Cleansing the Temple

Mark 11:15-19

Jesus enters the Temple and begins to drive out all those who were “selling and buying.” Tables and seats were overturned, animals were driven away. Jesus wouldn’t let anyone even carry a basket through the Temple. Then it was time for a teaching lesson—recalling the words of Isaiah and Jeremiah, Jesus says, “Is it not written, “My house shall be a called a house of prayer for all the nations?” Jesus’ reflection on what was actually going on in the Temple?  “You have made it a den of robbers.” 

Upon hearing Jesus’ words, the leaders of the church—the chief priests and scribes began to look for a way to kill him. Why? Was he wrong in what he had done? Could they justify the commerce that was being carried on in the Temple as holy and necessary unto the central mission of the Temple? No. They were afraid of Jesus because the people who heard him preach and teach were spellbound by him.

As we begin Holy Week, it is a wonderful time for us to take a look at our Temples. Are we, our bodies and our lives, instruments of prayer, praise, joy and peace or have others things crept in and taken up residence? Commerce, unhealthy relationships, material things, have they tiptoed into places that should be reserved only for the holy and sacred? It is so easy just not to notice as subtly ‘other things’ slither in and fester.

What better way to begin this week than by cleansing the Temple? What do we need to remove from our lives and our lives together to allow this week to be “Holy,” indeed?

Let us pray: (From: Stages on the Way-Iona Community)

If we have used your house for our purposes as if you did not mind or it did not matter,

LORD, FORGIVE US.

If we have cosseted your house in tradition, rather than hollowed it by prayer,

LORD, FORGIVE US.

If we have made it a house for one nation, or part of a nation, or for part of the Church,

LORD, FORGIVE US.

And if we can see clearly the misuse others make of your house and are blind to our own malpractices, LORD, FORGIVE US.

Kindle in us and in all your people

the desire to make

all your

sanctuaries

places of prayer, praise and worship.

We ask this for your own name’s sake.

Amen.

~  Rich Greenway