Gospel
John 2:13-25
Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money changers seated there. 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 to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,Zeal for your house will consume me. At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the Scripture and the word Jesus had spoken. While he was in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, many began to believe in his name when they saw the signs he was doing. But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. He himself understood it well.
Homily
I have often wondered what turned Nelson Mandela from the revolutionary who espoused violence as the only way to correct the wrong which was/is apartheid, into the gentle leader who championed non-violence and called for forgiveness and reconciliation between oppressed and oppressors. It is easy to say that Mandela had a conversion experience but we must ask ourselves what sparked or lead to this conversion? I thought of this event; call it the “Mandela” event as I meditated on the Gospel passage given to us for our meditation this weekend because it is very similar to the “Jesus” event. In the cleansing of the temple, Jesus is all fury. He erupts on the money changers and those selling animals, driving them out of the temple. What these merchants were doing seemed necessary and perfectly reasonable to those responsible for the temple. Living animals were needed for temple sacrifice and the changing of money was necessary because coins from pagan countries could not be used in the temple for buying and selling. These things do not seem reasonable to Jesus however. To Jesus all this activity is a desecration of the Temple. He shouts at them; “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” At his passion and death however we see a different Jesus who was silent, as a sheep led to slaughter not opening his mouth, not condemning and crying curses on those who had condemned him unjustly and who had planned his most horrible death on the cross. I think that as his passion and death approached Jesus came to the realization that his work was not simply to cure the sick, and heal the lepers; It was not only to call persons to repentance, his task was to become one with human beings in their pains caused by human greed; it was to become one with us in our fear of death; it was to take on all that was the result of Adam’s sin and make reparation to the Father for it. And so out of love for humanity; all humanity – oppressed and oppressors, He accepted death on the cross, never railing against his lot but asking forgiveness for all humanity. The sacredness of the temple, the real temple the human person was thus restored. The cleansing of the physical temple was only a symbol of the cleansing of the real temple, the human person. “So destroy the sacredness of this physical temple with your false weights, and corrupt practices and in so doing destroy the sacredness of the human person, and I will restore its sacredness in three days”
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Herein lies I believe the root or the basic cause of the Mandela “event”. During his 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela became more and more aware of the human dignity of every single human being. He became aware that violence in any form is a violation of the human dignity of both oppressor and oppressed. He was aware that for a future of peace it was important that the dignity of every human being be respected and so he worked for that to take place in his country. He who once espoused violence now eschewed violence because, religiously speaking, of the sacredness of the human temple.
Herein lies the lesson for all of us. We can desecrate the human temple. The merchants who were buying and selling in the temple were seeking short–term profit at the expense of truth and holiness, generosity and love. They were selfish and greedy. The same thing often happens today. Indignation at these attitudes was and is good. There is an anger which is creative however and which allows us to seek ways to correct the wrong which is being committed. These ways must always however be ways which build up and do not destroy and which always respect and uphold the sacredness of the human person. This often demands being one with the other and thus lifting the other to a higher plane. This is exemplified in the lives of saints like Damien of Molokai and blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. They became one with the street dwellers and lepers for whom they had given their lives and helped them to regain the human dignity denied them. Saints like these are models whom we must imitate, while not in the exact same way because our vocations are probably different but the restoration of human dignity wherever it is defiled must be a concern for us. Without that concern we cannot be authentic disciples of Jesus Christ.
Prayer
All powerful and ever-loving God, we thank you for reminding us that we are your temples and that we defile these temples, our own and that of others, by grave sin.
Our indifference, our lack of concern for the other, our greed and avarice, our desire for comfort above all else to the neglect of the obligations of love, all make us a little less human. Father, give us the grace to reject these attitudes, help us to cleanse our temple and help us to help and encourage others to cleanse their temples so that You may have a fit place to dwell. We ask this through the intercession of Jesus your Son and Mary our mother. Amen
