Lent 3B (John 2:13:22)
Today’s gospel lesson can be titled “Angry Jesus.” I must confess that it’s quite cathartic to see Jesus making a whip of cords to drive out all those people at the temple selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. The best part is his overturning of the money changers’ tables! Deep down in our hearts, we want to see justice prevailing in action. This scandalous act of Jesus is theatrical, dramatic, yet very risky. This is dangerous behavior because he is making more enemies by ruining their money-making business at the temple as if he doesn’t have enough enemies already. Jesus’ cleansing or exorcising of the temple again directly targets the religious authorities and damages their business. They allow the temple to be a marketplace where all these two parties (the religious authorities and money changers/sellers of cattle, sheep, and doves) are financially benefiting themselves. Now, we can deepen our reflection on the church’s role in the world, particularly focusing on whether the church has become a marketplace in the free market. Yet, I would like us to pay more attention to what prompts him to behave or protest in such an unusual manner. What makes him chase away people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and turn over the tables of money changers in the temple? Where does his anger come from? What’s that energy that empowers him to challenge the power that be? “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Jesus’ compassion for the temple is activated as soon as he sees the temple has devolved or desecrated into a marketplace where people are misguided and lied that they need materials to be in union with God. He identifies the temple as his “Father’s house.” In other words, the temple is where God dwells or where people connect with God at least ritualistically. Jesus doesn’t stop there. He identifies himself, his body with the temple. This is where his anger is actually justified. What I mean by “justified” is that his criticism of and protest against the religious authorities and their desecration of the temple is not merely personal that he just doesn’t like what he sees. Jesus is wounded by it. The temple is no longer a building in his eyes, but his body. So he says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” I imagine while Jesus points to himself, his own body as “this'' temple, people take his words literally and look at the temple of forty-six years old. At this point, what he tries to destroy in the temple is no longer the marketplace but instead takes it upon himself and embodies it. He is directly facing and accepting that what bothers and disturbs him in the temple is also his inner struggle. It’s not just what’s happening outside. He mirrors what’s evil outside in his own heart and destroys it before it becomes the source of hatred. His body, which is the temple of God, is cleansed and purified through deconstruction of the evil seed in his heart, which then leads to the resurrection. This isn’t something only Jesus can do. We recognize things, especially unjust matters that infuriates us because what’s outside also exists in us as something so hidden that we want to suppress or push aside or hate it. When unguided desires are tangled up, what’s hidden comes up. When conditions and situations are out of harmony and order, our intentions and actions miss the mark. (The Greek term for sin is hamartia, which literally means “missing the mark.) Rephrasing James Baldwin’s saying somewhat out of context, “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced,” everything, especially what can turn into deep hatred and resentment in our hearts, must be faced so that it can be transfigured in Christ. Correct what’s wrong yet without bearing fruit of hatred in us. One of our biggest fears would be that we end up being enslaved by wrongdoers as our anger (though justifiable) changes to rage, resentment, and hatred towards them which becomes a part of who we are. We don’t let them define who we become but only God’s justice and mercy. What’s spiritually clogged in us that we want to face and cleanse? Jesus embodies not just what’s gloriously divine but also what’s miserably human, both heavenly and earthly. The destruction of the temple is the death of our ego in order to be rebuilt anew, to be resurrected as a new creation, not a continuation of our old self. There is no better me but a new being. This is not a wide gate but a narrow one to go through. Like the locals in the lesson, we might say, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years (or even longer!), and will you raise it up in three days?” How would we as followers of Jesus respond to this? “Yes, God will raise it up in three days only if it is faced and destroyed.” |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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