The former pastor was laicIzed by his Roman Catholic diocese for misappropriation of church funds. He had been removed from the Polish Catholic Church a year earlier for the same crime. However, in the Roman statement, it reported that any sacraments that he administered in the PNCC tradition were invalid. The PNCC bishop was outraged.
How do we handle situations that make us so mad that we want to spit?
Jesus braided a whip. He had emotions just like we do. And he sometimes got angry, just like we do. But the difference between him and us is in how he expressed his emotions. That's something we don't all know how to do
We read from the Gospel of John that Jesus told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" That's one way that Jesus' anger is different from so much of ours. He feels the feelings that we feel, but he can say what he's angry about.
What was Jesus angry about? His Father's house had been turned into a marketplace. You can understand why he'd be upset about that. Anger isn't always so unreasonable. Most of the time we are justified in our anger, but we get all messed up in coming to terms with what it is that we're really angry about, and then deciding what it is that we're going to do about it.
In John’s gospel, we read, "Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle." In all four of the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life and ministry he storms into the Temple kicking over tables, scattering the coins of the money changers, and setting free the animals, but only in John does he first make a whip of cords.
Do you know how long it takes to braid a whip of cords? I don't. And I don't know, not only because I've never done it, but also because when I get angry, I don't first stop to do anything that might help me calm down or process my thoughts. Instead, I either just start talking without thinking or go silent and brooding. Hardly, if ever, do I stop what I'm doing to sit down to think about why it is that I'm angry and what it is that I'm going to do about it.
Jesus is different. Jesus gets angry and then he braids a whip of cords. There are those among us who get angry then send off a Twitter message. Others who get angry, then yell at the first person they see.
Another thing we do with anger is keep it inside so that it rots our guts and hollows our spirit. Some try to drown it with liquor, numb it with drugs, either of which is destructive, and few take the time to sit down and really think about it. What am I mad about? Then, what am I going to do about it? The knee-jerk response - to get somebody fired or excommunicated, or doubt their sacramental status, - can do more harm than good.
Jesus, fueled by anger, purifies the Temple so that it might no longer be a marketplace, but a Temple. No longer a place for greed, but a sanctuary for the hurting.
And how did he do it? Through anger. Through an anger that is frustrated with what is and directed towards that which stands in the way of a better future.
Instead, he braids a whip. So what did I tell the parishioners this weekend after this news about their former pastor and their sacraments were labeled unworthy.
Go out and with anyone you meet say: “Would you like to come to my church?” Here you take the anger and turn it around with a message that says: “Divine Mercy Church or Holy Family Church or Mother of the Rosary Cathedral, we are a Temple and sanctuary for healing.”
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who have been angered by their church statements that have made us feel unworthy, outcasts, misunderstood. Jesus came to bring healing and the compassionate love that bring hope to those who feel abandoned. This week take that anger and as you walk in the parking lot or check out counter simple say to that person with a smile: “Would you like to come to my church?”
