Third Sunday in Lent

March 19, 2006

Exodus 20:1-17 Psalm 19 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 John 2:13-22

Cleaning House

This week’s gospel text records a story that is one of the most dramatic in the New Testament — the most memorable of several episodes in which Jesus gets angry. Although Jesus is more often thought of in images like the hymn, “Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild,” even people who may not be well acquainted with the Bible have heard how Jesus drove the moneychangers from the Temple in Jerusalem. How does this story reconcile with the cherished portrait of a “gentle, meek and mild” Jesus?

People are often afraid of outright anger, and funnel the anger they inevitably feel, turning it into passive aggression. This is toxic behavior that creates misery and unhappiness, often getting in the way of the Holy Spirit’s work. The idea of Jesus being angry is disturbing to begin with — much more so if one feels that anger is sinful. Jesus does not behave in a passive/aggressive manner, he clearly gets angry. What brought out his anger?

Contemporary scholars have gone beyond traditional interpretations of this story as the “cleansing” of the temple. The crass commercialism of the moneylenders, livestock peddlers, and currency exchangers in the temple complex weren’t all that made Jesus angry, obnoxious as these certainly were. Limiting the action of Jesus to (temporarily) driving out unscrupulous vendors from the temple environs, violating the civil code by “disturbing the peace,” would have merely amounted to a superficial bit of street theater. Rather, this is an important, climactic moment in the life of our Lord. Jesus had come to clean house!

One alternate name for this story is the “destruction” of the temple. Jesus symbolically “destroyed” the system that operated in the temple, by attacking its outward, commercial manifestations. The system that Jesus came to dismantle is one constructed of unjust barriers between “pure” and “impure,” high and low social caste, affluence and destitution.

In the eastern and southern areas of United States, many churches built during the colonial period still stand. The way these church buildings were originally used would make Jesus as angry as those moneychangers did. In these “temples,” draped and carved thrones were reserved for bishops and royal emissaries. Private booths with foot warmers were maintained for the wealthy. Men were often seated in front of women. Middle classes paid “pew rents” for regular places to sit. “Transients” were relegated to rough benches at the back of the church. Slaves and all non-whites had to sit in the balcony — if their presence was tolerated at all. And beggars sat waiting outside in the churchyard, among the tombstones.

How could a church like this ever reflect the good news of the gospel? Hierarchy was not merely a matter of seating charts, protocol, or “tradition.” It reflected systemic evils of oppression and discrimination that we are still all too familiar with today.

In the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we read about the contrast between the wisdom of God and the “wisdom of the world.” Those who are “worldly-wise” might say: “That’s the way the world works. Get with the program!”

But God promises to destroy “the way the world works” — the temples of social rank and economic power. “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Corinthians 1:25, NRSV).

This week’s Reflection was prepared by Lisa Bellan-Boyer, who serves as a writer and consultant for the American Bible Society and is an Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies and Humanities at Hudson County Community College and a Research Associate of the Harvard Pluralism Project.