Cleansing The Temple

In considering how we might be participants in the life of Jesus, the story of the cleansing of the temple found in Mark 11 v 11-18 is a great example of how he felt and acted concerning social injustice, specifically regarding the poor and marginalised.

Jesus is on his way to celebrate the Feast of Passover, the last time he will make this trip to Jerusalem with his friends. He has been greeted by the crowds and welcomed as their hopeful King and on his way into town he notices a fig tree, in leaf. Hungry, he goes to pick of its fruit but finding none he curses the tree, knowing that leaves were in fact supposed to signify the presence of fruit, but this tree had nothing to offer a weary traveller. It seems that the tree got a bad wrap but the parabolic message gleaned from this highlights what happens next.

Jesus wandered into Jerusalem, calmly surveyed the scene then withdrew to Bethany for the night with his friends. I imagine him contemplating deeply all that he has observed and what he intended to do about it the next day. Perhaps his frustration was vented on the fig tree, or perhaps his interaction with the tree was the warm-up act before he confronted the Religious, who were also dressed in fine clothing, yet were offering no food or sustenance to the many pilgrims who had also travelled so far to fulfill their vows. Instead they were being asked to give even more of themselves by paying exhorbitant prices to purchase the animal sacrifices they were required to offer, as well as the fee they were charged to change their local currency into Jewish coin so that they could also pay their temple taxes. 

The stage was set. Jesus arrived at the outer court, the only part of the Temple that the Gentiles are allowed to be in and with a great display of anger and frustration he turned the  merchants tables over and drove them out of the court. 

Some have called this his ‘temple tantrum.’

‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations, but you have made it into a den of robbers...!’ was his hearts cry. 

This outer ‘gentile’ court, a place of prayer, connection and belonging was being used to abuse the foreigner, the marginalised and the poor and to rob them of their human rights. And Jesus’ confrontation of those who were the perpetrators of this unjust act, the merchants and the Religious Leaders, saw him dead by the end of the week. Scholars would suggest that this act was the final straw for them and Jesus just had to go.

Jesus was a perfect example of a Contemplative and an Activist. He was a man of prayer and action. He knew what he was about, and he articulated this in the words, ‘My food is to do my Fathers will.’ The thing that was in his heart, that deep sense of love for all people, cultures and natures nations drove him to action. 

We, as a people who lean into the Jesus narrative are also called to a life of prayer and action (the operative word there being and). Looking around the world that we live in can be overwhelming in the sense of where to begin being part of the change for social justice, 

but  if we take a leaf out of the life of Christ, observe, withdraw and then act, we too might be participants in this great story that we have been invited into as change agents for the World.

Linda