March 23, 2003

Third Sunday of Lent

Exodus 20:1-17

John 2:13-22

 “Bound to Be Free” 

     I was in a store the other day and noticed two parents having a bit of a disagreement with their two children.  Been there.  Done that.  Kids seem to like choosing public places to put up a fuss.  I remember when Kay and I took our children shopping, finding perfectly suitable clothing and shoes but realizing the things we picked out weren’t good enough because the other kids at school were wearing something else.  Now, I have to say, I don’t think we ever had a major blowup in a store (we saved that for home), but I do remember those moments of disagreement as opportunities for reinforcing some basic family values.  We let our children know that first: We will consider your wishes, but we are still in charge.  Second: This is not a democracy.  Third: It doesn’t matter what the kids in school are wearing, this is what we think is appropriate and fits within our budget.  And fourth: Friends and school may influence you, but the values held by your family, always come first.

     I sat in front of the TV a lot these past few days, and I’m sure many of you have, too.  Like you, I watched the “shock and awe” campaign sweep over Baghdad, delivering thousands of precision bombs and missiles.  It is sad when things come down to this.  It is tragic that a more peaceful means couldn’t be found.  Now, we must pray for those involved, on both sides, and that the war will end soon and in a way that leads to healing and a better life for the people of Iraq and the world.

     Conflicts like this serve to remind us that the nations of our world are constantly involved in power struggles.  We fight for self-preservation or over boundaries or resources or who’s in charge.  Often, it seems, it’s the one who carries the biggest stick that gets to call the shots.  That would be us right now.  In the world’s schoolyard, we have command.  We’re in style.  We’re it.  We’ve got the right stuff.  Like the message on the license plate of a car that nearly rammed us yesterday…it read, “Intimidator”.  Power rules.  Big stick. 

      Maybe there’s some comfort in that, feeling we can force some kind of lasting peace and secure the borders.  But is this where our values lie – being the biggest, the strongest, the most powerful?  Do we trust this to be the answer?  Does this define us?  Is this who we are…or do we know better?  Do we place our trust elsewhere, are we defined by a different set of values…family values, the ones that define us as members of the family of God? 

     When a yet-undefined assembly of Hebrew people gathered at the base of Mt. Sinai, they did not have common identity.  It wasn’t until Moses brought them the Ten Commandments from God that they became known as Israel.  This was their defining moment.  They became a people that day.  They didn’t have national boundaries or an organized army.  They didn’t have a political system.  They just had God and each other and God’s commandments that defined them.  God’s values were their values, no matter what the rest of the world was into.  All worldly powers, all worldly things would forever be secondary. 

     The Israelites were a people brought out of the slavery of Egypt, saved by the love of God.  This love bound them together in community, a faith family, and the Ten Commandments provided a definition of what that family was supposed to look like. They were bound together by God’s love and thus free to live life unencumbered by fear, with the confidence that they would always be God’s children.  This was their identity. 

     The reason we find Jesus so upset in our reading from John, is that a number of years after Moses, many of the Jews forgot this.  They turned their backs on God and fell in love with the things that shortsighted, sinful folks sometimes find more immediately gratifying – prestige and profit and power.  Even the priests of the temple were making a mockery of God with their corrupt moneymaking schemes.  “This is my Father’s house!” Jesus cried out, for they had forgotten their heavenly Father.  They gave God lip service, but denied their true identity as God’s children. 

     We struggle with the same temptations.  We are so easily impressed with the power at our disposal that we can begin to feel we have no need of God.  As an English war analyst said the other day, “The English don’t mix religion and politics because England is a post-religious society.”  I’m sure he doesn’t speak for the millions of believers in England and probably offended every last one of them with that comment, but he represents a popular position that modern people just have no need for God.  We can be post-religious.  We have the power.  We can handle this on our own, thank you very much. 

     I don’t happen to agree with him.  I think the big fat mess we’re in right now indicates just how poorly we do handle things when that left to own devices.  We may have the most powerful military technology, economy and political system in the world, but the faithful are not post-religious because they know all the power in the world cannot save us from death, cannot save us from our sins.  Pogo was right.  We have met the enemy and he is us.  Left to our own devices, we’re in big trouble.  That’s why God sent us a Savior. 

     Our hope is not in outgrowing our need for religion but in trusting the only thing that can truly save us – the love of God in Jesus Christ.  This faith defines us.  This is who we are.  This is where our values lie.