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March 4, 2018 - Year B
Third Sunday of Lent
Jesus in the Temple
After this incident, Jesus, accompanied by his mother, his brothers and his disciples, went down to Capernaum and stayed there a few days. The Jewish Passover was approaching and Jesus made the journey up to Jerusalem. In the Temple he discovered cattle and sheep dealers and pigeon-sellers, as well as money-changers sitting at their tables. So he made a rough whip out of rope and drove the whole lot of them, sheep and cattle as well, out of the Temple. He sent the coins of the money-changers flying and turned their tables upside down. Then he said to the pigeon-dealers, "Take those things out of here. Don't you dare turn my Father's house into a market!" His disciples remembered the scripture - 'Zeal for your house has eaten me up'
As a result of this, the Jews said to him, "What sign can you give us to justify what you are doing?"
"Destroy this temple," Jesus retorted, "and I will rebuild it in three days!"
To which the Jews replied, "This Temple took forty-six years to build, and you are going to rebuild it in three days?"
He was, in fact, speaking about the temple of his own body, and when he was raised from the dead the disciples remembered what he had said to them and that made them believe both the scripture and what Jesus had said.
While he was in Jerusalem at Passover-time, during the festivities many believed in him as they saw the signs that he gave. But Jesus, on his side, did not trust himself to them - for he knew them all. He did not need anyone to tell him what people were like: he understood human nature. (J B Phillips trans)
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The first question that arises out of this reading from the gospel of John is: Why did John transfer this episode, which the other writers situate at the start of that final tragic week, to the very start of Jesus' ministry?
The event itself is extraordinary: an outburst of physical violence in the temple forecourt, traders driven out with a whip along with their cattle and sheep, tables overturned and money scattered across the pavement.
Why does John use this image of Jesus 'eaten up with zeal' to set the agenda for all that follows? I don't think he is correcting the common idea that Jesus was a man of peace, forceful and strong yet fully in control of himself and of the situation.
Rather I believe John intends us to focus on the place, the situation and the object of that outburst. The temple as an institution stands for the People of God, and the mission of Jesus is to clean up corruption in this institution.
John must have seen that corruption in the communities of his own time. He is writing only some 60 years from when they started. He pins it on the leadership.
Every page of John's gospel tells of confrontation between Jesus and the authorities, whether individuals like Nicodemus, who came by night for fear of being seen with this reformer, or the high and mighty learned men of Jerusalem.
Jesus exposes their feigned innocence, their false simplicity: 'You a teacher of Israel and you don't know these things!' (ch 3)
Bluntly he challenges their motives: 'You are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill!' (ch 6)
Mercilessly he strips away their pretentions: 'You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies!' (ch 8)
John's gospel could well be a text-book for critical examination of the institution of today and its embedded corruption.
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There is another question: If cleaning up the institution is key to Jesus' mission according to John, what significance does he see in this attack on the traders? Would it be fair to say that for John money is the problem?
This is the crucial issue. After all, the traders were there to provide the people with easy access to certified animals which alone could be offered for sacrifice, and the money-changers to provide the temple coinage which alone could be used to buy those animals. All legitimate, and most reasonable.
There is no condemnation of the trading; only that the temple is most definitely not the place for it.
Why? We don't need to wade through all the reasons. In the end it comes down to a simple formula: money is the root of evil because wealth gives power, and power means oppression by the wealthy of those who have less. Oppression is a restriction of freedom, a denial of dignity, destruction of the person. Oppression of one by another is evil, and the more subtle it is the more evil it is, because being invisible it is taken as inevitable – 'just the way things are'.
Leaders must not oppress the people! This is essential to the message of Jesus. His attitude to money could be summed up this way: Money lends itself to oppression for it is taken as a necessary mechanism for society to run smoothly. Money keeps people in their place. Those with it have power. Those without it are kept in control.
The temple, according to the gospel, is the Father's house, a place of prayerful communication with the Origin and Source of Being, a place of quiet reflection where the self is discovered in the Spirit, and God is discovered in one's self. So too is the 'church', the assembly of sisters and brothers in Christ, a place of prayer.
For it to be an institution dealing with money totally corrupts the nature of that assembly because the leaders, as money-managers, must inevitably become oppressors in that they have power from the wealth they control. The idea may be totally alien to their thinking, and they might struggle honestly to do everything right, but if they live within a structure built around financial security they are locked into the system with no escape from its corrupting influence. Look at the way insurance companies impose conditions and constraints on institutions everywhere, including the exercise of justice in the church.
The stark reality is that leaders in the community must be as servants, the least of all. They have authority, but only in the power of the truth. They must have no power of a human kind, for the community is not a human purpose-driven grouping but a simple sharing in trust, among equals.
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There is another dimension to the wealth/poverty dialectic, and it lies in the matter of trust. Just as sufficient wealth provides security and the basis for a healthy self-confidence, so on the other hand to live in dire poverty is to experience the precarious uncertainty of life. In the dimension of trust, the wealthy person learns to trust in their own ability to survive any setback, while the poor person can only trust in luck or chance or nature or god.
This, I believe, is the ultimate significance of poverty in the spiritual order. Those who go along with Jesus will learn to trust the Father. In Mt 6 Jesus uses the example of wildflowers and birds to teach that we can and should trust the Father who provides. I don't think it is better to be poor so we can trust more, but being rich has its dangers. Wealth does make for independence and a sense of self-reliance which tends to lead to a mentality in which trust in god seems no longer necessary.
If the church becomes self-reliant, self-confident, self-sufficient, at the very least it will be less an example of trust than it should be; it will be less able to teach about trust. At worst it will be a counter-sign, presenting an image in direct opposition to the teaching of Jesus. A corrupt church may put such priority on security that it will defend its wealth and power at any price. It will even destroy a person, face to face in court, when they sue for justice after being very seriously hurt.
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The simplest truths are often most unpalatable, and so like John we need to follow the master as he moves around, speaking the truth - saying it as it is, arguing in the hope of convincing, but with the courage to expose the lies that we find in government propaganda and the advertising of financial institutions.
When it comes to a local community (and the parish is the actual christian community in any place), the endless task of cleaning up the church rests on the shoulders of every parish member. What's to be done, and how, is by no means clear, but the necessity is undeniable.
For me, the first step is to think clearly about these issues, then to talk about them in the local community, and gradually some line of action may be seen as right. To worry about sorting out the institution at the top levels without tackling the issues locally seems like avoiding reality.
Does the christian community in the place where I live use its resources suitably, or have I reason to think our leadership is prisoner to the wealth we have accumulated over decades?
Are there victims of abuse in our community whose needs are not recognised, whose appeals have been rejected, to whom justice is still denied? If there are, who is responsible for this?
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Pope Francis sees wealth in the church as a serious problem. In a recent issue of La Croix International, Massimo Faggioli writes of Francis' recent trip to Chile and Peru:
The history of the sex abuse scandal has shown the clerical instinct to protect ecclesiastical assets, but also how sexual abuse and financial crimes are often part of the same picture. The idea of a “poor church” and a “church for the poor” is also a response to the sex abuse crisis.
Francis said as much in his conversation with the Jesuits in Peru.
“It is curious that the phenomenon of abuse touched some new, prosperous (religious) congregations,” he said. “Abuse in these congregations is always the fruit of a mentality tied to power that has to be healed in its malicious roots. And I will add: there are three levels of abuse that come together: abuse of authority (mixing the internal forum with the external forum), sexual abuse and an economic mess,” the pope said.
https://international.la-croix.com/news/framing-the-sex-abuse-crisis-in-light-of-ecclesiology-and-church-reform/6974?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=e-mail&utm_content=19-02-2018&utm_campaign=newsletter__crx_lci&PMID=675e1031e48f7a5f51cab995bf79a55d
A mentality tied to power is the source of the sexual abusing of minors and the vulnerable. The poverty that entails the stripping of the 'ego' is the radical metanoia required for one to be true.