THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT B

[cappie]

Jesus does not come to destroy the temple, but to fulfill it  to reveal its true purpose in God’s saving plan. He is the Lord the prophets said would come—to purify the temple, banish the merchants, and make it a house of prayer for all peoples.

For Jesus, it is the first Passover of his public ministry and his first known visit to Jerusalem as a grown man.       

Why did Jesus become so angry when he saw his father’s house being made into a marketplace? The Old Testament Reading gives us many clues to the answer. Idolatry of any kind was forbidden by God. The money changers had the following purpose: taxes had to be paid to the Roman overlords, but the Roman money carried the image of Caesar on it. The High Priests, considering this image idolatry, had ordered that the money paid in taxes should be converted to the shekel in order to be acceptable for Temple business. In that exchange, a great profit went into the coffers of these same priests. Jesus knew that this was both profanity of the Temple and exploitation of the poor.  

Jesus knew that his acts in the courtyard of the Temple would bring him in direct conflict with the high priests. This early in his ministry he is very popular with the people, so the priests don’t dare touch him. As his interpretation of who God is and what God demands of us, he becomes a stumbling block to the high priests, and the people, not getting the signs that they demand, agree to his death.  

In a few years St. Paul will articulate it very clearly to the Corinthians. The Jews were scandalized by Jesus’, by his claim to know the mind of his father, by his willingness to meet his death without any retaliation or violence. To the Gentiles, with whom Paul is sharing what he learned from Christ, all this is foolishness. It goes against their own admiration for wisdom and philosophy, even for courage in battle. St. Paul summarizes the reaction to the acts of Jesus: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”

In today’s gospel story, St. John shows the activity of Jesus in all its glory. The leaders of the Jews had fooled the people with a piety that had become idolatry and had allowed physical structures to take the place of a God who demanded, “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” Our culture has forgotten this command also, and so many signs or symbols have been turned into idols

We need Jesus’ courage to cleanse the temples of idolatry. We long for his kind of integrity that dares to call out the oppressors, no matter who they are. We pray for the power to overthrow the tables of the moneychangers who cheat the poor and the voiceless. In St. Paul’s words, we too must “proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”  

As we approach Holy Week, we need the love and the passion that can sustain us. We will be laughed at when we too resist the culture of the day, but we will remember with St. Paul that, “The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Let us be aware, more than ever during this season of Lent, that the power of God goes with us. Jesus’ body—destroyed on the Cross and raised up three days later—is the new and true sanctuary the Spirit of grace that makes each of us a temple   and together builds us into a dwelling place of God.

In the Eucharist  we  offer praise as our sacrifice. This means imitating Christ—offering our bodies—all our intentions and actions in every circumstance, for the love of God and the love of others