WALK UP TO IT, GRAB IT,
AND THROW IT OUT
AND THROW IT OUT
It is not what a person does externally that makes one holy. Rather it
is what goes on in the heart.
In today's Gospel.
Jesus speaks about, "My Father's house" (Jn. 2:16). Jesus loved the
Temple, the earthly house of His Father. Often, sometimes daily, He was in the
Temple. Jesus promoted everything that made it a place of prayer and worship
and condemned anything that took away from the sacredness of His Father's
house. This is why Jesus drove the money-changers out.
With Jesus, our
Brother, every one of us can say, "This is my Father's house." This
church, our church, whether it is ever so humble or ever so elegant, is truly
our Father's house. Like our Lord, we want to make our Father's house as
fitting as possible; as pretty as possible. When we give of our treasures to
the upkeep of our church we should consider it as a personal donation to our
Father, for His home and our spiritual home. Nothing is too good for God.
Even more important
than just the material upkeep of God's house, is its spiritual value and
beauty. Through Baptism, that we enter into the death and resurrection of
Jesus. In Confession, God gives us His Fatherly pardon. In Communion, we gather
around our Father's table. In His house, it is through Confirmation that He
gives us the courage and the strength to do what pleases Him. In Marriage, God
seals the union of husband and wife. We come here to do what Christ did at the
Last Supper and what we continue to do at every Mass.
Come to your
Father's house absolutely sure that He loves you, despite everything. More than
the best of earthly parents, God is ready to forgive, to help, to console, to
cheer us up. Notice how often in the Eucharistic Prayer we address Him as
"Father." Notice how we call Him "Our Father" in the Lord's
Prayer.
But the message of
today's Gospel is not just about a Temple building to come and worship in. St.
John's account of the incident of Jesus coming to cleanse the Temple is
recorded by all four of the Gospel writers and it is interesting to see the
difference between their accounts. Matthew, Mark and Luke record it very
similarly and rather more briefly than John does. Actually, the difference
between John and the others is that the other three accounts put the incident
at the end of Christ's ministry; just after the events of His entry into
Jerusalem (Palm Sunday). They seem to picture the whole thing as a sort of
hostile confrontation between Christ and the authorities.
But John's account
is quite different. He places it at the very beginning of Christ's public life,
with the focus of attention on Christ's ministry - Jesus Himself and His
relation to the Temple. Christ makes no accusations of crime. He doesn't call
anyone a thief and the reaction of the people is pretty subdued. Rather than
coming after Him with a stick they seemed more surprised than anything else.
"What sign can You show us for doing this" (Jn. 2:18)?
It is fitting,
really, that John should put all of this at the beginning of Christ's ministry.
With the coming of Christ - His presence and His mission - something new is
happening. The relationship between God and His people is being altered.
Christianity is a change of heart, a new attitude, a new spirit, a whole new
way of understanding God and people. Worship from now on must be in spirit and
in truth. That is the avenue of the encounter between God and His people. The
real Temple from now on is Christ Himself - literally, His own body - and that
of everyone who bears His name. So it was the emptiness, the uselessness, the
silliness of the old forms that Christ overturned in this symbolic explosion;
the idea that God could possibly be honored or impressed by a ceremony. God can
only be honored by a good life, by those who espouse His values and live by
them.
It is not what a
person does externally that makes one holy. Rather it is what goes on in the
heart. In Christ's own words, if there is some conflict, some unresolved or
unforgiving hurt between you and another, go first to that person before you
come to the Temple to worship (cf. Mt. 5:23-24).
Jesus Christ urges
us to follow His example by taking up the task of purging the temple of
whatever is dead, empty, and foolish. But the temple of which He speaks is that
of our own lives. Jesus calls us as He did the buyers and sellers in the Temple
to take very seriously the words of the prophet Hosea, "For it is love
that I desire, not sacrifice" (Hos. 6:6).
So as this
penitential season progresses, there probably isn't a better Lenten image on
which to base our reflection on this week. Cleansing the Temple and making it
new again; making it pure; simply getting rid of everything that has become
pointless and empty of spirit and truth.
Our worship is now
new! It is always surprising how easily that table can be tipped over.
All it takes to do
so is what Jesus did. Walk up to it, grab it, and throw it out.