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32ND
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
November 9, 2008 Year: A
Ezek. 47:1-2, 8-9, 12; 1 Cor. 3:9-11, 16-17; Jn. 2:13-22
Dedication of St John Lateran
First Reading...
The angel of the Lord brought me back to the entrance of
the temple; there, water was flowing from below the
threshold of the temple toward the east, for the temple
faced east; and the water was flowing down from below
the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of
the altar.
Then the angel brought me out by way of the north gate,
and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that
faces toward the east; and the water was coming out on
the south side.
He said to me, 'This water flows toward the eastern
region and goes down into the Arabah; and when it enters
the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will
become fresh. Wherever the river goes, every living
creature that swarms will live, and there will be very
many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become
fresh; and everything will live where the river goes.
'On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will
grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not
wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh
fruit every month, because the water for them flows from
the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their
leaves for healing.' [Ezek. 47:1-2, 8-9, 12]
Second Reading...
"Brothers and sisters, you are God's building.
According to the grace of God given to me, like a
skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone
else is building on it.
Each builder must choose with care how to build on it.
For no one can lay any foundation other than the one
that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ.
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's
Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God's temple,
God will destroy that person. For God's temple is holy,
and you are that temple. The word of the Lord." [1 Cor.
3:9-11, 16-17]
Gospel Reading...
"The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went
up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling
cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated
at their tables.
Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the
temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured
out the coins of the money changers and overturned their
tables. He told those who were selling the doves, 'Take
these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house
a marketplace!'
His disciples remembered that it was written, 'Zeal for
your house will consume me.'
The people then said to him, 'What sign can you show us
for doing this?' Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise it up.'
They then said, 'This temple has been under construction
for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three
days?' But Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body.
After he was raised from the dead, his disciples
remembered that he had said this; and they believed the
scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken." [Jn.
2:13-22]
Reflection:
When I took charge of St. Joseph Church as parish priest
in 2002, I tried to help people belong to our Church. I
told them that Church is not just the place where you
come for prayer and sacrifice, but it is your place,
your home and your space for encounter with God. Hence,
I tried to convince them of their duty to keep this
Church clean, neat, tidy. That is how we succeeded in
getting each community (we have 48 Small Christian
Communities) to come on Saturdays to clean the Church.
This tradition has been loved by people, who are
enthusiastic to come on Saturdays morning clean the
Church, dust it and leave it tidy for Sunday
celebrations.
When
you think of Jesus, what picture comes to your mind?
Perhaps it is the compassionate and loving and
understanding face? My grandmother had a picture of
Jesus with the crown of thorns on his head in absolute
pain on her wall next to her crucifix; she was a good
Catholic.
Whatever picture of Jesus comes to your mind, my guess
is that you probably see him either in some serene pose,
perhaps as a shepherd caring for his flock or as a guide
pointing the way for a man at the wheel of a ship, or in
a moment of suffering such as how he was when he faced
the cross.
I
could be wrong, but I seriously doubt that your image of
Jesus has him with a whip in one of his hands as he
chases animals and people out of the temple, as he
overturns tables where people are selling animals and
converting money.
And
yet, this is the way Jesus is portrayed in today’s
scripture. He is a man on a mission, and he will not
stand for his Father’s temple to be desecrated. He
almost seems out of control. He perhaps seems a little
fierce. Here we glimpse a side of Jesus we don’t see in
other parts of the gospels. Here we see him acting in an
almost violent way. Here we see him doing what needs to
be done. Here we see him cleansing the temple. Perhaps
we don’t want to know this Jesus after all. He’s a bit
scary here, not necessarily someone that seems very
safe. And yet we are seeing the true Jesus here, just as
in other parts of the Bible. And we can learn much from
him.
I. Jesus angry?
In
high school and college, my friends and I would often
turn to the story of Jesus casting the money changers
out of the temple to discuss the issue of whether there
could be such thing as righteous anger. Here is a story
in the Bible where we seem to see Jesus lose control.
Here is a story where Jesus becomes violent, and it is
often associated with the idea of Jesus becoming angry
because the temple, the house of the Lord, is being
misused by God’s people. We used this scripture to
explain that there is definitely such a thing as
righteous anger and therefore we justified our own anger
at things that we saw that were wrong with the world. We
would say to each other that it is okay to get angry,
after all didn’t Jesus?
But in
focusing on this, Jesus’ anger, I think my friends and I
missed the point about what Jesus was doing in the
temple. When we look at this closer, we discover that
Jesus wasn’t acting just out of a moment of anger.
Instead, he was cleansing the temple. Instead, he was
making it clean and pure. Instead, he was casting sin
out of God’s house… something he is able to do for each
of us as well.
This
is not to say that anger cannot at times be godly. We
see, particularly through the Old Testament, that God
himself acts out of anger. But God’s anger is not one
where he loses control and we can never use God’s
righteous anger as an excuse for how we act out our own
anger.
It is
rare that something that happened in Jesus’ life and
ministry gets reported in all four of the gospels. There
are a few things that show up in all four, like the
crucifixion and the resurrection or Jesus’ baptism. But
many of the things that are important parts of Jesus’
ministry only show up in a couple of the gospels. One
example of this is the Last Supper, which doesn’t show
up in the gospel of John, instead we are treated to the
foot washing. And yet, Jesus cleansing the temple is one
of the acts of Jesus that shows up in all four gospels,
well sort of…
Matthew, Mark and Luke talk about Jesus entering
Jerusalem a week before he is crucified and making his
way to the Temple where he chases the money collectors
out of the Temple. This is something that happens in
Jesus’ last week on this earth. It is something that
directly leads to his own crucifixion as the teachers of
the law and the high priests realize that Jesus is not
to be controlled. Now the Gospel of John gives us a
different sequence of events. In the Gospel of John, the
temple is cleansed at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
It happens when Jesus visits Jerusalem three years
before his death. And it is one of the early things that
we see Jesus do to show his authority. Now there are two
possibilities here, one is that John is not remembering
the sequence of events from Jesus’ life and writes about
this happening much earlier in Jesus’ ministry than it
really happened. I don’t tend to like that option. Out
of all the gospel writers, John is the one who knew
Jesus the best. He was the one who was one of the twelve
who traveled with Jesus in his ministry. He was the one
who was with Jesus from the beginning. Yes, it is
believed that John’s own disciples, his own followers
are the ones responsible for writing down the Gospel of
John, but it is also believed that they were writing
down the story as John had told it to them many times.
No, there is another option that is much more probable.
The other option is that Jesus cleansed out the temple
twice in his ministry: once at the beginning and again
at the end. This makes much more sense to me, it seems
much more probable. But this also takes away a bit of
the idea of Jesus cleansing out the temple solely from
anger.
If
Jesus cleansed the temple twice in his ministry, perhaps
he wasn’t out of control as he did it. Instead, perhaps
he was making a point to his disciples and to those who
were in charge of the temple. And perhaps the point was
very important, otherwise he wouldn’t have had to make
it twice.
II. The Temple of the Lord
In
today’s scripture Jesus specifically identifies his own
body in connection with the temple. The disciples ask
him by what authority he cleanses out the temple. They
ask him how they can know that he is speaking for God.
And he responds with a cryptic answer. He tells them
that if the temple is destroyed, he will raise it again
in three days. And then our narrator, John, steps in and
explains what in the world it is that Jesus means with
this cryptic saying. Our narrator tells us that Jesus
isn’t really talking about the temple at all, rather he
is talking about his own body. And he is talking about
the fact that people will destroy his body and he will
raise it again in three days. Jesus is predicting his
own death and resurrection, something that will happen
three years from this point in his ministry. He knew
from the beginning what it was that he faced. Jesus is
talking about the power of Easter.
But he
is also hinting that what he does in the temple is not
just about the temple. There is a deeper meaning to what
Jesus does as he casts the moneychangers and the sheep
and cattle out of the temple. They have taken God’s
house and turned it into a market. They have taken a
holy place and found a way to use it to their own ends.
Now
there are other scriptures that I think we need to look
at to better help us understand what Jesus is doing
here. They are found in Paul’s writings. Two of these
scriptures are found in 1 Corinthians. The first I want
to look at is 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20. “Do you not know
that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is
in you, whom you have received from God? You are not
your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor
God with your bodies.”
Our
bodies are temples of God. And we are to honor God with
our bodies. Does Jesus need to cleanse out our temples?
Does he need to come in and cast out our sinfulness so
that our bodies are holy again? Does he need to take
cords and make them into a whip so that he can push our
sin out of our lives?
There
is another scripture that also talks about the temple in
interesting language, this is a couple chapters earlier
in 1 Corinthians, chapter 3:16,17 “Don’t you know that
you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit
dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple,
God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is
sacred, and you together are that temple.”
This
also is powerful and worth noting. Not only are our
bodies temples to God, but we together as the people of
Christ are also a temple. When you gather together a
group of Christians, a holy thing is happening. When you
gather together a group of Christ’s followers, a sacred
space is created.
III. Cleansing
And
yet we do not honor our gathering together as Christ’s
followers as something that is sacred. We treat it so
commonly, so trivially. We even allow things into our
midst that have no place being in the house of the Lord.
This is where we turn to God and ask him to cleanse us
of our sin. This is where we ask him to come in and
overturn our tables, not out of anger but rather to make
our lives and our community into what he has created us
to be. Perhaps the fierce Jesus is needed. Perhaps Jesus
needs to come in with a whip to cleanse us out.
Jesus
cleansed the temple. He took God’s house and made it
right. He did it physically twice in his ministry, then
he did it again on the cross. You see, on the cross he
cleansed this world of its sin. Unfortunately, this
world doesn’t always want to be clean.
We all
have sins that separate us from the relationship that
God wants with us. We all have things in our lives that
keep us from the path that God has for us. The thing is
that we are used to them. We don’t even realize they are
there anymore. We don’t even see them as sin. They are
just a part of our world. Like the Temple, we have
tables of sin that have wandered into our lives and we
don’t even realize that they shouldn’t be there. And
once the sin takes hold it grows. I’m sure the tables in
the temple started out small, but then they grew and
grew and soon you had sheep and cattle and birds in a
part of the temple where people were supposed to be
worshipping. I’m sure worship wasn’t easy while you’re
being distracted by cattle. This is the way it is with
sin in our lives as well. We allow it to build up. It
claims its place and grows and will not let go of us.
And this keeps our relationships with God weak and
superficial. The other stuff the stuff of this world
takes roost in our own temples and keeps us from the one
relationship that is really important. And the fact is
that we are unable to get rid of these sins and
distractions on our own. We barely notice them, and we
are just not strong enough to remove them. I know people
who try to do it themselves, and often they fail
miserably.
But
the good news is that we don’t need to do it on our own.
For Jesus, fierce Jesus, with his whip made from cords,
is there to cast out those things that need to be caste
out. Let Jesus in your temple. Allow him to work in your
life and free you from the things of this world that
keep you from God. Let him cleanse you. Let him redirect
you towards God.
I want
to do something a little different today. I want to
close with a prayer. And I want to invite you to pray
along with me silently as we ask Jesus to cleanse us.
Let us ask him to clear out our hearts so that our
relationship with him can grow. Please pray with me:
Father, I have sin in my life which I am not strong
enough to deal with. I try and I try to make myself a
better Christian, a better person, and I continue to
fail. Help me to give this up. Help me to turn my sins
over to you. Come into my life with your whip and
cleanse me out. Fill me with your Spirit. Lord, you have
the power to forgive and you have the power to change
me. I ask that you do that very thing this morning; for
me and for each person here, Amen.
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