The Jesus we meet in the gospels is in direct conflict with the Temple elites – the priests and the scribes. There was a large bureaucracy who directed access to the Temple rituals, and Jesus routinely criticised them and encouraged people to adhere to the covenant, even when the Temple authorities didn’t. John the Baptiser went a step further. He set up a rival purification process, one which was free and outside of the Temple control. He preached that people didn’t need to pay to use one the Temple’s mikveh, purification bath, but they could be dunked in the river instead.
When we hear about this conflict, criticism and rivalry, with John and Jesus on one side and the Temple one the other, it is tempting to view John and Jesus as somehow operating outside of Judaism, or perhaps evolving beyond the faith of the Hebrew people. Centuries of anti-semitism have lent endorsement to that view. But John and Jesus were not inviting their disciples to move away from God’s covenant with the Israelites. They were demanding that the people live more fully as people of the covenant. They taught that the true covenant was not just adherence to particular rules and customs, but it was also a state of mind, a way of life, a true commitment from the heart. Whenever they criticise the Temple and it’s staff, it is not for being too faithful, but for being not faithful enough.
This was not a new thing.
After the exiles returned from Babylon, they re-established the Temple. We call this the Second Temple period. It lasted more than five hundred years, and ended with the destruction of the Temple in 70CE. Way back at the start of the Second Temple period, the prophet Malachi was active. And boy oh boy, did he have some feelings.
To the priests at the flash new Temple, God, speaking through Malachi, says that they have offered ‘polluted food’ on the altar. Instead of clean, healthy animal sacrifices, they are offering sick and lame animals. God is going to - it’s all there in Malachi Chapter 2, read it for yourself – collect up the poo from the dodgy offerings, smear it on the priest’s faces, and boot them out the Temple. Subtle, right?
In the portion of Malachi that we heard today, God declares that a messenger is coming who is going to clean things up. Like a refining fire, or like bleach (which is the nearest thing we have to fullers soap). The messenger is going to clean things up, and it won’t be a gentle process. If we kept reading after today’s portion, we would hear that God’s very self is then going to get involved – judging sorcerers, adulterers, those who enter into false contracts, those who engage in wage theft, those who mistreat widows, orphans and foreigners.
Malachi, speaking with the voice of God, is furious, and he doesn’t muck around. These temple bozos had better look out, because God is angry too.
When I was in Palestine and Israel in 2015, my belt broke. So I went to a menswear shop. I got to chatting to the belt salesman, who was an Israeli Jew who was pleased to learn that I am a Christian. From under the counter he pulled out a book with a set of diagrams in it. The diagrams were for the Third Temple, which he believed would be built on Haram El Sharif, the Temple Mount, where Al Aqsa Mosque is currently located. Now, I was just there to buy a belt, so I didn’t start a debate. But I knew enough of the context to recognise that I was actually caught in a weird, belt-induced collision of geo-politics and religion. In 1948, when Israel was invaded and re-settled by Jews from all over the world, there was no desire to build a third Temple. In fact, the Zionist movement was almost entirely secular. Likewise, those Christians who supported Zionism weren’t interested in building a new Temple. But now, among both Christians and Jews, there is a significant minority who are anxious to reclaim the Temple mount, demolish the mosques and the Dome of the Rock, and restart Temple sacrifices. The menorah for the Temple has already been built, and it’s inside a glass case overlooking the Western Wall where many Jews go to pray.
Now, let’s be clear, the ambition for a Third Temple is a fringe belief in both Christianity and Judaism. But it is growing. And I worry that it points to a worldview in which power must be seized at any cost, and in which any amount of violence is acceptable, provided it leads to the appearance of victory.
I worry that the strange but growing obsession with building a Third Temple is a re-emergence of precisely the corruption that Malachi, John and Jesus all struggled against.
But this isn’t really about the Second Temple, or the bizarre vision for a Third Temple. This is really about us.
Do we make blemished offerings to God? Of course we do. We rarely give our best when it comes to loving our neighbour, or serving those in poverty, or welcoming strangers. Do we deviate from the path God has laid out for us? Of course we do. We try, but usually fail, to be people of compassion and peace and justice. And do act like those priests at the Temple, so focused on the appearance of holiness, that we neglect true holiness? Do we try to create the image of righteousness, instead of being truly righteous? Are we ever fake, keeping up appearances, whacking on costumes and makeup to conceal the less glamorous reality? Yep!
So we have Advent to give us a bit of a reality check. In Advent, we can’t just string up some tinsel and ignore the reality of God’s judgement. All the language of refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap, of the Day of Judgement and Christ returning in glory is not meant to make us quake in our boots. It is meant to give us perspective. All power, all righteousness, all victory, belongs to God – and God’s priority is love and justice, and God’s chief concern are the poor, the orphans and the widows.
All the cheap thrills, the keeping up of appearances, the need to impress or prove ourselves, all the petty rivalries and pointless arguments, all become insignificant when we see the world through God’s eyes and with God’s priorities.
The Lord Be With You
