Third Sunday of Lent-B
The secular world has the day, and we are unaccustomed to seeing our Jesus exhibit righteous anger. It simply doesn’t fit the equity, diversity, and tolerance narrative. The humanistic society demands Jesus be an effeminate man with the characteristics of a unisex individual who reaffirms his mercy upon any sinner. Contrition and a firm amendment to change have no place in contemporary thoughts. If Jesus acts as we think he should, then all is well. This is how the Gospel is preached in many places: offend no one and focus on forgiveness without an appropriate response from the sinner to change his ways.
Our Gospel message for the Third Sunday of Lent depicts a different Jesus, one who shows his righteous anger to those who would defile the sacred place of the temple. You can almost imagine the scene, an epic moment. “He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep and doves, as well as the money changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables, and those who sold doves her said, ‘Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.’”
A brief foundational history will help us navigate this scene. Just before Jesus entered the temple, we were told that Passover was about to take place. The activities in the temple of sacrifices and temple taxes were well in motion. The sacrificed animals were meant to atone for personal sins. If a person was guilty of sin, his purification came about through the slaughtering of oxen and sheep, and if the person were without means, turtle doves would be substituted and offered through the priest.
The money changers carved out a living by making it possible for every male Jew, twenty years or older, to pay their annual temple tax with a half-shekel coin. The census tax was first mentioned in Exodus, where God told Moses each male needed to give the Lord a ransom for his life so no plague would come upon them. The money collected was used to support the temple and the priests, with a cut given to the money changer.
If the law dictated temple commerce, why was Jesus so angry? Partly because the law was observed, but the spirit and reason for the law were no longer in effect. A key to unlocking the mystery might be the last part of today’s Gospel, “But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well.”
Jesus knew human nature well and how corrupted nature tends to separate us from the spiritual, placing most of our energies in day-to-day activities. The money changers lost sight of the fact that the law is intended to bring us closer to God, not further away. The cottage industry of temple commerce slowly but surely evolved from the reason of sacrifice and tax to one that is forgetful of the dependence on God.
Human nature wants to act in a way that serves its best interests. If Jesus’ teachings do not conform with what we want to believe today, we often manipulate his words to fit our current situation. If we recoil at Jesus being our judge, we reinterpret his words to be meant only as a merciful God willing to forget the harm caused by our sins. If we do not want to spend our time in Church on Sunday, we rationalize and say, “I can pray to God anywhere.” If we do not want time to pray, we often think, “There are so many things I must do with my family; I haven’t the time.” When we need to contribute to charitable causes, I respond, “There are others who have more than me who can give.”
Instead of the law helping us to become better persons, it becomes our enemy. How grateful we should be that we have a season of Lent, a time in which we can step back from our devolution into self and harken to the righteous anger of Jesus, who condemned any practice distancing us from God. By focusing on penance, self-sacrifice, and almsgiving, we are taking steps to avoid what happened to the money-changers who willing forgot that if our life isn’t rooted in God first, then our corrupted human nature will send us on a different route, often to our demise.
Thank God for Lent for reminding us to step back and examine if we are becoming a money changer in the temple or a disciple of Christ.