On Jesus Flipping Tables
Required Reading: Mark 11:15-18. Isaiah 56:4-7. Revelation 7:9.
This one hurts. I'm an enneagram 8. I hate injustice and I love Jesus, so “righteous anger” is basically my MO. Hear me when I say that it is not wrong to be grieved by the things that grieve the Father’s heart. But if we’re going to use Jesus as justification for our anger, we’d better make sure we’re angry about the things He was angry about.
Isaiah 56 tells us the temple was designed for foreigners to congregate and for the nations to seek the Lord. Mark 11 tells us that instead of a place of inclusion, Jesus encounters a temple that looks a little too Jewish and money changers determined to keep it that way. Context tells us the money changers were responsible for the exchange of currency. They had no accountability preventing them from charging too much based on their own prejudices. They had no accountability preventing them from crowding out space for the gentiles and outcasts to draw near to the Lord.
It’s alarming that we read ourselves into the right side of history in this Biblical story, clinging to our “righteous anger” so tightly that we side ourselves with Jesus and fail to acknowledge how often we mirror the money changers. How often we fail to include the misfits. The socially marginalized. The outcasts.
The temple—OUR temples—should foreshadow the hope of God’s restored creation. A day when “a great multitude from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” will stand before the throne. Can we honestly say our churches reflect the heart of a God who gathers the outcasts? Do our inner circles of friends reflect the diversity of the coming Kingdom or the uniformity of the exclusionary temple?
Until I can answer those questions with an emphatic YES, I should probably stop justifying my anger with this story. Powerful sermons, incredible worship, and one person of color on a stage isn’t going to cut it. Let’s ask Him to give us the desire for a truly inclusive church that embodies God’s all-embracing love in Jesus Christ and leave the “righteous anger” up to Him. Amen?