The Cleansing of the Temple: Who is This Jesus?

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This coming Sunday, March 3, we will hear John’s version of the Cleansing of the Temple which is placed at the beginning of Jesus’s public life, whereas in Matthew and Mark it is placed near the end of his life. John gives the story a fuller treatment going so far as to describe the whips Jesus made to drive out certain animals, and the upsetting of the vendor’s tables and spilling their coins. Matthew and Mark give the story very little space though Mark does mention the overturning of vendor’s tables. All three narratives, however, allude to the authority of Jesus. In its essence the story says that the authority of the old law and the power of the Pharisees and Sadducees are now over.

Let’s look at the setting. Most scholars say the place for selling animals for sacrifice in the temple was an area adjoining the immediate place of worship where the altar was. Market selling appears to have been allowed before the major religious holidays when the priests allowed vendors to set up tables and sell animals because many people could not bring their animal for slaughter if they had taken a long journey to get there. Vendors could only take Jewish shekels for the selling as Roman money would have defiled the temple area. So, we have a totally Jewish event, isolated from any other ‘pollutant’ preceding the Passover and not an ordinary, daily event either. 

We have here simple business going on, one might say expedience and efficiency since animal sacrifices were needed for the ceremonies of Passover and other Jewish religious holidays. The fact that they were held apart from the area of ceremonial and religious liturgy of the feast is important. You have then ordinary people making a living but respecting the regulations of the temple and you have the priests no doubt getting a hefty percentage of the profits for both themselves and the temple. 

So, Jesus is not angry at the vendors! Many of us hearing and reading this narrative have thought, perhaps, that Jesus was angry at people who corrupted the Temple, people who set up tables of commerce, people who were vendors. It seems that Jesus was not at all angry with the vendors. We learn from scholarship vendors were simple people trying to earn a living offering worshippers their animal for sacrifice. Jesus was angry that the priests promoted such commerce in order to exploit the poor and get a share in the profits.  

I often hear that the cleansing of the temple offers easy analogies. For instance, what if it can mean that a Church tormented with scandal and now contrite or working through litigious accusations is an example of Christ’s anger with established religion of his time and ours? Or, what if a church or faith riddled with heretical teaching loses so many followers? Is this a cleansing of the temple? In some ways, yes for both of these. But not completely.

Here are some gleanings from theologians about the cleansing of the temple. “…the place of encounter with God, is not the Temple, but Jesus himself.”

“Just as the Temple was God’s presence on earth, so now Jesus Christ becomes God’s presence among us.” (Edward Schillebeeckx) “In John, the wrath of Jesus is on the institutions he opposes,” (Jerome Biblical Commentary) Most others follow the same trajectory: Jesus is not against the simple money changers trying to eek out a living doing an honorable thing by offering worshippers the animal they need to sacrifice. He is against the charlatan priests and their sycophantic followers who control an institution that doesn’t let the fullness of his message filter to the anawim, the poor and ordinary people of the faith. In other words, if these priests were truly inspired, they would lead the people to accept that animal sacrifices and venues at the temple—are not necessary. Belief in Jesus would be the truth. The greed and lust for power among the priests is his objective. Release the people from being oppressed by the law of religion and my Father’s house will be reverenced once again, Jesus is thinking. It appears that Jesus had come to a vortex where all the hypocrisy of the priests, all the abuse of the oppressed, all the ignoring of his teaching erupted in his heart and mind. In simple parlance: Jesus had had it!! His just anger had to be demonstrated. He is the only Temple that matters, and they just refused to get that message. 

Reflection

There is much to reflect on with this Gospel reading. We often think of it as a kind of chastisement of any Christian faith for any wrongdoing or guilt it might carry. We go through the long sordid history of a Church that wobbled through its human management of spiritual affairs and we end up either looking for the good or leaving because of the bad. But let’s take a wider lens. As I wrote last week, let’s look at Jesus from a telescopic lens. His effort is based on a simple teaching in this story: We must believe in his authority, his teaching, his real Presence among us and not the fallacious teaching of arcane religious practices which have lost sight of God as the source of love and justice placing heavy burdens on believers. That’s what we need to cleanse. 

For your reflection this week, read John 2:13-25. 

Ask yourself these questions:

• Do I make honest efforts to understand my faith as rooted only in Jesus and not in whatever I can achieve in the name of religion?
• Do I examine everyday for what I have done with Jesus to help others?
• Do I try and understand my faith and work with its shortcomings rather than abandon it?
• What do I do for the growth of my personal faith and my religion?

I am keeping all of you in my prayer this Lent. I am praying that your view of Jesus is becoming more ‘telescopic’ as you move on.