Episode 575 - Voices In My Head (The Rick Lee James Podcast) - Overturn the Tables - A Sermon from

Hello everyone who is watching from your rooms today. I'm Chaplain Rick, and we're glad that you're here to worship with us today.

We're going to start by singing the song of the season, Hosanna.

So if you know it, worship along with us today.

Praise is rising. Our blessing eyes are turning to you. We turn to you. Our hope is stirring. Hearts are yearning for you. We long for you. Cuz when we see you, we find strength to face the day. And in your presence, all our fears are washed away, washed away. Hosanna, Hosanna, you are the God God who saves us, worthy of all our praises. Hosanna, hosanna, come have your way, our Mother. We welcome you here, Lord Jesus. Hear the sound of hearts returning to you. We turn to you. And in your kingdom, broken lives are renewed. Oh, you make us new. When we see you, we find strength to face the day. And in your presence, all our fears are washed away. They're washed away.

Hosanna!

Hosanna! Hosanna! You are the God who saves us, worthy of all our praises. Hosanna! Hosanna! Oh, come have your way among us. We welcome you here, Lord Jesus. Cuz when we see you, we find strength to face the day. And in your presence, all our fears are washed away. Cuz when we see you, we find strength to face the day. And in your presence, all our fears are washed away. They're washed away. Hosanna, Hosanna. Oh, you are the God who saves us, worthy of all our praises. Hosanna, hosanna. Come have your way among us. We welcome you here, Lord Jesus. Oh, come have your way among us. We welcome you here, Lord Jesus. Sing Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna!

We are grateful for all of you who are watching today and for those of you here in the chapel. My name is Rick and I am one of the chaplains here at the hospital, and I have probably met a number of you who may be watching today. For those of you who I have not met, I am one of several chaplains here., and we just want to welcome you today. Just as we were singing the song of welcome to our Lord, at the same way we want to welcome you to this place today where we will be singing together, where we will be hearing from the word. And as luck would have it, or grace or whatever, I'm the one bringing the message today. So, um, this morning as we begin, if we could just stop and bow our heads for a moment and ask the Lord to bless our time together today. So Heavenly Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus today as we welcome you into this place. We know that it was first you who welcomed us, and so Lord, we pray that you will have your way, that in these next few moments that you would use this time to speak to each heart, each person, anyone who may be hearing this today, that they they may be encouraged, they may be challenged, that they may hear exactly what they need to hear from you this morning. I pray that it would be in spite of what I would say, but that you, Holy Spirit, would speak your word to every heart that they need to hear in this moment. Thank you for being here with us. In your holy name we pray, amen.

Amen.

So last week, uh, we started the season of Lent. And during the season of Lent, we focus on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. And this past Wednesday, a week ago, Chaplain Diane, our very own, she did a wonderful message that was on Ash Wednesday, and she delivered really a powerful sermon. It was so good that I actually asked her if I could have a copy of it to look at and read it again. And so her message, it focused on reflection on repentance, particularly during the season of Lent, and she encouraged us to acknowledge our sins and to allow the Holy Spirit to convict us of our need for real transformation. And it was a reminder that repentance is not about superficial acts, but it's about a deeper commitment to change, using the symbols of ashes as an acknowledgement of our imperfection and our desire for spiritual renewal. And her sermon focused on King David, who despite his profound sins—murder, adultery—he was still called a man after God's own heart because of his true repentance as expressed in Psalm 51. And Diane's message, it made me reflect not just on David's sin, but on those whose lives around him had been ruined by his sin. Ones that we don't always talk about, people that we don't always think of. So today I thought, inspired by your message, Diane, I wanted to have us be challenged to go a little deeper into the other people around who have been affected. That our sin so often affects other people, and yet so often they are cast aside because the church doesn't always know what to do with them. Victims. So let's begin by hearing the word of the Lord today, coming from Matthew chapter 21, verses 12 through 15. It says this: Jesus entered the temple courts and he drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. It is written, he said to them, my house will be called a house of prayer But you are making it a den of robbers.' The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did, and the children shouting in the temple courts, 'Hosanna to the Son of David,' they were indignant. Why did Jesus get so upset that he drove out the buyers and the sellers in the temple? It makes me ask this question: What tables would Jesus overturn in our temples, in our worlds, in our lives today? Those metaphorical tables that Jesus would see, that say— he would say, these need to be turned over. This one I wouldn't even try to turn over, it's too big. The one that's next to me here. But I get this picture in my mind of someone hefting the table over. So let me offer a retelling of the story really that Chaplain Diane used last day, but let me modernize it and change it just a little bit to make it kind of a modern scenario. Instead of a king named David, I want to talk about a president named David, okay? Because I think in this country we're a little bit more used to people in high positions, and we don't have a king, so I'm going to switch it just a little bit today, change the language a little bit, but retell the story nonetheless. There was a president named David, powerful and revered, whose influence seemed untouchable. Among his many aides was Bathsheba, a talented and ambitious young married woman who worked closely with him day after day. Well, Bathsheba's husband was a military officer, and he was currently deployed away from home. Well, the president found Bathsheba to be a very attractive person and began using the resources of the presidency to spy on her when she was in her home at night. He watched her as she would go out for night swims in her pool most evenings after work and used surveillance equipment that presidents should not use for their own purposes, but he felt secure in doing so. He was the president. He felt empowered. Well, one night the president, feeling entitled, sent the Secret Service to Bathsheba's home when she was by herself. Her husband was not home, he was deployed, telling her, "The president wants to see you." immediately. And though she did not want to go, she was given an order by the president. What else are you to do? And Bathsheba felt the weight of the moment. Alone in the Oval Office, President David made his intentions clear. She felt she had no choice but to comply. To say no would mean losing everything— her job, her career, her future— in a system that had no tolerance for defiance. How could she possibly say no to the world's most powerful man? The power imbalance that was enforced over her was nothing short of evil. And so, in the presence of the most powerful man in the world, she was enforced to endure the president's will. Bathsheba feeling powerless to resist. Well, soon Bathsheba discovered she was pregnant. And the president, desperate to cover his tracks, orchestrated the death of her husband Uriah, who was in battle with another country. When Uriah died, the president felt some relief, but his conscience was heavy. It wasn't until Nathan, the president's spiritual advisor, confronted him with the truth of his actions that the president realized the depth of his own sin. He repented. Thank God he was forgiven, and we rejoice in that. But what about Bathsheba? We do hear a little bit about her again, but very little. What does God's forgiveness of David mean to her? The one who lost her husband, the one who maybe lost her dignity and her baby. What were the results of David's repentance to her? Does repentance mean anything if it does not lead to justice for those who are sinned against? What I hope this modern telling that I've attempted shows us is how power can corrupt, and how those in authority can silence the vulnerable, causing them immense harm without accountability. The story highlights the destructive consequences of unchecked power. The pain that Bathsheba endured, it mirrors the suffering of many who experience injustice but remain unheard. What good is repentance in an age when victims of immoral, spiritually abusive megachurch pastors are required by their churches— instead of punishing the pastor for his behavior, they require the victims to sign NDAs that they will not disclose what the pastor did. Unfortunately, it happens today, and oftentimes the victims, instead of being helped, are blamed. Well, Bathsheba had her skirt too short. She was asking for it. The church has always been wonderful about celebrating repentance, and we should, but it doesn't always know what to do with victims. So considering this, I want to introduce a concept that comes out of Korea. It's a word that has 3 letters. It's a word, han, H-A-N, just like Han Solo for the Star Wars fans that are in the room. Han was a new concept to me when I heard it a few years ago. Han is a feeling of unresolved sorrow. Of grief, of anger that is born from injustice and oppression occurring. It's the pain not of the sinner, but of the one who was sinned against. Han, this 3-letter word, it speaks to the silent suffering of those who have been wronged, but whose pain is never fully acknowledged. I believe Jesus understands this kind of pain. Pain. When he entered into the temple and he saw the corruption, the poor being exploited by the money changers, he didn't just respond to the physical wrongs, he responded to the emotional, the spiritual pain of the oppressed. The temple, once a place of refuge, had become a space of exploitation, and Jesus overturned the tables to address that deep, unspoken suffering. His actions were not just about justice, they were about healing. He created a space for marginalized people to come and find peace, where their pain would not be ignored any longer. Immediately after Jesus overturned the tables in the Gospel of Matthew, something remarkable happens that is so often overlooked. The blind and the lame, they came to him. In the temple, and he healed them. These were not just physical healings, although they were, I believe, physical, but they were also emotional, spiritual restorations. Jesus made space for those who had been cast aside and left out. And this is what Jesus, I believe, offers us today. He sees the unresolved grief that many of us feel in our hearts, the han that we carry from our own experiences of injustice that was done to us, and he invites us to bring it to him. And like the people in the temple, we too can come to Jesus trusting that he can heal our brokenness and our unresolved pain and our grief. So I ask all of you today, both in this room and all of you who may be watching from your rooms, what is the han in your life today? What is that unresolved grief? What is that hurt that was done to you that you are having such difficulty overcoming? What unresolved pain and sorrow are you carrying? Maybe like Bathsheba in my retelling, you feel powerless in the face of injustice. Injustice. Perhaps like the people in the temple, you carry deep, silent suffering that no one else sees. Well, Jesus is inviting us, I believe, to bring that pain to him. When he overturned the tables in the temple, he was responding to the injustice of the powerlessness and creating a space for their healing. And I believe he is calling us to do the same, to bring our brokenness before him, trusting that he can heal us. So a closing question or two before I close and out with a song today: What tables need to be overturned in our lives? What systems of injustice, of spiritual abuse, of unresolved grief are we living with that need to be confronted and healed? What tables do we need to overturn in the name of Jesus on behalf of the abused and the victimized? Jesus came to bring justice, to overturn the tables of exploitation, and to offer healing to those who have suffered in silence. If you carry on the pain of that unresolved injustice that was done to, to you, please know that Jesus sees you, hears you, and offers his healing touch. He is ready, I believe, to make space for your healing and your restoration. So my challenge today is that we would come and that we would bring our pain to him and allow Christ to be the healer in our life. And just one more thing before I sing a song that closes with this theme today. Chaplains are here in this hospital for you who may feel like you have not been heard, that your story has not been listened to. That you have not been seen, that your pain has not been felt. That is one thing that chaplains are here. We are here to be with you. We are here to listen. We are here to be soul friends, anukara, in the midst of your suffering. To not suffer for you, but to suffer with you. Let us close with this musical reflection, "Overturned Table." parody of Roman pageantry.

Then he walked into the temple where the whip made out a horse, and he drove the robbers out of the house of the Lord.

Señor, come into this house.

Come on, overturn the tables and drive out every idol we have made. Let this be a place of healing, a temple for all nations. Come on, overturn the tables today. Standing in that temple with the tables overturned, the blind and the lame, they came to him, and he met them as they were, healing those who came. A house of prayer became from the robber's den. But the chief priests and the teachers were outraged when they saw the children shouting Hosanna unto him. Called from the mouths of babes, the Lord called forth his praise. And we have to ask Who's really blind and who's really lame? Lord, come into this house. Oh, turn the tables. Drive out every idol we have made. Let this be a place of healing, a temple of For the nations, come and overturn tables today. Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna to the Lord on high. Hosanna. Hosanna! Save us, O Lord, we cry. Lord, come into this house and overturn the tables and drive out every idol we have made. Let this Be a place of healing, a temple for the nations. Come and overturn the tables today. Come and overturn the tables today. He's saying, come, Lord Jesus, come. Oh, come, Lord Jesus, come.

We want to thank you all for being here today. We're grateful for all of you, not only in this room, but for those of you who may be watching today. And if you would like a chaplain to come and be with you, please just request from your nurse, or you can even call the operator and ask for the chaplain, and they'll get get a hold of us, but we don't want you to be alone in your suffering. We want you to know that there is someone here to be with you, and we want to be with you today. So thank you for being with us. God bless you, and may you all go in peace today.