Pausing to Think Preached on March 7th, 2021 for Wollaston Congregational Church Scripture: John 2:13-22 Our theme for today is “pause and think.” This is the third secret in our reading of the Mister Rogers Effect, secrets that we hope will help us bring out the best in ourselves and others. “Pause and think” are not words we read in the gospel, we are not often shown Jesus pausing to think in any given situation. The way that Jesus is presented to us in the scriptures is generally “the product” rather than “the process.” Each of the four gospels was written for a particular end or goal. This often involves an argument in which we do not hear from “the other side.” In the case of John’s gospel, the argument is with the people John calls “the Jews.” This term does not refer to all the Jewish people, rather it refers to the strict religious leaders of the time. They are the ones who collaborate with the Roman rulers in Jerusalem for the sake of peace. In the passage Jonathan read today from John today, Jesus enters the temple in Jerusalem. He makes a whip out of cords and uses it to drive the animals that were to be sold for sacrifice. And he overturns the tables of the people who exchanged temple currency for Roman coins. In our reading from John, this morning Jesus goes up to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover at the beginning of his ministry. In this gospel, Jesus is makes his position on who holds the power in the religious institution known from the very beginning. John, in particular, likes to present a product in which Jesus is in control. The pausing to think is over. Jesus acts with confidence and authority. But a couple of weeks ago we noticed Jesus pause to think when stopping to listen to the story of a woman with a hemorrhage. And in Luke’s gospel there is a passage that really belongs with John, in which Jesus very deliberately pauses to think about the situation of a woman about to be stoned having been caught in adultery. Today we have to examine the passage from John quite closely to determine what kind of pausing to think went into Jesus’s actions. The first step is to let go of past assumptions we’ve made of this story. This dramatic scene has often been told in illustrated children’s Bibles and coloring pages, sometime a little too simplistically. Despite what we may have been told in Sunday School, there is no indication that the money changers were cheating people. There’s no mention of Jesus’ objection to the noise or bustle in the temple courts. Jesus is known to have participated in the heated arguments and exchanges of outer court of the temple campus. Writer and retired pastor, Steve Garnaas Holmes puts it this way: “Let's correct a few misconceptions from your Sunday School comic book pictures. First, he doesn't use the whip on people. He uses it to herd the animals out. “Second: he's not mad. This isn't an outburst. (It takes time and patience to braid a whip.) It's carefully staged symbolic street theater: a protest. “Third: the moneychangers belong there. They exchange Jewish coins, acceptable for offerings or for buying sacrificial animals, for the ‘unclean; Roman money that people carry. It's how you make a sacrifice. And they aren't overcharging. Jesus isn't criticizing ‘commercialization.’ He's protesting sacrifice. (Mark says he wouldn't allow anyone to carry a vessel through the temple.)” [1] This is carefully staged symbolic street theater, a protest. This sets the scene for Jesus’s future ministry. From the get-go Jesus is aligning himself with the prophets, like Hosea, who heard God say “I desire mercy not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6) or Micah who proclaimed “what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8). Jesus protests the sacrifice of animals in the temple because it is a distraction. The animals are literally scapegoats. They are supposed to take away all the sins of the people. The people focus their attention the rituals of religion and on sacrifice. Meanwhile, their lives may be made miserable by the lack of justice and mercy they are being shown by the Roman rulers. The religious leaders fear that there is a potential for rebellion, which would bring about the downfall of Jerusalem. The temple rituals allow them to keep things under control. The Jewish religion stopped sacrificing animals when the temple was finally destroyed in the uprising that took place from 66-73 CE. But scapegoating did not stop there. It has continued even in to our times. Notably, Hitler chose to scapegoat the Jewish people for the ills that the people of Germany were facing in the 1930’s. He found it convenient to unite the so-called Arian Germans against a common enemy. In America in the 1700’s, Virginia lawmakers created the concept of race by separating slaves of African descent from whites, whom they upgraded to indentured servants. The white upper classes were fearful of a rebellion if the two groups joined forces, and so the “plantation owners consciously encouraged racial hatred between blacks and poor whites.” [2] The African slaves became a scapegoat for the white indentured servants, who were distracted by blaming their misery on the black slaves. And sadly, scapegoating continues to this day. PBS news reports that hate crimes against Asian Americans have spiked over the past year. Some of this violence has taken place in Quincy, with two recent attacks on elderly Asian residents. Asian people, assumed to be Chinese, have been blamed in ignorance for the spread of the coronavirus. They have become the scapegoat of the pandemic and of our times. [3] While we do not always see Jesus pause to think about what his next action would be, we certainly see Fred Rogers pause to think in his interactions on the TV. Rogers’ speech is punctuated by pauses, his interactions with fast paced interviewers are slow and deliberate. One outcome of Mr. Rogers’ intentional thought process, achieved through prayer and reflection, was to invite François Clemmons to appear on his TV show as the neighborhood character, Officer Clemmons. Clemmons was a young gay African American man who had a beautiful singing voice. He first joined Mr. Rogers Neighborhood in the midst of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s. In 1969, African Americans were protesting segregation in public swimming pools, by going to swim in “white only” pools. The news of the time showed violent images of pool managers pouring bleach and acid on the swimmers. [4] Rogers must have paused to think about the impact of these images on the young minds of his TV audience. And so he did some street theater of his own. It was simple: he acted out a scene on a hot day in the neighborhood when Mr. Rogers invites Officer Clemmons to soak his feet and share a wading pool with him. This must be one of Mr. Rogers’ most Jesus-y moments, as he modeled love and care for his African American neighbor. Of course, Rogers wasn’t Jesus, he was simply a man. A blot on his lifelong friendship with Clemmons was to forbid Clemmons to appear on the TV show if he came out as gay. He went so far as to suggest Clemmons should marry a woman. Clemmons recalls that Rogers said: "I want you to know Franç, that if you're gay, it doesn't matter to me at all. Whatever you say and do is fine with me, but if you're going to be on the show as an important member of The Neighborhood, you can't be out as gay ... I wish it were different, but you can't have it both ways. Not now anyway. Talent can give you so much in this life, but that sexuality thing can take it all away." [5] Even so, Clemmons was confident that Fred Rogers loved him, just for being himself. Crises in our world bring out the best and the worst in humanity and a lot of in-between too. This holds true for the past year and the pandemic. As we reach the anniversary of the first death to COVID of a Quincy resident later this month, we are called to pause and think. This time last year, I remember going out walking in the Wollaston Hill neighborhood, the day of our last evening Lenten meeting before the suspension of in person meetings. We hadn’t yet adopted the use of facemasks. We were just washing our hands and cleaning surfaces. I don’t think that the depressing term “social distancing” had not yet come into use. But we all knew that things were about to change. As I met a woman and children coming up the hill from school, I carefully stepped out of the way. I was a mindful that they might think of close contact with me as a risk. And then as the year progressed, we learned that keep our distance from one another was the loving thing to do. Now, though, there’s a real concern that as we really hope to emerge from this pandemic, children and adults will need to unlearn the fear of contact with others. I’m concerned that scapegoating might rear its head in many shapes and forms. There might be blaming and shaming of those who would not or could not follow restrictions. As we struggle to rebuild the economy, leaders may deflect criticism by projecting blame onto targeted groups. This Lenten time is giving us a season of pause, before activities tentatively begin again. And so, let’s ponder, what acts can we do to overcome the scourge of scapegoating? Jesus’s dramatic act was to overturn tables. Mr. Roger’s act was to simply share a wading pool. What will be my act, and what will be yours? May we pause and think and may all God’s people say … Amen [1] “Right Sacrifice”, https://www.unfoldinglight.net/ [2] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/08/15/when-white-supremacy-came-to-virginia/ [3] https://www.voanews.com/usa/race-america/hate-crimes-targeting-asian-americans-spiked-150-major-us-cities [4] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/history-segregated-swimming-pools-parks-racism_b_5d289125e4b0f0348e32fdad [5] https://www.npr.org/2020/04/30/847315345/officer-clemmons-mister-rogers-neighborhood-policeman-pal-tells-his-story
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