Reclamation (1st Day of Holy Week)

We've all heard the infamous story of Jesus driving the merchants and day traders out of the temple.  We've heard how angry he got, and how he took out his AK-47 and started spraying all the loan sharks with bullets.  Just kidding about that one.  Most of the time, this story revolves around the question of whether Jesus was violent or not, or we use it to justify our anger towards people who just don't do what we want them to do.  

The story I'm reading today reveals a part that I've never actually heard before.  After Jesus kicks over all the tables of dove merchants and loan sharks, something magical happens.  

The scam artist religious leaders leave, and are replaced with screaming children, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  The space is transformed from a check-cashing scam shop to a place of healing and child's play.  

The pious, peddling religious leaders leave.  Children and sick people flood in.  The space is a place of healing and folly once again.  The religious leaders are astounded and unimpressed.  They confront Jesus and ask him, "What exactly are you doing here?  Are you out of your mind?"  

Jesus responds with one of the verses that the religious would have knows by memory, "From the mouths of children and babies I'll furnish a place of praise."

This is a topic that can very easily turn up the temperature in my own heart, so I'll try to refrain from injecting my own prejudices into this as I write.  I'm not going to call the church the church.  I'm going to call it the meeting place.  Essentially, the space that was designed for what we call church today, was used for way different reasons when Jesus was around.  When we read the scriptures, and we read about the temple, it is understood that there was one in the city and it was usually in the center of the city.  It was a central meeting place.  It was attractive (unless loan sharks took over and sold doves in the foyer), to the citizens of the city.  People thought about going to this central meeting place like someone would think today of going to Starbucks.  There wasn't this us verses them mentality that kept insiders in the space and outsiders out.  

But, that's a different story even though it's a very important one.  The thing that blows my mind is, as soon as the religious leaders got out of the building, children and sick people came in.  It's like they had been waiting to reclaim their space again.  It's like the meeting place wasn't designed for the highly religious to set up their agendas and run the show.  It's like the space was designed to run upside down, where children, the handicapped, and the afflicted actually held responsibility.  

I believe there are spiritual meeting places in the world which have been reclaimed in the world.  I just haven't seen them with my own eyes.  I have to believe that there are spaces in this world where the religious leaders and scam artists have been kicked out, and the children and crippled have reclaimed their sacred place for healing, worship, and scribbling on the walls.  I just haven't seen it yet.  

I'm reminded of the quote, "The church is a hospital for the sick, not a museum for the saints."  

The spiritual gathering place was not intended for classroom lectures, but open dialogue.  The space was not intended for the religious elite to make all the decisions, but for the poor, the sick, and the children to have the same voice and influence as anyone else.  The temple was not designed to sell cute little birthday cards, but to be a place for people to bring their excess for the folks who didn't have enough . . . which forces me to ask,

Are we doing it right?

And then, it goes even deeper.  There's this personal aspect to this aside from the collective.  Jesus was one man.  Where were the disciples?  Where were all the ones who followed Jesus.  They are not in the story.  Where were they?  Jesus was one man who saw that something was just not right.

I am one man who sees that something is just not right.  From what we're told, Jesus made room in every part of his life to invite children, the sick, and the afflicted into his activities and his schedule.  They were his lifeblood.  He didn't see them as people who needed a fixing, but as his friends.  He had no agenda other than being of help to his friends.  And, they helped him as well.  He served his friends and he allowed his friends to serve him.  His friends included children, crippled people, and marginalized folks.  

I'm a firm believer in the other quote that says, "Be the change you want to see in the world."  I believe the same holds true for our spiritual gathering places.  If we ever want to reclaim the intended design of this space, then we have to reclaim the space in our own lives.  Do we let children have a voice in our lives, or do we only instruct them?  Do we let crippled people have a voice in our lives, or do we only help them?  Do we let the most annoying people have a voice in our lives, or do we keep screening their calls?  

We are deluded to think that our spiritual gathering places can be reclaimed to the way they were intended to be - open, inviting, inclusive - if we are not reclaiming the spiritual gathering places in our own hearts.  

One only needs to walk into a spiritual gathering place on a Sunday or Saturday to see what kind of place it is.  Are their children running around, or are they hidden somewhere?  Are their wheelchair ramps?  Are the crippled participating in the functions of the service?  Are homeless people serving communion?  

It would be wrong to use this kind of observation to gauge where the hearts of each individual person who makes up the congregation is at.  There are naturally going to be a good number of folks sitting in the congregation, or participating in the service who are living out the reclamation in their own lives.  The problem is, they haven't made their voice heard yet.  They've probably seen that they are the minority.  So, they just let bygones be bygones.  And that's okay.  Honestly, I'm more concerned about whether my own heart is in order than whether the heart of the meeting place is in order.  But . . .

Some of us want to see the meeting place reclaimed to what it was intended to be - revolving around the children, the poor, the addicted, the homeless, the crippled, and the obese.  If we have reclaimed these areas in our own hearts, and are developing friendships with "the least of these," we have the responsibility of being the voices of reclamation in our own meeting places.  We are responsible for letting our voices be heard, and sometimes "kicking over the tables" of religious beaurocracy, elitism, and profit-peddling.  

What we call the church was never intended to be a cause of contention with the outside world, but rather one of the rare place in the middle of prevailing culture in which everyone had an equal and resounding voice; where children were excited to run around freely, screaming and shouting; where the crippled could expect to be surrounded by people who saw them as friends and healers; where the atheist and agnostic could come not to sit in a classroom, but participate in open dialogue of the scriptures, philosophizing and discussing.

The central gathering place is a place where people sense they are loved just the way they are, no matter what they believe, how they look, how hopeless they are, how religious they are, how angry they are, and how in need of God they are.  It's a place that takes the heartbeat of God - unconditional love and grace - and lets it become the collective voice.  

Today's Action:  Think of one person we have been screening calls from.  Arrange a time to meet with that person.  Contact our local pastors/elders and ask them how we can do a better job of making our gathering places open to the poor, children, crippled, atheists, agnostics, obese, widowed, and orphaned.