Gospel, John 2:13-25 The first temple of Jerusalem was built by Solomon on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, the highest part of the hill of Ophel, where David had constructed an altar. That temple had been despoiled by the Egyptians shortly after Solomon’s death, later plundered by Joash of Israel around 800 BC, and again in 597 BC by Nebuchadnezzar who had the temple burned and torn down prior to leading the Jewish people into captivity in 587 BC. That temple was rebuilt under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah in the post-exilic period. It was a slow process which met a lot of opposition from the Samaritans. Completed in 515 BC, it was profaned by Antiochus IV in 167 BC and subsequently purified and rededicated by Judas Maccabaeus in 164 BC, an event celebrated annually with the feast of Hanukkah. By the time of King Herod the Great, the temple mount (about 81,000 sq. ft.) was too small for the crowds of pilgrims coming to Jerusalem for the major celebrations. In the year 19 BC Herod began to reconstruct the temple and surrounding courts and colonnades, eventually expanding the platform of the mount with an extensive series of supporting arches to 1.55 million sq. ft. or 35.5 acres. Compare that to the field and stands at the Metrodome in Minneapolis at 415,000 sq. ft. and you get some idea of how many people would fit on the mount at one time. The major portion of the project was completed within ten years, but the finishing details of the adornments continued until 64 AD…only six years before it was destroyed by the Roman armies following a Jewish uprising. The temple has never been rebuilt since. Today the outer walls of Herod’s temple still exist (including the western or “wailing” wall) but the platform houses two Moslem mosques, al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, built in the 7th century.
The largest area of the platform was called the Court of the Gentiles. It was open to anyone, Jew and non-Jew alike. The successive areas became more restrictive with the Court of Women (for Jews only), the Court of Israel (for Jewish men only), the Sanctuary (for priests only), and the Holy of Holies (into which only the high priest entered and then just once a year). The animals and moneychangers were located in the Court of the Gentiles. The area had been intended as a space where people could meet to pray or discuss scriptural interpretation with rabbis. It was in this space that Jesus would teach during the week prior to his death. Jesus desired to clear the area of the animals and the noise so as to return the space to its intended use.
One of the major activities at the Temple was animal sacrifice. Since the families represented by the 100,000 visitors to Jerusalem would all need lambs for their Passover dinners and many families would also be making other sacrificial offerings, there would be a great demand for animals. All Jewish males paid an annual temple tax of a half-shekel and most people gave their major contributions of the year for temple upkeep and support of widows, orphans and the poor (like Christmas and Easter collections in Christian churches today). Most of the coins they brought, however, could not be donated at the temple since it bore images of Caesar or some other king or god. Those coins had to be exchanged for coins without such images. There was, of course, a charge for doing so. The priests must have thought it a great service for all those visitors to be able to exchange money and purchase animals right there rather than bringing them through the crowds from the markets in the city below. They undoubtedly received a kick-back from the merchants who, because of their location, overcharged for exchanging money and for their animals (like food and beverages at the Metrodome). The synoptic gospels make reference to this with Jesus accusing them of turning the temple into a “den of thieves” (Mt. 21:13/Mk. 11:17/Lk .19:46).
Being challenged by angry priests as to his authority to act as he did (“what sign can you give us?”) he turns the discussion to himself as the temple of God that will be torn down and rebuilt in three days. The English word “temple” used throughout this section is actually used to translate two different Greek words. In the part in which of Jesus clearing the temple, the word is “heiron” which refers to the general area of the temple mount. In the discussion about Jesus as the temple, the word is “naos” which refers more specifically to the sanctuary.
Jesus is not just a place where God is present in a general way…he is the sanctuary where the presence of God resides. Jesus clears the temple area to restore it to its true purpose. Paul writes to the Corinthians: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Holy Spirit dwells in you (1 Cor 3:16)”, and again, “We are the temple of the living God (2 Cor 6:16)”. In both instances he uses the word “naos”. We are the sanctuary where Jesus has chosen to reside. As Jesus comes into this temple, will he find it truly oriented to the purpose for which God has created you and me? Will he find cause to do some clearing and cleaning? Jesus, cleanse this temple and restore it to the purpose for which you have created it.
Reading 1, Exodus 20:1-17 The commandments are listed in this text from Exodus and in Deuteronomy 5:6-21, but neither text indicates the number of commandments. The statement that there are ten commandments comes from references in Deuteronomy 4:13 (also repeated in Dt 10:4): “He proclaimed to you his covenant which he commanded you to keep, the ten commandments which he wrote on tablets of stone.” The number thus being determined, how do we determine exactly what the specific ten commandments might be? There are actually four variations. The Jewish, general Protestant, and Orthodox lists are the same for numbers three through ten, but differ on which statements are actually the commandments for the first two. The Catholic-Lutheran list joins the first two of the other lists as one commandment, then has the others offset by one (ex: Jewish 5th is Catholic 4th), getting ten by dividing the final commandment from the other lists into two.
In the Hebrew text the words “you” and “your” are always in the second person singular indicating that the commandments, while being God’s covenant with the full Israelite community, are meant for every person. The list not only teaches us how to live in community with God and one another. It also indicates that how we treat one another is of concern to God. Where our translation describes God as “jealous”, the Jewish translation uses the word “impassioned”. Whichever word is used, God is not indifferent. The marriage bond is the implied metaphor for the covenant of God with Israel to which God demands our loyalty and fidelity which pledging the same to us.
Does God “inflict punishment for their fathers' wickedness” on their descendants “down to the third and fourth generation”? As far as moral guilt, through Jeremiah 31:29-30 God limits the punishment to the one sinning. Nevertheless, people observed that conduct inevitably has an effect on succeeding generations. Children are affected and shaped by parents’ habits, way of life, education, place of living, how they handle stress or quarrels, etc. Abuse of alcohol, verbal and sexual abuse are behaviors that too often are “learned” and passed from parents to children. How else could people from centuries past interpret such things as other than God punishing descendants for the sins of their ancestors?
"Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.” Many years ago I was blessed to be in Jerusalem where, on a Sabbath evening, I spent a couple hours walking through the Orthodox neighborhood of Meah Shearim. The streets into the neighborhood were barricaded. No cars would move in Meah Shearim until the Sabbath was over. It was a warm evening and the windows of the houses were open. No radios, TV’s or other electronic devices could be heard…just the sounds of families eating, conversing, singing and praying in house after house. I recall Jesus’ words (Mark 2:27), “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” What a blessing for those families to spend such quality time together for a full day every week. The Sabbath rest was an amazing proclamation of worker’s rights. No other society of its day gave everyone, down to the lowest employees and slaves, a mandatory day off each week and an opportunity to remember that whatever we achieve through our own efforts is secondary to the saving word of God.
Reading II, 1 Corinthians 1:22-25 Paul comments on the cultural differences between Jews and Greeks regarding what might help them believe in something. “Jews demand signs”. In today’s gospel the temple priests ask Jesus what sign he can give them proving his authority to drive the animals and moneychangers out (John 2:18). Later in the Bread of Life discourse, people ask Jesus (John 6:30), “What sign can you do that we may see and believe in you?” This was after he had healed many people and brought about the multiplication of loaves and fishes. The Greeks, on the other hand, “look for wisdom”. They loved philosophy and debate. But the message of Jesus was a stumbling block…neither the sign the Jews wanted nor the logic that made sense to the Greeks. What do I look for as proof…what do I need from Jesus to truly believe and entrust my life to God…so as not to relegate God to the sidelines of my life as a lower priority?
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