This sermon was delivered virtually on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021 and was my Senior Sermon before graduating from Yale Divinity School.

Scripture: John 2:13-22

Jesus Clears the Temple Courts

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”[a]

18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 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.

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When was the last time you were angry? I mean really, really angry? Like flipping over tables angry?

For me, I experience this type of anger when I’m dealing with the United States of America’s beloved healthcare system. It normally happens after I’ve received  a bill with an unexpected charge or a denied claim for physical therapy; after I’ve called and left messages for three days straight and I finally reach someone only to be placed on hold for 90 minutes to then be told that there’s nothing they can do for me…I don’t think I need to continue..you get the drift…it’s in these moments I feel so much anger. I feel like yelling and throwing things.

I feel a level of anger that I’d imagine Jesus might have felt clearing out the temple courts.

I don’t know how many of y’all caught this, but in verse 15, it describes Jesus making a whip out of chords! Did y’all know about that? I feel like whenever I heard this story told, I only remember hearing about Jesus flipping over tables, I’ve never heard the story told with Jesus making a whole whip from scratch and driving out animals in addition to turning over tables… Can you imagine??!!!

Upon further study, I’ve come to believe that the reason we don’t often hear about the whip is because the book of John is the only gospel that mentions it–Matthew, Mark, and Luke recount this same story as well, but they only mention Jesus flipping the tables, no mention of a whip. 

I think this whip of cords adds to the story because it’s pointing to the reality that Jesus wasn’t just mad, Jesus was BIG MAD, and it is this point that I want to center my sermon around, for I believe there’s something for us to gain from this story if we ask the question:  What type of relationship did Jesus have with anger?

In a book called Love and Rage, author Lama Rod Owens writes the following: “When people say ‘I’m so angry,’ I help them turn their attention to the woundedness beneath the anger saying, ‘Where are you hurting? Where is the aching? Where is your woundedness? What is your anger trying to protect?’”

Anger is sometimes referred to as a secondary emotion, meaning, it is covering up a deeper, feeling and more pointed feeling, such as disappointment, insecurity, or hurt. If we were to ask these questions in the context of our scripture, what would be our answers? Where was Jesus hurting? What was aching within Jesus? Verse 16 may give us a clue, it’s when Jesus exclaims: “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” In the other gospels he yells: “You have made my father’s house into a den of thieves!” 

I would dare to claim that Jesus’ anger points to  a profound hurt–a deep and searing pain that came from seeing the sacred space of the Temple, the place where heaven and earth meet–the place meant to hold space for the communion of humanity and Divine Love, instead being disrespected and defiled, as vulnerable people were taken advantage of and the religious sacrifices were manipulated to make a profit.

“To sing beneath the anger or to move through the anger was to recognize the anger for what it was: an indicator that my heart was broken,” Lama Rod Owens writes. 

I think Jesus’ heart was broken. He saw people whom he loved being hurt. He witnessed people allowing greed to corrupt their capacity to love others well and it broke his heart. Jesus saw the vulnerable population of the poor, desiring to make themselves holy and right before God, get caught up in the buying and selling of sacrifices. What ached within Jesus when he braided those chords and flipped over those tables, driving out the moneychangers, was a desire for Love and Justice, and Mercy, and Grace, and Compassion and Truth to be present in every corner of that Temple, but he was instead witnessing the opposite.

Thinking back to the moment I shared at the beginning of this sermon, about me getting BIG MAD on the phone with healthcare administrators and insurance companies, when I take a moment to sit with my anger, I realize beneath it is a  deep sadness that a system that I’d hoped was designed to prioritize my well-being seemed to care more about making a profit off of my pain. My anger came from a longing for a world in which I didn’t have to convince insurance companies that I am worthy of care and deserving of X-Rays and physical therapy appointments. 

So what are you saying, Nia?? Where is this all building to? Are you saying we should all be going into spaces and places that are upholding and perpetuating systemic and systematic injustices and to flip over furniture?

I think my dad is on this Zoom call and he definitely works for an insurance company, so he might be getting kind of nervous right now…

Sure, those could be the questions I’m building to, but, instead of asking a question focusing on Jesus’ behavior, I want to draw our attention to the emotions behind Jesus’ actions–his anger. If there’s anything I want you all to walk away from this sermon with it’s, this: I want you all to continuously ask the question:

What is my relationship with anger? 

Are we scared of anger? Do we fear the anger of others? Our own anger?

Do we look down upon anger and think it’s not socially acceptable, that nice, good, Godly people don’t get angry? 

Are we passive aggressive and thus, disembodied from our anger? 

How would you feel if I described Jesus as an angry Black man? What do you notice happening in  your body as I evoke that image–Jesus, an angry black man? Does your chest tighten? Or do your shoulders relax? Has your jaw clenched or your brow furrowed?

What narratives has society told us about anger? And what do we believe to be true?

What if we redefined anger, not as an emotion inherently resulting in bitterness, resentment, or hatred, but anger as an emotion expressing the deep anguish within our minds, bodies, and souls. What if we believed the words of Audre Lorde when she says, “Anger expressed and translated into action in the service of our vision and our future is a liberating and strengthening act of clarification.” “It’s hard to handle anger well, it’s dangerous and risky, ” Lorde continues on “but also imperative, [for] it’s what allows us to do the hard work of excavating honesty.”  

When we choose to not only acknowledge our anger, but to sit with and honor it, we are able to metabolize our dangerously beautiful anger, opening up the possibility for personal and communal transformation. Naming what’s behind our anger allows us to identify our hopes deferred and helps us discern how to courageously tell The Truth about ourselves and the systems and structures we find ourselves in. 

Jesus shows us that the metabolization of our anger can yield different results. For him, sometimes metabolized and expressed anger looked like flipping tables, while other times it looked like disrupting the status quo by choosing to invite the outcasts of society together and choosing relationship with them over the setting of an intimate, communal meal. This is why the question is not, should I flip over tables, but, rather, what is my relationship with anger teaching me, and how is the Holy Spirit/God/Jesus/the Divine inviting me to respond to my anger rather than reacting to or avoiding it out of disdain and fear? 

As we close, I’d like to invite us to engage in a spiritual practice called imaginative prayer. I’m going to invite you to re-read our Scripture of Jesus in the Temple courts, and as you do, I want you to imagine yourself IN the story. I want you to pick someone/something you identify the most with in the scriptures. Don’t just think about the main characters, like Jesus or the moneychangers, this is called IMAGINATIVE PRAYER for a reason. Maybe you’ll imagine yourself as a random bystander–unsure how you feel about your relationship with anger, perhaps feeling uncomfortable witnessing the anger of Jesus..Maybe you identify with the tables because right now you feel like your life is getting overturned by the actions and anger of others?  Pay attention to who you identify with and what comes up for you as you re-read the passage…

Jesus Clears the Temple Courts

13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”[a]

18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 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.

And so I pray:

Dear Infinite and Divine Love, give us the courage to name and embrace the fullness of what it means to be human. May we refrain from stripping Jesus of his humanity and begin to acknowledge the reality of Divine anger so that we may explore what lies beneath our own rage. Help us to compassionately sit with, honor, and metabolize our emotions in ways that draw us nearer to ourSelves, others, and You, Oh Jesus. We need You. Amen.