Exodus 20:1-17
1 Corinthians 1:22-25
John 2:13-25
Our Gospel today comes very early in St. John's Gospel and shares with us John's account of something that the other Gospels tell us happened during (or very near to) Holy Week-Jesus' righteous anger at the money changers in the temple and his overturning of their tables of business. It is important to ask, then, what were the money changers doing at the Jerusalem Temple, the place where any observant first century Jew understood was the dwelling place of Almighty God on this Earth. The one place where legitimate sacrifices to the Lord could take place, and they did- on a daily basis.
Prayer and sacrifice took place in the Jerusalem Temple in those days every day. Just as in our day all clergy in the Church celebrate the Liturgy of the Hours and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass each day, public prayers, usually centered around the Psalms of David, occurred daily in the Temple. Daily sacrifices took place there too, of various kinds. The priests who had their rotation in the Temple had to offer sacrifices to God as part of their daily and Sabbath worship. And if anyone came to the Temple to offer a sacrifice, whether for the circumcision and dedication of a child, in prayer for or in Thanksgiving for a bountiful harvest, for one of the feast days, or simply as a grateful act of worship, the Law required that people should bring their best to God, sacrifices without blemish. There was also another kind of sacrifice that took place at the Temple, it was called the todah, or sacrifice of Thanksgiving. This sacrifice was an offering of special sacrificial bread, often called the showbread, and the very best wine from the vineyards of God's people.
Because the temple was the only place where the fullness of the worship of God could occur, when many people went there to worship, they came from a long way and often they couldn't carry their sacrifices with them, they had to find animals or other sacrificial materials the closer they got to Jerusalem. Eventually the scribes and major priests of the temple figured out that it might be a good idea to allow those selling such wares to do so right on the temple grounds, right outside the building. What this eventually became in the time of Jesus was a lucrative racket, people would have to pay a premium for the best sacrificial animals, that they were then going to buy with Temple coinage which they would get when they exchange their Roman currency on the temple grounds… because Caesar's money couldn't officially be used at the temple.
Jesus saw this currency racket and crony capitalism for what it was, and he saw that the Temple authorities were taking advantage of the people, or they were openly allowing others to do so right under their noses. In the very House of God, in the place where God dwelt in the world and where sacrifices to God were offered, the clergy who ministered in the Holy of Holies were filled with corruption, and what Jesus would call in his famous discourse in Matthew 23, "dead men's bones." He said that these people appeared outwardly to be Holy, but he saw that this wasn't Holiness at all, this wasn't fulfilling the law of God. Jesus, we read, turned over the tables of the money changers and the userers and those who were selling sacrifice to the Almighty.
There is a great lesson to be learned by what Jesus did in the Gospel. We live in an age when the statistics tell us that many people right across the country and the world are leaving the Church, at least they are saying that they are. If you talk to anyone who has left the church, the most common complaint, other than the general hypocrisy of people, (which will always occur in any group of people because of our humanity), is the corruption and sin of so many of our clergy, and the apparent toleration of such corruption and sin by our leaders. There was all kinds of corruption going on, both spoken of in the scriptures and not spoken of, when Jesus showed up at the Temple in Jerusalem. The holy men of Israel had become corrupted to the point where they did not even recognize the Anointed of God. The Lord, in his righteous anger, had enough and turned over the tables, and reminded them that the House of God was to be a House of Prayer and not a den of thieves-or worse! (cf. Luke 19:46)
God sees our frustration and anger with the sins and evil and hypocrisy which occur in the church even in our own time. He sees these things to a degree which we cannot. He shares our frustration and our righteous anger at wrongdoing or wrong action, but he doesn't invite us to leave God's house. Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers is a reminder to all of us, and should especially serve as a warning to any of us who have received the gift of Holy Orders at any level, that wrongdoing may go unseen by others, but it does not go unseen by the Lord, and your sins will find you out. The Gospel serves as a reminder to anyone who might have been wronged, abused, or scandalized by someone using an office of the Church that the Lord sees the Injustice that was done to them, and that the wheels of God's justice may slowly turn, but they do turn and grind fine. The Lord sees injustice, and if no one in this world will remedy that injustice, the Lord is keeping a tally. And when it comes time for judgment of injustices and wrongs and evils, the Scriptures are clear that judgment begins at the House of the Lord.
If you're discouraged by things that you might see or hear about what's going on in the Church today, rest assured that God sees wrongs and injustices also, and the day will come when all is brought to light and the truth will set us free, just as the uncomfortable truth set a lot of people free the day Jesus turned over those tables. The Church needs people who will worship in spirit and in truth and believe in Jesus Christ and his Word today more than ever before, so stand fast in Jesus Christ and his Church and the day will come when he makes all things new.
And that Thanksgiving sacrifice, the todah… Some of the ancient rabbis just happened to predict that in the time of the Messiah, all sacrifices would cease… except for the todah, the sacrifice of Thanksgiving. It is said that this sacrifice will go on until the end of time.
