The readings of today affords us the opportunity to reflect on the Commercialisation of Religion and the Desecration of the Temple. One of the greatest Jewish feasts in Jerusalem is the Passover and it drew all kinds of pilgrims from all over the world to celebrate their deliverance from Egypt. Jesus travels with thousands of other pilgrims during an intense period of celebration in remembrance of the action of God in the life and history of Israel. Due to the distance, people find it difficult to bring animals for the sacrifice and this makes them to buy them in the Temple.
Also, because they came from all over the Roman Empire, the various coins they had needed to be exchanged into the standard Temple currency. A pilgrim to the Temple ought to be a sacred experience but that was destroyed by the atmosphere of the Temple where all this buying, selling and currency exchange got out of hand. At the Passover, the Temple became a shopping Mall. Merchants were selling animals for the sacrifice; money changers were there trading currency at predictably exorbitant rates of exchange. When Jesus saw the actions of the merchants, and the money changers; he was angry and drove them out.
He said: Take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade. It is important we note that anger is part of our emotion but Christ never sinned against God through his actions. We may have been taught that anger is sinful. This is not necessarily the case. Also, we cannot deny that anger is a dangerous thing, and can result in us saying or doing things we might later regret. Anger can also be a good thing. It can spur us to stand for what is right in the midst of those clamouring for what is wrong. However, in cleansing the Temple, Jesus was protesting against the commercialisation of religion and the desecration of the Temple.
His action was the kind that had been predicted for the messianic age: “There will be no more traders in the temple of Yahweh when that day comes” (Zech,14:21). He was protesting at the way religion had become narrow, nationalistic and exclusive. Israel had failed to fulfil her universal mission to humankind. It was God’s intention that the Temple should be a house of prayer “for all nations”. But the Jews believed that it is only in the Temple in Israel that one can encounter God alone. In the same vein, Christianity as a religion has been commercialize in our world today.
When we see many anomalies committed by Priests, Pastors and Evangelists in the Name of God; you might want to ask just the way Hans Kung did in his book “On Being a Christian” whether Christianity has lost its soul? In protesting against the Desecration of the Temple, the Jews asked Jesus for a sign to justify his actions. He said “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up”. Jesus Christ made reference to the Temple which was his body, which depicts his resurrection. How do we desecrate the house of the Lord? By making noise in the house of God, not referencing Jesus in the Tabernacle, littering the house of God with paper and snacks, by eating in the house of God, turning the house of God to place where we come and gist, having Bazaar sales in the church, etc. 1Cor 6:19-20 says do you not know that your body is the Temple of God and the spirit of God dwells in you.
What do we do with our body that is the Temple of God? Let us endeavour to keep our bodies sacred for God. The first reading from the book of Exodus tells us how we can purify the Temple of God, which is our body. When we obey the ten commandments of God, it’s helps us to purify the temple of God. The ten commandments have been impressed upon our hearts and it us also shows our fidelity to God. St Paul in the second reading proclaimed, without apology a crucified saviour, knowing full well that this would shock the Jews and scandalize the Greek world of his time. The fact that Jesus was crucified automatically disqualified him from being the Messiah in the eyes of the Jews, and was sheer madness in the eyes of the Greek. The Jews desired a Messiah who would obtain for them their national sovereignty and independence.
The Greek wanted a kind of perfect human wisdom that would provide satisfactory explanation of human beings and give some meaning to life. Paul writes: We preach Christ Crucified a stumbling block to the Jews and an absurdity to the Gentiles. But God accomplishes by foolishness what the greatest human wisdom cannot achieve. The cross was a sign of the wisdom of God, and a powerful expression of God’s love for the world. The fundamental question we need to ask ourselves today is what kind of Christ do Christianity preach today? What is the content of our preaching? Do we preach the suffering and the crucified Christ or the prosperity Christ?
This prosperity Christ has made a lot of Pastors to devise different means to extort the people in the Name of God. Irrespective of what the world thinks, we must never lose focus of the crucified Christ, who carried his cross and has ordered us to the same. Like all Lenten readings, we are called to re-examine and re-evaluate our ideas about Christ, about Church and about Christianity. The gospel of salvation must never be commercialized and the temple of God, which is our body must be sacred for God.
