A Reflection for Friday of the Thirty-third Week in Unusual Time
Find today’s readings here.
Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out
those that were selling things, saying to them,
“It’s written,
My house shall be a house of prayer,
but you’ve made it a den of thieves.” (Lk 19:45-46)
It’s a weird reality of the cycle of readings that between the repetition of certain stories across Gospels, the three-year cycle of Sunday readings, and the two-year cycle of day by day readings that we sometimes get the identical Gospel story twice in quick succession. We heard a unique version of today’s Gospel of Jesus throwing out the cash changers just last week, and Jim Keane offered some typically insightful reflections.
Reading Luke’s version of the story today, I discovered myself struck by its strangeness. Sure, people mustn’t be selling items within the courtyard of the temple. But freaking out about it to the purpose of throwing over tables—because the hip kids say, it’s type of a weird flex.
But between you and me, I find it irresistible once I don’t get a reading. A lot of the time the Scriptures seem so familiar it will probably be hard to register their significance. Things which might be confusing make me sit up and take notice.
Digging into the background of the story, it seems salesmen within the temple are usually not like hot dog vendors or people on Midtown street corners selling 2022 sunglasses on Recent Yr’s Eve. Everyone coming to the temple for Passover needed to pay a temple tax. But you couldn’t pay in Roman or foreign coins, which for many individuals meant having to exchange their money for shekels.
A lot of the time the Scriptures seem so familiar it will probably be hard to register their significance. Things which might be confusing make me sit up and take notice.
As anyone who has ever tried to exchange money at an airport knows, that is bad news. Because we want their help, they’ll set whatever rate they like. (A life lesson I actually have needed to learn repeatedly: Never, never, never exchange money at an airport.)
Others within the temple sold lambs for the Passover sacrifice, or they may very well be paid to judge the lamb you had brought. And once more, because people coming to the temple needed these items done, they were ripe to get fleeced by dishonest businessmen.
Here’s the thing: Every Jewish man had to come back to Jerusalem for Passover. While there have been synagogues all over, for Passover and a few other necessary holy days, you had to come back to the temple, irrespective of what your online business or situation. So those hawkers likely weren’t ripping off locals who would know higher. They were targeting travelers, a lot of whom were undoubtedly poor.
Jesus’ ministry was characterised by many things: big meals, arguments with religious leaders, healings of assorted kinds. But one thing all his actions had in common was a desire to liberate people from the forces that sought to isolate or demean them. The Kingdom of God is a spot where all are welcome and secure.
Most of Jesus’ actions looked as if it would pay special attention to spiritual or social outcasts. But on this story, near the tip of his life, he makes it abundantly clear that God is just as concerned concerning the materially poor, if no more so. As we enter into this season of holidays and in addition poorer weather, possibly we may be, too.
