Jesus to the Hypocrites - "OUT!"

John 2

“And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple...” John 2:15

If you’ve ever been disheartened to look at the church and think, “There are so many hypocrites in church,...”, then you’ll like this Jesus. The temple of His day wasn’t the Church as we know it now. It was a place to worship God for sure, but worship itself was different. They hadn’t received Christ as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, so they were still buying animals and sacrificing them, as a symbol of their desire to be made right with God.

In time, there were people who soon figured out they could profit from this. So they brought the market to the temple. They had found a way to profit from the failings and sorrows of others. Christ was not cool with that, and He still isn’t fine with it today.

The temple was to be, as the church is today, where honest sinners could come to be reconciled to the God of the universe. It was not to be a feeding ground for predators. You’ve seen that haven’t you? Unless you live in a cave, you have heard of people in the church taking advantage of others. You have heard of leaders sexually exploiting the people entrusted into their care. You’ve heard of swindlers siphoning off cash from the treasury. You’ve heard of others who convince the people of the church to buy into their fraudulent investment schemes. The church should be a place with open doors, but it also needs to be a safe place, and part of that infers that the wolves don’t really belong. These examples might be among the very sort that Jesus would have driven out with a whip.

The church isn’t for perfect people. It is in fact a place for people who really have done wrong, who earnestly want to be made right. Does that describe you? I was in conversation last week with a guy who likes to sleep with multiple women. He told me he thought that if he walked into church that he might spontaneously combust or something. The church may or may not be a place for such a guy. If he wanted to go to church to look for his next bed partner, there would be something horribly wrong with that. If the day comes when he really wants to walk with Christ, there is a place for him. He seemed like a pretty authentic guy, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him walk in some day, and I don’t believe he’d be there to be a wolf.

There is a place to make money. The temple just was not that place. Christ was not speaking against commercial agriculture. If getting rich is what you’re really after, then I would encourage you to seek out a qualified financial advisor. Or if you really want to pursue sin, pursue it somewhere else other than among His people. If you’re tired of the filth of life and want to walk with God, there’s room for you. Some call that good news. Others might judge you as being one of the many hypocrites and that has to be okay. They aren’t your judge anyway. Only God really knows your heart.

I hope to see you some day.

Image Doctors (Acceptable Hypocrisy)

The week began with these words from the radio DJ: "A group of Fanshawe students is trying to improve the college's image." For those of you who are unfamiliar with the story, this past St. Patrick's day, approximately 1,000 young people took to the streets. The event has caught the eye of news reporters the world over. I'm not here to condemn Fanshawe students. I'm a Fanshawe grad myself, as are my two sisters. Seeing as nobody was seriously hurt, I'm not going to rail at anybody at all. What struck me most about the DJ's statement, was that whoever this college image improvement group was, they had little care about the character of the people who set the town on fire, but were more concerned about the image of the college.


Image is pretty well everything in our culture. Character is nothing. We care more about how we are perceived by others, than we do about the true fabric of our person. I read an article on Yahoo this week outlining some of the biggest interview mistakes we sometimes make. Apparently, it's a mistake to be forthcoming about who you are.


What if you have serious authority issues? What do you really need; an image makeover?


Doctoring our image is merely an acceptable form of deception. As an interviewer, I have been so thankful in the past when people have been honest about who they were. I remember one man in particular.


"So Mr. Ed, why are you looking for work?"


Mr. Ed proceeded to tell me all of the things his horrible boss has asked him to do. In my mind, I found myself thinking, "Gee. Some of those things are stuff that I'll want him to do. What are the odds that he'll be happy to do them for me?"


So I thanked Mr. Ed for his time, shook his hand and sent him to his next interview.


How do you suppose our working relationship could have worked out, had he been hired? Have you ever entered into a relationship of any kind under pretense? It doesn't work well. Have you ever purchased a product that didn't do the things that it was advertised to do? How did you feel about it? It was kind of like being lied to.


I have no idea of what London's rioters were so angry at. Whatever the issues were, I'm quite certain they haven't been dealt with. I seriously doubt that their greatest need is a public relations spin. The passage that immediately came to my mind with regard to the image makeover was this one:


Luke 11:39
39 Then the Lord said to him, “You Pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and wickedness!


The Pharisees take a lot of abuse in Christian circles, and rightly so. However, they aren't the only ones who are guilty of Christ's accusation. He was basically telling them, 'You're very concerned with looking good on the outside, but inside, you're filthy and wicked.' If our hearts are dirty, we've got bigger problems than simply a bad reputation.


If we were to look closely at the heart of London's rioters, maybe we're not so far off in some of our thinking. I don't know their hearts for sure, but there seems to be a growing segment of our world that resents authority. If that describes any of us, what place do we really have in society? Do you suppose that you'll be asked to manage Apple right out of college? And even if you land in the top spot, if we don't respect authority, what are the odds that we'll handle responsibility all that well? Taking the matter further, we're all accountable to someone else whether we like the idea or not.


If our hearts are rotten, dressing up for church or polishing our resume shouldn't even be on the agenda. For some reason, some forms of hypocrisy are quite acceptable, if not expected from us. We notice the church hypocrites, but fail to call out the Fanshawe Image Police or the resume doctors.


As for my thoughts on the riot. This probably won't be the last. If you follow popular culture, there is a blatant and growing disregard for the lives, property and integrity of others. What was once reserved for the punkish fringe, is becoming mainstream. Ask Green Day.