I am struck this morning by our need for order. Our need to organize and systematize and make sense of our world… make sense of ourselves… make sense of God. We don’t like things to be too loosey-goosey. We like things to be clear and understandable.
That’s what the temple did for the Jews. It gave them order. The temple is where they came to fulfill God’s law….the law given to Moses when the Israelites were liberated from Egypt….the law we familiarly know as the 10 commandments.
First – I am your God…worship and trust me, not anything else. Not idols. Not governments. Not money. Not yourself. Trust me to be God…I’ve got this.
Second – Know me and love me…do not use me like a magic 8 ball…or a gumball machine. My name should be beloved on your lips, not just a verbal expression.
Third — Rest in me. Your life is not all about work. Your life is not all about getting ahead. Take time to remember what life IS all about — being my beloved child. Slow down. Sit with me. Listen. Come to worship. Pray.
And then…be respectful, don’t hurt one another, don’t use one another, don’t cheat one another, don’t let envy and greed poison your relationships with one another.
We call them the 10 commandments, but these really were promises. They were a gift from God.. This was God’s covenant with people that outlined a Way to live in the wilderness of this world that gives life.
But that was a little too loosey-goosey for us humans…we like order. So the Israelites codified them and made them into laws. Books and books of laws trying to address the many situations that arise in our human interactions. And the laws expanded over time…just like laws do today… and each year they grew and became more and more elaborate and narrow and confusing and suffocating until they were almost impossible to keep for ordinary folks. By the time Jesus came along, people’s relationship with God had become a series of rules and transactions…rigid codes of conduct and specific sacrifices bought and paid for to “get right with God’ when they had broken the law.. And for those who were “lawmakers” — the chief priests and Sadducees and Pharisees…this worked. The system was orderly and neat. They knew when who was “holy” and who was not. And as for the people who couldn’t afford to make the proper sacrifices, or who had health conditions or occupations that made it impossible to keep the law …they were simply out of luck. They were not the holy ones. God was with those who kept the law…the regular temple-goers and sacrificers. Not them.
But that wasn’t God’s plan…God’s promise…God’s way. So Jesus comes…to show God’s way. And here’s the thing…Jesus is not very orderly. Jesus’ way of living in the wilderness of this world refuses to follow our neat categories and expectations. Jesus turns over tables and makes a mess of our systems…trying to open our eyes to see where God is…who God is…. Trying to bring us back into a meaningful relationship with God. Trying to bring us back into meaningful relationships with one another.
We are all concerned with buildings and God is concerned with people. We are all concerned with laws but God is concerned with us…with our hearts…with our bodies..
Jesus refers to his body as the temple. His body is where heaven and earth meet. His body is where the covenant promise is kept…not in codes and laws, not in sacrifices or transactions…but in his BODY. His body walking dusty roads…his body touching those deemed “unholy”, and declaring them “holy….his body eating and drinking…his body broken.
The covenant God gave…the 10 commandments.. weren’t meant to be kept in a holy building. They were meant to be kept in holy people…in bodies…our bodies. Walking dusty…or icy roads. Touching other bodies…and recognizing God’s holy presence in them.
The covenant God gave was about a way to live our lives…with compassion and respect…with joy and kindness…with trust and hope. It wasn’t a checklist but a way through our wilderness that gives life. Jesus came to show us the way. And actually, that’s what the early Christians were called – the followers of the Way. The way of love.
The way of love…embodied love. Love for my body and your body, black bodies and brown bodies, big bodies and little bodies, incarcerated bodies and foreign bodies…the way of love that recognizes ALL bodies…as beautiful…as temples…as holy places where heaven and earth meet.
That’s Jesus way. And it is messy. It’s not orderly and neat…like we want it to be. We want to know who is good and bad. We want to know whether we are good and bad. But God doesn’t care. God just loves. This week I was rereading parts of Fr. Gregory Boyle’s book, Tattoos on the Heart, and one quote particularly struck me. He writes: “ It is precisely because we have such an overactive disapproval gland ourselves that we tend to create God in our own image. It is truly hard for us to see the truth that disapproval does not seem to be part of God’s DNA. God is just too busy loving us to have any time left for disappointment.” Fr. Boyle works with gangs in Los Angeles. God is not disappointed or disapproving of them. Or of us. God has not drawn lines or created laws that will exclude them. God loves. Jesus loves.
And that is all. May we trust God. May we love God. May we rest in God. May we love as God loves. May we let our overactive disapproval gland and need for order be turned upside down by Jesus…and may we live lives claimed by the spirit of God that dwells in us. In our beautiful bodies. Amen.
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