Renew

The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

March 7, 2021

Year B: The Third Sunday in Lent

Exodus 20:1-17

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

John 2:13-22

Renew

Last week the small group that has been working on our oral history project – it’s called “Lifting Our Voices” - met to update each other on our progress.

Although we’re just a few weeks into our interviews and research, it’s already been fascinating to hear stories of the Episcopal churches in Jersey City, many stories that are new to me, and I bet to most of us.

As you’d expect, the memories that we are unearthing are as mixed bag – some wonderful stories of being loved unconditionally at church and encouraged to dream big, to demand justice, and to imagine a world where all people are respected and valued.

And there are some less wonderful stories of racism in the church – in our church – stories of desperately trying to keep our churches going when it sure seemed like some people in authority did not have our best interests at heart.

A few days ago I had the pleasure of talking with longtime St. Paul’s parishioner Carole LaBate, someone who will be well remembered by you old time St. Paul’s people out there.

Carole was a fixture of this church for decades, serving as a junior warden, and worship leader (she suspects she was the first woman in both of those roles), and as an usher. In fact, Carole had usher duty on the first Sunday that Sue and I walked through those doors – and her warm smile and welcome immediately signaled that we had found a special place. 

As we talked over Zoom, Carole’s eyes lit up as she remembered our church decades ago – a place not without conflict, to be sure, but a community of love, a church where her daughters learned about God’s love.

Carole moved out of Jersey City quite some time ago but she insisted to me that her heart – and her church membership – will always be right here.

In talking with Carole and hearing the stories from others, I was struck by the power of memory. We don’t have total recall, of course, and yet many of us are able to remember details of the past, big moments, yes, but also seemingly stray and random details.

For example, when I first sat down to reflect on today’s lessons, one word immediately flashed in my mind:

Renew.

But, it was more than just the word “Renew.”

It was a specific memory from church long ago.

Most of you know that I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, specifically Our Lady of Mercy Church, which is down in the southern part of Jersey City, near the Bayonne line.

Anyway, back in the 1970s, there was a program in the church – not just OLM but the other churches of the Archdiocese of Newark – and that program was called “Renew.”

Banners were hung in our church bearing that word, “Renew.”

Now, I was just a little kid at the time so, until two days ago when I looked it up, I couldn’t tell you the first thing about “Renew” – no idea what kind of renewal movement this was.

But, it was that image that popped into my head – “Renew” – and I’ve learned enough to know that, when that happens, I should pay attention.

Renew.

The setting of today’s gospel lesson is, of course, the Temple in Jerusalem.

We’ve talked many times about the Temple, but it’s important to remember that this vast and impressive complex of buildings and courtyards was the center of Jewish life, believed to be the holiest place on earth, God’s house, the place where, in a sense, God dwelled.

Jews came to the Temple to pray and to make animal sacrifices, all in an effort to keep up their end of the Covenant with God.

Maybe not surprisingly, I always feel a lot of sympathy for the priests who were responsible for keeping this huge complicated operation running smoothly and safely, and who also had to perform the animal sacrifices.

The money changing was necessary because people would arrive at the Temple with coins bearing the graven images of the Roman emperor or some other ruler and those could not be used to purchase animals for sacrifice.

So, that was the scene that Jesus walked into that day – a scene that he had probably witnessed many times in his life, since, like most Jews, he would have regularly gone up to Jerusalem for the great festivals, especially Passover.

OK, so let’s stop right there for a moment.

On most Sundays we’ve been hearing excerpts from the Gospel of Mark, but not this week. Today we heard from the Gospel of John.

John was the last of the four gospels to be completed, probably around the year 100, seventy or so years after Jesus’ earthly lifetime. So, John is the product of decades of storytelling and of divinely inspired reflection on what Jesus means for the world.

And so, John shapes the story of Jesus in a very different way than the other gospels, and that very much includes what we heard today: Jesus’ bold, angry, even violent actions in the Temple.

All four gospels include this story, but Mark, Matthew, and Luke, place it near the end of Jesus’ ministry – in fact, it seems that Jesus’ dramatic action in the Temple is one of the reasons the authorities decide they need to be rid of this troublemaker who some called a king.

But, the Gospel of John tells more or less the same story but places it not at the end of Jesus’ life and ministry but at the beginning – Jesus overturning the tables and chasing out the merchants and the animals, pouring the coins on the ground – the way John tells it, all of this is really Jesus’ first public act.

At least in this case, John isn’t concerned with chronology.

No, by placing the story right up front, John is teaching us that Jesus has entered the world to shake things up, to overturn the tables - to usher in a great renewal.

Christians often call this incident the “Cleansing of the Temple” but I’ve resisted using that term because, first of all, it’s offensive to our Jewish brothers and sisters, implying that the Temple was somehow stained. But, it wasn’t. The Temple system was functioning exactly as designed.

No, rather than cleansing, I think Jesus called people to renewal. Ritual and sacrifice are important, for sure, but the bottom line is that the Temple was God’s house, a house of prayer – a truth that could be easily forgotten amid all the noise, all the business being transacted.

By the time the Gospel of John was completed, the Temple had been rubble for decades, burned by the Romans in the year 70, with its treasures looted.

The destruction of the holiest place on earth was a profound trauma for the Jewish people, and at first, some wondered if they could even continue as a people without the Temple and all that had gone on there.

But, over time, there was in fact a Jewish renewal. No longer exchanging currency, no longer slaughtering an endless stream of animals, they turned their attention to careful study of Scripture and its interpretations, keeping the Covenant by following God’s Law.

While at the same time, the early Christians came to see Jesus as the replacement for the Temple. For Christians, the first Easter was, in a way, the rebuilding of the Temple in three days, the ultimate renewal, just as Jesus had predicted.

Renew.

And, now, for just about a year, we have endured our own trauma. And, you know, I wonder if God hasn’t used this terrible time as a call to renewal, a reminder of what’s most important.

Last week I was talking to local activist Amy Wilson – she’s the one who collected all those diapers for Triangle Park that I talked about a few weeks ago - and she told me that so many people in the more affluent parts of our city are newly eager to help people in need – and not just by writing a check or clicking Venmo, though that’s nice – but also by leaving Downtown and working side by side with people who live in other parts of the city.

And, even here at church we have heard a call to renewal, too.

A year ago we had our challenges, sure, but we were functioning pretty well, pretty much as intended – church, coffee hour, some outreach.

Then the virus struck.

And, while it hasn’t always been easy, for the past year we really have been renewed – praying harder and more regularly than ever – reaching out to others more frequently – getting more creative than ever, remembering that our mission is more than just doing things the way we have always done them.

Renew.

So…about the “Renew” of the 1970’s.

Well, since we live in a time when you can find just about everything on the Internet, it only took me a minute or two of searching to discover that “Renew” started in the Archdiocese of Newark in 1976 and in the years since it has spread across the Roman Catholic Church.

And, just what is “Renew,” you ask?

Well, according to the website of “Renew International,” “Renew” invites people to meet in small groups to pray, to reflect on Scripture, to share their faith, and to commit themselves to live their faith in daily life.

I laughed when I read that because, of course, that is exactly what we are beginning to do here with our own small faith groups.

So, I’m not sure about a whole lot, but I’m convinced that during this time of upheaval, during this holy Lent, God is calling us to renew.

Amen.