THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT (2024)

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT (2024)

Readings:

Exodus 20:1-17

Psalms 19:8-11

1 Corinthians 1:22-25

John 2:13-25

Outside of the Passion Narratives, it is rare for a passage from Jesus’ life to be recounted in all four gospels, yet, that is the case with Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple.  It is safe to conclude that the early church saw this story as an essential part of coming to know who Jesus is.  The God of peace, the purveyor of love and compassion, was fully man, and He could get riled up over injustices of any kind.  Without being irrational, Jesus displays a righteous anger in today’s gospel, and the account’s presence in all four gospels reveals to us a Jesus whose actions in the Temple show us a Jesus who is keenly aware of who man is and how easy it is for man to go astray.

While the Ten Commandments in our first reading say nothing of animal sacrifice, Jesus was surely aware of how the sacrifice of animals had become entwined with Sabbath worship.  As man is want to do, businesses grew up providing the animals for sacrifice, for a price of course, and money with the emperor’s image on it would have to be changed in accord with the ten commandment’s prohibition against idols.  This, too, of course, would have a charge attached to it.  All of this commerce was acceptable up to a point, but on this first trip to the Jerusalem Temple in John’s gospel, Jesus sensed the scales of propriety had been tipped in the wrong direction.  Perhaps the worship of God had become empty, and even those who provided what was necessary for ordinary worship had forgotten the privilege they had in assisting people in their worship, seeing only the maximum profit to be made and increasing that profit every chance they had.

Aristotle once wrote:  “It is easy to be angry.   Anyone can do it.  But to become angry at the right moment, to the right degree, for the right purpose, in the right manner – that is difficult.  Only the wise person can accomplish it.”  Aristotle understood that there are different kinds of anger.  There is destructive anger that is unfocused, irrational, and wasteful.  That kind of anger can be all-consuming and debilitating, filled with rage, and it often leads to a violence that is unnecessary.  But there is also constructive anger that is precise, appropriate, and useful.  Aristotle believed constructive anger was useful.  So did Jesus.  Regardless of how this story has been portrayed in countless movies about Jesus, I would like to think that what we read in the Scriptures is not merely a matter of Jesus losing His temper.  Further, the gospels are never meant to be viewed as we view history, although there is much that is in them that is historical.  Perhaps all the gospel writers felt that this story portrays Jesus’ humanity in a very fundamental way.  Jesus did feel passionate about His teachings, He did feel compassionate for those He healed.  He was strongly concerned of letting others know that with His arrival in our world there would be a new order, and that some things were about to change.

Indeed, some might even say it is necessary for good and decent humans to be angry, to feel passionate about the injustices that exist in the world, to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, to rail at the lies and misinformation that bring division and not healing to our world, to despise the wars that truly upset our world.  If we discover that the policies of our job, church, or political system discriminate against the poor or oppress the weak, constructive anger can cause us to speak out, organize, and work to improve the situation. Whatever Jesus saw when He entered the Temple in Jerusalem caused a fervor in Him to correct the injustice and change the world, and the Hebrew faith, for the better.  The actions of Jesus remind us that Christians are meant to do more than pray quietly and promote a peaceful inner disposition.  Christians are expected to act on behalf of what is right, to unloose the heavy yolks that bind people unfairly.  Jesus’ action to cleanse the Temple of all that is bad, should inspire us to work for peace and justice, wherever it is needed.