What tables areJesus overturning in you?

(Here is my sermon from Sunday, March 7, 2021 in response to Exodus 20:1–17 and John 2:13–22. You can find the video version as well as the full worship service at www.ststephenlc.org)

Jurgen Moltmann, the great German theologian of the 20 thcentury wrote “There is no threat to [a person] which arouses more hostility than to threaten [their] idols or those of [their] group.”

An idol, at its core, isn’t just about false gods. It is also about putting ourself in the place of God. Reflecting who we are, what we care about, and what we want. It’s about us dictating to God what is important and then creating something supposedly divine to endorse what we want.

This isn’t new. We’ve been trying to put ourselves in the place of God since the very beginning. Remember the story of the Fall in Genesis 3? “The serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of [the fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,”

There are lots of idols in our society, we just don’t call them idols anymore. We have other names for them. More sophisticated names that allow us to believe that idolatry isn’t a problem anymore.

But they have just as much pull and attraction today as literal physical hand-made idols did in the ancient world.

In today’s Gospel, we hear about Jesus coming to the temple in Jerusalem. He observes what is going on. There are people selling animals and there are money changers…