Jesus saw the gap between God’s word and what was being practiced in the Temple. For Jesus, the Temple was a “house of prayer,” for some others it was a “marketplace.” Jesus felt so strongly about that gap that he made a whip and drove animals and people out of the Temple. He also dumped coins on the floor, flipped over tables and shouted.
I’m sure those displaced merchants would defend themselves using words and phrases like tradition, practical and convenient. And, I’ll bet we would use some of those same words today to explain the gap between how we practice religion when we get together and what Jesus desires. The church/religion or if you prefer the term spirituality, are only most fully the gifts God intended when they boldly and clearly point to God.
Church are the people who follow Jesus wherever they find themselves showing forth in their living a living God. And, when we do get together in buildings, where Jesus’ name, likeness and Cross are venerated and commended, our calling is “not to conform to the patterns of the world but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.” We followers of Jesus have to let go of some of the ways we practice church so we can recapture Jesus’ vision for the organization that bears his name.