The life's temple

From the beginning of time, the human being has tried to find divinity and has chosen to do it in special places or has tried to capture the idea of divinity in objects; this was strongly practiced during antiquity, but it persists until now, and we can call this religious effect naturalism. A mountain, a river, or a stone can be sacred for humanity when host special meaning due to its value or representation.

Places like Stonehenge, The Tiger's Nest/Paro Taktsang, or Sinai Mountain, even Mecca, are examples of places that hold special meaning for believers because they keep sacred meaning in the minds of crowds.

During the Christianism's history have had different representations for divinity, and even now we have emerging spiritualities in the new global society as a mixing of old meanings with values related with consumerism, for example, during the last century political ideologies as the nazims or communism have controlled lives of millions of people in the same way that was made by the Roma's church during the period called medieval obscurantism in the dark media age and actually, we can see how the consumerism control millions of lives through seeking pleasure and through the desire for have some fun. In the new secular religion era, a big football stadium could become a new temple where millions of people can be gathered to feel a spiritual experience based on a ritual oriented to offer worship to their ego or the selfishness of an artist, a band, or through social media penetration. Do you have an idea how many people can be gathered in person and online to watch the Super Bowl? O Did you know that around a million people were gathered in Buenos Aires when the Argentina national soccer team won the Soccer World Cup to celebrate the symbol of triumph.

This is the scenario about the new idolatry and its strong representation for crowds more than the Christian ethic or the principles coming from the Bible. As a result of these trends, a lot of people around the world live trapped by famine, wars, and corruption, others are suffering due consuming of drugs, even traffic, and some of them are considering suicide because they feel they are not loved to continue living. 

What's God's response to these crowds? How can we as a church offer to this world the hope and the restoration as the bible teaches, so that they can receive the pardon and find a new sense for their lives?

The objectives for this sermon are the next: First at all, to explore the idea of the temple in the bible as a place for God's worship but also as an institution representative of the ethic's project for the God's Kingdom, secondly, to reflect about the importance of the set of values contained in the Christianity as part of an understanding of spirituality and thirdly, to stablish the incarnation as the way used by God to show His mercy and His authority above everything even above the human comprehension of the divinity.

In Exodus 20:1-17, we found signs of faith, we found in the Old Testament signs of an organized faith and deep spirituality contained in the set of precepts given by God to Israel to preserve the coexistence. The word of God says in Exodus 20:

...And God spoke all these words: 2 "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 "You shall have no other gods before[a] me. 4 "You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. 8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 13 "You shall not murder. 14 "You shall not commit adultery. 15 "You shall not steal. 16 "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. 17 "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

Even though the temple appears as a concrete place to visit and to stay in, faith was more than this for God. The implications of belonging to the people of God included a clear understanding of new relations and responsibilities derived from the acceptance of God's kingdom. Part of this understanding was the innovative incorporation of the 10 commandment which represented, for this old time, a complex change amid the naturalism of its time. The decalogue is a code in which the clauses of the Sinai Pact or alliance are collected. We know another version of him (5, 6-22), with minimal differences. It presents the same structure and distribution as the Hittite covenants: a) introduction: "I am the Lord, your God"; b) historical prologue: "that I took you out of Egypt, out of slavery"; c) general stipulations or clauses, (3-6) and clauses (6-17).

In the "historical prologue," the theological motivation of the alliance is reported: The people who have been freed from the slavery of Egypt can now freely make a pact with Yahweh, their liberator. "You will have no other gods in my presence" excludes polytheism, affirms monotheism, and supposes the presence of Yahweh in the midst or before his people. The presence that does not accept the worship of intermediate divinities, this would be denying the presence of the true God. The prohibition of making idols and even images of Yahweh is an unprecedented fact in the history of religions. However, we know that some religious images were allowed in Israel (Ex 25, 18-20). 18 And make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. 19 Make one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other; make the cherubim of one piece with the cover, at the two ends. 20 The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover.

The relationship between Yahweh and Israel is often compared to that betweena husband and his wife. In this case, Yahweh's jealousy is understood when Israel prostitutes herself by worshiping idols. He then punishes the sin of the parents on the children to the third generation. Instead, He is merciful, for a thousand generations, when he fulfills the precepts of Yahweh and abides by the clauses of the covenant.

Perjury, false testimony, and abuse of God's name are prohibited. The Vulgate translates "the name of God in vain", which prohibits the frivolity that could be pronounced the name of God; But the most serious thing is the manipulation of his name to self-interestedly cover up the lie. While here only the religious motivation of the Sabbath precept is indicated, in Deuteronomy 5:14, the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey, or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest. Its humanitarian and social motivation is also revealed. "Coveting" means not only the desire, but also the act or attempt to appropriate what belongs to one's neighbor's "house." What is prohibited is an external action, but Jesus will internalize the Mosaic law and prohibit even the covetousness of the heart and the desire for adultery.

In 1 Corinthians 1, 22-25, we find the scandal of salvation, caused in the New Testament, we find a new comprehension of the spirituality which get over the simple human attempt to practice a religion. The  Bible says: Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

In this passage, Paul preaches the same gospel to everyone, centered on Christ and his cross, which is the strength and wisdom of God. However, in Corinth, they do not understand it, while some, those from Judaism, focus on the salvation obtained by compliance with the law and the pride that this entails, others, the "Greeks", focus on the power of human capabilities and wisdom. Both forget that God's salvationhas been offered to us in Jesus, weak, poor, and executed. 

Such a salvation is scandalous for the Jews, since it eliminates the saving value of the strength with which man can and should dedicate himself to the fulfillment of the law; this would be blasphemy. While for the Greeks, it is something illogical. God revealed himself to the Jews with a strong arm starting from the exit from Egypt and throughout the entire history of Israel and showed his divine wisdom to the Gentiles who can see it in the works of creation as Rom 1:20 says: For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse; but neither one nor the other recognized him, so that "both Jews and Greeks are all under sin" as Rom 3:10 teaches. Finally, God wanted to manifest himself to Jews and Greeks, revealing his strength and wisdom in weakness and in the foolishness of the cross of Christ.

The shame is that the Jews continue to demand signs and the Greeks seek wisdom, even though everyone has been summoned to find in the crucified Christ the same strength and wisdom of God.

In John 2: 13-25 we can see that Jesus represents a new civilization. Jesus represents the total innovation in spirituality, because in Him God incarnated a new civilization. In this passage, as the bibles says: When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts, he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So, he made a whip out of cords, and drove allfrom the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves, he said, "Get these out of here! Stop turning my father's house into a market!" His disciples remembered that it is written: "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then responded to him, "What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." They replied, "It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?" But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. Now, while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. 

He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.  John presents Jesus confronting the official religion and constantly opposes the faith ofthe disciples to the disbelief of the Jews. The expulsion of the merchants from the temple is a prophetic attack on the lords of the temple, it is a gesture that preludes Jesus' fight in which he would lose his life; but it is also the announcement of the destruction of that temple as a divine response to the disbelief of the Jews who did not know their hour and did not receive the Messiah that had been promised to them. Once Jesus rises from the dead, he himself will henceforth be the true temple of God. Taking this perspective into account, Juan prefers to place this event at the beginning of public life, contrary to the synoptics.

The sacrifices that were offered daily in the temple and the need to exchange the current currency, the Roman currency, for another special currency, to satisfy the religious tribute to which the Jews were obliged makes it understandable that animal sellers and money changers settled in the court of the Gentiles, with the permission of the Sanhedrin or the high priest Annas as Mathew 17: 24-27 says After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, "Doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax?" "Yes, he does," he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. "What do you think, Simon?" he asked. "From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes, from their own children or from others?" "From others," Peter answered. "Then the children are exempt," Jesus said to him. "But so that we may not offend, go to the lake, and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth, and you will find a fourdrachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours."

The guardians of the temple do not immediately accuse him of disturbing the order; they first ask him for a sign, which demonstrates his authority.

The idea of the reification of the things appointed out by Heidegger is a clear sign of the current consumerist civilization. In a society as we live, things are objects of worship; when people buy, they adore the object as something with special meaning. The advertisement grants the created things attributes beyond their reality, for example, a television can create happiness, or a car can grant elegance or power. Even for Christians around the world, current trends like the Prosperity Theology have created the idea that the temple is the place to gather crowds, and larger churches have emerged in which the presence of the divinity in the temple and through specific rituals is more attractive for people than a consistent project for life, which would include commitments, commands, or responsibilities. We live between Manichaeism and the light spirituality, and the product offered for many churches is a bottle of religion served to people when they need it and in the measure that they need it, sometimes with the flavour that they prefer, like a bottle of faith produced oriented to a large target market and recyclable.

The religious temple can create in the people the idea of sanctification more than the real behavior; people come to religious spaces to feel holiness instead of practicing holiness in their daily life. Holiness is contained in a place to visit and to stand, and not something to assume and to develop as a part of a project; this is the main confusion about religion in the current time. Rituals are an easy way to meet the demands coming from the divinity more than the repentance emerging from the depths of the heart; this is the kind of reflection that must be provoked for Christianity today. We need to get over the naturalism and consumerist religion; we need to recognise that the consequences when we assume God's project are linked to an incarnation of new values, primarily as individuals and secondly as communities. We are not crowds under a roof, but we are more than this, we represent a new civilization, people who believe in a set of principles and taught which guide our behaviour and our decisions every day of our lives. We are not a mere doctrine with a set of precepts and rituals; even though we practice rituals because of our deep demands of representation, we do not consider the most important part of our faith to be our rituals, but our relations with God, with ourselves, with each other, and with the whole creation. This is the kind of understanding of the faith and the spirituality with which we can transform the world into a better one. Our life is the temple where we need to cultivate a flourishing spirituality capable of transforming our situation, it doesn't matter what could be, for good or for bad, we can trust in the presence of God coming from deep inside and present in everything around us, especially in people of faith who believe in the same God with the same commitment and conviction.