“Our House of Prayer”

by Bruce J. Johnson

March 23, 2003

Our nation, one nation among a coalition of forces, is now at war. Coverage of the war is an unbelievable spectacle. We log on to our Internet server and we get invitations to stories and coverage with come-on such as:

“Rolling Thunder in the Desert”

“Stunning Blasts Shake Baghdad”

“Visit our ‘Complete Interactive Guide: Live, See “Shock and Awe”

In the days leading up to the final decision to go to war, questions about ‘relevance and effectiveness’ were raised not only about the United Nations but also about the church. Interestingly, just yesterday there was an op-ed piece in the New York Times about the United Nations. It was titled: “Making the World Safe for Hypocrisy” and its main point was “For the UN, it’s either reform or irrelevance.” (Luck, N.Y. Times, 3/22/03)

And just as interesting, if not compelling, are the discussions about the role of the church and the influences of the ‘religious voice.’ I listened to a number of interviews on CNN and MSNBC, and maybe even on Fox’s no-spin zone of Bill O’Reilly that raised essentially the same question: from the Pope on down to local congregations, whose voices had been raised in opposition to war, why so little effect? Indeed, I imagine that just about every major newspaper in the country carried the recent findings of last week’s poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and American Life and the Pew Research Center for People and the Press.

I must say I wasn’t all that surprised y what I read. For a few weeks now I have had at my desk an article from a February issue of the Wall Street Journal’s ‘Weekend Journal.” It was about the church in these troubled times and it was titled: “A House Divided” and its sound bite about the tension that exists in the pew went as follows:

“Peace or war? Worried about losing members and money, more clergy are preaching both sides--- even in the same church.”

That sounded worse than the point actually being made, which was that some churches were simply trying to minister to everyone and each perspective in the parish.

(Weekend Journal, WSJ, 2/21/03)

But this Pew Poll is significant. Among the interpretations of the data were the following two:

First, I may as well use the headline from the Hartford Courant: “Clergy, Flocks Differ on the War.” (HC, 3/22/03, p. A6) In other words, there is gap between pulpit and pew.

Second, when religious leaders speak out, not too many seem to be listening and of those that are, few are persuaded. Only 10% of the respondents said the their religious leaders and beliefs were influential and when results were reshuffled and organized on the basis of ‘influential groups” such as family and friends, media groups, politicians—religious leaders (including clergy) ranked just above celebrities! OUCH!

Of course, the fact of the matter is that post 9/11--- nothing seems simple anymore and in reality, the church in general is probably as divided as the nation. From the polls that I have seen, although President Bush’s ratings had gone down but are now on the rise, support for military intervention in the case of Saddam Hussein is high. The most recent wave of anti-war marches not withstanding, the most recent number that I saw was 76% of the nation is supporting this military action in Iraq.

None other that Elie Wiesel wrote a highly controversial op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times which was then carried by the Hartford Courant favoring military intervention. Fundamentally, he said:

“Peace is not possible in the face of evil.”

(Hartford Courant, 3/13/2003)

Lois, Peter and I went to the movies on Friday evening to see “Tears of the Sun”--- a thematic movie about the rescue of a doctor and her people from a Christian mission in Nigeria during a rebel pogrom of brutal ethnic cleansing. It was a powerful movie that challenges, no, forces, the viewer to think about evil and what to do when you face it. All that I will say here is that it ends with the oft-cited quote by Edmund Burke:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

So, we come here to church, to worship this morning, I hope struggling with our relevance and influence, wrestling with the question of what ‘do’ in the face of evil—how to be the church!

I, for one, am both intimidated and inspired by today’s New Testament lesson from the gospel according to John. In it, we have Jesus at the Temple. The story is commonly called “Cleansing of the Temple” and he is really aggravated over what’s going on there. It is a story that appears in all four gospels. Basically, the only difference is where the stories are placed in the account of Jesus’ life. In Mark, Matthew and Luke, the ‘Cleansing of the Temple’ takes place as part of Holy Week--- just before the end of his life and ministry. After arriving in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and witnessing all the activity that was taking place in the temple, he retires to Bethany. On Monday, he enters the city and heads straight for the Temple. He grabs some rope that was on the floor somewhere and makes a whip and in a rage, drives man and beast from the courtyard and then sends the money flying and overturns the tables. We are told that he was really ticked at what they had done to the temple, making it a cave of liars and cheats rather than what it is supposed to be ‘a house of prayer.’ As placed by Mark, Matthew and Luke, we can understand his rage. He had had enough. Maybe he was feeling a bit irrelevant and ineffectual himself---that all has been for naught! So he loses it, as we say these days! He goes in ‘to clean house’ and reassert what the temple was meant to be--- not a house of politics or commerce, not a place where righteousness is for sale and certainly not a place where you lie and cheat--- but a house of prayer, a place where you go to talk to God and where God talks to you! Where you feel God’s presence and draw upon God’s power!

John’s account is essentially the same, except that John places the story right at the beginning of his ministry. Oddly, it is a story that follows the happy occasion in Cana—the wedding feast—the event, you will recall, at which he changes water into wine! You talk about ‘up one day and down the next!’

I guess that he wanted to set the tone for what follows—define the mission--- and you know follows in Chapter 3?--- the story of Nicodemus and the need to be born anew in the Spirit and John 3:16!

“For God so loved the world….”

I wonder sometimes what He would do with us and say to us if He were to show up this morning.

I suppose that I shouldn’t be quoting anything French but I’ll do it anyway! The following is a French proverb:

“He who is near the church is far from God.”

Although that may be true at times, I don’t think that His mission today would be to cleanse this place but to drive out from within us all that gets in the way of our relationship with God and living with such a profound sense of power and purpose and possibility! He would assert the same thing today as he did then. He wants this place to be ‘our house of prayer’ and he wants us to be ‘a people of prayer!’

“To pray,” observed the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, perhaps the greatest modern theologian of the spiritual life, is “to bring God back into the world… to expand God’s presence.”

(Newsweek, 1/6/92)

Throughout this week, the media has played to the hilt this idea of “Shock and Awe.” About mid-week, some commentators were even asking whether the promise of “Shock and Awe” by the administration might in fact have been a campaign of ‘misinformation.’

Well, the New Testament warns us about its own “shock and awe’ and its not misinformation. It tells us that we are meant to “offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for indeed our God is like a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12: 28-29)

But reverence and awe have often been replaced by the yawn of familiarity. The consuming fire has been domesticated into a candle flame, adding a bit of religious atmosphere, perhaps but no heat, no blinding light, no power for purification.

I have always liked the writings of Annie Dillard. She once asked:

“Why do people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the Catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithe invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, …It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to the pews for the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense or the waking God…” may claim us and empower for God only knows what sort of action!

If this is true, then it is no wonder that Jesus was so animated and insistent. The temple needs to be a house of prayer. This place must always be, first and foremost, the place where we pray--- we get to talk to God and God talks to us--- filling us with ‘shock and awe’ over the measure of his love for us and what we can do with His power.

Indeed, Fred Anderson, once the pastor of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City defines prayer as “That conversation we have with God in those moments of powerlessness” and “Prayer changes things.”

(“The Living Pulpit”, p.25-26)

Prayer does change things, especially changing the powerless into the powerful. So on this day and in the middle of these turbulent times, while Jesus yet again laments--- this time over our modern day Rome and Jerusalem saying:

“Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace.”

And we gather here in this place, wrestling with our relevance and effectiveness, let us bring God into our lives and our world—here in this HOUSE OF PRAYER.

Amen