The late Mike Yaconelli, who was a youth ministry guru and the pastor of a unique and small church, told a story about preaching at his church. He said that nearly every time he preached, a young woman named Maria raised her hand and asked, “Now, what exactly are you talking about?” After one sermon, Maria, who was about sixteen at the time, raised her hand, and this time she asked if she could pray for him. “Sure,” he said. She asked if she could come up to the front, and he agreed. In the middle of the service, she walked up to the front, and her prayer was something like, “God, thank you for Mike. We all know that if he weren’t in this church, we would all be lost, including him. Amen.” No doubt, in that church, as Maria was asking her questions, and coming up to the front, the congregation was wondering what in the world was going on. No doubt, in the temple, as Jesus was pouring out the coins and turning over the tables in the temple, his disciples had the same question. What is he up to now? Is he going to get us all in trouble? What is he trying to tell everyone? Or, as a teenager asked me once, “Is Jesus trying to say something, or is he just having a bad day?”

We know that Jesus knows the temple well. His parents faithfully bring him there after his birth, and he comes with family as a teenager for the Passover. The story says that this is customary for the family, so he may have been there other times, too. He spends enough time there to know the building, and where he can find the animals for sacrifices, and the people changing the money. He’s seen all of this happening on the family visits to the temple. Perhaps his family talks about the financial burden of making the sacrifices, or they plan carefully so they can afford them, putting money away a little at a time.

Of our four gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke are strongly similar, but John always has a different take on things. Only a few stories make it into all four gospels, and this is one of them. Matthew, Mark, and Luke remember it happening near the end of Jesus’ life, during his last week in Jerusalem, just before his death. They place it between Palm Sunday and Easter. There it serves as a final message.

But John remembers it at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He places this moment in the temple between the story of Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night, and Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well in the noonday heat. Both of those stories are about dismantling long- held ways of thinking, and Jesus is making that same point here. Adding to the layers of meaning, John writes this down after the physical temple has been destroyed. Writing to people who have always found God in the temple, John points us to another way of finding God.

We might have similar ideas about where to find God.

If we’re life-long churchgoers, we connect God with the church. We hear God in the sound of the organ, feel the Spirit in the light of the stained glass windows, and breathe in the peculiar smell of church every week. It may even be a particular congregation, and a particular building, where we find God. All over the country, churches are doing less outreach work, and paying pastors less and less, so they can afford to stay in their buildings. When the choice is between a full-time pastor and a new roof, the roof wins. When there’s a choice between a part- time pastor and a new boiler, the boiler trumps.

We understand the attachment to a beloved building, and a certain way of living out our religion.

Of all the churches I’ve served over the years, and the ones I’ve worked with through denominational committees, I have a secret favorite. I’ll call them First Church of Possibility.

I met First Church when they were between pastors, and so I preached for them on some Sunday mornings. Their sanctuary was unusual. They had church on Sunday mornings in a rented building that was used for weddings on Saturdays, and meetings during the week. The coffee hour was bountiful but time-limited, since another church came to use the building in the afternoon. The building was new, the restrooms were spotless, and people who were walking by stopped in for church some Sundays. The members kept giving to the church, and they had very low expenses, so they had money to give away. They picked a community organization each month and gave generously to their work.

First Church ran into trouble with their landlord, and they needed a new home. I kept trying to fix First Church up with another congregation, like church blind dating. They had energy and money to devote to mission, but no building. Other churches had buildings with no people in them. It would seem like a match made in, ahem, heaven. For a time, First Church shared a building with another church. I’ll call them Second Church of the Revered Past. After a while, the two groups got around to talking about merging together into one congregation. First Church was excited that they might have more partners to do mission work. They would make younger friends who could carry the energy of the church out into the world. Second Church was excited that First Church would bring them enough money to fix their leaky roof.

In the end, the DNA of the two congregations was too different for them to merge happily. First Church is now happily nesting with another congregation, now in their fourth location counting their original building, and still going strong. Sometimes the members drive by their first building, a magnificent structure with vaulted ceilings and Tiffany stained glass. They smile and keep driving, happy with where they are now.

The members of First Church know what we all have to learn. Much as we love the church building where we got married, where our kids were baptized, where the funerals of beloved people took place, God isn’t tied down there. In fact, God may have already left the building, if all we do is talk about the roof and the water bill and the heating system. Just like the people around Jesus, we get tied down to a place, and think God belongs there.

Scholar Amy-Jill Levine, who has added greatly to my understanding of Jesus in his Jewish context, says that “recognizing Jesus within  his Jewish context means recognizing his enormous concern for how people relate to each other on a day-to-day basis. The issue for him is not, “Here’s what you need to believe in order to get into heaven.” The issue is, “Here’s what you need to do in order to have one foot in the kingdom of heaven. Here’s what you need to do because here’s what God wants you to do, and here’s what your tradition calls you to do.” It is his Judaism that associates love of God with love of neighbor; his Judaism emphasizes what we call the golden rule, also found in a number of different religious traditions. That’s why he talks to people about reconciliation and says that human interaction is more important than ritual.”[1]

God shows up where the people are: at the temple, or on the hillside; in the banquet hall or the upper room. God shows up in church sanctuaries, and also brew pubs and coffee shops, hospital chapels and labyrinths, office buildings and living rooms. God shows up where the relationships are. God shows up where our minds are open, and our hearts are ready.

May we be listening, and watching, this Lent. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

1. (from an interview in the October 2012 issue of US Catholic)