Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

I missed this one.

When I first began as Pastor/Head of Staff at my previous church in Cleveland way back in 1995 I preached a four-sermon series on models for the church.  I suggested that the church could be a Center for Wellbeing, a School of the Spirit, a Circle of Stories, and a Welcoming Home.  We made banners for each one and began to pattern our ministry around these themes.

I should have added A House of Prayer.

This is Jesus’ expectation for the Temple.  In our story this Sunday, Jesus enters Jerusalem following his Palm Sunday parade, goes to the Temple to “look around at everything” (Mark 11:11), then comes back the next day and turns the tables upside down.  `

He obviously didn’t like what he saw.  With good reason.  The Temple by this time was not so much a religious institution as it was an economic one.  It was the center of Israel’s political life and power, and obedient to Rome.  Always obedient to Rome.  The wealth that flowed in from all the prescribed offerings were, in effect, taxes solely for the benefit of the chief priests and scribes.  It was a lucrative business.

So Jesus overturns the tables as a planned political act because the Temple, despite the veneer of holiness, did not treat the people and their needs as holy.

Immediately before Jesus describes the scene as a “den of robbers,” he recites Isaiah 56:7. “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations,” where the prophet, so often quoted by Jesus, talks of foreigners and outcasts joining others already coming to God’s holy mountain.

Our job is to imagine such a House of Prayer.  Where we connect with God.  Where all are welcome.  A refuge of peace in the midst of turmoil.  A place to come together when our society is so divided.  Where quiet is a virtue.  Where music is prayer.  Where we pray for all of us, not just ourselves.  Where “us” is the world and all that is in it, animals, nature, humans alike.  Where sacred becomes a common word. A place of discernment rather than discord.  Where children are allowed to run and play, and youth be themselves.  Where we don’t hide from the world but through prayer we engage with it, even as Jesus did in the Temple.

All of this is prayer. Prayer is active and reflective, bold and assertive, inclusive and mysterious, wondrous and surprising, and one of the most powerful and courageous things we can do.  It is center to our wellbeing, a school of God’s Spirit, a circle of our stories, and a welcoming home.

I missed adding a House of Prayer in Cleveland way back when.  I think it is time, and past time, to add it now.

Grace and peace,

Harry