Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money-changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables, and to those who sold doves he said, “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” His disciples recalled the words of scripture, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” At this the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered and said to them. “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years and you will raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.

Discussion Questions:

1. In this passage Jesus is angry because the Temple has been co-opted into something it was not supposed to become. Where do you see this happening in our church and community today, how do you try to over-turn transactional “business as usual” when you see it?
2. How do you consciously stay connected to God’s calling in your life, and avoid the distortion of the secular world, its false promises and trappings?
3. Do you think of your interior-self as a temple and dwelling place for God? Why or why not?
4. How has your understanding and experience of “church” deepened as a result of weekly faith-sharing in community with others? Describe the differences/new understanding.

Biblical Context

John 2: 13-22
Margaret Nutting Ralph PHD

Our reading from the Gospel of John begins, “Since the Passover of the Jews was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” This sentence is typical of John’s Gospel because John often supplies the backdrop of a Jewish feast as he describes Jesus’ public ministry. John’s purpose is to teach that the old way of being in right relationship with God, through obedience to the law and through observance of Jewish feasts, has been replaced. Jesus is initiating a new spiritual order.

In addition, our understanding that Jesus’ public ministry lasted for three years is derived from the fact that John presents the backdrop of the Passover three times. The final Passover, of course, will be the Passover when Jesus is crucified at the time the Passover lambs are being slaughtered, thus becoming the new paschal lamb.

Unique to John’s Gospel is that he places the cleansing of the temple at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry rather than at the end. In all three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) the cleansing of the temple takes place at the end of Jesus’ public ministry as he enters Jerusalem just before his passion and death (Mark 11:15-19; Matt 21:12-13; Luke 19:45-46). John alone places this scene at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, after the great sign at the wedding feast at Cana.

Jesus enters the temple area and finds commerce taking place in the name of religious observance. The oxen, sheep, and doves that were being sold were being sold for sacrifice. The money changers were present to make it more convenient for Jewish men to pay their temple tax. The temple tax was required of every Jewish male over the age of nineteen (see Exod 30:11-16). The doves were being sold so that poor people could purchase a sacrifice (Lev 12:8). Jesus drives all of this commerce out of the temple saying, ” Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” When his disciples recall the words of scripture, Zeal for your house will consume me, they are recalling the words of Psalm 69:9-10, a lament, in which the psalmist cries out:

I have become an outcast to my kin,
a stranger to my mother’s children.
Because zeal for your house consumes me,
I am scorned by those who scorn you.

John tells us that “the Jews answered and said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ ” John’s Gospel often presents the Jews as Jesus’ adversaries, even though Jesus, his mother, and his disciples are all Jews. The reason for this is that John is writing at the end of the first century, when the Jewish community was divided over whether or not Jesus was a divine person. Those Jews who believed in Jesus’ divinity were being expelled from the synagogue by those Jews who did not believe. The expelled Jews were subject to persecution and even martyrdom because they were no long exempt from participating in Roman emperor worship.

In response to the request for a sign Jesus says, ” ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?’ ” This conversation, too, is typical of John’s Gospel. Jesus will say something that he means metaphorically. His listeners will take his words literally. This misunderstanding will give Jesus the opportunity to elaborate on his true meaning. In this instance, John explains the misunderstanding to the reader. “But he was speaking about the temple of his Body.”

Here John is teaching his end-of-the-century audience that the temple, the building that had been understood to be one of the signs of God’s covenant promises to God’s people, has been replaced by the church, the body of Christ. Remember, the actual physical temple had been destroyed in AD 70, some twenty-five years before John is writing his Gospel. The temple no longer exists. However, the fact that the temple no longer exists is not a sign that God has been unfaithful to God’s promises to love and protect the chosen people. Rather, through Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection, a new spiritual order has been established. In that new spiritual order the church, the body of Christ, has replaced the temple.

John makes it obvious that his whole Gospel has been written from a post resurrection point of view. He acknowledges that point of view when he says, “Therefore, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they came to believe the scripture and the word Jesus had spoken.” Jesus’ resurrection was the core event that made all that had preceded it understandable.

We read this passage from John’s Gospel on the feast of the dedication of the Lateran Basilica (also called the Church of St. John Lateran), the cathedral church of the pope, the bishop of Rome. This Basilica acts as a symbol of the worldwide body of Christ, the church. Just as the Jews believed that Yahweh dwelt in their temple, so do we believe that the risen Christ dwells in his body, the church.

An Enormous Call

Reflection
Walter Brueggemann

Jesus came to the Jerusalem temple, and he looked all around. He came there because the temple is the citadel of meaning in that society, the symbolic expression of all that is true and good and beautiful, the ultimate hope and desire of his people for the presence of God. He did not like what he saw . . . The core of faith had been co-opted into aggressive commodity transactions.

Imagine that Jesus has called the Church to be a people in mission, the mission of subverting the dominant distortion of social reality, that the neighborhood might be reconstituted. What an enormous call, to work as alternative to a social system gone crazy. It is an incredibly upstream vocation, to live a different kind of life in order that the world may come to know that the pathologies in which we get caught are not the truth of our life.

Imagine the Church, consider your call, to live a life worthy of your calling to God’s purposes and not according to the distorted ambitions of our society. People who depart the life of distortion find themselves floating in well-being, going back into the neighborhood in generosity, going to city hall with courage, living a true existence in response to the faithful gift of God.

Selections from Breaking Open the Lectionary: Lectionary Readings in Their Biblical Context for RCIA, Faith Sharing Groups, and Lectors—Cycle A, by Margaret Nutting Ralph, Copyright © 2007 by Margaret Nutting Ralph. Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahwah, NJ. Reprinted by permission of Paulist Press, Inc

Reflection from “Give Us This Day”: Walter Brueggemann was an American Protestant Old Testament scholar and theologian who was widely considered one of the most influential Old Testament scholars of the last several decades.