .  It has been quite the splash, the G-20 economic conference that welcomed leaders representing 85% of the world's economies.  The Obamas were the splash from our media's viewpoint.  I watch and read a lot of news from MSNBC's website.  I was mildly disturbed with how many pictures and videos revolved around the wardrobe of Michelle Obama while out in the streets, not as well represented, were thousands of angry, not parading but nevertheless organized people mobbing around and through London 's banking district.

Those of you who were watching, Did you see Jesus come into the city for the G-20 conference?   I didn't either .

One of the intriguing realities for us to ponder this morning is how simple and quiet was Jesus' entry into Jerusalem in today's reading from the Gospel According to Mark.  We have in our memories years of banner-waving, band-playing Palm Sunday celebrations.  These festive, large crowds welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem parties are based on the account found in John's Gospel.  

Mark's Gospel is sort of like the Gospel on a slim fast diet.  John's gospel has Jesus' ministry lasting three years and is 21 chapters long.  Mark's gospel implies as little as a one year ministry of Jesus and is a mere 16 chapters.  This morning's Palm Sunday event described by Mark, the original Gospel writer, does not mention crowds seeing Jesus come into the city of Jerusalem.  Mark says rather blandly that many people were there and that when Jesus got into town so little was happening that Jesus, after looking around at the Temple, left the city and went quietly out to Bethany with the twelve for dinner.

John's Jesus clears the temple of the money changers in his chapter 3.  Mark's Jesus comes back into town the day after the Palm Sunday entry and is angry. In Mark's chapter eleven, Jesus leaves Bethany and as he is coming back into town he curses a fig tree for not producing fruit and it is not even the season for fruit to be on the tree.  I've had a few days like that.  Anything that is in my way on a bad day is cursed.  On those days, my children simply hide away and say, “Well, dad is having one of those days.”   After cursing a barren fig tree for not bearing fruit in the early spring, Jesus heads back into Jerusalem and heads straight for the temple court area that the night before was so quiet.  

It was not quiet now.  In fact, it was like our Sunday morning busyness. Temple business was in full swing.  One of the things that happened in ancient Jewish Temple worship was that folks would come and bring monetary gifts, like our offerings, and in addition others would be buying animals for sacrifice.  Not everybody had pigeons or calves or lambs that were sacrifice-perfect.  The temple system arranged for these animals to be bought and paid for on site.  

You just didn't sacrifice any old animal in God's temple.  It was to be a perfect animal.  You didn't bring in your three-legged lamb, you bought a lamb from the temple venders that had been pre-inspected and approved.  You paid a premium for these temple animals.  You offer a sacrifice to God; you don't want to go cheap.

In addition, it was considered a sacrilege to buy a perfect sacrifice with Roman money.  So at all these tables, not only would there be bargaining over the price of perfect sacrificial animals, but Roman coinage would be being bought and replaced by local temple money, which could then be used to buy the perfect animals.  The animal providers and the money changers were all making their profit.  It was their business and it all happened in the outer court of the temple, blessed, if you will, not only by the Roman occupying force but also blessed by the temple officials.  The Romans were getting their cut of even the temple business and were paying off the temple priesthood to keep it that way.  It was religious tradition being observed faithfully, along with profit for those in control.

Mark's Jesus had never been to Jerusalem before the Palm Sunday entry.  On the day that he caused such trouble, this was only Jesus' second visit to the temple.  None of this business was being transacted by the time he got to the temple the first day and he had left quietly.  We already know that prior to the temple he had just cursed the fig tree.  

Now this young rabbi from the north, from Galilee, from the backwater town of Nazareth, (can anything good come out of Nazareth, or Martinsville, or Columbus or Dolan or heaven forbid, Bedford or Harrodsburg?)—this country bumpkin preacher comes to the temple court and he explodes with rage at what he sees.  

Jesus seemed to sense that the buying and selling of currencies, paying up charges for sacrificial animals, probably seeing poor, unwary people who just wanted to do the right thing being taken advantage of, the presence of the Roman occupiers in the temple business and seeing the priesthood being supporters of the occupiers rather than the poor Jewish people, set him off big time.  The text says that he turned over the tables of the money changers and stopped the flow of merchandise through the temple courtyard.  

If you did watch any of the uninvited crowd activity at the G-20 conference center in London this week, you might have had a good way to look into the world from the perspective of Jesus.   Jesus was not invited to Buckingham Palace to meet with the Queen and have tea.  Jesus was not part of the group picture of the world's economic leaders.  Jesus was not invited to any of the meetings held in plush accommodations protected by foot-thick concrete walls to hold back the angry mobs.

Is it suggesting too much to imagine that earlier this week, when the angry crowd broke the windows of the Royal Bank of Scotland and went in and turned over the furniture and carried out computer terminals, that we might have an idea of the scene Jesus is accused of being a part of in the temple courts in Jerusalem in the 1 st century of the current era?  A protester died during the activities in London.  The press reported that he died of natural causes.  Who knows?

Jesus did not die of natural causes.  He died as a natural extension of standing up for what he believed in, which was that God so loved the world that God gifted the world equally to everyone.  Jesus died seeking to demonstrate what it would be like for us to be saved in this life from the sins of oppressive financial, governmental, and power systems that encourage greed and excessive profit-taking with little to no concern for the poor, the unemployed, the abused, the hungry and the long-term healthy viability of the planet.  Jesus died and dies a billion times over and over because the same sins keep destroying the lives of the creatures and the creation that God loves.

It would have been wonderful if Jesus could have died for our sins in such a way that we didn't keep hurting each other and the world over and over again.  Jesus died because of how he lived.  He obviously did not save us from our sins.  It is still your responsibility and mine to save ourselves and to create societal and personal structures that do the most good for the most people and creatures, and which also do the least amount of harm.

God cannot save us from our own destruction.  God gave us the power, the ability, the creativity, the passion in our very bodies, minds, and souls to do the work of making these lives of ours and the lives of all our neighbors safer, saner and more secure.

I have a tendency to believe that God is a judge, or, how should I say it, that God has judgment as part of who God is.  I don't think our lives exist in a moral/ethical vacuum.  I believe it matters not only to each other, but I think it matters to God, who we are and what we do.  There was no redemptive magic in Jesus' life and death that resolves us of our ultimate responsibility for our lives.  

There was in Jesus a continual demonstration that God is very loving, very caring, very forgiving, in the midst of being very judgmental, very demanding, very concerned about how our lives work out.  Jesus demonstrated in a most excellent and unique way how to live a life that is reflective of the values of God.  Jesus' life included, as we will gather repeatedly this week to recall, that Jesus got angry with injustice, faced the most oppressive governmental powers of this world face-to-face while being beaten and chained, and did not cry “Uncle” or threaten them with destruction.  Jesus stood his ground for what he knew to be most true in the bosom of God's self, and for so standing, he was killed and his spirit could not be contained by a beating, by mocking, by a cross or even by death.

You, me, all who call upon the name and the reality of Jesus' life and his death..., his spirit lives in us and calls us to be reflective of the same inwardly-held divine realities that Jesus had from the very presence of God in his life.

I remain more fearful than I often care to share in encouraging you to be faithful to the ways of Jesus, the one we so boldly call our Christ.  Because, friends, not only does Jesus save, his way will cost us like it cost him—our lives.

Beware: you might be breaking down glass windows at financial institutions that continue predatory lending practices, risking the meager savings of hardworking people for the sake of dividends and earnings.  Beware, following Jesus is both phenomenally fulfilling, and so demanding that we take on the mind of Christ, the spirit of God, in who we are and how we interact with the world.  

I will not be surprised if I need to come bail a few of you out of jail for being servants of the living God of Jesus, whose life and dying we remember this week.