Over the past three weeks, the Sunday readings have reminded us of God’s covenant relationship with us. Remember, a covenant is an agreement between two parties, based on love and calling for a faithful relationship. God has established covenants with us because of his infinite love. He promises to care for us and calls us to be faithful to him. On the first Sunday of Lent, we heard of God making a covenant with Noah, promising him that “there shall not be another flood to devastate the earth.” This is a great comfort to us after having survived a nasty winter with lots of rain and snow, isn’t it? Last week, we heard of God testing Abraham after he had established a covenant with him. With that covenant, God told Abraham that he would have descendants “as numerous as the stars of the sky and as the sands on the seashore.” As you know, Abraham is the patriarch of three major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Pope Francis met with the Grand Ayatollah of the Muslims in Iraq yesterday. Their common ground was Abraham. In fact, one of the reasons popes have long wanted to travel to Iraq is because it is the birthplace of Abraham.
On this, the Third Sunday of Lent, we hear the Ten Commandments that God gave to his people Israel as he led them from slavery in Egypt back to the land he had first promised to Abraham. All three of these covenants were important because they established and re-established God’s relationship with his chosen people. God would take care of his people, giving them a long life in their own land and, in return, he called on them to be faithful to him and live in love with one another.
This message about God’s care for his people and his call to love him and our neighbor helps us to understand today’s Gospel where we hear of Jesus driving the sacrificial sheep, oxen and doves out of the temple area and overturning the money changers tables, crying out, “Take these out of here and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” Remember, the temple, which originally housed the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments that we heard in today’s first reading, came to be seen as the place where God dwelt in their midst. It was there that all observant Jews would come to offer sacrifice. And, since many of them were unable to bring the required unblemished animals to sacrifice themselves, they would purchase the oxen or lambs or doves right outside of the temple. At first, the merchants around the temple provided this as a service to their fellow Jews. But, by Jesus’ time, these merchants were taking unfair advantage of the situation to charge exorbitant prices for the sacrificial animals.
And money changers were needed because the currency of the land – the Roman coin – all had images of the reigning Caesar and there was an inscription around the image declaring him to be a god. You can see that this was in direct opposition to the first commandment, which required, “you shall not have other gods beside me” and “you shall not carve idols for yourselves.” So, the sacrificial animals could only be purchased with the coin of the temple and the temple officials were using outrageous rates of exchange for the purchase of these coins. Clearly, these merchants were not loving their neighbor but taking advantage of the situation for their own benefit.
As we hear in today’s Gospel, Jesus went to the temple area, upsetting all of the merchants, as he made that clear, unmistakable statement: “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” He was not against the services that the merchants were offering per se; Jesus objected to the desecration of the Holy Place by a marketplace mentality, one that took advantage of the poor for the benefit of the wealthy and well-connected. When Jesus appeared in the temple area that long-ago day, his words and his presence were transformative. Dishonest moneychangers and merchants had no place among God’s chosen people, and especially within the confines of the Father’s house. Of all places, where the Ten Commandments called them to a right relationship with God and their fellow man, they should not be showing disregard for God and his commandments by putting profit ahead of worship.
But Jesus also used that moment to speak of another temple, the temple of his body. “Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up.” As one in whom the very presence of God dwelt, Jesus could rightfully call himself a temple. In Jesus, God became present to us in flesh and blood, in time and space. Jesus made it clear that the temple in Jerusalem was to give way to the sacred person – Jesus, the Christ. He was the new temple of God in our world.
Jesus’ words also remind each of us that we, too, are temples, holy places where God has chosen to take up residence. That has happened to each of us at our baptism. And, just as the Jerusalem temple was cleansed of a marketplace mentality, so do we as living temples have to focus not on the transient but on the transcendent, not on ourselves but on God and on those God puts in our daily lives to love and serve. This Lenten season is a wonderful time for us to set about doing that once again.
As we hear again the Ten Commandments, we are called to examine ourselves. Have we reduced our relationship with God to just following the rules? Do we just recite our daily prayers without much thought or do we use our prayer time to draw ever closer to God? Do we come to Mass because we have to or so that we can offer our week to God, listen to his words for our spiritual growth, and receive Holy Communion for spiritual nourishment? Do we examine our consciences daily to see if we have been honest and respectful in our relationship with our family, friends, neighbors and business associates?
We need the guidance of external rules to keep us all safe but deeper direction can come only from continually growing closer to God. We are called to grow in our relationship with God by loving him and loving our neighbor – after all, we are all temples of God. As we continue our Lenten journey, let us recommit ourselves to the eternal covenant God has made with us through the body and blood of his son. Let us recommit ourselves also to this sacred task of loving God and our neighbor; that’s how we can be faithful to the covenant God has made with us.