First Reading – Exodus 20:1-17;
Second Reading – 1 Corinthians 1:22-25;
Gospel – John 2:13-25
The liturgy of the Third Sunday of Lent begins with acknowledging God´s holiness and his claim on us that we belong to him. It recognises the fact that we are his own people and must live in a way that reflects his holiness. God offers us the gift of faith as our path towards holiness. At the same time, we all want and desire to live a peaceful life in accordance with God’s will. We all want to make sense of our existence. We all desire to live a life where we can make a positive contribution to ourselves, to our families and to those around us. Challenges are always with us, difficulties surround us. However, the more we long, desire and develop a personal and ultimate relationship with Jesus Christ as our best friend, there is absolutely nothing that we cannot face and overcome. Indeed, we become the “power and the wisdom of God”. In the gospel Jesus reacts with anger to abuses in the Temple, which he perceives as the violation of the covenant and shows himself as the Lord of the Temple. He drove the traders out of the Temple and predicted that he himself would be the Temple of the new people of God.
Today’s first reading teaches us that the Ten Commandments are the basis of our religious and spiritual life. Instead of restricting our freedom, the Commandments really help us to love and respect our God and our neighbours. The Responsorial Psalm (Ps 19) depicts the Mosaic Law’s life-enhancing attributes: it refreshes the soul and rejoices the heart; it is pure and true, more precious than gold.
The second reading reminds us that we must appreciate the Divine “foolishness” of the crucified Christ and obey His commandment of love as our expression of Divine worship.
Today’s Gospel gives us the dramatic account of Jesus’ cleansing the Temple of its merchants and moneychangers, followed by a prediction of his death and Resurrection.
The synoptic Gospels place the “cleansing of the Temple” immediately after Jesus’ triumphant arrival in Jerusalem on the back of a colt on Palm Sunday, while John places it at the beginning of his Gospel. Jesus cleansed the Temple which King Herod began to renovate in 20 BC. The abuses which kindled the prophetic indignation of Jesus were the conversion of God’s Temple into a “noisy marketplace” by the animal merchants and into a “hideout of thieves” by the moneychangers with their grossly unjust business practices – sacrilege in God’s Holy Place. Jesus’ reaction to this commercialized Faith was fierce. Since no weapons were allowed inside the Temple, Jesus constructed his own, a whip of cords, and used it to drive out the merchants and moneychangers from the Court of the Gentiles.
We need to avoid a calculating mentality in Divine worship: Our relationship with God must be that of a child to his parent, one of mutual love, respect, and a desire for the family’s good, with no thought of personal loss or gain. Hence, fulfilling our Sunday obligation only out of fear of mortal sin and consequent eternal punishment (a loss), is a non-Christian approach. In the same way, obeying the commandments and doing acts of charity merely as prerequisites for Heavenly reward (a gain), are acts driven by a profit motive, of which Jesus would not approve. Hence, let us ask ourselves these questions during this third week of Lent: Can leading worship simply become a business for the clergy for which they are paid? Do the laity sometimes think that they are “paying” the minister to do the worship for them — thinking, “We pay them to do this for us”? Do we think of God as a vending machine into which we put our sacrifices and good deeds to get back His blessings? Do we use our acts of obedience to the Ten Commandments as bargaining chips with God? The theologian Karl Rahner put it this way: “The number one cause of atheism is Christians. Those who proclaim God with their mouths and deny Him with their lifestyles are what an unbelieving world finds simply unbelievable.”
We need to remember that we are the temples of the Holy Spirit: St. Paul reminds us that we are God’s temples, body and soul, because the Spirit of God dwells in us. Hence, we have no right to desecrate God’s temple by impurity and injustice. We are expected to cleanse our hearts of pride, hatred, jealousy, and all evil thoughts, desires, and plans. Reminiscent of what Jesus did in cleansing the Temple, we, as 21st century disciples, must, with His grace, cleanse ourselves of attitudes and behaviours that prevent us from seeing and responding to hurt wherever we find it. Let us welcome Jesus into our hearts and lives during Lent by repentance and the renewal of our lives. We will drive out the wild animals that do not belong in the holy temple of our body by making a whip of cords out of our fasting, penance, and almsgiving during Lent, and by going to Confession to receive God’s loving forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.