CLEANSING THE TEMPLE

November 19, Friday

Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time

 

      After his first military victories over the Syrians, Judas Maccabeus wanted to restore legitimate worship. He had the desecrated Temple cleansed and consecrated anew, rebuilt the altar, and offered the sacrifice in accordance with the Law.

      Jesus drove out the merchants from the Temple and it might be a good time to ask ourselves: What has the Lord to drive out from us to make us better Christians? What stands in the way of being closer to him in the life of every day? What matters for us Christians is that we are attached to the Lord and close to the people he has entrusted to us. Then, we can worship him with our whole life.

 

First Reading: 1 Maccabees 4:36-37,52-59

Judas and his brothers summed up their victory.

“Behold our enemy has been pulverized. It’s time to return to the holy city and the Temple. We need to straighten things out and clear things up.”

Next day, before dawn, they arose at five. It was the twenty-fifth day of

Kislev, the ninth month on the Jewish calendar, in year 148 of the Greek calendar. They offered sacrifice according to the Law on the new altar on what happened to be the second anniversary of the day the Gentiles had made the Temple unclean.

Now the whole place had been renovated. Music was heard again, with canticles and psalms accompanied by harps, lutes, and cymbals. All the people fell on their face, adored God, and

For eight days the joyous dedication celebration continued with burnt offerings and sacrifices of salvation and praise. They decorated the face of the Temple with golden crowns, ornamented the portals and side rooms, hung the massive doors. Great joy was written on the faces of the people; there wasn’t a Gentile fingerprint left in the whole place. Judas, his brothers, and everyone else in Israel decreed that dedication day should be preserved and observed with joy and gladness in the same season every year for eight days within the range from the fifth to the twentieth day of Kislev.

 

Gospel: Luke 19:45-48

Going into the Temple he began to throw out everyone who had set up shop, selling everything and anything. He said, “It’s written in Scripture,

My house is a house of prayer;
You have turned it into a religious bazaar.”

From then on he taught each day in the Temple. The high priests, religion scholars, and the leaders of the people were trying their best to find a way to get rid of him. But with the people hanging on every word he spoke, they couldn’t come up with anything.

 

Prayer

God our Father,
we often turn our hearts
into houses of pride and greed
rather than into homes of love and goodness
where you can feel at home.
Destroy the temple of sin in us,
drive away all evil from our hearts,
and make us living stones of a community
in which can live and reign
your Son, Jesus Christ,
our Lord, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Beware of the Holy Bribe!
The temple of Jerusalem made of stones expressed the religious structure of Israel. In the minds of people, generally the Temple was the focal point and physical embodiment of their whole religious and cultural system. To attack the Temple was to do violence against Israel and to attack God.
By driving out the traders Jesus symbolically stopped the whole sacrificial activity within the temple. Because the temple authorities have promoted a wrong idea about God to their people. The ordinary people were taught a wrong catechism, showing a distorted face of God. In the name of maintaining ritual purity of the temple, they promoted selling of sacrificial animals. They promoted a God who could be appeased by sacrificing animals. The rich could sacrifice bigger animals while the poor had to satisfy with the sacrifice of doves.

The money used in the market for daily usage could not be offered in the temple because it carried the image of the emperor and that could make the temple impure. Therefore, the money changers were a necessity there too. No wonder, the place of prayer had soon turned into a market.
The message is relevant for Christians today, because the temple is a symbol of the Church. The Church will always suffer the temptation of worldliness and the temptation of power. This is not a power that comes from Jesus. Jesus calls it “a den of robbers” because the temple authorities were robbing the poor even in the name of giving sacrifices and offerings to God!
Pope Francis says, “there is always the temptation of corruption within the Church”. One falls into it when, “instead of being attached to fidelity to the Lord Jesus, the Lord of peace, joy and salvation, one is seduced by money and power”. The priests and leaders in the Church may not directly do business in the Church but, they may be connected to the people who actually do the business. This connection may bring them a profit – for allowing them to do the business even in the Holy Places. Pope calls it the “Holy Bribe!”

Those who opposed Jesus did not know what to do because all the people hung on every word that Jesus spoke, listening. The strength of Jesus was his word, his testimony and his love. When you cling on to every word that comes from the mouth of Jesus, there is no place for worldliness, no place for corruption”.

This is the struggle each one of us faces, the daily struggle of the Church: to always hang on his every word, to hear his word; and never to seek security in material wealth and riches. After all, “you cannot serve two masters: either God or riches; God or power”.

 

Video available on Youtube: Beware of the Holy Bribe!