In nomine Patris, et
Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen
John the Evangelist places this story, the
Cleansing of the Temple, near the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. The other
Evangelists place their versions of the story toward the end of Jesus’s
ministry, after his entry into Jerusalem and just before the Passion. So it is
clear that an incident like this was well-known to the earliest Christians, and
the story was preserved by different communities in somewhat different forms.
The fact that John places it near the beginning of his Gospel indicates that
there are important themes in it that he wants to make clear at the outset. It
seems to me that John saw no reason to put off the proclamation of these
themes, which are important to his entire Gospel.
We can all picture the scene. “Making a
whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple…the sheep and the cattle…the
coins of the money changers… ‘Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!’” We
can imagine the disorder, the shock, the anger. Although the Gospel doesn’t
mention them, temple police could not have been far away, so there is a
possible threat of arrest. After all, the sellers and the money changers were
engaged in legitimate business; Jesus had no right to interfere with it, and
certainly no right to abuse the Temple retailers and currency traders, for that
is what they were, to put their occupations into modern terms. In order to
provide animals for the sacrifices, worshippers would first have to change
their currencies into Temple money, and with the Temple money they would buy
the animals they required. The system imposed consistency in exchange rates for
the different currencies that people would have with them, and established one
set of prices in Temple money. Simple really. This system also ensured a steady
supply of money for the Temple. And the Temple priests made sure that they made
a profit on all transactions. So why was Jesus interfering with this apparently
efficient system of supplying the Temple with animals for the sacrifices, and
money to support the whole operation? The short answer is found in accounts of
this incident in the other Gospels. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, quoting
Isaiah and Jeremiah, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are
making it a den of robbers.” Jesus is intent on reform of the Temple, in the
direction called for by the prophets.
I am wondering how far Jesus wanted to go
with this. “Take these things out of here. Stop making my Father’s house a
marketplace.” What would be left without the animals for sacrifice and the
money changers? Either Jesus wanted the retail operation moved somewhere else,
or he wanted to do away with it altogether. If he wanted to do away with it, he
was demanding that everyone’s understanding of the Temple should change, and
that the Temple worship should continue without animal sacrifice. There would
still be the grain offerings and incense offerings, and festivals and
pilgrimages, but the sacrificial system would be very different. And the local
economy would be very different too. A lot of people, farmers and middlemen and
their suppliers, cowherds and temple clergy and attendants, were dependent on
the regular, constant consumption of animals in the sacrifices, and the steady
intake of money. A portion of the sacrifices was set aside to feed the Temple
clergy. It’s an economy not unlike our own. We have a vast system of animal
production and consumption on which millions of people depend for their
livelihood. So when Jesus drives the retailers and bankers out of the Temple,
he is undermining the whole system, the whole economy. Jesus’s prophetic
critique of the system is unmistakable. And we can hear it as a critique of our
own economic system as well.
The Temple authorities don’t apparently
stop Jesus. Instead, they ask him a question, “What sign can you show us for
doing this?” There’s an implicit recognition here of Jesus’s authority, of his
possible right to be doing what he’s doing. After all, the people of the time
have heard prophetic denunciations of the Temple, the economy, the whole social
system before. Prophetic speech like this is part of their tradition, after
all. It is part of our tradition too; we don’t lack for critics pointing out
injustice and exploitation and more, of both animals and humans. So the
authorities are looking for a sign that a genuine prophet is in their midst.
“Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this
temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” As we heard, “he was speaking
of the temple of his body.” This is the great theme of John’s Gospel, the
Resurrection, to which all teachings and events in the Gospel point. This is
why the story is at the beginning of John’s Gospel. The sign that Jesus is
giving the authorities is pointing to something that hasn’t happened yet, a
sign that they were not likely to understand. We don’t know what the rest of
the conversation was, if there was one at all, but we do know that the Temple
went on operating for several decades more, until the Romans destroyed it, so
Jesus’s actions in the Temple had only a temporary effect. But the Resurrection
marked the effective end, or the beginning of the end, of the old sacrificial
system. Ultimately, the cleansing of the Temple proved to be permanent.
So far we have heard two themes of the
story of the cleansing of the Temple: the Resurrection, and the critique of the
economic system that supported the Temple. What can we take from this
combination of themes?
Traditionally, in Lent, Christians fasted
from dairy products and meat. In the Eastern Church, this is still the rule and
the expectation. In the Western Church, fasting has been much reduced, and even
trivialized, so that a Lenten fast has come to mean giving up chocolate or some
other trifle. Although Our Lord’s actions in the Temple were not about fasting,
they do remind us that the economy, and food consumption, that underlie our way
of life, are in need of reform. We need to pay attention to the connections
between the way we live and the way we practice our religion. The old
sacrificial system got in the way of prayerful worship. Our sacrificial system,
for that’s what our economy is, can get in the way of our religion, the
religion of the Resurrection. If we truly believe in life, in life resurrected,
transformed in such a way that God’s presence and power are visible in life
abundant, then we need to think about cleansing our Temple, the Temple of our
economic gods, of all those things that get in the way of allowing all humans,
and the whole world in fact, to be the world that God made us to be. One way to
do this will be to rethink how we in the Western Church keep the Lenten fast.
We may think of this as a sign something like the sign the authorities were
looking for, when they questioned Jesus in the Temple. How far are we willing
to go, what sign are we willing to give, in clearing our economic temple of all
those things that get in the way of the resurrected life, life with God?
In nomine, etc..
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