Monday of Holy Week - "Rambo" Jesus?

Text: Mark 11:12-25 (see below)

When I was a little boy and I heard this story of the cleansing of the Temple read in Church, I envisioned a “Rambo” like Jesus knocking over tables, money going in all directions, animals free and on the loose, and people running and screaming in all directions. But when you finally see in person the Temple platform that Herod the Great built during his reign as king, you realize that the image of “Rambo” is very misplaced.

This story which appears near the end of all the Synoptic Gospels and early in the Gospel of John is recording a symbolic action. We know from the scholars that the Temple authorities set up shop in the southwest corner of the Court of the Gentiles – above where the Western Wall or Wailing Wall is today. Passover was a highly emotional time where hundreds of thousands of pilgrims would be crowding into the Temple to have their lamb roasted for the feast, and making sacrifice to Yahweh. A festival that recalled the liberating actions of the Exodus would no doubt be a highly charged event given that the people of Israel where under the chains of an occupied Roman force.

Enter Jesus. His actions are tied to the prophetic sayings which follow. For Jesus, the Temple had become an institution that exploited others. It was no longer a place of prayer, its original intent. Richard Rohr writes, “Jesus enters the temple and drives out the dealers who are trying to buy and sell worthiness and access (Luke 19:45-46), which is the great temptation of all religion. He symbolically dismantles the system. The temple of religion (read “church” or “mosque” too) is henceforth to become personal, relational, embodied in people, and not a physical building. He came to say that God is available everywhere, and for some reason we like to keep God “elsewhere,” where we can control God by our theologies and services” (Center for Action and Contemplation website).

Rohr’s words reminded me of a treasured quote by Oscar Romero, the martyred Archbishop of El Salvador. “Let us not measure the church by the numbers of its members or by its material buildings. The church has built many houses of worship, many seminaries, many buildings that have been taken from her. They have been stolen and turned into libraries, and barracks and markets and other things. That doesn’t matter. The material walls here will be left behind in history. What matters is you, the people, your hearts, God’s grace giving you truth and life. Don’t measure yourselves by your numbers. Measure yourselves by the sincerity of heart with which you follow the truth and light of our divine Redeemer (December 19, 1977; The Violence of Love, page 29).

Love One Another - Brian

Deep Meaning

David Beswick

There is a deep meaning to the cleansing of the temple. Essentially it has to do with the replacement of the old way of worshipping God with a new way of relating to God. The old way of offering sacrifices in the temple was to be replaced by celebration of new life in a new fellowship. The old temple was to be replaced by a new temple which was Christ himself. God was now to be present among people in a new way, which was open to all.

Source: www.beswick.info

Mark 11:12-25

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard it. Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”? But you have made it a den of robbers.’ And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city. In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea”, and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ‘Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.’