Text: John 2:13-22

13The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

 When I was a kid and heard these verses, I thought it meant that we couldn’t ever sell things in the church.  As I grew up, I started to hear different interpretations.  One that I have heard is that where the moneychangers were is the one place that the Gentiles could worship and it was now being taken over by the people who collected the temple tax.  In short, they were being kept out from worshipping God.

The reason Jesus got angry was not because of the selling as much as the importance of commerce over human beings.  This is a passage about inclusion.

What crowds our hearts that keeps us from welcoming others, from seeing them as a child of God? 

Holy God, forgive us when we allow other things to crowd out our concern for others.  Clean out that which keeps us from loving you and our neighbor. Amen.

Dennis Sanders, IT/Communications Specialist

Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area

Text: John 1:35-42

35The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” 37The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. 40One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. 41He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). 42He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

Sometimes we think following Jesus means we will get all the answers to all the questions in our lives.  But in today’s text, we don’t see Jesus giving an answer, at least not all at once.  In fact, he asks a question: what are you looking for?  And then he said “come and see.” 

As followers of Christ, we dont always get the answers.  Instead, given questions and we are sometimes asked to find out where God is going. 

Lent is called a journey and there is a lot of truth to that.  We are on a journey and we don’t know where it will lead.  But we do know that Jesus is with us on the journey.

God, as we seek to follow you, help to understand that you are with us in the questions and when life doesn’t make sense.  Give us the curious heart to “come and see.”  Amen.

Dennis Sanders, IT/Communications Specialist

Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area