Third Sunday of Lent

Gospel Reading: John 2:13-25

13  Just before the Jewish Passover Jesus went up to Jerusalem,

14 and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons, and the money changers sitting at their counter there.

15 Making a whip out of some cord, he drove them all out of theTemple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money changers' coins,knocked their tables over

16 and said to the pigeon sellers, “Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father's house into a market.”

17 Then his disciples remembered the words of scripture: 'Zeal for your house will devour me.'

18 The Jews intervened and said, 'What sign can you show us to justify what you have done?'

19 Jesus answered, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.”

20 The Jews replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this sanctuary: are you going to raise it up in three days?” 

21 But he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body,

22 and when Jesus rose from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the words he had said.

23 During his stay in Jerusalem for the Passover many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he gave,

24 but Jesus knew them all and did not trust himself to them;

25 he never needed evidence about any man; he could tell what a man had in him.   

Gospel Meditation

This Sunday we have John's account of the cleansing of the tem­ple. The passage is in two sections:

• verses 13-17, the cleansing of the temple by Jesus;
• verses 18-25, a discussion between Jesus and the Jews.

Three questions to ask yourself:

• what are the temples that people turn into market places today?
• Why is Jesus cleansing these temples?
• How is he doing it?

John's approach is different from that of the synoptic gospels. They lay stress on the dishonesty of the vendors - they had come to do business but end up turning the place into 'a den of thieves'. John does not speak of this problem at all.

His complaint is not against those who profit from their illegal vending. The fault of the vendors is that they have turned the Father's house into a market, no longer a place of sharing and trans­parency but one where what a person is worth gets primary importance. They forget what the temple was really about; they see nothing beyond what they have set themselves to achieve.

The person who is intent on cleansing these temples is none other than the man Jesus. We cannot afford to see him as some kind of troublemaker or disturber of the peace - we must recog­nise and celebrate him for who he is. This is often difficult or even impossible for those of us who are intimately involved in this kind of trade.

Today's story tells us that we can identify the person who sets about correcting this fault because he has the original spirit of the founders. This is what St John calls the 'zeal' of Jesus, the inner feeling which makes it difficult for him to accept. We toler­ate the profanation of temples very easily; for him it is a situation that he finds totally unacceptable.

Let us look finally at the dialogue between the Jews and Jesus. We see two opposed mentalities. The Jews are concerned with the sanctuary which takes forty-six years to build so that its destruction is a disaster. Jesus is concerned for a different kind of temple - one that can always be rebuilt in three days.

It is only when we have experienced true death and true res­urrection that we can understand certain lessons of life. We must now ask ourselves the basic question: how have we our­selves come to this new insight? Has it been for us an experience of death and resurrection?

Prayer

Liberty without obedience is confusion, obedience without liberty is slavery. William Penn

Lord, there are so many temples that people are turning into market places today:

• children are a sacred trust,but we project our own ambitions and our hurts on them
• our relationship with our spouse we turn into a battlefield where we make sure to occupy the higher ground;
• we enter into friendships to get advantages for ourselves;
• the land we see as a source of easy profit;
• the human body we treat as an object of competitions;
• a church community becomes a place for prestige and power.

                                                                                          
We thank you for the times you sent Jesus into those temples; he made a whip out of some cord and drove us out, scattering our coins and knocking our counting tables over.

We were angry, hurt and confused, but looking back we now recognise that it was zeal for your house that devoured you.

The only real prayer is one where we are no longer aware that we are praying. 
St Anthony the Great

Lord, there was a time when we had made our relationship with you a matter of rewards for good works.

We complained that you let us suffer, that you left our prayers unanswered,
that others we considered less virtuous than ourselves were more blessed than we were.

But all the time it was Jesus cleansing your house, driving away the baggage of the marketplace, so that we could come to you in humble adoration and trust.

Lord, forgive us that we are no longer indignant when sacred places are being violated.

We thank you for those whom zeal for your house has devoured:

• Martin Luther King overturning the segregation counters in the Southern United States;
• Steve Biko communicating a sense of self worth to his fellow South Africans;
• labour leaders in the Caribbean who brought dignity to workers;
•  those who work for peace in a country torn apart by long and painful strife.

Lord, we are always fearful of losing what is secondary to your church - large numbers, popularity, the patronage of the powerful - fearful that what has taken forty-six years to build might be destroyed. As a result we compromise and tolerate and remain passive.

Remind us, Lord, that the only sanctuary that counts is the body of Jesus, his love, his solidarity with the poor and the oppressed; and once we are truly his body in our society, we can rebuild in three days whatever the earthly powers destroy.

Lord, there are so many deep lessons about life that we learn from our parents and grandparents, but it is only after we have passed through resurrection from the dead that we remember what they taught us and we believe the words they spoke.

Lord, be with your church in our moments of success, when many believe in us because they see signs we give

• our schools and other institutions,
• our lively liturgies
• our rallies.

Remind us what people have in them, so that we may not put our trust in their approval but only in our fidelity to you.