The Meat Sermon

John 2:13-22

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making 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. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After 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.

Last Sunday, Catherine took shoes and socks out of a bag… right there.  She told us to be careful with our Parish Hall floors particularly when the weather outside was frightful.  She reminded us that in times of frightful weather, we should change into inside shoes OR just wear socks, so the frightful on the outside doesn’t get tracked into the inside.  Now, she could have just SAID all that to us, but Catherine knew it would stick in our heads better with props!  

When Bible characters use props its called “Prophetic Symbolism” and that’s what Jesus did in the Temple.  Here, at the beginning of John’s Gospel, Jesus told and SHOWED people that his whole ministry would be about turning the world upside down… and he did it... with props.  Not to be outdone, here is a piece of meat that I bought at Big Y.  I have declared it to be a Prime Angus Ribeye Steak!  (Hold up Boston Butt Pork Roast) “That doesn’t look like a Prime Angus Ribeye Steak,” you say!  SHUN THE UNBELIEVER!  I’m in a position of authority and I have declared it to be a Prime Angus Ribeye Steak!  THUS IT IS SO!  Oh, ye of little faith!  What’s that you say, “The sticker on it from Big Y says it’s a Boston Butt Pork Roast?”  That is true because the butcher at Big Y, A HERETIC, refused to put a sticker on it that said Prime Angus Ribeye Steak even though I declared it so!  He said that me declaring it, didn’t make it so.  He said changing it was "against the law" and he'd get in trouble with the USDA!  Then he said I couldn't shop at Big Y anymore. 

By now you're wondering, “What's the point of this crazy 'Meat Sermon’”.  Well, the point is to not only tell you, but to use props and Prophetic Symbolism to SHOW you, that just because someone in authority or with influence or with a pulpit, or a big microphone, or who uses a particular set of vocabulary words declares something to BE something, it doesn’t necessarily make it SO.  You can put lipstick on a pig and declare it to be a super model and you know what it is?  Here’s a hint!  It ain’t a super model!  Its still a pig!  What I’ve noticed lately though is that while we as a nation are pretty good at calling people out when they put lipstick on a pig and declare it to be Cindy Crawford... and the USDA is REALLY good at calling out crackpot priests who want to call a Boston Butt a Prime Ribeye... what I’ve noticed is that we as a nation have a lot more trouble calling out people who declare things to be “of God” even when they are simply not, in any way, shape, or form, “of God”!  

Folks are understandably nervous about calling people out about faith stuff, but that’s what Jesus SHOWED us to do when he flipped over the tables in the Temple.  He was showing us how to call out a place that continued to call itself “of God” even though it had stopped being “of God” a long time ago.  To be fair, the Temple Market probably began with good intentions.  After all, aunt Gertie schlepping an unblemished cow tethered to her walker across the desert at age 97 was a genuinely daunting task.  So providing a way for old aunt Gertie to just buy one there instead was a compassionate thing.  But eventually, it changed.  Now it wasn’t just aunt Gertie.  Now it was the 23 year old hedge fund bros who had slipped a few extra shekels into the right palm and shot to the head of the line.  No matter what any High Priest continued to call it, when Jesus showed up, he saw it for what it had really become, a hollow sham, and Jesus called them out for it… with props!

Back here in our day and age we have countless people declaring this, that, and the other thing to be “of God” and/or “Christian”.  The latest examples come from followers of the The Seven Mountains Mandate.  That’s the movement followed by the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and House Speaker Mike Johnson.  This mandate tells followers to take control of seven areas of society: family, religion, government, education, arts and entertainment, commerce and media in the name of God.  Doing that would be the modern equivalent of what Peter told Jesus to do in last week’s Gospel.  To which you might remember Jesus’ replied to Peter… “Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling-block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

The Seven Mountain Mandate and all the other Christian Nationalist ideas aren't any more Christian than a pig with lipstick is Cindy Crawford!  No more Christian than this Boston Butt is a Prime Angus Ribeye.  No more “of God” than the rich being able to buy a Fast Pass to the Temple!  And as Jesus has told and shown us, that kind of stuff needs to be called out for what it is, flipped over, and run out of town!

So what actually IS that Seven Mountain Mandate and all the Christian Nationalist junk we hear about today?  Well it’s the same thing that the Temple had become in Jesus’ day.  It’s basically a god- vocabulary word salad tossed with flash and show at table side, meant to dazzle folks to the point where they won’t pay attention to the main course they want to serve you, which is a colorless and flavorless white tureen made up of layers of hate, misogyny, homophobia, and authoritarianism smothered in Temple sauce, the sauce that makes the rich richer on the backs of the poor.

All of that stuff is as far from being Christian as it could possibly be!  But I know its harder to call out that stuff than it is to call out a pig with lipstick because its got faith words attached to it.  I know, there isn’t an agency to sound the alarm when things are improperly labeled as “Christian” that are literally anti-Christ!  I know that its daunting to be followers of the One who called ‘em out, flipped ‘em over, and chased 'em out… and to hear today that the job of calling 'em out, flipping ‘em over, and chasing 'em out now falls... on US.  But here we are!  

We are not, however, called to do that hard thing unequipped!  We have the tool given to us by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry… “If it’s not about love, then it’s not about God.”  So measure everything you’re hearing, reading, and seeing these days with that tool!  Does it measure up to love?  If not, call it out!  If not, flip it over. If not, run it out of town!  And if you need a prop to help you do that, I’ll leave the Boston Butt in the freezer and you can borrow it any time.  Amen.