Cleaning Up!

 

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

 

I know that we don’t think of Jesus as somebody who was capable of anger, but we see him enraged here at finding people doing business in the temple. I am sure that he observed many things that were wrong in the temple over the years, first as a boy, then as a young man. But now, baptized in the Jordan, he was returning full of the Spirit to set things right. Making a whip of cords, he drove all the animals out of the temple. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. And he said to them: “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 

 

 Jesus was angry, and I am sure he was a sight to see. But why was he so angry? Pilgrims needed to purchase sacrificial animals. And since they came from different parts of the world, they needed to exchange money to make their purchase. So what was the problem? The problem was that it was done in the wrong place. God’s house — his Father’s house! — had been turned from a place of worship into a marketplace, and this was something he could not abide. As the disciples would recall, “zeal for his Father’s house had consumed him.”

 

 We need to get angry too, but ONLY about the things that make God angry. These cover a whole gamut of things from poverty and injustice to the prevention of kingdom growth and desecration of our churches. We need to start getting vocal about these things, because for too long has a church kept quiet about evil that takes place all around it. I think God is getting a little tired of the rubbish that’s happening today, especially in his name, and I believe he is going to change a lot of things. 

 

 How? Through us. Again how? Start speaking up. When we hear people preaching false doctrines and corrupting the truth; when we see people knocking ministries down, encouraging hatred and division, rather than promoting love and unity; when we find leaders engaging in bullying tactics, even intimidating priests and bishops to do their will; when we find shepherds apathetic to the needs of their flock, many of whom are in desperate straits, we need to speak up. 

 

We need to do it with love, a lot of it, but speak up we must. Because Jesus is cleaning his Father’s house again.

 

Watch a video of this reflection by Aneel Aranha here: https://youtu.be/K5reIP_7fAk