Matthew 21:12-17 (GNT)
12 Jesus went into the Temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the stools of those who sold pigeons, 13 and said to them, “It is written in the Scriptures that God said, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it a den of thieves!”
14 The blind and the crippled came to him in the Temple, and he healed them. 15 The chief priests and the teachers of the Law became angry when they saw the wonderful things he was doing and the children shouting in the Temple, “Praise to David's Son!” 16 So they asked Jesus, “Do you hear what they are saying?”
“Indeed I do,” answered Jesus. “Haven't you ever read this scripture? ‘You have children and babies who offer perfect praise.’”
17 Jesus left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.
12 Jesus went into the Temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the stools of those who sold pigeons, 13 and said to them, “It is written in the Scriptures that God said, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it a den of thieves!”
14 The blind and the crippled came to him in the Temple, and he healed them. 15 The chief priests and the teachers of the Law became angry when they saw the wonderful things he was doing and the children shouting in the Temple, “Praise to David's Son!” 16 So they asked Jesus, “Do you hear what they are saying?”
“Indeed I do,” answered Jesus. “Haven't you ever read this scripture? ‘You have children and babies who offer perfect praise.’”
17 Jesus left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.
Reflection
Jesus overturning the table in the temple- in the outer courts of the magnificent Jerusalem temple – the premiere place of worship - so significant that the Jews travelled days to come to the temple for the Holy festivals – this story is so important it is told in all four gospels.
Now people who like their Jesus to always be nice and kind and compassionate, you know the kind of Jesus who doesn’t rock the boat or make waves or antagonize anyone, this isn’t the story for them. Because this Jesus is angry!
Now I’ve heard sermons where the anger, the shouting, the running of men and calves and sheep are minimized – like maybe Jesus only overturned a table or two and just shouted to make a point but when I read that story in John you can see there is no way Jesus didn’t clear those people out, there is no way that the priests in the temple’s inner courts didn’t hear the ruckus going on outside their domain, there is no way Sanhedrin weren’t alerted to the fact that Jesus, that teacher, that wandering healer who was attracting lots of attention from the people was creating a hellabaloo within the walls of their temple.
John 2:13-16 (NIV)
13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle,
sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.
15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
So Jesus is not meek and mild today, he is outraged , he is overturning tables piled with coinage from all over the empire and beyond. But I’m guessing the prevailing idea regarding that outer court in that time was you had to do it somewhere and you needed to buy the goats and calves and sheep and doves for sacrifice when you were coming from far away – the work of the temple depended on this – all of it. The work of the temple depended on it.
And Jesus’ outburst is threatening the theo-political balance, the balance, of course, which was advantageous to the sellers and aristocrats and the priests. The balance which included Herod and the Pontius Pilate, you could call it an agreement, where some benefitted and wanted to keep on benefitting and others well, they were taxed, and overcharged, and warned to keep the balance, to keep the “Pax Romana”: the Roman Peace. The kind of peace that is kept by crucifying offenders very publically, usually just out of town by the roadside, as a warning to people entering the city: This is what happens when you disturb “our peace”, our balance of power!
Jesus’ outrage is concentrated and focused, the Jerusalem Temple, where he would have gone with his family for all the high holy days, this sacrosanct holy place had been invaded and changed into just another place for commerce and money making.
The Temple was a place of prayer, built to honour (and in some ways contain) the one true God of the Jews in the Holy of Holies; the innermost and most sacred area of the Temple, accessible only to the Israelite high priest. Once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would enter the square, windowless enclosure with a rope tied around his waist, just in case he would die upon meeting God, and then the idea was that the other priests could pull him out. The enclosure contained the Ark of the Covenant- a symbol of Israel’s special relationship with God, and the priest would burn incense and sprinkle sacrificial animal blood. By this act, the most solemn of the religious year, the high priest atoned for his own sins and those of the priesthood.
But was Jesus just swimming against the tide here? Is his prophetic voice to bring prayer back to the temple proper just lost in what must have been a lot of swearing that day?
Money changers scrambling for their coins, sheep and goats running all over the place, men shouting, people with cages trying to make their way to safety away from this madman.
And then, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is challenged by the Jews (we don’t know which Jews) but they want to know:
18 …, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
The Jews just laugh at Jesus’ response and say it had taken forty-six years to build the temple. In Johns’ gospel we are given an explanation that Jesus is here referring to his body and the resurrection in his answer of three days but given what is happening in other gospels like Matthew, I’m more convinced by Jesus’ actions than John reading into the incident after the fact.
In Matthew, Jesus, who is still in the temple starts healing people and children start shouting and in come the chief priests and Scribes to restore order and figure out what is going on.
This story is quite a revelation, isn’t it? It makes you stop and start thinking. If Jesus is outraged shouldn’t we be outraged when our churches become less than what they should be?
Then of course, we get to the really hard questions, like what are our churches for?
Jesus knows what the Temple is for and that allows him to know when that has been transgressed. The temple court was a house of prayer, it was where people and since this was an outer court: all people Jews and non-Jews could come to pray, the temple was a place where Jews would worship and meet God, a place Jesus calls “his Father’s house”. The temple was where teachers- rabboni and students and disciples discussed and questioned scripture, where people would gather to hear what a teacher had to say. The Temple was the place where sacrificial ritual and liturgy gave meaning to life itself, where Jews properly expressed and confessed their allegiance to Yahweh.
But Jesus, prophet, teacher, preacher, beloved child of God
does this amazing thing: In John he is questioned about his authority to do what he has done: which is take back the temple for God, in Matthew the question is answered even before the chief priests and the scribes come on the scene to question Jesus. Jesus heals. And by whose authority could he heal, could he even attempt to heal in the Temple of Jerusalem but by God’s own authority!
So, what should our churches be about in this world? If we follow Jesus’ footsteps on that day: we are making room for prayer: for bringing our concerns and joys and sorrows, we are praying for the whole world, for our families and communities and for ourselves, nothing is too lowly or lofty for our God to hear – we don’t need the right words for prayer, all we need are open hearts.
We are making room for worship, for music that touches our minds and our souls, for ritual and liturgy that comforts and strengthens us, as faithful followers of Christ, grappling with all the anxieties that our world brings.
We are making room for preaching, teaching and questioning, for sharing our faith, our experiences and our understanding of God and what it means to live in God’s world.
We are making room for healing, for reconciling, for moving toward a future where we not only say we are brothers and sisters in Christ but we become more and more the children of God we were created to be.
May it be so. Amen
Jesus overturning the table in the temple- in the outer courts of the magnificent Jerusalem temple – the premiere place of worship - so significant that the Jews travelled days to come to the temple for the Holy festivals – this story is so important it is told in all four gospels.
Now people who like their Jesus to always be nice and kind and compassionate, you know the kind of Jesus who doesn’t rock the boat or make waves or antagonize anyone, this isn’t the story for them. Because this Jesus is angry!
Now I’ve heard sermons where the anger, the shouting, the running of men and calves and sheep are minimized – like maybe Jesus only overturned a table or two and just shouted to make a point but when I read that story in John you can see there is no way Jesus didn’t clear those people out, there is no way that the priests in the temple’s inner courts didn’t hear the ruckus going on outside their domain, there is no way Sanhedrin weren’t alerted to the fact that Jesus, that teacher, that wandering healer who was attracting lots of attention from the people was creating a hellabaloo within the walls of their temple.
John 2:13-16 (NIV)
13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle,
sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.
15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!”
So Jesus is not meek and mild today, he is outraged , he is overturning tables piled with coinage from all over the empire and beyond. But I’m guessing the prevailing idea regarding that outer court in that time was you had to do it somewhere and you needed to buy the goats and calves and sheep and doves for sacrifice when you were coming from far away – the work of the temple depended on this – all of it. The work of the temple depended on it.
And Jesus’ outburst is threatening the theo-political balance, the balance, of course, which was advantageous to the sellers and aristocrats and the priests. The balance which included Herod and the Pontius Pilate, you could call it an agreement, where some benefitted and wanted to keep on benefitting and others well, they were taxed, and overcharged, and warned to keep the balance, to keep the “Pax Romana”: the Roman Peace. The kind of peace that is kept by crucifying offenders very publically, usually just out of town by the roadside, as a warning to people entering the city: This is what happens when you disturb “our peace”, our balance of power!
Jesus’ outrage is concentrated and focused, the Jerusalem Temple, where he would have gone with his family for all the high holy days, this sacrosanct holy place had been invaded and changed into just another place for commerce and money making.
The Temple was a place of prayer, built to honour (and in some ways contain) the one true God of the Jews in the Holy of Holies; the innermost and most sacred area of the Temple, accessible only to the Israelite high priest. Once a year, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would enter the square, windowless enclosure with a rope tied around his waist, just in case he would die upon meeting God, and then the idea was that the other priests could pull him out. The enclosure contained the Ark of the Covenant- a symbol of Israel’s special relationship with God, and the priest would burn incense and sprinkle sacrificial animal blood. By this act, the most solemn of the religious year, the high priest atoned for his own sins and those of the priesthood.
But was Jesus just swimming against the tide here? Is his prophetic voice to bring prayer back to the temple proper just lost in what must have been a lot of swearing that day?
Money changers scrambling for their coins, sheep and goats running all over the place, men shouting, people with cages trying to make their way to safety away from this madman.
And then, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is challenged by the Jews (we don’t know which Jews) but they want to know:
18 …, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
The Jews just laugh at Jesus’ response and say it had taken forty-six years to build the temple. In Johns’ gospel we are given an explanation that Jesus is here referring to his body and the resurrection in his answer of three days but given what is happening in other gospels like Matthew, I’m more convinced by Jesus’ actions than John reading into the incident after the fact.
In Matthew, Jesus, who is still in the temple starts healing people and children start shouting and in come the chief priests and Scribes to restore order and figure out what is going on.
This story is quite a revelation, isn’t it? It makes you stop and start thinking. If Jesus is outraged shouldn’t we be outraged when our churches become less than what they should be?
Then of course, we get to the really hard questions, like what are our churches for?
Jesus knows what the Temple is for and that allows him to know when that has been transgressed. The temple court was a house of prayer, it was where people and since this was an outer court: all people Jews and non-Jews could come to pray, the temple was a place where Jews would worship and meet God, a place Jesus calls “his Father’s house”. The temple was where teachers- rabboni and students and disciples discussed and questioned scripture, where people would gather to hear what a teacher had to say. The Temple was the place where sacrificial ritual and liturgy gave meaning to life itself, where Jews properly expressed and confessed their allegiance to Yahweh.
But Jesus, prophet, teacher, preacher, beloved child of God
does this amazing thing: In John he is questioned about his authority to do what he has done: which is take back the temple for God, in Matthew the question is answered even before the chief priests and the scribes come on the scene to question Jesus. Jesus heals. And by whose authority could he heal, could he even attempt to heal in the Temple of Jerusalem but by God’s own authority!
So, what should our churches be about in this world? If we follow Jesus’ footsteps on that day: we are making room for prayer: for bringing our concerns and joys and sorrows, we are praying for the whole world, for our families and communities and for ourselves, nothing is too lowly or lofty for our God to hear – we don’t need the right words for prayer, all we need are open hearts.
We are making room for worship, for music that touches our minds and our souls, for ritual and liturgy that comforts and strengthens us, as faithful followers of Christ, grappling with all the anxieties that our world brings.
We are making room for preaching, teaching and questioning, for sharing our faith, our experiences and our understanding of God and what it means to live in God’s world.
We are making room for healing, for reconciling, for moving toward a future where we not only say we are brothers and sisters in Christ but we become more and more the children of God we were created to be.
May it be so. Amen
