3-3-21 - My Father's House

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Where should they start, these leaders of Israel’s spiritual life? Jesus, in his tirade at the temple, offended in so many ways. There was his attack on the system of sacrifice and the economic engine that drove it along. There was his lack of respect and decorum. Yet these transgressions likely paled in comparison to his words: “Stop making my father’s house a marketplace!”

His father’s house? This was the holy temple where God resided on earth. It was for everyone - as long as they were intact and ritually "clean." In fact, it had become the only legitimate place for holy rituals to be enacted, where ordinary people could come into contact with the Holy God. And this itinerant teacher presumed to refer to it as his father’s house? Blasphemy!

When Jesus called the temple in Jerusalem "his father's house," he may have been referencing Israel’s history, in particular the tradition of King David who wanted to “build a house for God.” God’s response was that it was not David who would build a house for God, but God who would establish a house, a lineage for him. And from that line would come the Messiah. Was Jesus hinting at his Davidic heritage when he called it “my father’s house?” It would have sounded no less blasphemous to his listeners than calling God his father, but it’s an interesting idea.

Are places of worship meant to be houses for God? Is that what they are? And is that how we treat them? Or are they spaces for us, places we set apart for ourselves, hoping to find in them a moment of solace, of holy presence; buildings in which we enact rituals that sometimes mediate the divine for us, in which we offer prayers and praises and portions of our wealth in hopes of encountering God? Is that what a sanctuary is?

Or is a sanctuary a place to welcome people who don’t know the living God, yet know they are missing a connection they crave? Should we decorate and arrange our churches for God – who likely doesn’t care where we meet, as long as we come in love and openness - or for outsiders who are hungry for God?
How might it change the way we arrange and decorate them, and how we conduct ourselves in them, if we saw them as houses for God’s hungry people rather than as houses for God? After a year of worshipping mostly outside our holy buildings, these questions are all the more urgent.

In the next exchange in our passage, Jesus refers to his body as the temple that cannot be destroyed. Peter likens the people of God to a holy temple built of living stones. As we have discovered this year of online worship, God’s house is anywhere God’s name and power and love are invoked – every heart, every relationship, every place of prayer and desperate hope can be “my father’s house.”

What if we began to treat our street corners as holy spaces? Our living rooms? Doctor’s offices? Shelters? Police stations? Where do you pray? Where do you invite Jesus to make himself known? That is his father’s house.

Please scroll down for information about an online retreat I'm hosting March 6 - a Lenten Spa for the Spirit. We will focus on spiritual fitness for peacemakers. All are welcome!

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I invite you to join me for an online retreat morning on Saturday, March 6, starting at 9 am and ending by 12:30. This retreat time will focus on the spiritual practices that keep us "fit" as peacemakers - forgiveness, hope, hospitality and peace. Even a few hours of retreat can renew and recharge our souls. 

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