Jesus Rids The Temple Of Corruption
The Cleansing Of The Temple And Our Daily Lives.
Sermon By Fr. Dexter Brereton
In many Trinidadian homes pepper sauce is a favoured condiment. In many cases no meal is complete without it. I remember as a boy growing up my mom would quarrel with me because I put a ‘dirty’ spoon in the pepper. I would protest, but mom its not ‘dirty’! I don’t see anything on the spoon! Then she explained to me that even a spoon previously dipped in something else besides pepper – anything could cause the pepper sauce to go bad. ‘The smallest food particle could do it’ she explained. This reminds me of what happens in public and private institutions, once we begin to introduce even the smallest particle of corruption. The entire institution is spoilt and something which is very good at the beginning loses its way and goes bad.
In today’s gospel reading from John, Jesus takes strong action against an institution going bad, against the creeping commercialization of the Temple precincts. In the region immediately outside people did a brisk trade in animals and other material needed for worship, yet apparently for Jesus, this situation presented an unacceptable compromise of the sanctity of the Temple of the Lord. He fashions a whip out of some cord and drives the vendors out of the temple. In so doing, Jesus acts in continuity with the prophets of the old Testament who were given to proclaiming the prophetic word from God often by means of concrete gestures or signs – we have for example Hosea’s marriage to a prostitute by the name of Gomer (Hos 1: 2-3). This marriage symbolizes God’s frustrated relationship with the people of Israel, a relationship that is marred by Israel’s infidelity. She runs away from Hosea, sleeps with another man and still Hosea seeks to win her back. We also have Ezekiel’s making of bread from a single pot of wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt (Ezek 4: 9) and his mime of the emigrant (12: 1-20). Jesus’ cleansing of the temple then, was not simply about his being upset about the vendors. It was a concrete and definite message to the people of Israel: “Stop turning my Father’s house into a market.”
The average Jew in the time of Jesus took great solace in the Temple in Jerusalem. For them it was a sign of God’s favour, the concrete sign of God’s dwelling among God’s people. Unfortunately this also led many of them to take false security in their “Jewishness” even as they continued to do what was wrong, as we learn in Jeremiah chapter 7.This is what the Lord says to Israel through Jeremiah: “Yet here you are, trusting in delusive words, to no purpose! Steal, would you, murder, commit adultery, perjure yourselves, burn incense to Baal, follow alien gods that you do not know? – and then come presenting yourselves in this Temple that bears my name saying: Now we are safe – safe to go on committing all these abominations!” Using the words of the Gospel these people turned their Father’s house into a market. This is a problem with which Trinidadian Catholics can identify. Many of us use the Church as a means to an end. To be a Roman Catholic seems to be a good ‘business’ decision! It is an open secret that many people send their children to Catholic schools not for the Gospel message but for the rank, the status and the access that they believe that these schools can afford them. Too many of us come to mass dutifully and leave our morality at the church door as we leave. In those cases, our work life, our business lives often stand in stark contradiction to what we profess in church. Too many of us Catholics (and other Christians) live dichotomous lives – as if we can “fool” – or as we say “mamaguy” God into thinking that we are better than we are. This is what Jesus meant by “turning his Father’s house into a market.” If we had to paraphrase Jeremiah’s complaint against Israel for our own time it might go something like this: “Yet here you are, trusting in delusive words, to no purpose! Steal would you, murder, commit adultery, refuse to properly pay your workers, make money and status your God, go to prayer meeting even as you cry down people of another race! Cry over dying babies in Africa even as you force your daughters into having an abortion? – and then come presenting yourselves in this Temple that bears my name, saying : Now we are safe-safe to go on committing all these abominations!’
Gospel – Jn 2:13-25
Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples recalled the words of Scripture, Zeal for your house will consume me. At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken. While he was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, many began to believe in his name when they saw the signs he was doing. But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well.
Prayer:
Jesus, we would like to live honest lives and stop turning our Father’s house into a market. Help us Lord Jesus so that our actions may always be consistent with what we say we believe. Save us from laziness and cynicism. Let us not be like those in the Gospel story who say that it has taken forty-six years to build the sanctuary so that things cannot change ‘like that.’ Help us Lord to work towards a world as we think it should be and not with the world as it is. Amen.
