Turning Tables

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. John 2:13-22

Turning Tables

You have made my father's house
 a den of thieves, a poor man's doom
there is no way to worship God
unless they ay the price you ask.

God is now out among the paupers
the gyspies, the homeless, the underfed
singing the infininte song of love
to the broken and shattered on the street.

Little hands muddies and folded ache to pray
but you forbid them since they are loud
they wiggle with the energy of God's misison
and you would send them out away.

We will make my father's house a sanctuary
a place where the poor can draw near to God
where the least can find comfort and rest
and where there is no cost to find God's love.

The table now is set and abundantly groaning
there is enough for all to feed at this banquet
there is room to surround the table all
and to welcome the little ones by our sides.



Collect
Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.