"Is Your God Too Small?"

Exodus 20:1-17 & John 20:13-22

Gods come in different sizes.

Lent is a good time to consider

the size of the God we are here to serve.

In the name of this God:

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We are wrong if we see our time

as one with a shortage of belief.

There is no shortage today.

There is considerable belief,

today as always,

in gods that are no gods,

in gods that are too small.

These small gods are potent, however;

they reduce the stature

of whoever worships them.

The Ten Commandments,

those laws God gives to Israel through Moses,

constitute a series of warnings

against the most popular of the small gods.

For example,

the Sabbath commandment warns us

against the small god of Work,

whose worshipers–

and they are numerous–

resort to frenetic activity

in order to feel they have a right to exist.

• The commandment against murder warns us

against making our enemy into a small god,

for strangely enough,

that is what happens

when hate comes to run our life,

and our opponent becomes our obsession.

• The commandment against coveting

warns us, on the other hand,

against making our neighbor into a small god,

for that is what happens

when we regard our neighbor’s possession,

our neighbor’s lifestyle,

as somehow indispensable for our existence.

The Ten Commandments

are not simply law in the conventional sense,

concerned with what is right and wrong.

These commandments are about loyalty,

our loyalty to the one true God,

rather than to small gods of our own devising.

None of the small gods can give us life.

All they do is imprison us.

What the commandments warn us against–

hatred and lust and falsehood and all the rest–

are the traps

set for us by these small gods.

It is from these traps

that the one true God ventures

to set us free!

He rescued his people from slavery in Egypt

in the time of Moses.

He raised up Jesus from the grip of death

on the first Easter morning.

And this same God strives

to deliver you and me

from the narrow prison-house,

the hell on earth that happens,

when we stumble into the trap of some strange god.

Yes, the Lord has come.

God has come to set us free!

We see this liberation take place

when Jesus provokes an uproar

in the temple at Jerusalem.

In he goes one day

brandishing a handmade whip,

and he starts making trouble!

Noisy, stampeding animals;

angry, shouting merchants;

tables overturned and coins rolling away

in every direction.

That area of the vast temple complex

is usually a bustling place,

but the outrageous actions of Jesus

reduce it to mayhem.

For weeks afterward

they keep talking about it

at meetings of the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.

The uproar Jesus causes that day

does not make him popular

with the powers that be.

It may even help to get him killed.

What do you think it is that prompts him?

It’s not that he opposes trade in the temple.

These dealers perform a necessary service.

They provide worshippers arriving from far away

with appropriate sacrificial animals

and the right kinds of coins to use for donations.

They help the temple to function smoothly

as a center for sacrifice and a house of prayer.

What Jesus rejects

is the excessive profit these dealers make,

and the way their trade obscures the temple’s purpose

as a place where people of every sort can offer worship.

Once the means to a legitimate end,

this trade has become its own justification,

so that profit has strangled devotion.

The temple of the God of Israel,

the Liberator of his people from Egypt,

has become a place to serve

the small gods of greed and arrogance,

gods who reduce the stature

of whoever worships them.

No wonder the anger of Jesus

causes him to tear the place apart!

Jesus stands today

at the entrance of our hearts.

He knows that

“We have no power in ourselves to help ourselves.”

He knows we cannot keep from falling short

of the commandments.

Yet he is ready to cleanse our hearts and lives

of gods that are too small.

The process is not an easy one.

Moments come

when we are reduced to chaos and confusion,

when animals stampede and merchants shout,

when tables are overturned

and what seems valuable ends up lost.

Yet in this way

Jesus turns our hearts into a true temple.

He delivers us from the tyranny of small gods

that we may grow in every way into his likeness.

Through the language of Scripture,

through the eucharistic feast,

through our gathering together as a Christian assembly,

Jesus appears among us this morning,

eager to reconsecrate the temples of our hearts

so that we may offer true worship

during the days to come.

This coming of Christ

the Liberator of our lives

does not square with

the dominant thought patterns of our age.

It is an insult to every ideology of human composition.

This Christ

who stands at the entrance of our hearts

blinds us with his brightness

for his light is love,

and his love takes the form of a cross.

In this light

the failings of every age

and every school of thought becomes manifest.

For human wisdom, however marvelous,

must yield to the wisdom that is divine,

though divine wisdom appears foolish

by the standards of the world.

In the end, and even this morning,

the weakness that saves us

is stronger than human strength.

It is the downfall of the shrines

of all the false gods,

and the cleansing of every true temple,

the setting straight of our very hearts.

This weakness that saves us

is the orthodoxy of heaven.

Stronger than human wisdom,

it is the foundation

for the praise we offer.

And so,

to the Father,

whose law is perfect and revives the soul;

to the Son,

who cleanses us from every stain;

and to the Holy Spirit,

who fills our hearts and our lives with gratitude;

be ascribed, as is most justly due,

all might, majesty, and dominion,

now and forever.

Amen.