Spring cleaning?????

Jesus at the Temple  Mt. 21.12-17  NIV    courtesy of www.biblegateway.com

 ¹² Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ¹³ “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.'”  ¹⁴ The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. ¹⁵ But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.
 ¹⁶ “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.
   “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read,
   “‘From the lips of children and infants
   you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”
 ¹⁷ And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.

Straight from the procession of palms to the temple, Jesus gets right to the heart of the matter.  Is that how we should interpret this portion of scripture?  Jesus enters Jerusalem in a political act yet his first stop is not the governor's palace but the temple.  Either our interpretation of the palm entry is wrong, or there is something bigger going on here.

Remember we ended the procession of palms with the question, "Who is this?"  Apparently the temple figures in the answer to that question.  What is Jesus' point in this so-called 'cleansing of the temple'?

Is this about the invasion of sacred space with secular business?  This story appears in each of the gospels but with variations.  John situates this scene at the beginning of Jesus' ministry (chp2)  In fact, it is the first thing Jesus does in John.  So John is already using this scene in a different manner, offering a different interpretation.

The synoptic gospels all have this scene occur after the procession of the palms but with a different emphasis in each gospel.  A gospel parallel (a book which prints the corresponding texts from each gospel in parallel columns for easy comparison) would be helpful here.

All 3  synoptics use the same quote, "My house shall be [called] a house of prayer  {for the nations} but you make it a den of robbers."  Scholars would tell you that this consistency points to this being an accurate recording of the incident.  Is this just a statement regarding commerce, or could this house be robbing people in a spiritual way?

Realize that the temple and its courts was very big.  Jesus' action as described would not have made a dent in the activity taking place; he would not have shut down the commerce for even a few moments.

Mark and Luke do not mention the children, or Jesus working to heal.  That alone leads us to believe Matthew has something different to say here, and the children point us to it.

The blind and the lame were already in the temple when they came to him; so this is not about inclusion/exclusion.  Notice that the chief priests, etc, 'saw the wonderful things he did' and the Hosannas the children were crying out.  Then they became indignant. 

Seems that Jesus is determined to aggravate everyone.  He walks right into the middle of holy space, to the 'home field' of the religious leaders and their control over religious life, and demonstrates his counter approach to faithfulness.  He rejects the commerce in the sacred space; he replaces it with healing the outcast; he is praised by children.  

The praise by children reminds me of the children's story The Emperor's New Clothes  where it takes a child to cry out the truth about the emperor's nakedness when all the adults are too fearful to speak the truth.  Thus the children speak the truth in the center of the religious power structure.    The children offer, 'perfect praise'  - not the people with sacrifices, not the religious leaders' rituals and rules. 

So far, Jesus has challenged the political rulers and now the religious leaders.  One might conclude that Jesus is wiping the slate clean,  rejecting the existing reality so to establish a new reality.  Those who support him are the blind and lame, and the children.  These are the foundation of his kingdom - and so you can see how weak he looks. 

The end of the reading does not feel like the end of the story - it is not the climax, that is yet to come.  Therefore, one's interpretation must be conditional, for this is just one part of a building story.  Since we are privy to the end of the story, we might look back on this episode as Jesus 'burning his bridges' - there is no going back, no room for mis-interpretation.  Jesus is building something bigger than what the characters can see before them - and by the end of Holy Week we will see how fear rules their actions. 

We might want to ask, "What are they afraid of?"    Economic deprivation?  Loss of status?  Disorder and chaos?  Discovering that they are wrong?   Embarrassment?   I think this might be a key question as we move through Holy Week.

Why not embrace the kingdom that Jesus is offering?  Why not live out a life of love, grace, forgiveness, genrosity and connection with the divine?  Why not?