Homily for 3rd Sunday of Lent Year B 2021
Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-25
Introduction
"Is nothing sacred anymore?" We
use that expression when a person says or does something outrageous, something
unbecoming, something that crosses the line.
When Jesus entered the temple, as we just heard, and saw the chaos and
mess going on there, he too thought, “is nothing sacred anymore?”
Growing up in Uganda, I learnt about
sacredness from a young age in different ways.
At home, like in most African homes, there were spaces considered
sacred. The graveyard in the back yard
where members of our family were buried; that is not a place we kids played. Our parents’ bedroom – that was completely
out of bounds. And you did not put your
little behind on dad’s chair, unless you were looking for a spanking on that
same behind. That was sacred ground, dad’s chair, not the little behind.
And when I became an altar server, the
priests at my parish continued to teach me to respect God's house. I remember Father Fred, this tall and burly
no-nonsense priest pulling me aside one morning and giving me a stern
talking-to. And what was my big
crime? Well, instead of walking to the
sacristy via the longer route, I marched right across the sanctuary like I
owned the place. I have taken many theological
classes since; but Fr. Fred’s words were for me, the first true lesson in
respecting the sacred.
Scripture and Theology
That is why I can understand why Jesus was
pretty mad on entering the temple and finding money changers and people selling
"oxen, sheep, and doves," basically
a meat market. Picture in our own Church
here, perhaps at the back there in the foyer, an ATM machine on one side, a
coffee dispenser on the other and a slot machine in the middle. And then picture lots of traffic back there, people
getting money, gambling and buying coffee.
That is still nothing compared to the spectacle Jesus must have seen in
the Temple.
Now you might ask, what was wrong with
having money=changers and merchants at the Temple? What is wrong with having an ATM machine at
the bank? Perhaps it might even help in
increasing the amount of the collection!
Well, thank you for asking. These
are good questions.
We know that many Jews travelled from very
far to come to offer sacrifice in Jerusalem.
Think about Joseph and Mary who had to travel from Nazareth to Jerusalem,
a three-day journey. Surely, you
wouldn’t expect them to drag along a sheep or an ox for sacrifice for 100
miles. And even if they could, they
might arrive at the temple with their sacrificial animal, only for it to be
rejected as being unfit for sacrifice, perhaps because it had some teeny, tiny
blemish. So, the safe thing to do was to
buy the animal from the temple precincts, from the “approved” merchants whose
stock was certainly "kosher" and acceptable for sacrifice.
As for the money changers, they too served
those pilgrims who brought money for alms and donations for the temple. Again, pilgrims came from the whole world
with foreign currency, especially Roman currency. But this money usually had an icon of their
pagan rulers, just like our dollar bills do.
So, since this currency bore those pagan images, it was not acceptable
in the temple. The money changers exchanged
this unacceptable money for acceptable Jewish coins, again providing an
important service for worshippers.
And yet, Jesus still asked: “Is nothing
sacred anymore?” And he went
further. He was so angry that "He made a whip out of cords and drove them
all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of
the money changers and overturned their tables . . ."? And as for "those who sold doves he said, 'Take these out of here, and stop making
my Father's house a marketplace.'"
In fact, this is one of the very rare occasions when Jesus is visibly angry
in the gospels. But why is he
angry? Why does he want these merchants
out of his father’s house?
Some might think that what ticked Jesus off
was the mess of a meat market and the chaos a stock exchange.
·
You can imagine the annoying
bellowing of the oxen, the bleating of the sheep and the aggravating tedious bird
noises, to say nothing about the awful smell that the animal waste must have
left behind.
·
You can also imagine the mess
caused by large numbers of people trying to get change from the bankers. If you have ever gone shopping on Black
Friday, you can certainly imagine the spectacle.
But it is not this disorder and pandemonium
that upsets Jesus.
Some might think that what ticked Jesus off
was corruption and cheating. These
money-changers and these merchants were not always on the up-and-up, and
probably fleeced naïve and pious pilgrims to the Temple.
But still, that is not what really ticks
Jesus off. What upsets Jesus is much more
profound. The temple, a sacred place, had been turned into an ordinary place. The
house of God, had become a house of man. Yes, these activities of trade and
money-changing were good things, that even served to enhance worship in the
temple; but they are not sacred activities.
They must be done outside the temple of the Lord. They must not rob the temple of its status as
a place set apart for worshipping God. Jesus
rightly asks: "Is nothing sacred anymore?" Jesus rightly acts to make the temple sacred
again.
Christian Life
That we must set apart some things as
sacred, is something we value as human beings, even apart from religion. In this country we honour the sacred
sacrifice of men and women who give their lives for their country. We set apart as sacred some days to
commemorate special events in our history: Thanksgiving Day, Independence Day,
Martin Luther King’s birthday. We set
apart some spaces as sacred monuments such as the Capitol building, the Lincoln
Memorial.
And so, if a purely secular, worldly
society understands that some things have to be set apart as special, as
sacred, surely all the more reason that we Christians must follow our Lord and
master in respecting sacredness some things for God; for some things must be
sacred. That is what God tells us in
today’s first reading. We heard him say:
"I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous
God." He wants some things just
for himself. That is not too much to
ask, after all he has created a whole wide world and is asking only for a
little bit.
Let us see how we can live out this sacredness in the Ten commandments given to Moses, the
first three of which, are really asking us to set apart some things for God. He says:
1.
"You shall not have other gods besides me."
2.
"You shall not take the name of the LORD, your God, in vain."
3.
"Remember to keep holy the sabbath day."
In these commandments God is asking that he
is treated specially, that his name is honoured and that we set apart some
time, in fact, a full day, just for him.
We honour these commandments first of all by
the way we treat the house of God and by the way we celebrate the liturgy.
·
Consider our church buildings;
they are adorned and decorated differently from our living rooms, from our
offices, from conference halls; they have images of Jesus, Mary and the saints,
rather than our worldly heroes, have altars and pews, instead of tables and
chairs, have a tabernacle instead of a cabinet.
And we do this to remind us of God's presence.
·
Consider the solemnity and
seriousness with which we carry out our liturgy: the silence, the sacred
rituals, the sacred Word. That is why,
for example, we don't read anything other than the word of God at Mass; not
even at funerals or weddings do we read our favourite poems or sing our
favourite pop songs, because the liturgy is sacred, set apart for God.
But observing the sacredness of the Lord's
House, the Lord's Day, the Lord's name, the Lord's Supper, is not an end in
itself; it is a means to something greater.
Just like my parents’ lessons in sacredness were really a lesson in
respect for elders, so our observing of sacredness is really a lesson in
holiness, a symbol of setting ourselves apart from sin, setting ourselves apart
for God.
And so, having observed the sacredness of
the first three commandments at Mass, for example, the priest or deacon dismisses
us saying: “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your Life.” He is asking us to continue living out sacredness
by obeying the other seven commandments.
And so, God says:
4.
"Honor your father and your mother," because motherhood and
fatherhood are sacred roles given by God to raise up humanity.
5.
"You shall not kill," because all life is sacred, from natural
conception to natural death.
6.
"You shall not commit adultery," because sexuality and the covenant
of marriage are sacred gifts from God.
7.
"You shall not steal," because even private property is sacred.
8.
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,"
because speech is the sacred vessel of truth.
9.
"You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, once again because the
spousal relationship is sacred.
10.
"You shall not covet your neighbor's property, once again because
what belongs to others is sacred.
And so, we live out sacredness even as we
live out the Ten commandments.
Conclusion
This morning when you came to Church, when
you crossed the threshold of that door, you entered sacred time, sacred space,
sacred ground. But unlike Moses and the burning bush, in this sacred ground, we
can see God, we can receive him, in the Eucharist, in his Word.
When we came here this morning, we were
like those African boys and girls who went through initiation rituals. When boys or girls were about thirteen years
old, they were sent away for a special period, to a special place, to go
through special rituals so that they could learn the important values of
society. And when they returned from
that seclusion, from that sacred time, that sacred place, those sacred rituals,
they were no longer boys, but men, no longer girls, but women.
Do we experience a similar transformation
whenever we leave a sacred place, a sacred occasion? Are we more mature Christians after hearing
God’s Word at Mass, after receiving the Lord in the Eucharist? Are we more committed Christians at the end
of the Sacred Season of Lent? Have we in
some way become sacred, set apart for God, as a result of the experience?
If so, when the Lord looks down on us from
heaven may he not say: "Is nothing sacred anymore?” Rather may he see us giving due honour and
glory to the Lord's Name, the Lord's House, the Lord's Day, and most of all to each
other, the Lord's People, the Temple of the Lord, a people he has set apart as
his own, so that we might be holy and God is Holy, we might be sacred and God is
sacred.
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