Imagine the Saturday before Easter. Crocuses are poking through lawns. The weather is finally warm, but cloudy, and many people are out.

As you go by the church, you’re surprised to see that a number of people have set up a makeshift flea market in the front. A banner has been hung up covering the church sign. Rock ‘n roll is playing from speakers. There had been no information of a fundraiser and there were no signs indicating that the event was for a charity. It looks like some people decided to take advantage of the location on the front lawn without asking.

Just then the skies open up and the shoppers and people selling old records, handmake jewelry, baking, books and electronics, grab their boxes and headed inside the church, where the doors had been left open for the florists with their Easter deliveries. Curious and concerned, you follow them.

After shaking off the wet they look around. In a minute someone turns on more lights and moves the Easter bulletins off the table at the back to exhibit their goods. Others set up their card tables and lay out their wares. Someone starts the music and people drop their wet coats over the pews, pull out chairs to make themselves more comfortable, and use the church scotch tape dispenser to put up signs on the doors and tables.

You are outraged at the appropriation of the sacred space, not because they sought shelter there, or because of the activity itself, but because it is self-serving and insolent. Their buying and selling has nothing to do with worship or benefiting the marginalized but simply takes advantage of the location, the shelter and the people passing by to sell stuff.

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Jesus was outraged, too, in the opening of this morning’s gospel (John 2:13-22).

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.  As a devout Jew, Jesus observed the Passover, recalling God’s freeing of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

Cattle, sheep and doves were sacrificial offerings. But it seems the sellers had moved from the Kidron Valley, just outside the temple to the Court of the Gentiles, a large space just outside the Priests’ Court and the Altar… roughly equivalent to the nave of a modern church

The money changers were buying Roman coins some of which had the head of the “divine Caesar”, which were unacceptable as temple tax because God, alone, was divine. It seems that the money changers were motivated by profit in the exchange rather than by devotion.

In driving out the merchants, Jesus referred to the temple as my Father’s house. Devote Jews believed that God was present in the temple in a particular way. In his anger, Jesus was “repossessing” it from the merchants for the purpose of worship. While he most frequently mediated the love of God through healing, feeding and teaching, driving the merchants out of the temple was also a demonstration of his love of the Father.

More significantly, he was establishing his direct relationship with the God of Israel as his Father…an immense claim, and a scandal to some. But in doing so he was mirroring the words of the Father at his baptism, that Jesus was his beloved Son.

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In an aside on this moment, the evangelist then wrote, His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The reference is to Psalm 69:9 which reads, It is zeal for your house that has consumed me; the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. While the evangelist changed the tense of the verb from the past to the future the verse is otherwise the same concern for God in his holy space. His disciples’ remembrance of this passage from Psalm 69 likely came later. As the event unfolded, they were probably surprised witnesses.

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The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” According to the Mishnah, a Jewish collection of the oral traditions during the second temple period, it was Caiaphas, himself, the high priest, who had permitted the commerce to take place in this court. So, Jesus’ assumption of authority directly contradicted that of the high priest. They wanted to know by whose authority Jesus did this.Yet something about Jesus’ presence lent credence to his claim and his anger. Perhaps they, too, understood, at some level, that this marketing was not appropriate for this holy space.

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. I imagine that when Jesus said, destroy this temple, he gestured to himself, indicating that he was the personification of the dwelling of God on earth. Jesus’ self-identification with the temple, a worshiping space devoted to his Father, and particularly its “rising up again”, revealed his understanding of both his role and his relationship. He was to personify direct access to the Father. The destruction of his body would be reversed within three days… and would continue to glorify the Father even more.

After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. From the earliest chapters, John’s gospel pointed to Jesus’ later resurrection in words or in actions such as raising Lazarus from the dead. (John 11)

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The episode speaks to Jesus’ reverence for the Jerusalem temple and the traditions of the faith. In the citation from the psalm, it links Jesus clearly to the scriptural tradition of the Jews and highlights his continuity with them. It also underlines his early conflict with the different representatives of the faith. Most significantly, for Christians, it points to his death and resurrection, albeit metaphorically.

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A version of this story about Jesus driving the merchants from the temple appears in all four gospels. Matthew (21:12-13), Mark (11:16-18) and Luke (19:45-48) place it at the beginning of Holy Week, just after Jesus had ridden into Jerusalem on a colt. In all of the accounts, the story hinges on the challenge that Jesus presents to the official custodians of the temple. It is they who will ultimately seek to destroy him. John’s placement of the story near the beginning of his gospel may reflect his desire to set up the tension between Jesus’ authority and that of the official representatives from the beginning of his gospel.

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  • Do you sense a tension between the idea of a church as “sacred space”, purpose made for the worship of God, and the sense of the presence of God in your life wherever you are?
  • In this gospel Jesus personifies himself as a temple. In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus says that bread is his body-his body is bread. What similarities/differences do these personifications reveal?
  • St. Aidan’s renovations reflect the community’s value of a sacred worship space. The renovations have also improved the food preparation, meeting and hospitality capabilities in the basement. These aspects speak to our mission To Know Christ and Make Him Known. At the same time the nave of the church has been designed so that we can have concerts or speakers in this space. Do you see these activities as a contradiction of the spirit of the gospel or as something Jesus would approve?

Peace

Michael