Today we see an angry Jesus, a side of Jesus that may be perplexing, and certainly does not match the gentle and humble picture we would rather paint of the Son of God.
Why is Jesus so angry at the temple money-changers and sellers of animals? These marketplace people were allowing Jews to buy animals for sacrifice in rituals in the temple. In the gospel of John this story follows the story of Jesus at the wedding at Cana—his first miracle of changing water into wine. The jars the water was in were used for Jewish purification rites. Jesus, by changing the water, is changing the purification rites of the Jewish temple, and in a sense he is purifying the temple again by running out the marketplace people with a whip of cords.
Biblical scholars refer to this story of the angry Jesus running out the marketers as “the cleansing of the temple”, but it should be called the cleansing of the temple rituals. Jesus is now the new sacrifice, not animals like the doves that were sold to be sacrificed. As Jesus gets rid of the animals, he begins to substitute himself as the new sacrifice. To Jesus, the ritual of the temple is meaningless unless it means true sacrifice, a sacrifice not of something outside ourself, but of something inside ourself.
The sacrifices did nothing for the temple, but keep it afloat financially. The chief priests were kept busy with the sacrifices and were fed from the sacrificed animals. Did God care about sacrifices of animals? It seems only the priests would have cared, as they were the ones who would benefit.
Perhaps we can now see why Jesus was so angered. To him the ritual sacrifices of the temple did not come from the heart, but were an obligation that signified little. Jesus has constant run-ins with the scribes and Pharisees to whom these temple rituals, the strict rules of the Sabbath, and the rules of eating and washing hands, were their life. He calls them hypocrites because they engage in meaningless actions for the sake of rule and order, but don’t really connect with true worship and true sacrifice.
What are the markers of true sacrifice? For Jesus they are his very life. His every act of healing and teaching aided in the work for God’s kingdom to come on earth. The sacrifice of Jesus was giving of his very self, his entire life for God.
How can we hope to be followers of this angry Jesus? Where are we being called to run out the marketplace from out temple, where do we find our heart in our faith?
Think about where your heart is in your own rituals. Where do you just go through the motions of praise and thanksgiving, and where do you really connect your heart and soul with God? Can you think of moments, of places, of relationships, where God seems really alive for you and you are alive for God?
What does your own sacrifice for God look like? Does it exist as something outside yourself that you can buy, or does it look like a piece of your heart and soul that is given freely for truth and justice, for the dignity of every human being? Does it look like being first or being last?
Our sacrifices do occur here in worship, but they are only the training for the sacrifices given of our hearts the rest of the week. We say our faith aloud here every Sunday, so that we may live our faith through the rest of the week. We are nourished at the altar here, so we may nourish others. We sing praise here, so we can notice the abundance of thanksgivings all around us. We give money and time here, to practice that same giving for the world all week.
Sacrifice is a word we have used dangerously. It has been used to make women subservient both at home and in the workplace. But I am talking about the sacrifice that all make—both men and women—to live into their faith and thus build up the world for God’s justice and peace. That kind of sacrifice takes full advantage of all the gifts and talents God has bestowed upon each of us, calls us into account for the nurturing of those gifts and their appropriation for the good of the world, not for just the ones we love, but for the ones whose love fails us.
Where is your heart and soul this Lent? Have you noticed the places, times, relationships that feed the world’s peace and justice through you? Where is your sacrifice for the God?
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