The Cleansing of the Temple - Lent III

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

I have to admit that this morning’s Gospel makes me uncomfortable. Let’s face it: we’re Anglicans and as Anglicans we have a great tendency to see Jesus in a very positive light. I was raised with the images of Jesus in a field with children and sheep, or Jesus standing in solidarity with the poor and the marginalized: a kind and loving Jesus who taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

But the Jesus in this morning’s Gospel is none of those things.

He’s royally ticked! He’s angry and violent; a Jesus I don’t like to think about – a Jesus for whom the word “livid” is woefully inadequate – a Jesus in a rage that is neither forgiving nor compassionate.

Now, while I have some great discomfort with this portrayal of Our Lord, I have to admit that he had a point. The system within the Temple precincts was about as corrupt as one could get. The whole sacrificial system had been turned into a money-making scheme by the Priests, the Scribes and the Sadducees at the expense of the regular, ordinary go-to-Synagogue Jewish peasant.

But the sacrifices were deemed necessary to please God for a whole host of personal and public needs. In the olden days, one could bring ones animal to the Temple to be sacrificed. In those days, going to the Temple for a sacrifice was somewhat like going to the butcher shop and having a picnic. People took the animal with them to the Temple. Then the animal was slaughtered and, depending on the reason for the sacrifice, part of it was burned, the best part given to the Priest as payment and the rest roasted and returned to the one offering the Sacrifice who then prepared a large feast for the family and everyone enjoyed the leftovers. For lesser sacrifices, smaller animals were offered without the resulting picnic.

But as time went on, things got a bit more sinister. Rules and regulations about the quality of the animal began to be written. They had to be spotless and without blemish, or of a certain age. And for the ordinary Jewish peasant, especially for those living within cities, raising an animal for sacrifice wasn’t easy. One had to purchase an animal at the Temple to be subsequently dispatched.

Now, one couldn’t just walk into the Temple Court of the Gentiles and purchase an animal and then trot off to the Altar. First, one had to have the proper cash. The Temple authorities had devised a system through which only Temple currency was acceptable for the purchase of a sacrificial animal. Even the Jewish Shekel wasn’t acceptable. It was impure. So, one went to the money-changer within the Court of the Gentiles and exchanged one’s Shekels for Temple Money.

Now, of course, the money changers did their work for a fee but the fees were high. Not only did they have to make a living at this profession, they had to pay the Temple authorities for the privilege of their profession which meant that the exchange rate was exorbitant. And since the exchange rate was so high, most common ordinary Jewish peasants really couldn’t afford to offer sacrifices. And of course, the Temple Priests were pretty strict about the idea that if one couldn’t offer sacrifices, don’t count on God’s favor. Of course, this left the local peasantry feeling as if they were worth virtually nothing in God’s eyes.

And, so this is the Temple into which Jesus walks in the last week of his life. And he’s hunting for bear. He’s had enough. And with uncharacteristic violence and rage and a whole bunch of Aramaic four letter words, he wreaks mayhem and destruction within the Temple. And he makes his point: this Temple is to be a house of prayer, not the local Walmart.

Now, while I personally find this episode uncomfortable, I also find it profound. Nowhere else in the New Testament do we find Jesus reacting in such a visceral and disturbing manner. While the Priests and Scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees seemed to have their knickers in a twist about ritual purity, Jesus doesn’t seem to be concerned about it much if at all.

The woman caught in adultery and thrown at Jesus feet: he responds to her by saying, “Don’t do that. It’s degrading. You’re worth more than that.” He calls a tax-collector to be a member of his inner circle. The woman who bankrolls Jesus Inc. was once the possessed by seven demons. He has lunch with ladies of the evening and other such rabble – and in those days, to share a meal with someone was a sign of friendship. None of these people raise in Our Lord the ire, the sheer rage that is expressed in the Temple. As a matter of fact, there is no anger at all. Love? Compassion? Forgiveness? Yes. But no anger, no rage, no violence, no destruction.

The thing that seems to have sent Our Lord over the edge was those to whom power and authority had been entrusted, who then turned around and used that power and authority to oppress and degrade and control those lower on the societal ladder. This was the one thing that just sent him into orbit. And it scared the living daylights out of the Romans and the Big Whigs at the Temple. And so they decided to get rid of him, once and for all.

I look at the nation in which we live, in which we are citizens and then I look at this morning’s Gospel lesson. Not much has changed. I look at those coming out of the Clown Car the news people are calling Decision 2012 and radio talk show hosts and just shake my head. All of them call themselves devout Christians, but none of them seem to get it.

It seems impossible to me that in the 21^st Century we’re having a national debate on whether women have the right to ask the insurance companies which they pay to assure that they will have health care just because a few men find their sensibilities offended. 

I find it incredible that in a city in which people are sleeping under overpasses and bridges and many in the south part of town don’t have enough to eat, or enough money to heat their homes, the local Archbishop is mustering his forces and all the cash he can just to insure that legislation granting same-sex couples the right to marry is overturned.

I myself have a visceral reaction every time I hear some politician refer to the poor and the needy as lazy parasites while allocating billions for the production of implements of war and assuring that their buddies don’t need to pay their fair share of taxes.

Tricky Ricky Santorum

What has become increasingly obvious is that if Jesus were physically present in human form rather than in just Bread and Wine, the episode in the Temple from this morning’s Gospel would look like a Sunday School picnic.

On one level, it’s easy to point out the inconsistencies of our own nation and society. It’s also easy, at least for me, to get my own knickers in a twist about the same things. And being aware of and responding to such things is what we as Christians are called to do in so far as we are physically, emotionally and spiritually able. And the Church gives us such readings in Lent to remind us of what was important to Jesus and what wasn’t.

But the hard part of Lent, at least for me, is to ask: in what ways is my own heart just like the Temple in the time of Jesus? How do I try to control or manipulate or degrade or oppress other people? Where do I fall short? What are my motives? And I have to admit that my motives are usually based in fear of the other and fear of the unknown.

And I also have to ask myself: in what ways to I try to be pure and upright and righteous not just for the sake of doing so and as a thanksgiving to God for the gift of life, but rather believing that such purity and righteousness will make God love me more, or so that others will think better of me than they might otherwise?

I find it easy to point the finger at political and public figures and find valid fault with their actions, but it’s much more difficult to point the finger at myself and realize that, though on not such a grand scale, I am no different.

But there is also a joy in Lent. A great joy; a joy based in the promise that when we find ourselves sitting in our own Temples and changing the money, there is One with us whose love for us is never in question – who has no desire to come in and throw over our money tables; there is a joy in the understanding that we are human and will never be perfect; there is great joy in the knowledge that God’s love for the human race and for ourselves as individuals isn’t based on what we do, but who we are: the beloved. And all of that changes everything.

What changes is that I begin to see those coming out of the Clown Car not as ignorant fools, but as my brothers and sisters just as worthy of God’s compassion as I am. I begin to see the Archbishop no longer as a mean-spirited prelate, but as a human being with fears and foibles just as I have my own fears and foibles and also as my brother.

I begin to know that those fellahs trying to drag my sisters back into the Victorian age, while totally clueless, are no less clueless than I am at times and that God’s love for them has never nor ever shall be, in doubt.

Lent began by Holy Mother Church calling us to the observance of a holy Lent, by self examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. And she does so, in her wisdom, to remind us of our own humanity, that we are one community – globally, nationally, ethnically, culturally – and that we will never be perfect or get it right. She does so to remind us that being human is just fine and that we must rely on God to make up the difference. But she also, in her wisdom, calls us to lives of forgiveness and mercy, to lives of compassion and goodwill, not just for ourselves, but for those whose lives and values and mindsets might be totally different than our own.

And why does she call us to such things? To remind us that even though we may be so very different from God, so incomplete, that we are and always have been God’s beloved; not just you and me, but all of us; and that we are to reach out to each other as each other’s beloved in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Amen.