Last week, I kicked one of my students out of class. The student had been failing because he wasn’t doing the work, wasn’t paying attention in class—for reasons that neither of us could figure out. On that day, full of frustration, he was sitting in the back of the room before class started, holding on to a handout I had asked him to revise, loudly telling whoever was on the other end of the line that he was failing because his teacher wouldn’t take his work. Even after he hung up, he kept repeating, loudly, that I wouldn’t accept his work, so he was failing, on and on, until in complete exasperation I said his name—also loudly and sharply—and told him to leave class.
In many ways, I was justified in doing this. Class was about to start; he was disruptive; what he was saying was incorrect; he wasn’t in the mood to listen. But as I curtly told him to leave for all those reasons, there were things I wasn’t thinking about. I didn’t think about the scared, angry young man whose tangled brain was shooting all of his stress wildly out of his mouth. I didn’t try to repair the rift. I could have said, “I’m happy to have you in class if you’re ready to learn, and we can talk about how to get your work in after we’re through” I could have said, “I need you to leave now, but you’re welcome to come back to class tomorrow and to talk to me later today about that work.” The heart of teaching for me comes from trying to help students–no matter how much they struggle or how they are doing in any given moment–on a path forward toward seeing themselves as writers, as learners, as as capable of success as anyone else in the classroom. That’s what gets me up every morning. Yet, in my exasperation and frustration, I forgot why I teach and, in the process, severed an already tenuous relationship. I chose my rules, my need to feel in control, my walls, over connection.
Today’s lessons explore the gifts and the perils of rules. Psalm 19 opens by describing the beautiful orderliness of creation. In the translation from The Message that we read in church today, Madame Day holds classes every morning, and Professor Night lectures each evening; the unspoken truth of their words is everywhere. The warmth and light of the sun and all creation are clear signposts showing the way to joy and life in God’s kingdom. It’s out of that unspoken created order that the spoken word of the law springs, its purpose not to constrain or limit us but to warn us of danger and direct us to hidden treasure. The law of God is a way to capture and express the gifts of God that are everywhere, giving us the eyes to see.
Reading the detailed Covenant God makes with Moses (which begins with what what we now call the Ten Commandments) through that lens is a game changer for this girl, who was brought up to memorize and obey those commandments because they were The Rules. But look how God begins the Covenant: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Logically then, what follows is not a list of rules imposed upon us by an even more powerful despot, God, so much as a description of what we are now free to do as beloved participants in His kingdom. As Godly Play puts it, they offer the Best Ways to Live in the company of YHWH, the One who created us in His image and desires nothing, really, but a loving relationship with us. But then, the people took the story of how to live in freedom, inscribed it on tablets and locked it away in an ark, hidden in a tent for holy men to guard. And so it goes to this day as we post those rules in stone outside courthouses and framed on the walls of Sunday school classroom, periodically reciting them during the Penitential service in church as we did this morning. And sometimes, too, we use them less as guideposts for our journey and more as ways to judge and to set ourselves apart from others who are not like us.
Later, as laid out in other parts of the Mosaic Covenant, great temples were built to house the Law. Walls were built that kept people in their proper places: a wall between the Gentiles and the Jews: between the men and the women, between the ordinary folk and the priests. And deep in the temple was a special space for YHWH to reside, a place that no one could go except the holiest of the priests, once a year.
The people also made sacrifices to YHWH at the temple, just as their ancestors had before them, but following a different and very specific set of rules. For example, people would sell their own animals to buy the correct sacrificial animals at the temple. To purchase those animals, they’d need to exchange their local money for the money accepted at the temple. Then they’d present the animal to the temple priests to sacrifice to YHWH in order to atone for their sins and bring them into right relationship with God. This, too, was part of the Covenant, though over the years the Prophets also taught that the superficiality of much sacrifice was not pleasing to God, who was pleased instead by contrite hearts, kindness toward others and a love of justice.
It is within that prophetic tradition that Jesus in John’s Gospel enters the temple at the beginning of his ministry. When he drives the moneylenders, the animals, and their sellers out of the temple, overturning tables and telling them, “Stop making my father’s house a marketplace,” he’s recalling the words of the prophet Zechariah, whose book ends: And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day.” Jesus the Messiah is working to break down walls that the people over time have set between themselves and God; to help them see that God is not hidden in a tiny room in the temple or high in the sky savoring the scent of their sacrifice. God is right there with them in His house. God is, in fact, right in front of them.
The Gospel of John was written after the Romans destroyed the Second Temple, and so it also says to those who lived in those times and to us today: it’s not the temple or even the law that ties you to God. The God who has been with you from the beginning is also this Messiah in the temple, torn down and risen again and with you, wherever and whoever you are. Present with me and with every one of you on Zoom today. Present with those who aren’t in a house of worship this weekend. Present with the student I so abruptly kicked out of class this week.
The question is whether I will choose to keep Jesus safely behind church doors, following rules to be reassured that at least I’m not so bad as those who don’t follow them. Or whether I’m willing to take on a risk and a far greater challenge: to walk each day with eyes open in the light of the Love that shines on everything and everyone, listening to the voice of the God who is the unspoken truth that fills the earth.
Sunday Morning Words 