The Third Sunday of Lent
"Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”
Not your every day domesticated Jesus in this picture. How easy it is to calm Jesus down- or worse- to make him an angry militant. The first is what we do most of the year. The second is what we do when he gets into the Temple. For a brief moment we can stand up and cheer Jesus the way he should be- the OT-type prophet flinging things around in a great street theater sermon.
Over the years I have heard, read and preached various interpretations of this event. It is clear that Jesus' passion (or should it be Passion) is showing through. It is a reaction to the misuse and abuse of the Temple, especially in the Court of the Gentiles, where all the nations can come to pray. They can't go any further, so why not wring a few more shekels or denarii out of them.
But this passion is so alarming that none of us forget it. Nor can we internalize it with the rest of Jesus. But there it is. There it will always be until we get all the final answers. So what do I have to learn from this?
One I think is that we should be very cautious about making Jesus or spirituality or God a commodity to be sold on the open market. You can't buy God. You can't buy God's grace. Those who are trying to do so in even subtle forms are doing violence to the Gospel. Grace is always free.
Second I think we need to remember that prayer is central to the life with God. That sounds so simple, or even simplistic, but it is that basic. Prayer is nothing but the ongoing connecting with God. It is not a formula of words or styles or physical positions. It is being in the flow of God's love.
The money-changers, ancient and modern, are putting roadblocks in that flow. To do so is dangerous to ones soul.
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