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| Andre-Rublev's Saviour |
Homily preached by
Br. Simeon vat Blaxland on Sunday 8th March 2015:
THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT.
YR B.
“Zeal for the Father's house”.
May I speak in the Name of the One God, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit . Amen.
Isn't the gospel account of Jesus cleansing the temple
amazing? It stands in stark contrast to many popular notions of Jesus'
character. Here is no picture of a gentle, soft-spoken Jesus calmly confronting
the religious establishment with authoritative teaching and divine wisdom.
Rather, here Jesus appears with His sleeves rolled up ready for a fight. After
making His very own whip, He charges through the heart of the religious
establishment striking forcefully and aggressively at a religious system that has
become skewed. Imagine it! Jesus is opening pens and cages of oxen, sheep, and
doves with one hand, while, with a whip of cords in the other hand, He is
driving animals and people alike into confusion and retreat.
The temple is the focus of today’s Gospel. Whereas the Synoptic Gospels place Jesus’
cleansing of the temple immediately after his Palm Sunday entrance into
Jerusalem, John places the event early in his Gospel, following Jesus’ first
sign at Cana. While the synoptics recount only one climactic journey to
Jerusalem, the Jesus of John’s Gospel makes several trips to the holy city.
Pilgrims to the temple were expected to make a donation for
the upkeep and expenses of the edifice.
Because Roman currency was considered “unclean,” Jewish visitors had to
change their money into Jewish currency in order to make their temple gift.
Money-changers, whose tables lined the outer courts of the temple, charged
exorbitant fees for their service.
Visiting worshippers who wished to have a sacrifice offered
on the temple altar would sometimes have to pay 15 to 20 times the market rate
for animals purchased inside the temple.
Vendors could count on the cooperation of the official temple
“inspectors” who, as a matter of course, would reject as “unclean” or “imperfect”
animals brought in from outside the temple.
Jesus’ angry toppling of the vendors’ booths and tables is a
condemnation of the injustice and exploitation of the faithful in the name of
God. So empty and meaningless has their worship become that God will establish
a new “temple” in the resurrected body of the Christ.
Of course, the leaders and people do not appreciate the
deeper meaning of Jesus’ words, nor did the people who witnessed his miracles
understand the true nature of his Messianic mission. John’s closing observations in this reading,
point to the fact that the full meaning of many of Jesus’ words and acts were
understood only later, in the light of his resurrection.
In the temple precincts of our lives are “money changers”
and connivers -- fear, ambition, addictions, selfishness, prejudice -- that
distort the meaning of our lives and debase our relationships with God and with
one another.
The action of Jesus in the Temple challenges our
understanding of his character, our business ethics and our religious
practices. He was not kind and gentle that day. He offended people by
threatening their income, social status, and religious practices. He risked his
life because a righteous anger burned within his soul.
The issues were too important. He could not accept a
religion that oppressed people. He would not tolerate a faith that took
advantage of others or one that excluded others. With the crack of a whip, he
drove the money changers from the temple.
Lent is a time to invite the “anger” Jesus of today’s Gospel
into our lives to drive out those things that make our lives less than what God
created them to be. To raise one’s voice against injustice, to stand up before
the powerful on behalf of the weak, to demand accountability of those who exploit
and abuse others for their own gain is to imitate the “holy” anger of Christ.
Amen.
