Day 10 - Friday, February 26
Title: “STOP MAKING MY FATHER’S HOUSE A ROBBERS’ DEN”
Scripture: John 2:13-19 (ESV)
The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

Poetry: 
The Department of Future Regrets
by Phillip Aijian

There are no unsacred places; 
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
                         -Wendell Berry

From newt land and trout river,
from the glens of indigenous eucalyptus I came.
I plead their causes to the gods of diesel 
and asphalt, men with maps and scissors,
hands with golden shovels. But their machines 
did not listen and swept me away. I alone survive 
the marsh and meadow; the goldfinch 
whose eggs grew thin beyond cracking. I left 
when there was too little worth saving; my hands 
too scarred and voice too hoarse, my blood 
too weary an atonement for the sacrilege.

Most of us come from the public sector,
where our requests and names were ignored. 
The Department of Future Regrets recruits 
only those most cynical, our senses whittled 
to tunnel vision, a locked jaw, the brief sigh.  
I have a pet stormcloud who barks a little thunder 
and follows me everywhere, keeping me 
in the shadow to which I’ve become accustomed.
Someone, somewhere. is our motto, our creed.
We place our faith in sin and greed, and are not
disappointed. We count on catastrophe
and are not surprised. I water an iron rose,
potted in terra cotta on my desk.
Our pockets run deep, coffers coined from
the same purse as the Department of Defense,
numbers soon to be reckoned as blood money.
Our founder, Henry Randolph, was a carpenter 
like his father—a man whose chisel could coax 
rocking chairs and filigree out of mahogany.  
But bad luck obliged living in a town so violent 
that they could not wait for the coroner, 
and measured the living. Puritan guilt caught up 
when coffins had built the second nicest home 
in the county.  

When he was 32 he bought the first field, 
fallow beyond the regard of a tumbleweed 
with a well crumbling at the north corner, choked 
on dusty coins and bloody buckshot.  
He bought others and in each buried a silver dollar.
His will declares the terms of the despair 
We are heirs to. We buy land and set it apart 
as future tribute, prophetic memorial, offering 
for offenses uncommitted. For wrongs 
will be denied and judges will be bribed.  
Ancient forests will be razed to supply a tycoon 
with toothpicks. Senators will conspire and retire 
into the repose of their contractually obliged
      Alzheimer’s.
The letters long hidden will at last be read 
only for the words to crumble in trembling hands.
Blessed is the man who may go to a place and weep 
when his fingers brush over the dull bronze 
letters of a familiar name. Blessed is the man 
who may limp to a monument when he is old; 
when he has dreamed the dreams that wake him 
with a cry, with a casting away of the phantom 
weapon clutched by his younger, cleaner hands.  
But how few these fortunate ones. How many 
more have tried to build cairns to their cares
and were brushed away into the open grave
of another man’s apathy? Vengeance belongs
to the Lord, but mourning belongs to us.

We set aside a field for the next martyr 
whose voice will be cut short in the midst of blessing.
We quarry sheets of granite to echo the unconsoled 
pulses of weeping to those who will be too cowardly 
to speak when yet he lives, whose streets will not
      be washed 
of his blood. We prepare a plot upon which shall
      stand 
dozens of glass panes, their presence nearly invisible, 
so that each footprint, every tooth of gravel 
or eddy of wind that whispers across the loam 
will be revealed—hidden only in the night, God’s
      shadow.  
These will stand for the soon to be nameless soldier 
whose obedience shall be so total, no
      acknowledgement 
but a folded flag and bugler's lament shall be offered.  
This place and another when a wall in Langley 
has been filled with stars, not one shining.  

To me, now, falls the lot of dreaming
of how to commemorate the Mississippi,
when our thirst has drained the delta;
when a mother shall name her son Noah,
and pray for floods. When that riverbed
has become a highway, when the Rio Grande
is a valley of bones, let son and mother 
wander into the desert to find waters 
we will set beyond all quenching, 
where I will plant my rusting rose.  
Waves of steel will arise, each one a mountain, 
adamantine icon for a gone people who could drink, 
who could be washed clean; who are no longer
      among us.  
I draw the wave crests sharp. I draw their shadows 
like kerf lines to the horizon. And, on a whim, 
I scatter a handful of V’s, 
as every boy knows to draw 
a flock of birds. 

ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE

What does your home mean to you? What would you like it to be known for? Even after a year like the one we’ve all endured, we might not know quite how to answer these questions. 

In this passage, Jesus, it seems, is crystal clear on what his Father’s house is, and what it is not. As I reflect on this image, I am surprised by Jesus’ overt display of emotion. I am forced to confront my own assumptions of Jesus being perpetually cool and collected, logical and rational, ready with a word of wisdom at just the right moment — never displaying an emotional reaction. What could possibly have provoked Jesus into creating this kind of scene?

In his commentary on the Gospel of John, theologian Klink describes this encounter in the temple as an honor-shame challenge that people of the day immediately would have recognized. Jesus is challenging the established way of doing things, as religious leaders had turned his “Father’s house into a house of trade.” He is attempting to bring honor upon himself by righting this wrong against his Father’s house, which would inevitably bring shame on the religious leaders. In the ESV, Jesus emphasizes that they have made the temple into a place of business instead of a place of worship. The religious leaders allowed practices that should not be associated with worship. The ways of the world have commingled with the ways of God.

As you meditate on this passage, think of Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb. Here, Jesus drives the animals used as sacrifices out of the temple, and then stands alone; only he will be the ultimate sacrifice. The zeal that consumes him is targeted at one thing: the syncretism of an economic system that encroached on his Father’s house. 

The artist’s rendition feels anachronistic. Neckties and crewcuts locate Jesus’s prophetic action in the topography of the church today. It makes me wonder: if Jesus were to fashion a whip in the foyer of the evangelical church in the U.S., what would be the target of his zeal? What is our church home known for today? Where have we colluded with the ways of the world? What western cultural values have we allowed into the church that vie for our honor, respect, worship? 

Zeal for his Father’s house consumed him, and yet Jesus loses the honor-shame challenge in the eyes of the people who witnessed this encounter. The shame that Jesus attempted to bring on the religious elite was instead turned and placed back on him. But this shame does not ruin Jesus or destroy him. As the sacrificial lamb, he is prepared to carry this shame — indeed, it is his role. Jesus bears the shame as his own, and ultimately, redeems it. He is redeeming our sin and syncretism still today. 

Prayer:
Dear meek Lamb of God,
May we not confuse your gentleness
for complacency,
nor your fervor
for uncontrolled anger.

Forgive those of us who are
“professional Christians”
especially
for the pride we have
in believing we have you figured out
and not allowing you the mystery that you are due.

Forgive us for confusing our own values and priorities
with what is normal, right, good, or true
...and of you.

Forgive us for colluding with 
power 
and greed 
and security
in the name of 
productivity
and efficiency
and safety. 

Sacrificial Lamb, would you
lift the shame of our
complicity
and collusionand syncretism
upon your back? 

Alicia Miller Andre
Director, Intercultural Education & Assessment
Biola University

For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.