Sermon for the people of God at St. Mark Hope and Peace Lutheran Church, preached Sunday, 2018-03-11. Lent 4B.
Preaching text: John 3:14-21
See also:
Numbers 21:4-9 and 2 Kings 18:1-4 for the full saga of the bronze serpent.
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John 3:14
Or, here’s something you don’t see on billboards or bumper stickers or posters at sporting events.
“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
This is a weird, unsettling story, and we tend to skim past it in our eagerness to get to John 3:16 and 17, to “God so loved the world” and “God came into the world not to condemn the world but to save it.”
The weird story with the bronze snake lifted up,
(the weird story with God’s own child hung on a cross)
that story we tell less enthusiastically.
That story is less comforting.
Of course there are actually several stories here, acting as commentary on each other, and part of what feels so confusing about being here is that we’re thrown into the middle of several stories.
story one
One dark night, a Jewish leader named Nicodemus slipped away and found the place in Jerusalem where Jesus was staying, and Nicodemus asked Jesus some questions to which Jesus gave typically cryptic, confusing Jesus-like answers. Nicodemus asked, “How can a person be born of the Spirit?” and our Gospel text for this morning is part of Jesus’ answer.
story two
Once upon a time, when Israel had already been wandering in the desert for a long time, everyone was tired and cranky and hungry. The food was boring and terrible, water was scarce, and everyone was bored and whiny and thoroughly sick of everyone, especially God and God’s buddy Moses who had brought them on this trip.
They kicked the back of God’s seat one too many times and God turned around and said “THAT’S IT” and set poisonous snakes on them.
Then the people talked to Moses and Moses talked to God, the same conversation they’d had over and over again, “Look, everyone is really sorry about kicking your seat and calling your manna gross and forgetting that you rescued us from Israel, please please please forgive us and get rid of these snakes.”
And Moses, in his role as magician, the one with the magic staff that could turn into a snake (Exodus 7:8ff) and part the sea (Exodus 14:21-22) and get water from a rock (Exodus 17:1-7), makes a magical snake out of bronze, mounts it on a magical pole, and heals people of their snakebites.
Many, many years later, when King Hezekiah is ruling in Judah, he clears out all the idols and temples to idols he can find – uproots sacred trees and breaks sacred poles, and smashes Moses’ bronze serpent to smithereens. (2 Kings 18:4)
story three
The idea that the image of a snake could cure the bite of an actual snake is the “hair of the dog that bit you” theory – which is actually kind of how vaccines work, right, injecting a less-deadly version of an illness into the body to protect it from the heavy duty version.
It’s not a bronze bull or a silver dove curing snake bites – it’s a snake. But it’s a snake that’s not really a snake (because it’s made of bronze) and it’s also not really the snake that’s doing the healing at all – that’s God.
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There are more stories being told, of course, but let’s take these three for now – the story of Nicodemus conversing with Jesus, the story of Moses’ bronze snake, and the story that a fake snake can cure a real snakebite –
and think about how Jesus is like a bronze snake.
How can an image of a snake cure a snakebite? and Why would anyone believe that it could?
and
How is the monstrous evil of Jesus’ crucifixion a triumph over evil?
As Nicodemus asks, “How can these things be?”
There are many answers to these questions – but, like Jesus’ answers to all questions, they might be more roundabout and cryptic than we would prefer.
How can these things be?
Jesus hangs on a cross for the same reason that the bronze serpent is lifted up – to cure humanity of an evil we’ve inflicted on ourselves.
Jesus hangs on a cross for the same reason Moses didn’t elevate a bull or a duck or a goat – because the problem was snakes.
When the problem is humans, the cure is also human –
the snake that Moses made isn’t a real snake, made of flesh and blood and bones and scales and venom – but Jesus is a real human, made of human flesh and blood and bones – and venom.
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We’re going to take a detour for a moment but I promise we’re coming back to Jesus’ venom.
story four
A couple of weeks ago we learned that many women were accusing Sherman Alexie, a notable Native American (Spokane/Coeur d'Alene) author, of sexual harassment. I mention Alexie because this was a Big Deal in our household, but this is, obviously, a story that’s been playing out again and again as people – mostly women – come forward with stories of powerful people – mostly men – abusing their power.
When I read about Alexie I texted Joanie (my housemate, sitting in the front pew) to say, “So, bad news about one of your faves.”
And ze replied:
oh no
oh no
oh no
Later ze said, “I guess the lesson is just not to have any heroes because everyone will ultimately disappoint you – obvious exception for Jesus.”
And I said, “Well, darn, now you’ve spoiled the ending of my sermon.”
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I’ve been thinking about Joanie’s disappointment in the context of this passage, thinking about what it means to lift someone (or something) up.
We elevate things to make them visible. Those billboards with John 3:16, Moses’ snake – this pulpit. So people will see them and take note and get the benefits – the healing power of Moses’ snake, the good news of God’s love for the world.
When we lift things up it’s easy to see their rough outline – their larger than life quality – and harder to see the nuances, the fine points.
Reading John 3:16 on a billboard going 70 on I-70 is different than sitting down and reading it in your own Bible, together with all the other verses that make up Jesus’ answer to Nicodemus, which is part of the longer story that John is telling about Jesus, which is itself part of the Bible in all its difficulty and complexity.
Looking up at a bronze snake, you can see only that it’s a snake, not the imperfections in the bronze and the nicks in the sculpture, not the reminders that it’s just an object and not a god.
And God lifted up, out of this world, elevated and looking down –
that God is different from the God who came down.
When God became flesh, God took on human blood and bones and skin, human flesh and human venom –
I wanted to be able to stand here and tell you that Jesus will never disappoint you but I can’t.
In lots of ways and for lots of reasons. Jesus was forever a disappointment – to parents who expected an obedient son and got a kid who ran off in the middle of the most crowded city in the country at the most crowded time of year. (Luke 2:41-50)
To everyone who was expecting a Messiah who could cure their illness with a glance and maybe drive off Roman occupiers with lasers from his eyes.
To Nicodemus, who came to Jesus after dark to ask some questions and got a longwinded not entirely relevant answer and also a passive-aggressive dig about people who do things at night, people who do evil and hate the light (like honestly Jesus some of us are just night owls, okay?)
And besides all these pious reasons – Jesus was disappointing to people who wanted the wrong things – Jesus is disappointing because Jesus is human. To be human is to be limited – unable to be everywhere you’re needed, not having enough energy to do all the good you want to – and then there’s that human venom, too, the impatience and pettiness and even selfishness that led Jesus to snap at the disciples (too many instances to cite) and curse an innocent fruit-bearing shrub (Matthew 21:18//Mark 11:12-14) and tell a Syro-Phoenician woman that his ministry wasn’t for her (Matthew 15:21-28//Mark 7:24-30).
We’d like to think, of course, that Jesus would never disappoint us, that we aren’t like those foolish disciples, that we aren’t like those bloodthirsty zealots who wanted an armed messiah – but that’s an arrogant assumption, or at the very least naive. If we’re never disappointed by Jesus, we don’t really know Jesus all that well. We’re still looking at him from a distance, up there and out of reach.
But (you might be thinking) the Son of Man must be lifted up.
And that’s true.
And Jesus’ elevation on the cross, Jesus hanging on the tree, was the biggest disappointment of all to his followers.
Jesus being hung on a cross is a kind of being lifted up, but not the kind that’s meant to bring honor to the lifted one. The cross is a place of shame. It’s a place where people are hung as an example – not an example to be emulated, but an example to be spurned. Not, “Go and do likewise,” but “Don’t do like they did or you’ll get what they got.”
And into this place of shame, God came.
God saw that the venom of humanity – our violence, our greed, our selfishness – was poisoning us – and God’s love for us was so great that God took on our humanity – our vulnerable flesh and our venomous feelings –
and told us, poisoned by evil, to lift our eyes to the cross, where a still greater evil had hung our Lord
because ultimately, ultimately, Jesus didn’t disappoint. Rebellious preteen Jesus became obedient even unto death, and took the lead role in God’s perplexing drama.
Perplexing, because we still don’t understand how this can be, how the cross works. But while how might be unclear, but the why never is.
Because God so loved the world that God gave God’s only son to hang high on a cross for the world to see, and, in seeing, be saved.
Sunday, March 11, 2018
Sunday, March 4, 2018
[sermon] Jesus' Seminar on Non-Violence
Sermon for the people of God at St. Mark Hope and Peace preached, 2018-03-04, Lent IIIB
Preaching text: John 2: 13-21
There is a lot going on in this passage. Much of it makes little sense to us, not being first century Jews, and not having direct access to the practices, sacrifices, and pieties of first century Jews.
Unlike us, Jesus was an observant Jew from a family of observant Jews,. We learn from Luke that Jesus’ family went to Jerusalem every year for the Passover [Luke 2:41], and Jesus appears to continue this tradition into his adulthood.
Jesus has come to the Temple before. But this time is different – this time Jesus notices what’s happening in the outer courts in a way that he hasn’t before.
He notices people selling animals to be sacrificed, sheep and cattle for wealthier people, doves for the poor.
He notices money changers, who are exchanging pilgrims’ money into the coinage necessary to pay the annual temple tax – which, bizarrely, is the Tyrian shekel.
It was important that the temple tax be paid with silver, and Tyre – a Northern city just outside of Jewish territory – had an independent mint that made coins that were 90-95% pure silver, the purest silver around.
Unfortunately, the Tyrian coins were engraved with an image of Melkart, the city-god of Tyre, which, since we’ve just had a refresher on the ten commandments, is obviously in violation of them – it’s a graven image, and it’s an image of a God other than the One God of Israel.
When we approach the world as peacemakers, we are called to observe the world attentively, looking for gaps in justice, places where the grace of God is needed. When Jesus comes to the Temple, he finds these places easily.
I should tell you there is some debate about what exactly upsets Jesus about this scene. I suspect that there are some details we have lost – there may have been dishonesty or corruption, since those are common where there is commerce. Perhaps people we being overcharged for sacrificial animals. Certainly the use of pagan currency to pay a tax for God’s house is offensive.
The text tells us that Jesus accuses the dove-sellers of “making my Father’s house a marketplace,” and the disciples see in Jesus a person consumed with zeal for God’s house.
They are quoting Psalm 69. It is zeal for your house that has consumed me, the Psalmist writes. The insults of those who insult YOU have fallen on ME. [Psalm 69:9]
The use of currency with a pagan God’s image is certainly an insult to God, and Jesus takes that insult personally. He is deeply angered at the misuse of God’s house, overcome by the distance of the marketplace-Temple of his day from the house of prayer for all peoples envisioned by Isaiah.
This is not what the house of God is supposed to look like.
Jesus’ zeal for God’s house is a vision of what the Temple should look like – a place where all can offer prayers and sacrifice, rich and poor alike, where no one makes a profit off other people’s piety, and a place where only God is God – not money, not the marketplace and not Melkart.
Jesus sees the house of God in a world where Israel is free from her Roman yoke, where no Roman coins of any kind are used in Jerusalem, where it’s possible to give one’s offering with pure silver, unadulterated by copper, unmarred by images of idols.
And struck by the contrast between that imagined world and the real world, consumed with zeal, Jesus searches around him and uses what he finds – fraying ropes binding sacrificial animals in place, dirty reeds that were animal bedding or straw that was their food – to create a “whip of cords.”
Jesus makes a whip and then uses the whip to make one of the most important tools of non-violent protest: a spectacle.
Jesus is an active agent – he makes a whip and drives out animals, he pours out coins and overturns tables.
It’s messy and chaotic, goes against custom and law and authority. It gets people upset and paints a picture of the upside down world promised in the Magnificat, where the poor are fed and the rich go hungry. [Luke 2:46-55] Jesus literally upsets the tables to symbolically upset the status quo and paint a vivid picture of God’s transformation of the world. The marketplace world and its marketplace values will have to go if there is to be room for God in God’s house.
So to recap, Jesus’ seminar in nonviolence has so far covered these steps:
First, look at the world with attention, and notice the specifics of what’s happening around you.
Second, compare that world with God’s vision of the world as it should be
Third, look around again and find the tools that are handy to
Fourth, Create a ruckus
That ruckus should be created with purpose, of course, designed to symbolize or signify the new order we imagine.
For us, the question might be, “What will this look like on the evening news?”
What are the optics?
What will people see?
A whip, the chaos of animals milling about, coins poured out.
Candlelight vigil, arms linked in solidarity. Rainbow flag, rainbow facepaint. People sitting in the road, blocking traffic.
Water cannons, pepper spray, dogs attacking protesters. A bloody execution.
Wait, what?
Part of the strategy of nonviolence is to turn violence on itself. Nonviolence anticipates retaliation and welcomes it. We know that authorities will escalate unreasonably, will demonstrate the irrationality and wickedness that are at the core of oppressive power structures.
In his letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. writes, “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.” And again, “The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.”
Direct action is a dramatization that creates a crisis – as, for instance, a rabbi driving out animals and overturning tables, disrupting business as usual so that folks are forced to confront the flaws in the sacrificial infrastructure and cannot help but notice the person at the center of this chaos.
Matthew (21:12-13), Mark (11:15-19), and Luke (19:45-48) tell us this protest in the Temple came at the end of Jesus’ life, that it was the immediate cause of the crucifixion.
Jesus will scold the soldiers who arrest him in the Garden, reminding them of how he preached openly in the Temple (Matthew 26:55//Mark 14 48-49//Luke 52-53). We could mention also this open demonstration, designed to attract attention. Nonviolence takes place in the light of day, in the middle of the city, in the place that has (unfortunately) become a marketplace, filled with people.
Attracting the attention of the authorities isn’t safe. But it’s not supposed to be safe.
Back in John’s story, “the Jews” – religious authorities, presumably – question Jesus about the whole temple/marketplace/tables/doves thing – asking, confusingly, for a “sign,” as if Jesus protest itself wasn’t a clear sign, like they want “The Temple Is Not Marketplace!” painted on posterboard for this to be a legitimate protest. Like they want him to produce written permission from the high priest to cause a disturbance, or, like the religious leaders whom Dr. King is writing to, they’re wondering why Jesus doesn’t try to negotiate first, why he’s resorted to “unwise and untimely” direction action.
And typically, Jesus doesn’t exactly answer their question, saying, “Destroy this temple, an in three days I will raise it up.”
Like everything in John’s Gospel, this saying has layers of meaning. There’s the literal temple, still standing in Jesus’ time but forever destroyed by the time John is writing. And there is, as the narrative tells us, the temple of Jesus’ body, and the promise that Jesus will be killed, and that in three days Jesus will be raised again.
Even in John’s Gospel, then, when several years separate this event from the crucifixion, the logic is the same. Jesus does this sign – this act of civil disobedience – and signals the incoming of God’s kingdom. Throughout his ministry, Jesus gives signs – in his healing, in his teaching, in his table fellowship and in his body – of the change that’s coming.
Jesus is here d̳a̳r̳i̳n̳g̳ the authorities to kill him. “I’d like to see you try.”
And eventually they do try, and they succeed, except:
Jesus’ violent death provides an opening for an even more spectacular sign, an even clearer image of the new world that God is ushering in.
In the new world, peace is triumphant over violence, the temple is torn down and built up, the rich starve and the hungry eat, marketplaces become houses of prayer, and greed and hatred don’t have the final word,
Jesus’ ruckus in the temple, tables turned and money poured out, animals running amok, is a spectacular image of the upside-down logic of God’s kingdom, the kingdom promised through the prophets, the Kingdom testified to by Jesus’ mother when she sang the Magnificat.
And we are called to do likewise. To take that magnificent, Magnificat image, of God scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts just as Jesus scatters coins on the Temple floor, and to look around at the world we live in, and compare them.
When we see places where they don’t line up, where the world we have doesn’t match the world God wants for us, we’re to use the tools and images available to us to create a picture of the world flipped on its head, the marketplace brought down and the Temple lifted up – a picture so compelling that it turns heads and turns hearts, just as God is turning the world upside down.
The hymn of the day – which for the record I did not pick out – is #723, Canticle of the Turning.
++
Works consulted:
Keys to Jerusalem: Collected Essays by Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, on Google Books
Alexis-Baker, Andy. "Violence, Nonviolence and the Temple Incident in John 2:13-15." Biblical Interpretation, vol. 20, no. 1-2, 2012, pp. 73-96. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1163/156851511X595549.
and of course:
Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Preaching text: John 2: 13-21
There is a lot going on in this passage. Much of it makes little sense to us, not being first century Jews, and not having direct access to the practices, sacrifices, and pieties of first century Jews.
Unlike us, Jesus was an observant Jew from a family of observant Jews,. We learn from Luke that Jesus’ family went to Jerusalem every year for the Passover [Luke 2:41], and Jesus appears to continue this tradition into his adulthood.
Jesus has come to the Temple before. But this time is different – this time Jesus notices what’s happening in the outer courts in a way that he hasn’t before.
He notices people selling animals to be sacrificed, sheep and cattle for wealthier people, doves for the poor.
He notices money changers, who are exchanging pilgrims’ money into the coinage necessary to pay the annual temple tax – which, bizarrely, is the Tyrian shekel.
It was important that the temple tax be paid with silver, and Tyre – a Northern city just outside of Jewish territory – had an independent mint that made coins that were 90-95% pure silver, the purest silver around.
Unfortunately, the Tyrian coins were engraved with an image of Melkart, the city-god of Tyre, which, since we’ve just had a refresher on the ten commandments, is obviously in violation of them – it’s a graven image, and it’s an image of a God other than the One God of Israel.
When we approach the world as peacemakers, we are called to observe the world attentively, looking for gaps in justice, places where the grace of God is needed. When Jesus comes to the Temple, he finds these places easily.
I should tell you there is some debate about what exactly upsets Jesus about this scene. I suspect that there are some details we have lost – there may have been dishonesty or corruption, since those are common where there is commerce. Perhaps people we being overcharged for sacrificial animals. Certainly the use of pagan currency to pay a tax for God’s house is offensive.
The text tells us that Jesus accuses the dove-sellers of “making my Father’s house a marketplace,” and the disciples see in Jesus a person consumed with zeal for God’s house.
They are quoting Psalm 69. It is zeal for your house that has consumed me, the Psalmist writes. The insults of those who insult YOU have fallen on ME. [Psalm 69:9]
The use of currency with a pagan God’s image is certainly an insult to God, and Jesus takes that insult personally. He is deeply angered at the misuse of God’s house, overcome by the distance of the marketplace-Temple of his day from the house of prayer for all peoples envisioned by Isaiah.
This is not what the house of God is supposed to look like.
Jesus’ zeal for God’s house is a vision of what the Temple should look like – a place where all can offer prayers and sacrifice, rich and poor alike, where no one makes a profit off other people’s piety, and a place where only God is God – not money, not the marketplace and not Melkart.
Jesus sees the house of God in a world where Israel is free from her Roman yoke, where no Roman coins of any kind are used in Jerusalem, where it’s possible to give one’s offering with pure silver, unadulterated by copper, unmarred by images of idols.
And struck by the contrast between that imagined world and the real world, consumed with zeal, Jesus searches around him and uses what he finds – fraying ropes binding sacrificial animals in place, dirty reeds that were animal bedding or straw that was their food – to create a “whip of cords.”
Jesus makes a whip and then uses the whip to make one of the most important tools of non-violent protest: a spectacle.
Jesus is an active agent – he makes a whip and drives out animals, he pours out coins and overturns tables.
It’s messy and chaotic, goes against custom and law and authority. It gets people upset and paints a picture of the upside down world promised in the Magnificat, where the poor are fed and the rich go hungry. [Luke 2:46-55] Jesus literally upsets the tables to symbolically upset the status quo and paint a vivid picture of God’s transformation of the world. The marketplace world and its marketplace values will have to go if there is to be room for God in God’s house.
So to recap, Jesus’ seminar in nonviolence has so far covered these steps:
First, look at the world with attention, and notice the specifics of what’s happening around you.
Second, compare that world with God’s vision of the world as it should be
Third, look around again and find the tools that are handy to
Fourth, Create a ruckus
That ruckus should be created with purpose, of course, designed to symbolize or signify the new order we imagine.
For us, the question might be, “What will this look like on the evening news?”
What are the optics?
What will people see?
A whip, the chaos of animals milling about, coins poured out.
Candlelight vigil, arms linked in solidarity. Rainbow flag, rainbow facepaint. People sitting in the road, blocking traffic.
Water cannons, pepper spray, dogs attacking protesters. A bloody execution.
Wait, what?
Part of the strategy of nonviolence is to turn violence on itself. Nonviolence anticipates retaliation and welcomes it. We know that authorities will escalate unreasonably, will demonstrate the irrationality and wickedness that are at the core of oppressive power structures.
In his letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. writes, “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.” And again, “The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.”
Direct action is a dramatization that creates a crisis – as, for instance, a rabbi driving out animals and overturning tables, disrupting business as usual so that folks are forced to confront the flaws in the sacrificial infrastructure and cannot help but notice the person at the center of this chaos.
Matthew (21:12-13), Mark (11:15-19), and Luke (19:45-48) tell us this protest in the Temple came at the end of Jesus’ life, that it was the immediate cause of the crucifixion.
Jesus will scold the soldiers who arrest him in the Garden, reminding them of how he preached openly in the Temple (Matthew 26:55//Mark 14 48-49//Luke 52-53). We could mention also this open demonstration, designed to attract attention. Nonviolence takes place in the light of day, in the middle of the city, in the place that has (unfortunately) become a marketplace, filled with people.
Attracting the attention of the authorities isn’t safe. But it’s not supposed to be safe.
Back in John’s story, “the Jews” – religious authorities, presumably – question Jesus about the whole temple/marketplace/tables/doves thing – asking, confusingly, for a “sign,” as if Jesus protest itself wasn’t a clear sign, like they want “The Temple Is Not Marketplace!” painted on posterboard for this to be a legitimate protest. Like they want him to produce written permission from the high priest to cause a disturbance, or, like the religious leaders whom Dr. King is writing to, they’re wondering why Jesus doesn’t try to negotiate first, why he’s resorted to “unwise and untimely” direction action.
And typically, Jesus doesn’t exactly answer their question, saying, “Destroy this temple, an in three days I will raise it up.”
Like everything in John’s Gospel, this saying has layers of meaning. There’s the literal temple, still standing in Jesus’ time but forever destroyed by the time John is writing. And there is, as the narrative tells us, the temple of Jesus’ body, and the promise that Jesus will be killed, and that in three days Jesus will be raised again.
Even in John’s Gospel, then, when several years separate this event from the crucifixion, the logic is the same. Jesus does this sign – this act of civil disobedience – and signals the incoming of God’s kingdom. Throughout his ministry, Jesus gives signs – in his healing, in his teaching, in his table fellowship and in his body – of the change that’s coming.
Jesus is here d̳a̳r̳i̳n̳g̳ the authorities to kill him. “I’d like to see you try.”
And eventually they do try, and they succeed, except:
Jesus’ violent death provides an opening for an even more spectacular sign, an even clearer image of the new world that God is ushering in.
In the new world, peace is triumphant over violence, the temple is torn down and built up, the rich starve and the hungry eat, marketplaces become houses of prayer, and greed and hatred don’t have the final word,
Jesus’ ruckus in the temple, tables turned and money poured out, animals running amok, is a spectacular image of the upside-down logic of God’s kingdom, the kingdom promised through the prophets, the Kingdom testified to by Jesus’ mother when she sang the Magnificat.
And we are called to do likewise. To take that magnificent, Magnificat image, of God scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts just as Jesus scatters coins on the Temple floor, and to look around at the world we live in, and compare them.
When we see places where they don’t line up, where the world we have doesn’t match the world God wants for us, we’re to use the tools and images available to us to create a picture of the world flipped on its head, the marketplace brought down and the Temple lifted up – a picture so compelling that it turns heads and turns hearts, just as God is turning the world upside down.
The hymn of the day – which for the record I did not pick out – is #723, Canticle of the Turning.
++
Works consulted:
Keys to Jerusalem: Collected Essays by Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, on Google Books
Alexis-Baker, Andy. "Violence, Nonviolence and the Temple Incident in John 2:13-15." Biblical Interpretation, vol. 20, no. 1-2, 2012, pp. 73-96. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1163/156851511X595549.
and of course:
Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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