Turning Tables

Today we witness Jesus throw a temple tantrum.

Admittedly, this is an interesting scene. In the other gospel accounts, this is part of Holy Week, even portrayed as what might have led to Jesus’ arrest. But in John’s gospel, it is found at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry right after he turned the water into wine. Why does John place it at the beginning and the others at the end? Well, rather than pit them against each other we get a better image of this scene when we take their perspectives together as a whole.

First of all, why was Jesus so upset to begin with? In order to look at this, we need to understand the scene. It was the Passover, “the greatest of all Jewish feasts.” William Barclay says that the law required any adult male who lived within 15 miles of Jerusalem to attend. But at this point, Jews lived all over the place, some having to make a pilgrimage just to attend. He says “astonishing as it may sound, it is likely that as many as 2,250,000 Jews sometimes assembled in the holy city to keep the Passover.” Talk about crowd control.

So you have all these people traveling from afar to the temple for prayer and to offer a sacrifice. All of that was well and good, but the temple costs money to operate, and so there was a temple tax that every Jew over 19 was required to pay it. The tax was one half-shekel which Barclay says was equal to nearly two days’ wages.

At the temple, no matter what kind of coin you had on you, you could only pay the temple tax in Galilean shekels or in the shekel of the sanctuary because these were Jewish coins. Foreign coins were considered unclean and therefore could not be used and had to be exchanged. Just like when we visit another country with a different currency, we have to exchange our money.

In the temple, they had money changers set up in the court of the Gentiles to do this work. Seems straightforward, but as we know, there are always hidden fees.

The money changers would have charged a small fee just to change the money out. But say you had a larger coin that you needed changing. Extra charge for that. If you had brought an animal to sacrifice with you, then it had to be inspected to ensure that it was without blemish. That inspection was gonna cost you. Oops, it looks like your animal isn’t cut out for a temple sacrifice. It’s too big. It’s too small. Too dirty. No worries, we have plenty of animal sacrifices right here for you to purchase. It’ll just cost you a bit more for the convenience.

If you have seen the new Willy Wonka movie, Willy is out of money on his first day in Paris and needs a place to stay. These people take him in out of the “goodness of their heart” and give him until the next day to pay them back. Sadly, he signed the contract and failed to read the small print which taxed him on every little thing until he would never be able to repay them.

The Temple tax had a way of adding up. Barclay said “the annual revenue of the Temple from the Temple tax has been estimated to be the equivalent of 100,000 lbs or $126,000…When Crassus captured Jerusalem and raided the Temple treasury in 54 BC, he took the equivalent of several millions without coming near to exhausting it.”

Barclay said that “what enraged Jesus was that pilgrims to the Passover, who could ill afford it, were being fleeced at an exorbitant rate by the money-changers. It was a rampant and shameless social injustice- and what was worse, it was being done in the name of religion.”

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus says “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.” Here Jesus is fulfilling his prophetic role in calling back to the prophets in referencing Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11.

In John’s gospel, Jesus says “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” Jesus here is referencing Zechariah 14:21 that says there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord.

My house shall be called a house of prayer. A sanctuary, not a market place. All of this money-changing and animal sacrifice selling was going on in the court of the Gentiles. Why does this matter? This was the only space in the entire temple that the Gentiles were allowed to be. It was the only space they could come and pray and try to be close to God. And so the Gentile space for prayer had become filled with temple tax-gougers and live animals. There was no room for prayer.

And the zeal for the house of the Lord consumed Jesus and he cleansed the temple. The Jewish authorities look at Jesus and ask for a sign. They want to know what authority he has to do this. Jesus answers them in saying “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”

Sometimes it is easy for us to read Scripture and think it’s everyone else’s temple who needs cleansing. Like I could see Jesus going over there but he doesn’t need to show up here. Oooh, but just imagine for a moment if Jesus did. If Jesus were to enter our own places of worship, what traditions, customs, and expectations get in the way of people coming to be in God’s presence? I am always convicted by the line in the song My Jesus by Todd Agnew which says “My Jesus wouldn’t be accepted in my church, because the blood and dirt on his feet might stain the carpet.” One of the best descriptions I heard recently for “neighbor” is that a neighbor is everyone you were hoping it wouldn’t be. A worship space should be a space that welcomes everyone you were secretly hoping wouldn’t show up.”

Jesus isn’t against the Temple as a whole or calling into question all of our bake sales and fundraisers, but Jesus is calling into question extortion in the name of religion and anytime we place up a barrier to others drawing near to God. Do you know that a survey once revealed that one of the biggest reasons people didn’t come to church was because they didn’t think they had the right clothes to wear. Or that they didn’t make enough money. Or that the building wasn’t designed in a way that was accessible for them. A barrier can sometimes be a simple look that says “you don’t belong here.”

Destroy this temple, and I will raise it in three days. The Jewish authorities are confused. Herod’s illustrious temple had been under construction for 46 years at this time and actually wouldn’t be finished for another 40 years. This would be like Jesus walking on board the new Icon of the Seas ship and saying “destroy this and I will rebuild it again in 3 days.” It was impossible. How on earth was Jesus going to raise it again in three days? It didn’t make any sense.

It is important to note that when John’s gospel was written, the temple had already been destroyed. The resurrection had already happened. Here we have a statement and then a clarification from John letting us know that the disciples didn’t fully understand this until after the fact. After the resurrection, the disciples remembered Jesus had said this, and believed.

John places all of this at the very beginning. From the outset, John wants to share with us that God is changing the whole thing in Jesus. It isn’t about just traveling to the temple anymore. The location of God, the presence of the living God, is in and through the person of Jesus Christ. It is no longer about making long pilgrimages to a specific place. It isn’t about building another fancy temple. The presence of the Word is enfleshed in Jesus. He is the temple. He is the presence of God.

Scott Hoezee says “The Spirit of Christ transforms us from an ordinary gathering of folks into the extraordinary reality of being the Body of Christ. We are the Body of Christ now, his holy temple, built not by hands but by the power of God’s Spirit through Word and sacrament.”

Jesus doesn’t just turn the tables of the temple system. He wants to turn the tables of our hearts. When we come before the table and share together in one bread and one cup, we are united with Christ and with one another as the body of Christ. No temple tax on the grace of God, for because now we carry it within us.

O Lord prepare me, to be a sanctuary.