Exodus 20: 1 - 17; John 2: 13 - 22
But today’s gospel reading – especially in John’s version – doesn’t only have lessons for our formal religious practice. For John takes a story appearing in all the other gospels and has Jesus adding a further layer of interpretation.
If the Temple is the place where God reveals Himself, makes Himself present on earth, then Jesus understands Himself and his own body as the Temple of God. Talk about the Temple is reinterpreted to be about other things elsewhere in the New Testament. St Paul writes to a group of early Christians: ‘Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?’ (1 Cor 3:16)
So if one day, Jesus, instead of visiting the Jerusalem Temple, were to visit us and cast his eye around the Temple of our lives, what would he say? He may not need to deprive us of our livelihood. But might he have questions about who else we are helping to keep in employment? About what kind of financial transactions are taking place in our precincts?
For if you want a mirror to tell you the state of your spiritual health, I can think of little more telling than your monthly bank statement. This is what God really cares about, the substance of your life, the reality of your everyday decisions. Little else in our lives reveals so clearly our priorities. Do our investments help to fund the arms trade, damage the planet, needlessly harm other living creatures? Do our purchases help to exploit workers in the developing world? Do we hide behind the anonymity of money and the power it gives us, to show no interest in what effects our decisions are having on the other side of the world?
If so, Jesus will surely come one day and overturn the tables in our lives. So why not let Lent be a time to put our houses in order?