“Stop
making my Father’s house a market place”
shouts Jesus, as he turns over the tables of the money changers and drives out
the livestock that are filling the courtyards of the Temple in Jerusalem. It’s
an action which will get him into a lot of trouble, which is hardly surprising.
These Temple traders are powerful people, and he is disturbing a system which
serves them well.
But
what was it that he was complaining about? What is the problem?
There
are a number of possibilities. Jesus might have objected to trading going on in
the Temple full stop. It was meant to be a space to concentrate on God, after
all. Or maybe it was that those who carried on this trade were corrupt. Worshippers
normally bought the animals they were going to sacrifice in Jerusalem rather
than bringing an animal from home, because the sacrificial animals had to be
perfect and unblemished. If you trekked them across the countryside, they might
get injured or marked in some way. That opened up a great marketing opportunity
for local animal sellers, and it is very likely, human beings being what they
are, that some of them ripped off those who had no option but to buy from them.
Temple taxes, too, had to be paid using
special coins, so manipulating the exchange rate was another way to turn a quick profit.
A
third possibility was that it was where in the Temple this trade was
happening that was the root of the problem. The Temple consisted of a number of
concentric areas. Only priests were allowed in the central parts. Outside them
was a courtyard where other Jewish men could worship. Beyond that was a
courtyard for Jewish women. The outermost courtyard was the only place where
Gentiles could come – it was open to all. It is here, in all probablility, that
the traders had set up, where they could sell to the greatest number of people,
but that meant they were effectively stealing the only space where the Gentiles
could pray. Jesus’ message was one of inclusion, of God’s love extending to all
people, so taking over this space would have offended him.
Whatever
the reason, it was clear to everyone that Jesus was seriously angry, and that
the people who witnessed this event were shocked by that. But then, to add
insult to injury, he went on to issue what was either a terrible threat or a
blasphemous promise. “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it
up.”
The
building he was standing in had only just been through a massive extension and
restoration, lasting 43 years. Was he saying that it wasn’t up to scratch? That
he could do better? Was he threatening to pull it down himself? No wonder people were offended. We are
told that it’s his own resurrection he’s talking about, but the fact that people’s
anger centres around the perceived threat to the Temple building is very
revealing.
“Stop
making my Father’s house a market place” says Jesus, but the Greek word for
house which he uses here isn’t a word that simply refers to a physical building.
It is the word “oikos”, and it would perhaps better be translated “household”
than “house”. It encompassed not just the bricks and mortar, but the
people who lived in the building, family members, servants, hangers-on. It was the
whole unit, the whole system, drawn together by common bonds and goals. The
word “oikos” gives us a wealth of words in English, basically anything
that starts with “eco-“. Economics,
ecology, ecosystems; they all derive from “oikos” and they are all about how things work
together.
So
Jesus isn’t really complaining here about the way the Temple building is
being used; he is complaining about the rot that has set into the whole
ecosystem, if you like. His people are supposed to be the household, the “oikos”
of God. Filling the Temple with livestock, this place where they believed they
met most directly with God, is a symptom not the cause of the problem, a sign
that something far deeper is wrong.
This
household of faith – the people of Israel - had originally been shaped in very
troubled times, according to the Bible, and we heard about the pivotal moment
in that shaping in our Old Testament reading today. It was the famous passage
which we know as the Ten Commandments, and it sets out very clearly what God
expected from those who are part of his family.
The
people to whom the commandments were given were an unlikely bunch. They’d been
slaves in Egypt for four hundred years. They’d endured four hundred years of
other people ruling over them, telling them what to do, four hundred years of
never having space to make their own decisions. The Saturday before last some
of us went on a trip to the British Museum to see artefacts from the cultures
which shaped the Bible. We spent quite a bit of time in the Egyptian galleries,
which contain a huge range of exhibits – monumental statues, elaborate friezes,
splendid grave goods. They all said, loud and clear, “the people who made
these things knew what they were about.” Egyptian society was very
sophisticated and its religion was very well-ordered. The Egyptians’ main
concern was to make sure their souls lived on after death, and they’d worked
out very precise rituals, written down in their Book of the Dead; the
mummification of bodies, the prayers and incantations, the elaborate
ceremonies. It was all there.
At
the time our Old Testament reading was set, though, the Hebrew slaves had left
behind the order and certainty of Egypt. Moses had led them out into the desert
of the Sinai Peninsula. They were heading, so he said, for the Promised Land.
But they were starting to wonder whether they’d been wise to follow him. Of course, slavery had been brutal, but
sometimes freedom can be tough too. In Egypt, they’d been ordered around, but
that can be a lot easier than having to make up your own mind. They’d wanted
freedom, space to be themselves. Well now they had it, but it was the freedom
of the desert and the space seemed endless. How could you know which way to
head, physically or spiritually? What was the point of freedom if you had no
idea where you were going? And who was
this God who’d summoned them out on this trek anyway? The old gods of Egypt
were familiar. They’d seen their images around them every day, but what did
this God want from them?
The
Ten Commandments were God’s answer to those questions. Through them he told these
bewildered people the essence of what he cared about, what it meant to worship
him. Unlike the faith of the Egyptians it had little or nothing to do with life
after death – there’s nothing about the afterlife in the Ten Commandments. It was about this life, here and now. And it
wasn’t about rituals either. It was about relationships, with God and with one
another.
God
starts by telling them that he is the only God they should worship. It’s not like Egypt where there were dozens of
gods you had to take notice of. This was highly unusual. Most religions had
multiple gods. There had been a brief experiment with monotheism in Egypt,
under the Pharaoh Akhenaten, who had lived not long before the story of Moses
is thought to be set. He’d decided that only the sun God, Aten, should be
worshipped. [Thank you to Patrick Coffey for reminding me of this] But it hadn’t caught on. Perhaps people preferred to spread their
bets – if one god didn’t favour you maybe another one would? But the God of
Moses is clear. Belonging to him isn’t a gamble. He is the God who rescued them
from slavery. What more assurance could they need of his love? Their
relationship with him was to be one of trust. He was committed to them so they
could be committed to him too.
The
next three commandments follow on from that. If their relationship with God is one
of commitment on both sides, then they don’t need to make idols, and they don’t
need to use the name of God as a magic spell, either, to manipulate events,
because he knows what they need. Keeping the Sabbath, a day when they were
supposed to depend on God rather than striving for their own ends grows out of and
strengthens that relationship of trust too.
The
commandments move on naturally then to their relationships with one another.
This is the God who has rescued them, who has seen their suffering and heard
their cries, and cared about them enough to act. So following him means acting
compassionately to others too. That means living with respect respect,
faithfulness, integrity, appreciating
what they’ve got rather than feeling they have to grasp for more.
And
that is it.
As
I said, there’s nothing about life after death, no ticket to heaven, no Book of
the Dead. The Ten Commandments are about living with our eyes and hearts open
to God and to those around us here and now. They are about learning to trust
that what we have is enough, and that the hands of God hold us safely and won’t
let us go. These are the hallmarks of the household of God – his “oikos”, his
ecosystem, his economy. It’s a million miles away from the kind of thinking
which would allow people to use the Temple as a way to make a quick buck, or to
squeeze out those who were tentatively exploring faith or holding onto it by
their fingertips.
When
Jesus clears out the traders and money-changers he is restoring God’s ecosystem
to health, reforming the household of faith which was so precious to him,
declaring it to be one in which everyone is welcome and has access to God. Ultimately
the new life he promises won’t come in the shape of bricks and mortar, though.
It will be seen in his risen body, raised from the destruction of death, and in
the body of those who gather together to walk in his way.
“We
are the body of Christ,” I often say,
as we share the Peace together Sunday by Sunday. It’s a joyful moment, but it’s
a moment when we are faced with a huge responsibility, because those words remind
us that we are called, just like the Hebrew slaves in the desert of Sinai, to
live as God’s household, with relationships that reflect his love and commitment.
Today, as we hear those words, may our hearts be open to let him sweep into our
lives, to overturn and drive out whatever gets in the way of us living up to
that challenge.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment