Close to the Heart (2)

Scripture
“Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”” (Matthew 21:12-13 NLT)

Close to the Heart (2)
An overturned table and the chaos around it is a symbol of hope for me this post-Easter week. Jesus’ longing for people to be intimately connected with God lead him to a radical rejection of the things that compete for space with God.

Last week I referred to Tim Wu’s book The Attention Merchants in which he tracks how advertising driven communication has moved closer and closer to the centre of our lives – right in our pockets, next to our bodies. Over the coming century, the most vital human resource in need of conservation and protection is likely to be our own consciousness and mental space.” (The Attention Merchants Tim Wu, Knopf)

We believe we are temples in which God chooses to dwell. Perhaps as we move into Springtime’s season of growth and fertility we’ll do some radical and exuberant overturning of the tables that inhibit our consciousness of God’s presence and our own capacity to be deeply and wonderfully human.

A Prayer for Today
Loving God, there is no app for silently welcoming you into my life this morning. I long for the inner stillness that enables me to experience your resurrection presence in the fertile earth, the warming sky and in the darkest of places in my life. If it takes flipping a table or two in my life, help me make prayer andmediation the winner in the competition for space in this temple of my life. ..…. For Jesus’ sake