PICTURE THIS

 

MARCH 29, 2023

Picture Jesus. What do you see? What do you feel? Do you have a picture in your mind that resembles a painting you have seen in your grandmother’s home, maybe in your home growing up, maybe you have one that you just looked at for a moment? Do you picture an actor from one of your favorite movies about Jesus? How do you imagine Jesus’ character and demeanor? Is he gentle? Is he humble, and calm and serene? Now put that picture of Jesus along side the following Gospel story.

Matthew 21:12-17

12 Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. 13 He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”

14 The blind and the lame came to him in the Temple, and he healed them. 15 The leading priests and the teachers of religious law saw these wonderful miracles and heard even the children in the Temple shouting, “Praise God for the Son of David.”

But the leaders were indignant. 16 They asked Jesus, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”

“Yes,” Jesus replied. “Haven’t you ever read the Scriptures? For they say, ‘You have taught children and infants to give you praise.’” 17 Then he returned to Bethany, where he stayed overnight.

The Gospel of John even says that Jesus made a whip and used it to drive people out of the temple. How does this fit with your picture of Jesus? What was He up to, and how do we make sense of it?

Just a bit of historical context will help us, I believe, in grasping what is happening. In Jesus’ day, the main place to connect with God was through the Temple, and the main way to do it was through animal sacrifice. This practice goes all the way back to Moses, and the underlying message of the sacrifice was to learn to give God your best by literally giving up the best of your livestock.

Well, the temptation, then and as it can be now, is to give God, not your best, but your second or third best. To help people fight this temptation, the priests would check over the sacrifice at the door to make sure it was free of blemish. If there was a blemish, this creates a new problem, so naturally, there was a place where you could buy an acceptable sacrifice… and maybe you can see where this is going. The whole system became corrupt. The people who sold the “acceptable” sacrifices were conspiring with the people who deemed other sacrifices “unacceptable” and gave them a kickback; everyone made a tidy profit from the people, many of them very poor, who were desperate to have God in their life.

Back to our reading, Jesus Enters. Jesus, full of love and compassion. Jesus, who cares for the people no one else cares about, and who came into the world so people would know God’s heart and presence. The whole religious system, the way people were told what they had to do to connect with God, had become an obstacle, a barrier, that kept people from God. Jesus’ anger here and his shockingly violent behavior makes perfect sense when you think of God, as the Good Shepherd, who will protect the vulnerable and disadvantaged ones from injustice and corruption.

LET US PRAY

God, we pray today that we would never be an obstacle, or create barriers, that keep people from you. We also pray that if there is any part of us that needs to change, that you would help us see that, so that we can be the welcoming community you want us to be. May we always be ready to stand up against systems of injustice that oppress the vulnerable with love, compassion, and righteous anger. Amen