on the walk

[Note: Don’t forget that you can see this whole series by clicking on the category links.]

It has a been a few days since the last post in this series, so to remind us and to catch up those who are new, this series is an attempt to looks at Jesus’ teaching and modeling of prayer. In the gospel of Mark we have so far seen Jesus model prayer but not really any direct teaching on prayer. That changes in chapter 11.

In Mark 11, there are two important passages about prayer. In the temple, Jesus reminds those who are gathered that the temple is to be a “house of prayer”. The next story Mark relates includes Jesus dramatic proclamation, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” Now this second teaching is the source for so much modern heresy, and so I am eager to delay by a few days addressing this text. Today I will focus on the temple scene. Mark 11:12-19, and the two texts that Jesus quotes: Isaiah 56:1-8 and Jeremiah 7.

This scene is fantastic for so many reasons. But for now I will focus on the contrast that Jesus sets up between the “house of prayer” and the “den of thieves”. I have been taught and have taught to others that Jesus main point was that people should have been praying and instead they were cheating each other. I am sure that this is part of it, but I rather think this is a small sub-point. The reasons I missed the bigger issue is two-fold: I don’t know the Bible very well and I am too lazy to look up the texts that Jesus is quoting. So here is my challenge. If you want to get this text, take a moment to read the following.

Mark 11:12-19

Isaiah 56:1-8

Jeremiah 7(esp. 1-11)

I know that was a lot of reading, but many of Jesus hearers would have known the texts well enough that when he quoted those two memorable phrases they would have remembered the whole text.

I expect that when you read these texts the point of Jesus’ contrast leapt off the page to you. The temple was meant to be a house of prayer for all nations. The whole point of Is. 56 is that God’s people, living righteously in the world, will attract foreigners and eunuchs who will come to the temple and worship and rejoice and serve God and be given an everlasting name. God will gather the outcasts of Israel and even more. God’s people were meant to transform the world around them.
Jesus is preaching in the court of the Gentiles and this court should have been a permanent reminder that the temple of God was for all people and that God was ready to hear the prayers of all the nations. Instead, the opportunity for the Gentiles to worship had been removed by all the commerce in the temple.

In contrast the Jeremiah text describes a period in which, instead of God’s people attracting and influencing the nations, the nations have corrupted God’s people. They are living just as those around them and then return to the temple sure that God will protect them because they have the temple.

No wonder the chief priests and scribes were ready to destroy Jesus after this story.

Mark loves to sandwich stories together and usually the outside story is designed to help us see something about the inside story. Well the outside story in this case has its own complications but it is about fruitlessness. Jesus finds pretty leaves and no fruit.

That is exactly the condemnation he now lays on the Temple worship. I has plenty of leaves (flashy ceremony) but it is not bearing the fruit that Isaiah describes and God intends.

This post has ended up not being much about prayer(or maybe it is). But I think that I am just understanding this text for the very first time and the contrast Jesus is making between those two images “house of prayer” (for all nations/ counter cultural agent of change/ place of ) and “den of thieves” (false refuge for those who have totally capitulated to the prevailing sins and false gods of their culture). This is definitely something that every church and every Christian needs to consider.

on the walk

-Ethan

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