John 2:13-25
Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS
January 18, 2026
Where are the edges of nonviolence? Not the limits, per se, because I firmly believe that creative, strategic, nonviolent resistance is every bit as effective (if not more effective) than violent conflict. [1]
But where are the edges? When does nonviolent resistance cross over into violence?
Some scenarios feel clear: did someone physically harm or kill someone else? That’s violence.
But some scenarios are more ambiguous:
What if a person doesn’t physically touch another person but shows up at a protest open-carrying a gun? Is their behavior non-violent?
What about a law enforcement officer who shows up at that same protest with a gun?
Revving your engine in a threatening manner at someone? Violent behavior? Or just intimidation? Can intimidation be nonviolent?
How about property damage? Is damaging property fair game in nonviolent resistance because property isn’t people? Or is it violent because it feels so aggressive?
As a disciple of Jesus Christ, the edges of nonviolence are often on my mind. After all, this is the guy who willingly allowed himself to be crucified by the state, rather than engage in physical violence. On the night he was betrayed, he said to his disciple in the garden: “Put your sword away. All those who use the sword will die by the sword.”
As a student of Martin Luther King, Jr., the edges of nonviolence are often on my mind. After all, this is the guy who knew he was probably going to get killed, but kept marching for freedom. In 1967 he said, “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.” [2]
Of course, Dr. King didn’t begin with that level of commitment to nonviolence. Back in 1956, when he was a young minister in Montgomery, Alabama, receiving regular death threats on his home telephone, he had an arsenal of weapons and armed guards outside his house. After his family home was bombed that year, he even requested a concealed carry permit for himself. [3] He was, of course, denied, due to his race. But it took many years, some strong-arming by his Quaker friend Bayard Rustin, and a trip to India to walk in Gandhi’s shoes, before Dr. King became more deeply committed to nonviolence.
As a person living in the United States in 2026, the edges of nonviolence are often on my mind. Some things are clear-cut: when children are abducted and put in cages, this is violence. When people are shot by ICE agents, this is violence. And yet we hear compatriots (some who even claim to follow Jesus) saying things like, “Well, if they don’t want to get shot, they shouldn’t follow ICE agents around” or “There’s nothing wrong with apprehending criminals.” Even though some of the people being “apprehended” are people like Jonathan Garcia, a 17 year old U.S. citizen who was simply working at a Target when ICE agents confronted him, threw him to the ground, and hauled him away in an unmarked van. [4]
Where are the edges of nonviolence? Earlier this week, I gathered with hundreds of other Kansans at the state house in Topeka to loudly proclaim that “human needs are human rights.” It was a decidedly nonviolent (and tame) gathering. Smiles, hugs, singing, chanting and plenty of inspiring speakers. While observing the crowd from the third floor, I noticed the gentleman next to me was observing in a slightly different way. He had a video camera and was slowly panning it over the faces of all the people gathered in the rotunda. When I asked what the footage was for, I learned he was from Kansas Highway Patrol and he told me he was just there “documenting.” It’s very unclear to me why law enforcement needs documentation of a completely peaceful crowd standing around listening to speeches in their own state house. Especially when armed law enforcement officers are already present. I can only imagine it has something to do with AI and facial recognition software. “Documenting,” indeed.
Today’s text from John’s gospel forces us to confront the edges of nonviolence. I don’t know about you, but every time I enter this text, I find myself with more questions than answers. Despite all the questions, here are some things we do know:
Some version of this likely happened, as it’s recorded in all four gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all place this story at the very end of Jesus’s life, when he’s come to Jerusalem for the Passover. John, for some reason, moves it all the way to the beginning of his ministry.
Scholars have differing opinions about why Jesus was so mad. In the time of Jesus, Passover was one of three holidays where pilgrims were expected to travel to Jerusalem from all over the world. Part of the ritual was to offer animals at the temple as a sacrifice and, presumably, you’re not going to haul your animals with you from the next country over. So you’d buy them when you got there. That’s why there’s a bunch of livestock in the temple. Some scholars come down pretty hard on the merchants in the temple, noting that in three versions of this story, Jesus calls them thieves. So the idea is that they were, perhaps, taking advantage of the pilgrims. Other scholars are a bit surprised at the extreme nature of his reaction. After all, there are all kinds of injustices in the world. But this one really necessitates this level of reaction?
So let’s talk about Jesus’s actions. He comes to Jerusalem for the Passover - either at the beginning or end of his ministry. He enters the temple and begins yelling at the merchants, telling them to get out. He turns over tables. In the Gospel of John, he even fashions a whip and chases the animals out, so the merchants follow their livestock. He condemns them verbally. Interestingly, in John’s version he doesn’t call the merchants thieves. He just condemns them for doing business inside the temple.
What I always find myself scratching my head about is Jesus’s demeanor here. While I don’t necessarily need my Jesus to be meek and mild, I personally don’t want to be around men who are shouting and flipping tables. Especially if they also have a whip. This behavior feels troubling to me. The whip, in particular, makes it feel like we’re up against the very edges of nonviolence.
As I said to my spiritual director earlier this week, “If I were in the temple and this guy busted in and started acting like this, I’m not sure I’d want to follow him anywhere. His behavior is a bit unhinged.”
The question that haunts me every time I encounter this passage is why? Why is Jesus acting like this? It’s not typical Jesus behavior.
It feels like there are at least two possibilities. Probably more. Option one: Jesus is having a very bad day. This makes the most sense in the context of the synoptic gospels. After all, he’s about to be crucified. He’s allowed to act out. Raise his voice. Maybe even flip some tables. All these lonely years of ministry and people still don’t understand who he is, what he’s trying to teach. I think the word my spiritual director used was wailing. Perhaps he’s just wailing, exhausted by the futility of it all.
Option two: Jesus is being strategic, and this is a prophetic action. Jewish prophets were known for sometimes acting out in dramatic, odd ways to capture attention and drive their message home. So perhaps Jesus is actually not unhinged but very tightly wound and putting on a show. A demonstration, if you will. I think John’s version leans towards this interpretation. In John, Jesus flips tables right after the wedding at Cana. His first public act is a delightful miracle that brings joy. Followed immediately by a dramatic, prophetic act meant to teach a lesson. Both are the types of signs and wonders people would have expected from a Messiah.
If the author of John is trying to portray this story as a prophetic act, let’s look at it through the lens of nonviolent resistance, shall we? Although this passage has sometimes been used to condone violence, I think that’s a gross misuse of the text. Jesus doesn’t physically harm anyone here. Yes, he fashions a whip, but there’s no reason to think it would have been used to hurt anyone in the temple. It seems it was used in the typical fashion that shepherds and other tenders of livestock would have used it - to move animals from place to place.
And the author of John includes one very small detail that leads me to believe Jesus was firmly rooted in nonviolent resistance during this prophetic act: he did not flip over the cages of the doves in the temple, which would have hurt them. Instead, he asked their sellers to take them away and leave. He is controlled, calculated. He has no intention of physically harming the doves - or anyone else. That little detail makes this look less like a spontaneous, unhinged outburst and more like a strategic act of nonviolent resistance. [5]
What if Jesus paused outside the temple that day, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and bowed his head in prayer? What if he was intentional, strategic? Perhaps he knew exactly how far he would allow himself to go. Just far enough so that people would sit up and pay attention to his message - not so far as to physically hurt anyone. Perhaps he was already taking his own advice to heart: be wise as serpents, innocent as doves. [6] Perhaps he was filled with an inner peace, even as he prepared to disturb the peace inside the temple. After all, strategic non-violent actions are often decidedly not-peaceful.
If his goal was to capture attention, he certainly succeeded. After all, we’re still talking about his actions centuries later.
Prophets don’t exist to make us comfortable. And nonviolence can sometimes scoot right up to the edge, carrying a whip. But strategic, controlled, calculated nonviolence has undoubtedly made the world a more just place for all kinds of people. We all stand on the shoulders of nonviolent activists who went before, struggling for our rights in so many ways: the right to vote, labor laws, child welfare laws, civil rights for people with disabilities, reproductive freedom, the right to marry the person you love.
Dr. King would be the first to tell us that nonviolent resistance is not gentle. It is frequently impolite. It isn’t always peaceful. When he organized with others in 1963 to wage a full-scale nonviolent attack on the racist power structure in Birmingham, Alabama he was not worried about propriety. He was focused on strategic wins.
In his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, he wrote:
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. [7]
God, we give thanks for prophets who aren’t afraid to bring the drama and the nonviolent heat.
May we have ears to hear. And truly listen.
Amen.
NOTES:
[1] If you’re skeptical about the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance, I commend to you the work of Mark and Paul Engler, especially their book This is An Uprising. You can also find a lot of their writing online in various newspapers, blogs, etc. https://thisisanuprising.org/
[2] https://centeronconscience.org/martin-luther-king-jr/
[3] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/20/martin-luther-king-guns-pacifism
[5] With gratitude to Andy Alexis-Baker’s article Violence, Nonviolence, and the Temple Incident in John 2:3-15 published in Biblical Interpretation 20 (2012), 73-96.
[6] Matthew 10
[7] https://www.csuchico.edu/iege/_assets/documents/susi-letter-from-birmingham-jail.pdf
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