Cleansing the Temple

Gospel: Luke 19: 45-48

It is easy to use this story as a way to avoid ourselves by seeing Jesus' actions as some political-economic act or some rejection against Judaism.  But God did not create the temple of Jerusalem or any other building made of stones and wood.  God made the human being as a temple wherein God dwells, where God is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, where contemplation of God takes places night and day. 

Like the temple buildings we human beings create, we have defiled the temple God created within us: we use it to advance our egos and self-interest.  We contemplate ways of gaining advantage over others for our own personal gain, for riches and power.  We spend so little time thinking of God and being a place of mercy and love.  Our temples desperately need cleansing.

And like the devotees of the ancient temple we chafe at Jesus cleansing our temple and we rebel against it.  We will prefer our idols of self, the merchants and money-changers, and we will prefer Barabbas over Jesus.  But we always have the option to submit to Jesus' cleansing, to contemplate God within so that we might be a place of love and mercy open to all.