Remodel

We still create structures and laws that clash with what God wants. And this is exactly why we need Jesus to come inside and do a little house cleaning.

Valentin de Boulogne, Expulsion of the Money-Changers from the Temple

Home ownership isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. It’s costly, time-consuming, and there’s always something that needs fixing - usually in the most inconvenient spaces.
 
The other day, I was wedged under the kitchen sink, trying to tighten a faucet nut conveniently located in a spot where only a contortionist or miracles could reach.

After a few choice words and a couple of bruised knuckles, I finally surrendered, drove to the hardware store, and bought a special tool to get the job done.

Lent is like that. It’s about locating and dealing with the deeper, more difficult things that need our attention. While it can be easy to clean out the junk on the surface - those smelly old sponges and leaking cleaning products buried underneath the sink - getting to the real problem often requires help. That’s where Jesus meets us, in these difficult spaces, doing his best work.
 
Last week we talked about the cost of following Jesus. Today we’re looking at the cost of building a community of love in his name. Which, as we will see from our reading, is more than just making multiple trips to Lowe’s.

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, with the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?”  
John 2:13-22

It’s hard for some people to read this because it makes us see Jesus as… well, human. The real, messy, unpredictable one who throws fits, and flips tables.

We like our Jesus calm and measured. One who cradles lambs, smiles gently, and says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” But John gives us this wild, whip-wielding Jesus and it messes with our heads a little.

Because, let’s be honest, even though Jesus is human we don’t love the idea that he acts like us.
 
Jesus is supposed to be the grown up in the room. He's the mature one, the patient one. The Divine one, for crying out loud! We’re supposed to be like him. Not the other way around, right?

All that is true. We are to be like him. But Jesus gets frustrated. He gets righteously angry. And we should be happy about it because it means he cares deeply about what God wants. Which also means he cares deeply about you and me, too.
 
Jesus isn’t indifferent to suffering. He’s not numb to injustice. He is, as Scripture says, "God with us." He sees the world as it is and longs for what it should be. So, if Jesus—God-in-the-flesh—gets angry at a broken system, then don't you think that maybe we should get angry too. Righteously speaking of course.
 
My wife were having a great discussion one day about the state of the church. She asked, “Do you think any of us would recognize Jesus if he was here today?”

It's one of those questions I’m sure we’d all like to answer, “Yes. Of course.” But would that be true?
 
How many times have we walked pass him without saying hello?

How many of his “excuse me” or “can you help me” have fallen on deaf ears?

If Jesus walked into most churches today, would he be welcomed and embraced? Or would he be asked to leave. Would he ever make it through the front door or be shut out completely?

I know a lot of churches that would turn him away because he's homeless, or a foreigner, or worse...a liberal. While it's easy to poke fun of those places that "seem to get it all wrong," we all have to look in a mirror and ask, if Jesus walked into my house, or my church, what would he turn over?

And while you ponder that question, remember this simple truth: Jesus wasn’t crucified for being nice. They killed him for calling out the systems that protected the powerful and crushed the vulnerable.

And I hate to say it but not much has changed in these last 2,000 years. It's as if everything Jesus said just vanished like vapor in the wind.

We still create churches that come with very specific terms and conditions. We still raise up leaders who tell us who's in and who's out. We bury our heads when they make scapegoats of people for who they are, or where they're from. We allow their systems to marginalize people because it makes us look better. In other words we still create structures and laws that clash with what God wants.

And this is exactly why we need Jesus to come inside and do a little house cleaning.
 
As John tells us, Jesus enters the Temple and sees a mess. This isn’t just the physical mess of animals and money changers. It’s something deeper. The system meant to connect people with God had lost its way. It had become exclusive, boxed-in, more about control than communion.

Jesus says, “Tear it down, and I will rebuild it in three days.” He’s not just laying the groundwork for Easter, he’s teaching us something important that must happen first. We have to tear down and clean out all the crap that stopping us from living out God's will for us if we want to see the kingdom of heaven come to life.

Restoration begins with demolition.
 
John's gospel tells us that Jesus starts in the Court of the Gentiles. This was a place outside the Temple that was designed so everyone - no matter who you were or were you came from - could come and meet the one true God. While only Jews were allowed into the Temple, everyone was allowed into the Court of the Gentiles. 

When Jesus goes there, instead of finding an open and inviting space, he sees barriers have been put up. People were being kept out. Worship had been commercialized. The sacred had been sold for profit and personal gain. Jesus sees all this and does what he does best—he disrupts and dismantles our systems of power.
 
With righteous fury, Jesus clears the clutter to make space for God’s holy reign. He begins here because he knows God’s kingdom isn’t about exclusion or gatekeeping. It’s about gathering and embracing.

Restoration begins with tearing down the walls and making room for everyone.
 
Years ago, I worked at a record store when CDs were becoming popular. Joe, the owner, needed to do some remodeling to make space for the extra merchandise. Joe asked this guy named Billy Roppel, to take down the back wall.

Now, Billy was a giant hulk of a human. Muscles from the ears down. One part punk rock. One part wrecking ball. He didn’t bother picking up a sledgehammer. He had no need for it. Instead, Billy just threw his entire body into the wall - smashing holes through the drywall. And ripping out wooden studs like twigs.
 
To those who had no idea what was happening, I’m sure it looked like total chaos and destruction. But to the rest of us, it was nothing less than pure poetry. Joe needed that space so something new could be built. And Billy was more than happy to help.
 
It’s the same with Jesus in the Temple. He’s not being reckless or belligerent. His actions are intentional and restorative. He’s not having a tantrum. He’s making room. Jesus knows that God is building something new. Something for everyone! And he is more than happy to help.
 
That’s why this story is perfect for Lent - that special season where we all do a little spiritual house cleaning and renovation. It’s a time to take an honest look at the clutter in our lives—the stuff that’s keeping us from honoring God’s love and justice—and start flipping some tables.
 
If we’re being honest, we all have hidden wounds, secrets we avoid, unresolved pain we’ve buried. Our pride, our fears, our need to be right can harden us, and keep us from healing.
 
The thing is, Jesus didn’t come just to make a difference. He came to make us different too.

He calls us to repent, to change the way we think. When we remodel our lives to think like him, we begin to see the world with his eyes and heart. We begin to love like he loves; with compassion, mercy, and grace—so that others might see Christ in us. That’s hard to do when you’re locked away in a box, or buried behind a bunch of stuff.
 
Lent invites us to take a hard look within ourselves to name the walls Jesus wants to tear down. And to clear space so that God’s love has more room to work.
 
We are the body the Christ, a part of that holy restoration. But if we’re not careful, we may wake up to find our sacred spaces filled with cattle, coins, and moneychangers—things that do not belong.

Which is why it’s good for us to invite Jesus in to do a little remodeling, so we can have the room within our hearts to welcome him in the other.
 
Jesus didn’t come to build an exclusive club. He came to build something better.

A kingdom where the outcast are honored. A kingdom where the poor are lifted up. A kingdom where God’s love is the only law that matters. This is our work too. To join Jesus in this kingdom building remodel.

The poet Gwendolyn Brooks reminds us, “We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”
 
Her poem reminds us that we are building a community of love together. But before we can share one heart, we must clean out the mess in the space between us.

We have to make room within ourselves for belonging and extravagant tenderness. Which means knocking down the things that divide us and keep us from truly loving God, loving others and serving both.
 
Lent is a season of renovation—a time to remove what no longer serves us so God can build something new within us. A true spiritual temple, with Christ as the cornerstone.

Gustave Dore, Buyers and Sellers Driven Out

May we use this time to examine our hearts. To sit in prayer, asking God to make us more open, more accepting. More patient with ourselves so that we might be more gracious to others.
 
Shane Claiborne wrote, “The church is not a group of people who believe all the same things; the church is a group of people caught up in the same story, with the same Jesus.”
 
Let us stand together in the space between, and continue what Jesus began to build. Not walls, but bridges. Not exclusion but embrace. A kingdom in the space between hurt and healing, fear and faith, rejection and welcome—where love does its best work.
 
As we will discover on Easter, God’s love is the only structure, the only law that cannot be destroyed.

Jesus is that love, the Christ incarnate. Given to the world to restore us all to our rightful place as God’s beloved children.

And, if you ask me, that’s the kind of love worth flipping a few tables.