It would happen almost without warning.  It wasn’t planned.  It wasn’t anticipated.  One day, while doing the dishes or preparing a meal, the zeal would overcome me.  I’d open up the bottom cupboard for something and be consumed with energy, even anger.  Abandoning my previous task, I’d begin to literally throw dishes out of the cupboard onto the floor.  I’d continue, reaching all the way to the depths of the back of the cupboard until it was completely empty, and I was surrounded on the floor by a jumble of bowls, dishes, containers and lids.

The children would flee to their rooms.  Gary would hide around the corner, peeking in from time to time cautiously to make sure that my zeal didn’t extend any further – to the breakable dishes.  “Ought-oh,” you could hear them whispering, “Mom’s cleaning out the Tupperware cabinet!”  They rightly perceived that it was a dangerous time to approach me or the kitchen!

I was rarely really upset with the dishes themselves.  I was upset, usually, at least to some extent, with the seeming inability of the members of our household to match lid to dish and to stack the hodge podge of plastic containers which we owned in some kind of orderly manner.  And my zeal was often activated by the contents of the cupboard falling out onto the floor as soon as I opened the door.  “Why can’t anybody here put this stuff away right?”  I’d cry.

What we habitually called “the Tupperware cabinet” held a hodge-podge of brand name plastic storage containers, saved butter tubs and other assorted plastic containers.  Either by human negligence of by some sort of natural tendency toward chaos, it never remained organized.  But from time to time, perhaps in response to chaos in my life or in the universe that I could not possibly organize, I was consumed with zeal for organizing the plastic containers in my own little corner of the world.

I thought of that experience this week as I tried to imagine what possibly could have gotten into Jesus.  This is not the Jesus of my childhood Sunday school.  This is not the Jesus who gently loves me and patiently walks with me.  This is not an approachable Jesus.  This is Jesus consumed with zeal; so focused on the task of overturning tables and throwing things that one would wisely retreat out of range.

And this is the temple Jesus is cleaning out.  The organized, predictable, this is how we do it at our temple place.  Jesus is upset – but with what?  Jesus is not upset with coins.  He’s not upset with tables.  He’s not upset with small animals.  He’s upset with the way they’ve been used to corrupt true worship of the living God.

Imagine if the Jesus who is consumed with zeal for the worship of the living God showed up at church one day, and opened up the doors, and some of the ways we corrupt the gospel and do violence to one another in his name fell out the door…and he just couldn’t take it anymore.  What would he throw out onto the sidewalk?

John is clear that worship of the living God cannot be practiced through transactions of the ordinary economic kind.

North Broadway provides a rich context for this text today – doesn’t it?  Today at church, you can buy muffins for mission from the pre-teens and lunch after church from the United Methodist women, and mulch from the Boy Scouts.  That is not a problem, so long as we don’t come to believe that we have secured our relationship with the living God by buying muffins.

The troubling transactions are those in which we trade the worship of God for the whims of human desire.  The troubling transactions are those in which we construct barriers to keep out that which troubles us rather than confronting with courage and zeal that which troubles God.

If Jesus is to be savior to anybody – and if Jesus is to be savior to the world, Jesus will not always be meek and mild.  And if we who call ourselves disciples are to proclaim gospel good news to a world torn by corruption and violence, we will not always be meek and mild either.  This is not to condone violence.  It is to affirm the kind of passion that introduces disorder into systems ordered to protect the powerful.

Jesus cleaned out the symbols of a system of worship that had become itself the object of worship.  Whatever we worship that keeps us from directly encountering the dangerous, lively, active presence of the living God – who wants to reorder our lives – that is what Jesus will rage against.  Jesus in the temple is Jesus engaged in holy rebellion.

There is a place for holy rebellion among those who would follow Jesus.  There are some places in the United Methodist church I’d like to overturn some tables and throw out some money changers – I’m not going to fill in all the details there!

There are places today where, if we could figure out how to get by with it, we might very well feel justified in overturning some tables.  I’d like to overturn the solid wood custom built conference tables in the offices of a few corporate CEOs who’ve made off with billions while our pension funds went broke.  I’d like to overturn the furniture in Bernie Madoff’s place, or maybe sell it to pay back his investors.  I’d like to overturn the tables in a few congressional conference rooms when I listen to the petty arguments our politicians make while people in middle America are hungry and broke and unemployed and our schools and cities are slashing the very services we need to survive and thrive in the 21s century global economy.

We church people love to avoid conflict.  We would rather talk about someone we disagree with than talk to them.  We would rather complain about what “the church” is doing than take responsibility for being the church.  We would rather get our needs met than offer our whole lives to Christ in order to meet the needs of the world for love and justice and hope.  Worship is not a vending machine where we put a small donation and an hour of our time in and get peace of mind back in exchange.  Worship ought to be a little dangerous.  It ought to be the time where we might come face to face with the living God, and find Jesus throwing things around.  It ought to be a time where every once in a while, something in us opens up…and stuff falls out.  It ought to induce holy rebellion, at least occasionally.

Maybe, in our own souls – because Jesus wants a place there, and it’s hard for Jesus to have that place when we’ve stored so much other stuff there – guilt and anger and regret and pain and hurt.

Every once in a while, something opens up in the church and stuff falls outs…and it is the beginning of a holy rebellion.  Because Jesus wants this church to be his church, not ours.  And its not easy for it to be Jesus’  church when we’ve cluttered it up with our own agenda.

Every once in a while, something opens up in the world, and stuff falls out… because Jesus has come to bring health and liberation and salvation to the whole world, and will not abide forever while the world is consumed by greed and injustice and unholy oppression of the poor and fear of the stranger.

Every once in a while, even in church – there ought to be some table turning.

If we are to people who go with Jesus all the places Jesus goes – we have to come to terms with this Jesus, too.  We have to acknowledge the ways in which some of our deepest religious impulses have insulated us from the Jesus who embraces conflict as a path to salvation.

It’s been a long time since I was consumed with zeal for the organization of the kitchen cupboards.  But I hope to never lose the capacity to be consumed with holy zeal for the ways in which injustice and violence consume the health and well being of person and communities.

I want to be consumed with holy zeal when the rich go away full and the poor go away hungry.
I want to be consumed with holy zeal when insurance companies make record profits and fewer and fewer children are insured.
I want to be consumed with holy zeal when more and more money goes to people who manage educational systems and fewer and fewer children are able to read.
I want to be consumed with holy zeal.  Whenever Jesus rebels, I want to rebel, too.

I want to be zealous for a lively, spirit filled church.
I want to be zealous for reflective, spirit infused prayer.
I want to be zealous for the love of God; the life of the Spirit and the mission of Christ.

Lent is a dangerous time.  It invites us to open up our world to this rebellious Jesus.  Danger will stalk him.  And it will appear to win the day on Friday.  But in three days…Jesus will be raised up.  Let us who celebrate the Jesus of Easter never forget that that path to resurrection passes through holy rebellion.