Every year thousands of tourists clog the country roads in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to admire the lush, neat farmlands nurtured by the Amish farmers of that region. The Amish sell their beautiful quilts, home-grown/home-preserved foods, hand made furniture. Driving down the roads in their black horse-drawn rigs, wearing their eighteenth century “plain” clothes, rejecting all modern conveniences, the Amish have become icons of a simple, devout, community-based lifestyle.

But Amish country is home to more than quilting bees and barn-raisings. If you’ve driven through this area in the past year, you will recognize huge billboards with pathetic pictures of dogs inviting both residents and visitors to be on high alert and on “Puppy-Mill Watch.” Why?

Lancaster County and the Lehigh Valley are recognized as the nation’s capital for “puppy mills.” “Breeding stock” (that’s code for female dogs) live out their entire lives locked in 2’ x 2’ wire cages, housed in dirty, dilapidated sheds. They survive on a minimum of food and water. They receive no love, no physical or emotional interaction with humans or other dogs. When the breeding females reach the age of 7 or 8 years, they are considered too old and are routinely killed. The puppies are sold quickly, before the infections and genetic defects they harbor become too obvious. One “puppy-farmer” was cited by local authorities and ordered to get his eighty breeding dogs vaccinated. Instead, the next day the puppy farmer shot all eighty dogs.

The defense some Amish offer for their disregard of these dogs is theological, “faith-based” even: “God gave us animals to use as we see fit.” This is the “Genesis-defense” for animal abuse. Apparently some of these Amish and convicted animal abuser/NFL player Michael Vick (who bred and killed pit bulls for fighting at his “Bad Newz Kennels”) share a common faith.

Yet there is something wrong here: the God who created this world, the God who keeps track of the comings and goings of even the smallest of sparrows, might see things differently.

“It is reported that the following edition of the Book of Genesis was discovered in the Dead Seal Scrolls. If authentic, it would shed light on the question, "Where do pets come from?" And Adam said, "Lord, when I was in the garden, you walked with me everyday. Now I do not see you anymore. I am lonesome here and it is difficult for me to remember how much you love me."

And God said, "No problem! I will create a companion for you that will be with you forever and who will be a reflection of my love for you, so that you will know I love you, even when you cannot see me. Regardless of how selfish and childish and unlovable you may be, this new companion will accept you as you are and will love you as I do, in spite of yourself."

And God created a new animal to be a companion for Adam. And it was a good animal. And God was pleased. And the new animal was pleased to be with Adam and he wagged his tail. And Adam said, "But Lord, I have already named all the animals in the Kingdom and all the good names are taken and I cannot think of a name for this new animal."

And God said, "No problem! Because I have created this new animal to be a reflection of my love for you, his name will be a reflection of my own name, and you will call him DOG."

And Dog lived with Adam and was a companion to him and loved him. And Adam was comforted. And God was pleased. And Dog was content and wagged his tail.

After a while, it came to pass that Adam's guardian angel came to the Lord and said, "Lord, Adam has become filled with pride. He struts and preens like a peacock and he believes he is worthy of adoration. Dog has indeed taught him that he is loved, but no one has taught him humility."

And the Lord said, "No problem! I will create for him a companion who will be with him forever and who will see him as he is. The companion will remind him of his limitations, so he will know that he is not worthy of adoration."

And God created CAT to be a companion to Adam. And Cat would not obey Adam.

And when Adam gazed into Cat's eyes, he was reminded that he was not the supreme being. And Adam learned humility.

And God was pleased. And Adam was greatly improved.

And Cat did not care one way or the other.”

Author Unknown, as found in Pawprints and Purrs: Home of the Bachman Kittens: Animal Poems & Stories, c1997.

There is something unique about the relationship between human beings and their canine companions. Archaeological digs at ancient camp sites have found evidence of dogs sharing the firelight and big bones with humans. Some of the earliest burial sites ever unearthed have found human bones and canine bones intermingled. In other words, dogs were buried with their masters.

Over the centuries dog breeders have “created” hundreds of different breeds. Dalmatians might not look much like dachshunds, but they have something in common that distinguishes all dogs from their wolf ancestors. Wolves howl, yip, even “sing.” But only domesticated canines bark. From big deep woofs and annoying endless yapping, barks are the universal trait of “dogness.” Barking is what distinguishes dogs from their wild ancestors.

So why do dogs bark? Ethnologists theorize that it is because of their chosen partnership with human beings that dog’s took up barking. Barking is their attempt to communicate with people. The unique relationship between dogs and people required a new vocabulary, and so dogs “invented” barking. Unfortunately for dogs, we never learned their language of barkese.

The most recent research on barking makes the case for a dog’s acute sense of normal and abnormal. Some go so far as to argue for a dog’s sense of fairness and unfairness, which is I think going too far. But what isn’t going too far is this: instead of appreciating our furry friends’ attempt to communicate with us, we hear their barking as just so much noise and nuisance. We hear their language, but we don’t understand it. Since we don’t understand it, we find all this barking just annoying.

But dogs keep trying. Whether we want them to or not, dogs continue to bark. They bark at our comings and goings, at the approach of all unknown others, at noises and nuisances that aren’t normal, at breakthroughs and break-ins. With our limited human ears we don’t really “get it.” But our canine companions keep on “reporting” and “watching.”

Learning to hear, understand, and communicate in new ways is the focal point of this weeks’ gospel text. That, and well, oh, . . . just Jesus’ re-working of the entire faith structure of Judaism.

Before Jesus’ cleansing of the temple, the road to redemption was straightforward, easily understood, and bloody. God’s good side was reached by traveling a road paved with animal sacrifice, blood, and priestly intercessions. There were hoops that had to be jumped through. There were dues that had to be paid. There were temple officiates who had to be recognized. The road to personal redemption was studded with official, theological stop-lights.

Jesus changed all that. By his death and resurrection, Jesus changed that forever. And when Jesus “cleansed the temple,” as recorded in this week’s John text, he gave “Cliff Notes” to this future for those who witnessed his words and believed in his mission.

The first action Jesus took was to set free the animals destined to be sacrifices to God. There is no record that Jesus ever offers animal sacrifices, or encourages his disciples to do so. In fact, the commercial corruption in the Temple that triggered the whipcracking side of Jesus’ personality may have included abuses in the custom of animal sacrifices. His compassion for the outcast and oppressed overflows into anger at the trade in sacrificial animals in the great courtyard of the Temple, the religious, social, and commercial center of the city.

Jesus’ temple tantrum may be directed at least in part against the wanton selling and slaughter of animals at huge profits for the high priests and their temple merchant cronies. A house of prayer and peace had been turned into a den of thieves and violence. Gore Vidal wrote in Live from Golgotha, “[Jesus] lowered the prime rate.” Or in the words of another biblical scholar “what Jesus did was like attacking the Bank of America.”

But if animal sacrifice, and temple taxes, were no longer the way to get on God’s good side, what then did God require?

Under the old system the blood of the animal and the paid participation of the priest guaranteed a right relationship between the individual and the divine. Jesus’ actions tossed aside all those intermediaries and cleared the house, the place where the presence of God resides, of all but God and the one who would stand before God.

Getting “right with God” will now take personal participation and a personal relationship with God.

From its beginning Christianity had been outspoken against the old animal sacrifice system. But Christianity has tended to replace one kind of sacrifice with another. Instead of an altar running with blood, the Church has held up the cross. The blood of animals was replaced by the blood of Christ.

Yet Jesus’ “new temple” was not to be constructed out of blood, but rather out “of his body,” (“tou somatos autou”) (v.21). This is huge. The replacement for animal sacrifice was not the cross but the meal at which Jesus said, This is my body, this is my blood.” The meal where Jesus becomes bread for our bodies is the divine substitute for animal sacrifice. Too much of our time is spent trying to figure out how bread becomes Jesus, when the real question is how Jesus become bread, and whether we will let Jesus be bread for life.

Jesus’ death on the cross was a once-for-all event. As disciples of Christ we do not participate in that cross-event. We are called to carry the cross, not climb on the cross. What Jesus does call his disciples to participate in is his “body.”

The “new temple” is not architecture held up by the cross. The “new temple” is a living organism, the new body of Christ, that you and I are invited to participate in.

What replaces the sacrifice of animals is not Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, but the Eucharist, the Holy Meal, our organic participation in this new Body of Christ. The very images of bread and wine are symbols of participation and partnership between the Creator and the created, as each are the fruit of the earth and the work of human hands.

But even that doesn’t go far enough. The true life of the new body, the reborn temple, is found elsewhere, and is found everywhere.

Jesus does not just become “bread” for us during the holiness of communion. Jesus becomes the bread of life in the everyday holiness of life.

Jesus’ body becomes bread in our prayers.
Jesus’ body becomes bread in the encouraging words others offer to us.
Jesus’ body becomes bread in the ladles of soup and scoops of mashed potatoes offered at soup kitchens.
Jesus’ body becomes bread in boardrooms when moral rightness outweighs maximized profits.
Jesus’ body becomes bread when compassionate care, not just professional care, fills the halls of our hospitals.
Jesus’ body becomes bread when we honor the sanctity of the Creation God has placed us within, when we treat dogs and cats with respect and tenderness.

What others outside the Body of Christ may hear as meaningless “barking,” those who participate in this new temple hear as God’s gracious words, as a new Divine directive. It may still be hard for us to hear, God keeps speaking to us . . .

“I am the bread of life.”
Jesus says: “Let me be your daily bread.”
Did you hear Jesus say: “My body, broken for you”?

It’s time to bake some bread for a hungry world, church. Let’s bake THE REAL daily bread.