Perspective: Is Your Church a Den of Robbers?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.

Is Your Church a Den of Robbers?

But to those acting against Him, God says,

"Who do you think you are?

Listing off My laws,

acting as if your life is in alignment with My ways?

For it's clear that you despise My guidance;

you throw My wise words over your shoulder.

You play with thieves,

spend your time with adulterers."

Psalm 50:16-18 (The Voice)

I focused on the score

But I could never win

Trying to ignore

A life of hiding my sin

From "Undo" by Rush of Fools

When is a place of worship, like a church or a temple, no longer a place of worship?

The prophets were tragic characters in the Biblical story.  They were all sent by God to call the people of Israel and Judah to repentance and to warn them that they would suffer the consequences of their actions if they didn't change their ways.  Their message was generally not well received, and they faced many hardships at the hands of those who thought they had something to lose.  Perhaps what is most tragic is the fact that, despite their best efforts, ultimately all they could do was to watch helplessly as Israel and Judah spiraled into chaos.  All of this is especially true of the prophet Jeremiah, who came to be known as the "weeping prophet."

One day, Jeremiah was instructed by God to make a protest at the Temple of the Lord, the center of religious life in Judah.  Like a modern-day street preacher, Jeremiah stood near the gate of the temple and told the people on the way into the temple not to fool themselves into thinking that they were actually entering the house of God.  He went on to break the news that God had already left the building, so to speak.  He told them that, only when they repented of their injustice, violence, and idolatry, would God return to dwell with them in the temple once again.  Jeremiah said that, by living lives of iniquity and then waltzing right into the temple as if they've done nothing wrong, the people have effectively turned the temple into a "den of robbers."¹

Does any of this give you a feeling of déjà vu?  If you're familiar with the story of Jesus, then you know of a similar episode in Jesus' ministry.

Six hundred years or so after Jeremiah preached outside the temple, Jesus made his own protest that seems to be at least partially inspired by what God instructed Jeremiah to do.  Of course, Jesus did not merely preach outside the temple: He actually went into the temple and started a ruckus.  He flipped over the tables of the people exchanging currency, turned over the benches of the people selling animals for sacrifice, and then drove everyone out of the temple.  Like Jeremiah, He claimed that the people had turned the temple into a "den of robbers."²

A place of worship is no longer a place of worship when it has become a den of robbers.

But what exactly is a den of robbers?

Normally I would think that, when Jesus compared the temple to a den of robbers, He was implying that the merchants in the temple were cheating people.  It is worth noting that both the animal sellers and the moneychangers actually had a legitimate purpose in the temple.  People traveled long distances to make sacrifices at the temple, so, if they tried to bring their own animal from home, it would not be fit for sacrifice by the time they arrived.  Also, it would not be right to buy an animal for sacrifice using coins with an image of the Caesar, so people needed to exchange their Roman currency for Jewish currency.³  It would not be a stretch of the imagination to think that maybe the merchants were overcharging people to make a profit for themselves.  Religion has always been good business.

In The Last Week, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan point out that a den of robbers is not a place where robbery takes place, but rather a place to which robbers flee after they have committed their crimes.⁴  By saying that the temple had become a den of robbers, both Jesus and Jeremiah were saying that the worshipers were living lives of injustice and then hiding behind their religion.  Such hypocrisy is simply unacceptable to God.  According to Borg and Crossan,
There was an ancient prophetic tradition in which God insisted not just on justice and worship, but on justice over worship.  God had repeatedly said, "I reject your worship because of your lack of justice," but never, ever, ever, "I reject your justice because of your lack of worship."⁵

Religious practices should inspire justice, but religious practices can never replace justice.⁶  To put the message of the prophets into a modern Christian context, if we are not treating people right, God does not care how much we read our Bibles, how often we go to church, or how much money we put in the offering plate.

Jeremiah warned the people that, if they did not change their ways, the city of Jerusalem would suffer the same fate as Shiloh.  Shiloh was located in the Northern Kingdom of Israel which, by that time, had already been conquered by foreign powers.⁷  This prophecy might have brought to mind an episode in Israel's history when Shiloh was the center of worship and when Israel was in conflict with the Philistines.  At that time, there were two corrupt priests named Hophni and Phineas, and, though the high priest Eli was aware of his sons' corruption, he did nothing about it.  One day, when the Israelites went into battle with the Philistines, they brought the Ark of the Covenant into the battle with them, hoping that the presence of God which the Ark represented would bless them in their battle.  The Israelites were defeated; the Ark was captured by the Philistines; and Hophni and Phineas were killed.  When Eli heard the news, he fell over and died.⁸

Soon after Jesus disturbed the peace at the temple, one of His disciples made a comment about how large and impressive the temple and the surrounding buildings were.  Jesus said, "Not one stone will be left here upon another."⁹

When Jeremiah and Jesus made acts of protest at the temple, they both predicted that the temple would soon be destroyed.  In 586 BC, not long after Jeremiah's protest, the temple was destroyed by the Babylonian Empire.  In AD 70, a few decades after Jesus' protest, the temple was destroyed again by the Roman Empire.

People often try to hide behind their religion, but hiding places have a way of being destroyed.

Please realize that I am not trying to say that a place of worship is not a place for sinners.  If sinners weren't allowed into such places, then there would never be anyone present to worship God.  Jesus himself said, "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."¹⁰  What I am trying to say is that a place of worship is no place for hypocrisy.

I think that a lot of the Church's problem nowadays is the widespread perception that Christians are a bunch of judgmental hypocrites.  I believe that this reputation is at least partially deserved, for so often we fail to practice what we preach.  We sing about love and grace, yet people don't feel as though they're getting any love and grace from us.  We stress the importance of humility, yet our rhetoric reeks of arrogance.  A lot of people are worried about the current state of Christianity.  Some are concerned about the decline in church attendance and religious affiliation, while others are worried that Christianity is losing its place of influence in society.  Some even fear the erosion of religious liberties.  Taking into consideration the words of the prophets, I cannot help but wonder if what's really happening is that our hiding place is being dismantled.

To paraphrase Jesus, the Church is not meant to be a den of robbers, but rather a house of prayer for everyone.¹¹  The Church is not a place for us to hide, but a place for us to be met just as we are.  We must stop acting like we're better than everyone else because we call ourselves Christians.  We must practice humility, and we must be honest about our faults.  We must extend to others the love and grace that has been shown to us.


Notes:

1. Jeremiah 7:1-11
2. Mark 11:15-17
3. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan.  The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus's Final Days in Jerusalem.  2006, HarperOne.  p.48
4. Borg and Crossan, p.49
5. Borg and Crossan, p.44
6. Borg and Crossan, p.45
7. Jeremiah 7:12-15
8. 1 Samuel 3-4
9. Mark 13:1-2 (NRSV)
10. Matthew 9:13 (NRSV)
11. Mark 11:17

Christ Driving the Traders from the Temple was painted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the 16th century.