He Has Shown Great Strength with His Arm;

Homily for March 11, 2012

Third Sunday of Lent

Exodus 20: 1 – 17

Ps 19: 8, 9, 10, 11

1 Corinthians 1: 18, 22 – 25

John 2: 13 – 25

Not too long ago, we read Mary’s Magnificat. Let me quote part of it here.

…..He has shown great strength with his arm;

He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

And lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things,

And sent the rich away empty…..

I could not help but make the connections between what Jesus does in today’s Gospel, and Mary’s prophetic Song of Praise. Jesus turned the tables upside down and changed the status quo. He learned his mother’s lessons well.

This story, of the cleansing of the temple, is in all four Gospels. So, something significant did happen. In John’s Gospel, the Gospel we heard today, unlike the others, we hear this story at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. So, Jesus action in the temple sets the theme for his future work. It defines who Jesus is and what the rest of his ministry would be like.

It was the time of Passover when Jesus went to the temple. There must have been tremendous crowds from all over the Mediterranean, speaking different languages and coming to participate in the worship services.Rome occupied this area and business was conducted using Roman and Greek coins. These coins couldn’t be used in the Temple because of the images on them. So, they had to be exchanged for sheckles. This was the opportunity for exploitation.

While John the Baptist and Jesus welcomed everyone to the cleansing rituals in the Jordan River, free and open to all, the money changers charged a great deal for the cleansing rituals in the Temple.Sacrificial animals were necessary in the worship service as strictly defined in Leviticus. Those who came from far away had to buy these animals. This was the perfect opportunity to extort the traveler as well as the worshipper. John’s Gospel has Jesus saying, “Stop turning God’s house into a market.” But in the other three Gospels, Jesus says, “..my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it a den of thieves.”

And there Jesus was, watching what was going on. Could you imagine the din, the crowded conditions, the confusionand the fearcoming from the animals? Jesus could stand it no longer and risked arrest. He made a whip out of chords, liberated the animals that were condemned to a certain, terrifying and painful death, turned over the tables of the money changers and scattered their coins. Jesus was angry and did something about it.

If we are honest with ourselves, we don’t recognize this Jesus. This Jesus makes us a little bit uncomfortable, and maybe we don’t want to recognize this Jesus for its implications. This Jesus challenges us to go where it is not easy, to go where there are risks. This Jesus challenges us to go where there is injustice and to take a stand. At that moment, Jesus turned the tables on greed and oppression, exploitation and brutality. No wonder the priests and scribes, the royal consciousness of the day, wanted to get rid of Jesus.No wonder liberation theology calls the gospel the dangerous memory of Jesus. And no wonder the church authorities, the royal consciousness of today, want to get rid of Liberation Theology!

Today’s first reading, tells us of the law given to Moses by God. It was a simple set of commands. No Murdering! No Adultery! No stealing! No worship of any gods except this God! In the Gospel, we see Leviticus implied by the system of animal sacrifice. The time of the cleansing of the temple was Passover and the story of the Hebrew’s escape from Egypt. Although the Hebrews were told to take very little with them as they escaped, what they did take was their trust in God.All of these things link Jesus with the old covenant.

But, there was very little trust in God displayed by the temple authorities and money changers that day. At the moment that Jesus turned the tables, he broke with the old covenant. He turned from the old ways of understanding God, as a strict, jealous God who demands animal sacrifice, to a new understanding of God, as one with a preference for the oppressed and the marginalized, from worshipping God by strict obedience to the law, to finding God in ourselves and in each other. Jesus actions turned the law, out of control, to the law of love and care in relationship with others and with God. Jesus turned the Thou Shalt Not’s, important as they are, into the greatest commandment, a commandment of love. Thou shalt love God with all of our hearts, minds and spirits and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self.

This was the point at which the old covenant became the new covenant. When Jesus turned the tables and liberated the animals, he in effect said, No more sacred violence!No more blood sacrifices! No more burnt offerings! And his gift to uswas the sacrifice of the Eucharist, where the offering of bread and wine becomes Jesus body and blood. Quite a bloodless gift. Quite an offering!

When the dust settled in the Temple, Jesus was asked what sign he could show for his actions and by whose authority he did these things. He answered: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Temple, the old way, would be destroyed. There would be a break with the royal consciousness. The temple could no longer be purified. It would be replaced. And what would be raised up is the temple of Jesus’ body, a new way, the way of love.

Jesus action was non-violent. It was not directed at people. It was directed at the system. His actions were a critique of those powers and authorities within the Jewish community and protection and liberation of the vulnerable. Non-violence is not passivity. Jesus action in the temple that day would not be consistent with the rest of the Gospel story if we see it as violent. Jesus taught that non-violence is the only way to overcome domination without becoming the dominator. But there comes a time when not taking a stand is to cooperate with evil. And Jesus took a stand.

We have many examples of this from our recent past. Frs. Daniel and Phil Berrigan, both Jesuits at the time, were not silent during the war in Vietnam, they not only burned draft cards but they broke into a recruiting station and burned the files. Both spent much time in jail for their actions. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks did not remain silent. And their action changed the course of history. The nuns and priests of Plowshares and other such anti-war, anti-nuclear groups also did not remain silent. They hammered on aircraft and poured their own blood onto the bombers to bring attention to the pain and destruction caused by those bombers. Julia Butterfly Hill did not stay silent in the old growth forests where she sat in a 1,000 year old redwood tree that was threatened with being cut down. She climbed that tree and her feet would not touch ground again for over two years.

Fr. Roy Bourgeois did not remain silent. He started the School of the Americas watch, to put an end to the teaching of torture techniques and he spent much time in jail for his actions. And now he is putting his community life and his priesthood on the line for women called to the Roman Catholic priesthood.

This is not a comfortable Jesus we see in this story. Yes, Jesus cured the leper, fed the hungry and healed the sick, actions that are non-threatening to most. Who could be against them? But when he overturned the status quo, he gained lots of enemies. What happens when we protest the system that creates the poor and the sick, when we dare to ask why they are poor and sick?Of course, this too will gain lots of enemies. It is a hard thing to go where you are not wanted and speak truth to power. And not everyone is called to do that. Jesus doesn’t ask us to go where we are not called. Jesus does ask us to remain awake and aware.

Now, don’t get me wrong, laws are necessary for our safety and for our organization as a society. The Laws that God gave Moses were simple and beautiful in that they showed God’s family how to honor, care for and love one another. But time after time, Jesus showed that the way to God is not by following rules for the sake of rules or laws that dominate and control. Look at the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus’ acts of healing on the Sabbath, Jesus’ picking wheat grains to feed the hungry on the Sabbath, touching the unclean, talking to women, eating with sinners. The laws should be about love and compassion and not about domination and control.

Now, if Jesus is the window into the mind and heart of God, what does this say about God? Because of Jesus we no longer understand God to be angry at us, we have a God who is angry at the systems that causes us harm and suffering. We have a God who is angry at injustice whether it be from civil authorities or from the new temples of our time. We have a God who gets angry about our religious institutions that cling very tightly to rules while women and children suffer.

What does this say about those religious institutions that condemn the use of condoms while people all over the world die of aids? What does this say about those religious institutions that condemn the use of birth control for poor families that cannot feed the children that they have? What does this say about the religious institutions that keep reorganizing the Mass while there is genocide going on in many parts of the world? What does this say about the religious institutions that would prefer to see women as incapable of imaging the divine, while they do not condemn the priests who abuse them and their children? What does this say about a religious institution that continually condemns LGBT people for loving when at the same time, it covers up the sexual assault by priests on those entrusted to their care? What does this say about a religious institution who would withhold Eucharist, the bread of life, in order to force obedience?

When Jesus looked into the temple, he saw a dying institution and a host of victims waiting to be sacrificed. And he drove them all out to save them. Who else would Jesus push out the door today? Who are the victims of the dying institution today? You are a victim if you are told that keeping the institution alive is more important than compassion. You are a victim of distorted thinking if you believe that God would rather punish than love. Jesus would try to save you by pushing you out the door. He would drive us out of the institution and into the arms of God.

How can we who are old and weak and vulnerable, how can we who are young, inexperienced and have our whole lives ahead of us, take a stand? When we hear all that is going on in the world today, do we have the desire to make a difference? Or have we been tempted to hide safely in our homes and not get involved? I know that all of you are very good people. And that many of you are already taking action. But, is there more that we can do? Yes, we can look at our own lives, heal from our experiences and become strong enough to get involved. When we are healthy, in mind body and emotions, we can get involved in our own families, on our own block, in our own neighborhood and in our own city. Who would Jesus push out the door today? Maybe it is we who are being pushed out the door of an unhealthy institution, or an unhealthy relationship. Maybe it is we who are being liberated. Maybe it is Jesus who is protecting and guarding us and leading us into the arms of love.

How blessed are we to have Jesus to help us understand that God is totally for us. How blessed are we to understand that God is so involved in our lives. How blessed are we to know that there are no experiences that we have that keeps us from the love of God. How blessed are we to know that love and compassion come first, for ourselves, for each other and for God.

In this season of Lent, of self-examination, let us renew our commitment to love God and let us renew our commitment to love and care for each other. And let us dwell in the new Temple, the risen body of Jesus.

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