Outrage and the Ten Best Ways to Live

+I so get Jesus and his rage in the temple. Sacred space should remain sacred space. Many of you have heard my rants about the people who come to the rectory door, wanting a tour of the church, so “they can see the windows.” They walk in taking pictures, throwing their garbage out in our school supply or Dash’s receipt boxes, walking around, seemingly oblivious to the fact that this is a place of worship. First and foremost. Weddings are a great example of this cavalier attitude toward worship space. The idea that a sacrament is being offered pales in comparison to getting just the right lighting for the happy couple’s wedding portrait. When I was at the Cathedral, tourists would traipse in during the daily celebration of the Eucharist, oblivious of the fact that a service was going on. To them it was another stop on an architectural tour, the fact that it was a sacred place of worship seemed unimportant, even irrelevant. It made me nuts then and it makes me nuts now. I totally get Jesus’ rage.
It’s a special challenge here at GS. Mr. Jewett wanted this place to be a community gathering spot for the Parkside neighborhood and we certainly try to honor his vision. Usually the two functions, a sacred place of worship and a community gathering spot works, but when it doesn’t work, the sanctity of our worship is what suffers. Just yesterday we had a funeral at 11 am. Of course 11 am on a Saturday morning is prime ballet school time, so, as has been our custom since I arrived here, I left a message for the school and placed conspicuous signs at each entrance of the church that a funeral was being held and to please remain quiet on the first floor. But, because people don’t read, or people don’t respect the church as institution or because people are just way more focused on what they need to do, regardless of what may be going on around them, peals of laughter and loud conversations interrupted the service. It happens every time.  Yep, I get Jesus’ rage.
Of course, it isn’t the innocent laughter of little ballerinas that bothers me. It’s what feels like a disregard for the sanctity of worship, the disrespect for our way of life as church going folk. People just don’t seem to respect the church anymore, viewing our buildings as quaint stops on an historical tour of a bygone era.
Of course, the most common response to laments such as mine is: well people just don’t know, they aren’t taught respect for the church, they don’t know that their behavior is offensive.
And these folks are probably right—people don’t know. People aren’t taught. People don’t learn.
Not now, and not 3500 years ago when Moses was given the ten commandments on Mt Sinai.
In Godly Play the lesson about the Ten Commandments is called The Ten Best Ways to Live. I think this is a better title, for they really serve as guidelines for a better living. These guidelines--these best ways to live---will, when followed, keep us on the right track, keep us focused.
They help us keep our side of the street clean.
And that’s the real link between today’s reading from Hebrew Scripture and our New Testament reading. Jesus was cleansing the temple---ridding his Father’s, our Creator’s, house of trash. Clearing the way so the focus of the worshippers would be on God instead of on stuff. The ten best ways to live do just this, they cleanse us, freeing us from distraction and misdirection, allowing us to give God the attention and focus God deserves.
Listen to the Ten Best Ways to live again, hear them in a new way!
1. Love God and Love people. People are God’s creation, so loving people is loving God. And that is good.  
2.God Loves us beyond all reason, so don’t worship other gods and don’t confuse stuff with God. [This is a big one because we easily confuse stuff with God.] Seeking happiness and security, a sense of worth from the stuff we have (or the stuff we want) instead of seeking our joy, our contentment in the one who is always ready to give us that security: God.
3. And speaking of God:  Be serious when you say God’s name. Don’t toss it around as an expletive or in exasperation.
4. Keep the Sabbath holy…make one day solely for those whom you love, including God. These relationships need nurturing, our relationship with God, with all our loved ones: devote one day a week to this nurture.
5. Honor your parents and all who raise you. There is no more important job than raising children. We must always honor those who devoted themselves to our growth, our health, our well-being. And then we get into the don’ts. But these don’ts seem pretty reasonable:
6. Don’t kill. And don’t stand for the killing of others!
7. Don’t break your commitment to your spouse, your partner, your husband, your wife!
8. Don’t steal.
9.Don’t lie.
10. Don’t even want what others have.
These are GREAT guidelines. We really can’t go wrong if we follow them. Of course, we often confuse everything, complicating things. It really is as simple (not easy, but simple) as these best ways to live: keep our focus on God and on all those things in life which are God-given: love of family and friends, respect for creation, respect for each other. The Ten Commandments, if taken seriously, keep us from getting too self absorbed, keep us from getting too distracted, keep us from getting off track. The Ten Commandments keep us clean.
I don’t know if I’ll ever race out of a funeral and rage at ballerinas, I hope not. I don’t know if I’ll ever interrupt a tour group and scream, “this isn’t a museum, it is God’s house,” but I understand the desire to do so….but really, the frustration I can feel, and the frustration  Jesus felt isn’t for the merchants in the temple or the ballerinas in Mears’ Hall, the frustration is for a culture, a society, that is so distracted, so wrapped up in the here and now, in the gaining more and more, in the having this and that,  that the Love of God and respect for all that God has given us, gets lost in the shuffle.
So, as we settle into the middle of Lent, rage against those things that get in your way, rage against the distractions of your daily life, and free yourself to follow the good road, the one paved with the ten best ways to live. +