Today is the third Sunday of Lent.
Today’s Gospel is the cleansing of the Temple. In it Jesus is consumed by zeal and runs the money changers and animal sellers out of His Father’s House. It’s an interesting thing because the money changers were there legitimately and performed a needed function. People who came to the temple to make a sacrifice needed to be able to buy animals, such as doves, to be sacrificed. Remember people traveled from long distances, especially during certain times of the year, and couldn’t bring these animals with them. They also needed to pay the Temple tax, which had to be paid in a specific currency. That required the money changers. It seems that Jesus didn’t like the whole business aspect of what was going on in the Temple. I think His comment about it being His Father’s house is key.
For the Jews of that day the Temple was a place of worship but for Jesus it was His Father’s house. It sounds like if these businesses were operating outside the Temple Jesus would not have been angry, but that’s not how it worked.
I’m actually more interested in the final three verses of the Gospel reading, where a commentator tells us that Jesus understood human nature. The point in that section is that those who saw Jesus as a miracle worker and didn’t understand the deeper significance of the kingdom were attracted to Him for the wrong reasons and Jesus didn’t trust them. He likely thought that the next shiny thing that comes along will attract them and those “followers” would be gone. It’s clear that Jesus wanted disciples not just followers or fans as some have referred to them.
This understanding of human nature extends to the Church Jesus founded as well. For example, we the fallen, have a tendency to sin. The Church calls it concupiscence but the actual label doesn’t so much matter as what it represents. It simply means that left on our own we will tend to stray from God over time. It’s not unlike the tendency to move from order to disorder described in science.
The primary purpose of the Church is to save souls and help us attain holiness, since holiness is the ultimate way we will get to heaven. If we tend to move away from God left to ourselves what is the Church to do to help us combat that tendency? Primarily, living the sacramental life of the Church is the way for us to progress in holiness and grow closer to God. It is this understanding of human nature and the countermeasures Jesus provides through His Church, that give us hope. To be sure prayer is an important aspect of all this too. I’m just mostly focusing on the sacraments since they so closely align with the effect of our fallen nature.
Sometimes people think they can be spiritual without the institutional Church, and there’s some truth to that. That view has a serious limitation though, human nature. I would never say it’s impossible for someone to have a one on one relationship with Jesus outside the Church but I think we all know about our limitations, even if we don’t talk about them much. Most of us also know that we need help to overcome our limitations. That help comes from Jesus, of course, but most readily, it comes from him through His Church.
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading.
I hope you have a great week.
Peace, Bob
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