Third Sunday in Lent, Year B (2012) Martha Brimm
John 2:13-22
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.
What a scriptural feast is spread for us today in the midst of our Lenten wilderness! First from the Book of Exodus we hear God declaring a covenant relationship with God’s chosen and newly liberated people---articulating God’s dream of how they--- and we---are to respond to God and each other within that relationship. Then we hear a psalm celebrating God’s glorious handiwork in creation and extolling God’s glory as revealed in the law. Next, Paul, writing to the diverse, quarrelsome, and enthusiastic community in Corinth, argues that while the message of the cross is foolishness by worldly standards, paradoxically for those called into the fellowship of Christ, it is the very wisdom and power of God. Finally, the writer of John’s Gospel paints a vivid portrait of Jesus cleansing the Temple in
Jerusalem and links the story to Jesus’ own death.
It is this last story from John that I want to explore today. John’s story is a familiar one. All the gospels include it, but only John locates it at the beginning of
Jesus’ ministry. The writers of Matthew, Mark and Luke place the incident toward the end of his ministry where it provides a strong provocation for Jesus’ arrest and execution. In John’s version, which we heard today, Jesus has just performed the first of his signs---the changing of water into wine at the wedding at Cana. For John, such signs reveal who Jesus is and invite belief in him. We are told that after the wedding, Jesus, his family and disciples spent a few days in Capernaum before traveling to Jerusalem for Passover.

Imagine the scene in Jerusalem. Crowds of people have poured into the city to worship in the Temple. Many have come from far away and have not been able to bring the cattle, sheep, and doves necessary for burnt offerings. As a commentator observes, “They needed to buy animals in Jerusalem in order to participate in temple worship. Similarly, the temple tax could not be paid in Greek or Roman coinage because of the human image (the emperor’s head) on these coins…, and foreign coinage had to be changed into the legal Tyrian currency in Jerusalem.
Therefore, the sale of animals and the changing of money were necessary if the worship…was to proceed.”
We can imagine that the jostling crowds heightened the potential for disturbance and therefore there would be an increased presence of Roman troops for crowd control. In this volatile setting, Jesus enters the temple and finds people busy selling animals and changing money. His reaction is swift and violent. “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 doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my
Father’s house a marketplace!’”
Is this a story primarily about Jesus’ anger, perhaps introduced to highlight his humanity? Do we then get to feel indiscriminately good about our anger, reasoning that it is a righteous bond with Jesus? Or is this mostly a blanket condemnation of commercialism, of institutional religion, or authority in general?
What is your take on the story so far?

Let’s go back to the temple scene---and watch as John continues, “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.”
According to John, the disciples, as witnesses of Jesus’ actions, get it, at least in part. They recall a line from Psalm 69 that describes and resonates strongly with
Jesus’ actions: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” One commentator argues that
John uses the disciples’ recollection of Psalm 69 to focus the reader’s attention on
Jesus’ fate. The psalm thus “functions as a prophesy of the time when Jesus will be consumed---that is by his crucifixion.” The Temple cleansing story becomes more and more layered.
John makes it clear that unlike the disciples, those persons who question
Jesus and do not believe in him, don’t get it at all. They demand to know by whose authority Jesus is acting so disruptively. When Jesus answers them by saying,
“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up,” they misunderstand and indignantly protest that no one could ever build up a temple in three days that had taken forty-six years to construct. Jesus, however, is not talking about the actual temple building that has been the historical center of worship and the locus of God’s presence on earth, but rather of his own body. Jesus is claiming the authority to

challenge the temple system because his body is now the locus of God’s presence.
What an outrageous claim to ears attuned to the status quo! Probably so outrageous that it didn’t register right away. But after Jesus’ resurrection, “his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word
Jesus had spoken.” As with the sign of changing water into wine, Jesus’ sign here reveals who he is and invites belief in him.
In the midst of our Lenten journey, may we also enter into this story from across the divide of history? One of the Proper Prefaces for Lent proclaims “You bid your faithful people cleanse their hearts, and prepare with joy for the Paschal feast; that, fervent in prayer and in works of mercy, and renewed by your Word and
Sacraments, they may come to the fullness of grace which you have prepared for those who love you.”
We have been renewed today by the richness of God’s Word in the readings for this third Sunday in Lent, and in a moment we will seek renewal in the sacrament of Eucharist---a feast has indeed been spread for us in the midst of our
Lenten wilderness.
But what about the admonition to cleanse our hearts? We do not need Jesus to cleanse our hearts by driving out cattle, sheep, doves, and money changers----but what about old resentments, jealousy, greed or pride? Do our hearts harbor secretly cultivated prejudices, blindness to human need and suffering, angry impatience with others or ourselves? Perhaps we are indifferent to structural evil---the power differentials, injustice, and oppression woven into the very fabric of our social

institutions? In this holy season of Lent, of what would we ask God to cleanse our hearts so that we may come to the fullness of God’s grace?
Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy
Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.