I'm a big project person and once I get something in my head, it's nearly impossible for me to let it go until I've seen it through to completion. This week my project has been the flowerbeds in our front yard - hot mess flowerbeds that haven't really received attention in years, i.e. a little bit of hell on earth. To be honest, I had no idea how bad it actually was underneath the extremely overgrown monkey grass I thought I would rip out in one afternoon (HA!).
The more I removed overgrown perennials, the more weeds seemed to appear out of nowhere. And ivy is the worst. It may look really pretty and romantic climbing up the sides of old houses and tree trunks. But it's a little beast and I despise it. I would find myself grabbing one stubborn little shoot that became strands of ivy that traced all the way back to a literal trunk deeply entrenched in our hedges. It felt like untangling thread trying to get the ivy out without ripping our hedges to shreds.
Today I was reading about Jesus' cleansing of the temple and my experience with our flower beds this week felt like a very miniature version of His rampage against the poison that had infiltrated His father's house. Under the new covenant, Jesus' rampage against corruption and perversion in His Father's house extends beyond the temple into the depths of my own heart and life. His commitment to cleanse and purify His temple means that He is committed to cleansing and purifying me - body, mind and soul. What does my heart look like under His all-seeing eye? What does he find there? What have I grown so accustomed to that it doesn't strike me as offensive or perverted or inappropriate, much like worshippers who pass by money-changers and salesmen in a temple turned marketplace and don't think twice about it?
Our hearts are also referred to in Scripture as a garden. Lately it has felt like the soil of my heart is being pummeled - weeds ripped out, branches pruned, tables overturned. Just when I think I can get up and stand on my own two feet, when I've finally got this or that lesson or practice nailed down, the Divine Gardener comes in and begins to prune again. I find myself quickly on my face again. Where did that prideful thought come from? Why am I angry with this person? Why am I am the entitled disciple while Jesus is on his knees washing my feet?
I began this year with a prayer that God would strip me of all my opinions, all my beliefs about Him, all my ideas about community and people and the church and calling and ministry and myself. I asked that He would declutter my mind and my life until all that remained was Jesus, that Jesus would be the foundation, the treasure, the point of it all.
And He is being faithful to do just that, one thing at a time. I don't know why I keep forgetting that I asked for that. But I am grateful and humbled that He is pruning and shaping and weeding and cleansing, that He cares about this temple, this garden, that He hears prayers (even the ones where we barely know what we're asking for) and that He gives us the desires of our hearts and the things we didn't even know to ask for.
I read this poem by Malcolm Guite and it shaped a new prayer.
"Come to your temple here with liberation,
and overturn these tables of exchange.
Restore in my my list imagination.
Begin in me for good the pure change.
Come as you came, an infant with your mother,
that innocence may cleanse and claim this ground.
Come as you came, a boy who sought his father
with questions asked and certain answers found.
Come as you came this day, a man in anger.
Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through.
Face down for me the fear, the shame, the danger.
Teach me to whom my love is due.
Break down in me the barricades of death
and tear the veil in two with your last breath."
Come to your temple, Jesus.
The more I removed overgrown perennials, the more weeds seemed to appear out of nowhere. And ivy is the worst. It may look really pretty and romantic climbing up the sides of old houses and tree trunks. But it's a little beast and I despise it. I would find myself grabbing one stubborn little shoot that became strands of ivy that traced all the way back to a literal trunk deeply entrenched in our hedges. It felt like untangling thread trying to get the ivy out without ripping our hedges to shreds.
Today I was reading about Jesus' cleansing of the temple and my experience with our flower beds this week felt like a very miniature version of His rampage against the poison that had infiltrated His father's house. Under the new covenant, Jesus' rampage against corruption and perversion in His Father's house extends beyond the temple into the depths of my own heart and life. His commitment to cleanse and purify His temple means that He is committed to cleansing and purifying me - body, mind and soul. What does my heart look like under His all-seeing eye? What does he find there? What have I grown so accustomed to that it doesn't strike me as offensive or perverted or inappropriate, much like worshippers who pass by money-changers and salesmen in a temple turned marketplace and don't think twice about it?
Our hearts are also referred to in Scripture as a garden. Lately it has felt like the soil of my heart is being pummeled - weeds ripped out, branches pruned, tables overturned. Just when I think I can get up and stand on my own two feet, when I've finally got this or that lesson or practice nailed down, the Divine Gardener comes in and begins to prune again. I find myself quickly on my face again. Where did that prideful thought come from? Why am I angry with this person? Why am I am the entitled disciple while Jesus is on his knees washing my feet?
I began this year with a prayer that God would strip me of all my opinions, all my beliefs about Him, all my ideas about community and people and the church and calling and ministry and myself. I asked that He would declutter my mind and my life until all that remained was Jesus, that Jesus would be the foundation, the treasure, the point of it all.
And He is being faithful to do just that, one thing at a time. I don't know why I keep forgetting that I asked for that. But I am grateful and humbled that He is pruning and shaping and weeding and cleansing, that He cares about this temple, this garden, that He hears prayers (even the ones where we barely know what we're asking for) and that He gives us the desires of our hearts and the things we didn't even know to ask for.
I read this poem by Malcolm Guite and it shaped a new prayer.
"Come to your temple here with liberation,
and overturn these tables of exchange.
Restore in my my list imagination.
Begin in me for good the pure change.
Come as you came, an infant with your mother,
that innocence may cleanse and claim this ground.
Come as you came, a boy who sought his father
with questions asked and certain answers found.
Come as you came this day, a man in anger.
Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through.
Face down for me the fear, the shame, the danger.
Teach me to whom my love is due.
Break down in me the barricades of death
and tear the veil in two with your last breath."
Come to your temple, Jesus.
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