Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

Lent 3B; John 2:13-22; St. Paul’s 03/04/2018

Jim Melnyk: “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors”

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” wrote the poet, Robert Frost, as he pondered the purpose of the stone wall between his property and the next:          

“He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

 My apple trees will never get across

 And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’”

The Poet replies:

                       

“’Why do they make good neighbors?

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.’”

“Something there is,” the poet writes, “that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down.”

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall...”  I think Jesus could have written these words had he been given to musing over lines of verse.  But our gospel lesson for today shows Jesus to be more a person of action at this particular point in his life.

Entering into the Temple courtyard at the time of the Passover, Jesus comes upon the people who sell the cattle, sheep, and doves necessary for Temple worship – after all, those coming to Jerusalem from Alexandria, or Damascus, or even Galilee, couldn’t be expected to bring their livestock along with them.  But according to some scholars, those animals used to be sold across the valley on the Mount of Olives, and had only recently been moved to the temple precincts - so that might be the issue for Jesus.  Jesus also comes upon the money-changers, who exchange image-free Temple currency for the Roman coinage sporting the image of the Emperor – again, something necessary to the ongoing expression of Temple worship. 

When we hear the story we cannot help but sense the anguish in Jesus as he drives them all, animals and humans, out of the Temple.  One can sense the anger of Jesus as he overturns the tables of the money-changers, pouring their coins upon the ground.  We can almost hear the whip whistling through the air as animals and vendors flee before the enraged Jesus.  We can almost hear his disciples as they watch the scene unfold before them – some saying, “Way to go, Jesus,” while others whisper to themselves, “I think we’re in trouble!”

Now, there are many different ways folks have interpreted this event over the centuries.  Some have used it to show the true humanity of Jesus – a human being who could get angry – thereby validating our own anger at times.  Others have used it to show some sort of allegorical comment on Christianity’s superiority over Judaism – or a judgment on the Temple – which is actually terrible Biblical scholarship. Jesus frequented the Temple throughout his life as well as during his brief ministry – and his followers continued to meet there for worship long after his resurrection.

But I think the story is more a critique by Jesus on the walls human beings tend to build.  Walls which, however good and necessary they may seem – however holy and sanctified they may appear – walls which tend to separate us from one another, and which ultimately separate us from God.

John doesn’t really give us a clue as to why Jesus goes ballistic in the Temple.   One theologian suggests the “dramatic display of anger [by Jesus] that stampedes animals and overturns...tables – is the problem of embeddedness.  The making absolute of things that are only relative...the hardening into concrete that which should be malleable...refusal to be open to reform and renewal by being kept hostage to the status quo” – something Episcopalians may know something about – especially when it comes to our liturgies (Syn. 2000).  The very Word of God is present for the world, and the busyness of the world just goes on as usual – even those gathering at the center of the worshiping community refuse to take note of God’s saving work unfolding around them.  Don’t go stirring the pot!  Don’t make us question our faith, or the ways in which we live out our faith.  We’ve always done it this way.   And this is not a characteristic confined to first century Judaism – but, indeed, it’s a characteristic of people everywhere, throughout the ages.           

           

Rules and rituals have a way of taking on a life of their own.  Jesus spoke out time and again against ways which had become so embedded in tradition that the very spirit – the very life of the tradition – had been lost.  “Good fences make good neighbors,” Robert Frost’s antagonist mutters.  “Good rules and good rituals make good Christians,” we might be tempted to voice in his place.

“Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, or Christians.  [Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals.]  We all want to equate the authority of our own institutions with the presence and authority of God.” (Syn.)  Yet often the very walls meant to keep the truth in, lock the Spirit out.  The embeddedness of our beliefs keeps the gospel at bay.  We walk the line placing rock upon rock without ever asking what it is we’re walling in and what we’re walling out.  And in our best liturgical voices we proclaim, “Good fences make good neighbors.” And the people all respond, “Thanks be to God!”

I came across a tale that illustrates “the problem of embeddedness. It concerns a [person] who makes an arduous climb to the top of the Mountain of Revelation to lay hold of the Truth.  Standing on tiptoe, the seeker finally reaches up and takes hold of the Truth.

Satan, suspecting mischief from this overreaching upstart, directs one of his underlings to tail him.  Alarmed, the demon reports back to Satan of the [seeker’s] success – that [the person] has in fact seized hold the Truth – Satan is unperturbed.  ‘Don’t worry,’ he yawns, ‘I’ll tempt [the poor soul] to institutionalize it.’” (Syn.)  Later in John’s gospel Jesus tells Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it chooses, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (3:8).  Too often the Church tries to fence that Spirit in – seeks to institutionalize it.

Our temptation is to see the embeddedness of our religious and social lives as the ultimate truth about God.  But often we do things out of habit, or because it’s easier, less messy or less costly – and then we wonder whatever became of our faith – we wonder where in the world God went when we weren’t looking.  We wonder, “When did our love for God lose its passion?”

I’ve never forgotten a question the late Bishop Bob Johnson once asked the deacons, priests, and bishops gathered in retreat.  “What if you drop a pebble down the well of your soul and you never hear a splash?”  WOW!  What happens when the embeddedness of our lives gets in the way of our relationship with God?  This Lent we are challenged to toss a pebble down the well of our souls and listen for the splash.  Where is the Spirit – where is the truth – where is the reality of life – in our lives?  What guides us in our relationships with each other and with God?  As is true with most of life, there are always more questions than answers – but in the asking we may just find the path...

           

What are the stone edifices in our lives – the temporary things that have become walls – walls that need to come tumbling down?  “What good things – not simply bad things – what things or thinking in our lives block our relationship with God?  What have we ‘institutionalized’ or ‘conventionalized’ in our lives that needs [to be demoted]?  What needs to be hurled out of the temple of our hearts to make room for a God who wants us – who wants all of us – not just part of us?” (Syn.)

God does want us.  God wants all of us.  And God has no respect for the walls – no matter how well built they are – no matter how “spiritual” they are – God has no respect for the walls which, in the end, are designed to keep God at bay – designed, in the end, to keep God and God’s people at arm’s length. 

What tables need to be overturned this Lent?  Where are we so embedded in our beliefs that those beliefs need to crumble to the ground?  Where are the hardened places in our hearts that need to be opened to the love of God?

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,

            That wants it down.”

That “something” is God.