Throw Tables
On October 16, 1981, before I was born, my family was driving on K15, a two-lane highway between Derby, KS and Mulvane, KS. They were driving a 1972 Ford station wagon with paneling. For those of you who were born after 1985, that’s stick-on wood. They packed ten people into the car for my oldest sister, Jeanna’s, birthday party. Dad was driving. My oldest brother, Bill, was in the front bench seat with Mom and Dad. My other sister, Rebekah, was in the middle seat with her friends, and Jeanna was in the back seat (the seats that faced backward) with her friends. None of them were wearing seatbelts. They didn’t even consider wearing seatbelts. Suddenly, a drunk driver came barreling toward them in their lane and hit them head-on at full speed. There was blood everywhere. A few of them lost all their teeth. My brother ended up with an engine in his lap. Dad passed out trying to get mom out of the car. One of the girls who was just there for the birthday party had a concussion and began walking down the street, having no idea what she was doing or where she was. It wasn’t the birthday party Jeanna expected.
Why didn’t my family wear seatbelts? Because cultural norms dictate behavior. Car manufacturers started putting seatbelts in cars in the 1960’s, but nobody wore them back then. Today, because of cultural norms, most people drive five miles per hour over the speed limit even though it is literally called a “limit.” Cultural norms can override limits.
If cultural norms are such a powerful force, what does it take to change a cultural norm? The answer is, “catastrophe.” Catastrophe changes culture because catastrophes lead some people to pursue change.
A few years after my family’s catastrophic car accident, I was born. The first car I can remember us owning was a 1984, burgundy Mercury Grand Marquis. You would assume after experiencing such a terrible wreck my family would ensure that I always sat in the back seat, strapped down with a seatbelt, but that’s not what happened. Because we had a large family, I often laid on the back window ledge or sat on the armrest in the front seat. I guess you could say I was the hump boy. If dad slammed on the brakes too hard, I would have been a projectile missile, flying through the window into oncoming traffic.
So, I guess the real question is, “Why didn’t my parents love me?”
What finally changed my parents’ behavior? A law and a campaign, “Click it or ticket.” At first, the use of seatbelts was a suggestion (“people are dying!”), but most people ignored the suggestion. In the meantime, a few people began campaigning for laws that would force people to change their behavior.
Now, cars beep at you until you put your seatbelt on. If you don’t, I think it sends an electric shock up your spine. We force parents to harness their infants in a car seat tight enough to cut off the circulation in their legs. Fairly quickly the world went from completely unaware that seatbelts were necessary to a culture that judges people who don’t wear seatbelts.
This happens to people spiritually all the time. They might be living in joyous ignorance of the dangers of life and the consequence of sin until something happens to make them aware of the fact that the punishment for sin is eternal death. This often happens when people hear truth preached, and they recognize there is a God. Tragedy and pain also make people aware that changes need to be made. Sometimes people make many bad decisions, and when they hit rock bottom, they turn to God. When we are living in ignorance, we need a wake-up call.
Jonathan Edwards is one of history’s most famous preachers. Edwards preached ten times as many sermons about Heaven than about Hell, but when he preached the famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” everyone listened. The sermon became famous because it was a wake-up call.
After Christ’s triumphal entry, he went to the Temple. As Jesus arrived at the Temple, he encountered a scene of commerce overwhelming the sacred space. People traded animals for sacrifices, and money changers busily conducted transactions. Enraged, Jesus overturned the tables.
[Jesus] said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”
This story from the life of Jesus is unlike any of the other stories that we know of from his life. Jesus never acted like this. So, what motivated Jesus to act this way? Let’s ask a few questions of this story:
1. Why did Jesus kick over the tables?
One of the reasons Jesus turned over the tables was to fight against greed. When God made the Jewish sacrificial system, he required Jews to sacrifice animals at the temple, and people were forced to travel long distances to make these sacrifices. For that reason, entrepreneurs realized an opportunity to make some money. They sold animals to pilgriming Jews so people wouldn’t have to travel across the country with their animals. Unfortunately, they did this for personal gain, not to help people act in obedience to the law. Rather than helping these pilgrims, they were price gouging even though God wrote into the old covenant some allowances for poor people to sacrifice less expensive animals. The Jews should have helped people get animals, not use God’s law to take advantage of people.
When Jesus called the Temple a den of thieves, he was quoting Jeremiah 7:11.
Don’t you yourselves admit that this Temple, which bears my name, has become a den of thieves?
This passage makes it more obvious why the religious leaders hated Jesus. When Jeremiah said this, he was warning Israel that the temple was going to be destroyed, and Jesus was prophesying the same thing. The temple was again going to be destroyed.
Jesus was also angry at the Temple that day because he witnessed sinful discrimination.
Many Christians use this story to justify arbitrary laws about selling things in a church building, but that is not the point of this story at all. Jesus was in the temple, but he was not in the sanctuary. He was in the outer courtyard. In Herod’s Temple, the outer courtyard was reserved for Gentiles to worship God. In other words, the Jews were taking the Gentile’s worshiping space from them. When Jesus said the temple was to be a house of prayer, he was quoting Isaiah.
I will bring them to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and will fill them with joy in my house of prayer. I will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices, because my Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations.
The temple on Mount Moriah was meant to be a house of prayer for all nations, not only the Jews, but the Jews were crowding out the other nations.
The second question that must be asked of this story is about anger.
2. Is anger a sin?
This story is one of only two or three stories in the Bible in which Jesus got mad. In each story, Jesus was angry at religious leaders. Jesus never sinned, but he did get angry. When Jesus gets angry, it is righteous anger.
Unlike Jesus, we are sinners. We can’t trust our anger because our emotions often cloud our minds. Too often, anger breaks relationships. When you are angry, ask yourself, “Is this worth breaking a relationship?” Run from anger. If CNN makes you mad, stop watching it. If you get angry when you drink alcohol, stop drinking.
When my sons get angry, I tell them to take deep breaths. It makes them slow down. When we slow down, we have time to make a choice. Renew your mind. Pray. Breathe.
In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.
Anger usually happens when someone takes something from us or hurts us. Anger usually involves a statement like, “I deserve,” “that’s not fair,” or “it’s my right.” The root of sinful anger is selfishness. Spiritual maturity reduces anger because it removes the focus from self to God. As we mature spiritually, we set our eyes on things above.
God gets angry when people get in the way of other people worshiping. When my preference of how we worship, or who we worship with, gets in the way of people worshiping God, I’m sinning.
If you know a certain situation tends to make you angry, pray before you go there. Set your mind on things above. Think about the big picture. Before you go into a situation that could anger you, think about the relationships that might be hurt if you lose control of your anger.
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
Take your angry thoughts captive. Lay anger on the altar and sacrifice it to God.
