WELCOME TO THE HOUSE OF PRAYER
When is a church not a church?
In May of 2007 Sharon and I had the opportunity to visit the oldest church building in the world, Hagia Sophia. After Christianity was legalized by the Roman Emperor in the fourth century church leaders were free to construct buildings for worship. Hagia Sophia was dedicated in 360 in what was then called Constantinople, now Istanbul, Turkey. The surviving structure was built in 537.
This great structure was a center of Christian worship for centuries. Then came the Islamic wave and in 1453, this grand building was converted to a mosque for the worship of Allah. Many frescos depicting Jesus and stories of the Bible were plastered over – which inadvertently ended up preserving the frescos. But Islamic worship dominated the building for five more centuries.
After World War 1 Turkey became a secular nation – that is, they were not ruled by religious ideals – and Ataturk, the president of Turkey, declared that Hagia Sophia would now be a museum. Ataturk recognized the value of tourism.
So a building dedicated the worship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Christian tradition became a mosque for Islamic worship traditions, and then a museum. There is something ominous about this progression.
Palm Sunday celebrates the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem a week before his death. However, as Mark wrote his gospel he deliberately points to something that overshadows the coming of Jesus to the Holy City. The structure of chapter 11 as a unit aims like a bull’s eye to the temple and what Jesus has to say about that place of worship.
What comes into question is God’s intention for his house of prayer versus the Jews understanding of the temple. The heart of this discussion today is this: What is God’s purpose for his house of prayer?
1. Jesus investigates the House of Prayer
We celebrate Palm Sunday each year and are familiar with palm branches, cries of “hosanna,” and all that goes with the celebration of King Jesus. Because of this we may have grown too familiar with the details so that they are blurred.
One of the key features of this story is the revelation of Jesus’ authority. He is no longer downplaying his role as Messiah but comes out boldly as the king. Jesus deliberately uses an animal unfamiliar with being ridden in keeping with Zechariah 9:9. There is no more powerful symbol for claiming one’s rights to be the king than this prophecy.
His authority is further impressed when he orders his disciples to claim the animal saying, “The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly,” (11:3). He only uses this term “Lord” of himself two others times: 2:28 “Lord of the Sabbath” and 5:19 when he tells the demoniac to go home and tell what the Lord has done for him. There is power and authority in this carefully used term.
Jesus is a man of singular authority. He spoke and set things in motion, a series of events insignificant in themselves but put together made a huge impact. Jesus entered Jerusalem on his own terms – he was not arrested or dragged there. He predicted his reception, that he would be rejected, betrayed, accused, condemned and killed in Jerusalem. But this is what had to happen and Jesus was not avoiding it in the least.
That his authority is a key feature is balanced and supported by the final verses of the chapter. In verses 27-33 the chief priests, teachers of the law and elders approached him and asked, “By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you authority to do this?” (11:28). So we know that this is a major issue for what happens next.
As Jesus enters Jerusalem, Triumphal Entry is more of a tragedy, at least for Jesus. This crowd that cuts branches and lays them out before him is a Galilean crowd – they are not from Jerusalem. They have seen the miracles and heard the teaching and are convinced that Jesus is the king. That this is a Galilean crowd is supported in Mark by the words, “Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted ‘Hosanna!” (11:9). It is a Jerusalem crowd that shouts “crucify,” but this Galilean crowd will have abandoned him by then. Luke 19:41 tells us that in the midst of this Triumphal Entry, Jesus wept with the knowledge that his own Holy City would reject him.
The most important verse in this section is the last one: “Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve,” (11:11). Jesus was making plans. He checked out the temple and knew what he would do the next day. His authority was about to be flexed.
2. Jesus enacts a parable about the House of Prayer
Jesus typically told parables. In this case he acts one out.
This disturbing little story appears to be the one situation where Jesus indulges in a little selfishness. We might even say that he appears to abuse his power. Satan tries to tempt him earlier to make bread out of stones but he won’t do it. Now when he wants a little tree candy, Jesus throws a hissy and condemns the tree. Something’s not right here.
Look at the details. It’s March or April, a time when fruit is not usually in season. The fig tree he spies is in full leaf, green and healthy, but there is no fruit on the tree. Mark even adds the very telling phrase, “…because it was not the season for figs,” (11:13).
Jesus knew all this and cursed the tree anyways. “May no one ever eat fruit from you again,” (11:14). Why would Jesus alienate all the tree-huggers out there? Why would Mark include such a strange story in his gospel?
As Jesus heads to the temple he sees this tree and he sees an opportunity to teach his disciples about the temple. The fig tree story is concluded later on with the temple event in the middle. That’s how we know there is a connection.
Think of the Jewish mindset for a moment. All their feasts, all their festivals, all their traditions were a celebration of national pride, they were a flashpoint of patriotism. They were a glimmer of hope that one day Israel would be an independent sovereign nation again.
At the center of this was the temple. It was the one place where they were in control. Caesar permitted them to practice their religion unhindered by Roman politics. In Ephesus the temple of Artemis housed statues of Roman gods. In Athens, Corinth and Alexandria and temples throughout the known Roman world, houses of worship were forced to display tokens of allegiance to Rome. But not in Jerusalem. The temple in Jerusalem had no statues or idols.[i]
Jews did everything they could to keep their temple pure of Gentile defilement. They were very strict about their traditions and temple laws so as to preserve the most important feature of their worship.
But Jesus’ parable of the fig tree was about the temple. And what we understand from this comparison is that the temple worship was fruitless. God’s purposes for his house of prayer were not being met. The end result would be a dead tree – lifeless. In chapter 13, Jesus predicts that the temple will be demolished. The pride of the Jews, their house of prayer, would be gone.
3. Jesus reacts to the misuse of the House of Prayer
What was Jesus’ issue with the temple? The night before he took a peek at what was going on. What did he see that bothered him so deeply?
We have always heard that it was the money-changers and sellers of livestock that drove him to extreme action. How dare they do business in the place of worship? Mark does not say that this is the problem.
Money-changers were actually a necessity. If you were a Jew coming from Philippi to worship at the temple in Jerusalem, chances are that you would have Greek currency. Greek money had images of gods and goddesses on them and images of any kind were forbidden in the temple (you shall have no graven images…). So you changed your money for temple money that allowed you to buy a dove or a sheep to sacrifice.
There’s the problem, we cry. Who brings a sheep into the house of worship? Well, a Jew would. But you don’t want to bring your sheep on the boat from Greece; you bring money to buy a sheep in Jerusalem. Both the money-changers and the sellers were doing a good service. Mark does not say that this is the problem.
But the question is: where are they conducting their business? When Jesus walked into the temple courts he saw throngs of people buying and selling. During the week of Passover, Jerusalem swelled to six times the usual population (Imagine 50,000 people attending Honey Festival). Josephus tells us that in Passover week one year, 255,000 lambs were bought and sacrificed in the temple.
Where was this taking place? In the court of the Gentiles. Think of how loud and confusing this throng would be, and here the Gentiles were supposed to find God through quiet reflection and prayer. This is what has Jesus fired up. Jesus says, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers,” (11:17). The nations had no access to the temple. What Jesus found wrong with this temple was the absence of the peoples of the world. They were not there praying.
The stalls for the animals, the tables for money-changing took up the space where foreigners were permitted in the temple. The nations were denied access to worship God. This goes against the Isaiah passage that Jesus quoted that God wanted his house to be a place of prayer for everyone.
The Jeremiah passage (7:11) referred to that prophet’s frustration with the people in his day. It had nothing to do with sacrificial animals or inflated exchange rates. Jeremiah denounced those who were guilty of oppressing foreigners and widows and orphans, shedding innocent blood and following other gods. They made the temple their robber’s hideout. They would do all these terrible things throughout the week and then run to temple on the weekend – like it was some kind of safe haven where their sins were ignored. Or so they thought.
That is not what the temple was for, and it is not what church is for either. Jesus implied that God was robbed of the worship of the nations and the nations were robbed of their place in the house of prayer. That’s why Jesus says the temple is a den of robbers.
Who is being robbed of worship in our church today? Is the commotion and frantic activity robbing some of the opportunity for quiet reflection? Have we denied access to some who want to seek God? Is the divorced single mother welcome here? Is the mentally ill unemployed man allowed to pray with us? If a homosexual person wants to worship God in our midst, is he or she welcome? Who are the Gentiles we have labeled as unfit for our temple?
Jesus stopped the activity dead that day. People were carrying things through the courts and Jesus stood in their way. “Where do you think you are going with that?” he might have said. Jesus did not simply stymie commercial activity; he brought the whole sacrificial system to a halt.
It is no wonder that the chief priests and teachers of the law sought a way to kill Jesus. His words and actions were a formidable threat to their administration of the temple. Jesus was provoking the establishment and hastened his death.
4. Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray
We return to the fig tree now and Peter is shocked to find that the tree is withered. Consider how long it takes for a plant to die in the Klassen house and even this seems quick.
Jesus takes the awful example of the temple and the fig tree as its symbol and contrasts them with how the house of prayer should operate. He teaches them to pray, in other words.
There are three parts to this lesson on prayer:
a) Have faith in God – That’s the first thing Jesus says. This is not a “how to” on cursing fig trees; Jesus teaches the secret of how not to be cursed. The nation of Israel was cursed because it had no faith in God. It maintained an empty procedure of attendance and ritual and outward appearances of life, but was truly dead inside.
Having faith in God is to seek God and to trust God and to believe that he knows what he is doing. Without faith we dry up inside as a church and as individuals because we have stopped connecting to the God of life. Without him we wither away and become fruitless.
b) Believe what you are praying; pray what you believe – Jesus says, “…if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him,” (11:23). Whatever you ask for will be yours. This is not a magic formula for doing amazing things. When James and John ask for special seats in the kingdom they are denied; when Jesus prays that the cup pass from him, he is denied.
We are not to go around throwing mountains into the sea. Jesus is telling us to have faith in God when it is sometimes difficult to have faith at all. There are mountains which oppose our faith and make life difficult for us. There are obstacles to faith. These are the mountains we pray against.
c) Make forgiveness a prerequisite to prayer – The great hindrance to faith and prayer is pride, the pride which refuses to forgive. This is a mountain that can fill up your whole life. All you have before you is this immense mountain of pain and guilt and regret and it is blocking the life that God wants to give you. You have the power to remove that mountain when you stand and pray and forgive those who have offended you. Forgiveness opens the door of prayer and blessing.
Forty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Roman soldiers came and destroyed the temple, the house of prayer, just as Jesus predicted. Not one stone was left on another, except for one wall which is called the “wailing wall.”
Jesus also promised that house of prayer would be rebuilt in three days. He was referring to his body. Paul picked up on this in his letter to the Corinthians when he said that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19) and that we are the temple of the living God (2 Cor 6:16). But I like Peter’s rendition for our purposes: “You also, like living stones are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ,” (1 Peter 2:5).
From this verse and this sermon I have developed five questions as a summary of our reflections this morning:
What is the House of Prayer? The House of Prayer is a place where all are welcome to seek God through Jesus Christ.
Where is the House of Prayer? The House of Prayer is wherever the believers gather to worship God. As Jesus said, where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them. The House of Prayer, in other words, is not brick and mortar; it is you and I, the spiritual stones that house the Spirit of God.
How do we enter the House of Prayer? We enter the house of prayer by faith in Jesus Christ, knowing that none of us is worthy except by the blood of Christ.
What do we pray in the House of Prayer? We pray that God’s will be done in our lives, casting aside mountains of hypocrisy, opposition and persecution, casting aside unforgiveness and prejudice, to find salvation in Christ.
What is required of those who pray in the House of Prayer? Forgiveness. To forgive and seek forgiveness of those we have wronged.
This is God’s purpose for the House of Prayer.
AMEN
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