What about that encounter in the Temple?

As we journey through Holy Week, through what lens do we witness the events surrounding Jesus and his followers? For many of us, we can recite the events of Holy Week if not word for word, at least in a paraphrase. Since most of us have fallen into a bad habit of living from Palm Sunday to Easter, we miss the “little stuff”. Heck even if we attend the “traditional” Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services, are we hearing anything new?

That is not the fault of the preachers or worship leaders, it is just a reality of the church; a church that is two thousand years old. Yes, theology changes and interpretations vary, but after two thousand years, any message has a tendency to get stale. Perhaps this is the reason why many of us choose not to go to services this week, because we know we will not hear anything new. We frequently get trapped in our world views that formed even as youth, and have not grown much since. So our job is to try and find a new lens to view Holy Week, a lens that allows us to experience the journey anew!

Perhaps if we attempt to journey back, to what the people of Judea might have been thinking and experiencing we can gain a better understanding of the significance of Jesus’ Passion which then gives us an insight into our own understandings.

If Palm Sunday shows us the Messianic expectancy of the times of Jesus through the interpretation of the prophet Zechariah, which you can hear more about here, then our readings for this week also tell us a bit about this sense of expectation. The Revised Common Lectionary partners readings from Lamentations to the Passion narrative found in Mark. The Passion Narrative for today tells the familiar story of Jesus’ visit to the Temple in which he overturns tables and charges those conducting business at the Temple with “turning it into a den of thieves.” The church has frequently used this charge as an example of Jesus’ condemnation of Judaism. As a matter of fact, it forms the basis for the anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic behavior of the church. Not only was the activity in the Temple environs corrupt but the religion itself was corrupt and contemptible. Of course, that interpretation was wrong and has only caused two thousand years of pain between Christians and Jews. So what really was happening?

First, let me start by pointing out that Lamentations was not written as a messianic text, nor was it written during a time close to Jesus’ life, but Lamentations does offer a view of Jerusalem as it was after the conquest of the Babylonians and thus gives us a view into how the biblical authors viewed the city. Notice the relationship that is to exist between the city and God, Jerusalem the bride and God the groom. Yet now she mourns like a widow for death is now present. Vitality is gone, the young live in despair without hope. Why, well there is criticism that “its friends” have turned their backs on her, in other words, those nations that Judah tried to ally themselves to have stabbed Judah in the back. It is a not so subtle critique of the desire of Judah to forge its own political alliances instead of turning and being faithful to God. For the authors, Judah had lost its faith in God and was being punished for that lack of faith.

The destruction of Jerusalem and subsequent exile had a traumatic impact on the Judeans and upon returning to Jerusalem their was an attempt to recommit themselves to God. We read of such examples in Ezra and Nehemiah but something seems to be lacking. Instead of recapturing its glory, Jerusalem suffers from future oppression under the Greeks and then Romans. What to do, reform and renew!

The first major reform begins in a revolt against the Greeks, known as the Maccabean revolt that saw an independent state re-established. This revolt was lead by a priestly family who refused to submit to the Greek overlords. It was the belief that the commitment of the Maccabees to God brought about this independence. This began a period of messianic expectation and religious renewal.

It is during this time that we see the formation of the Pharisees who sought to live their lives in accordance to the Torah and the Word of God. Perhaps it was during this time that we see the seeds of Rabbinic interpretation of scripture in which every word is given religious significance. It is certainly latter in this period, after the Romans have assumed control of the region, that the Essenes, or the Qumran community, split off from the larger Jewish community. The Essenes were highly critical of the Temple leadership and of the existing faith traditions. They envisioned in a coming battle in which a leader of Light  would lead them to victory over the powers of Dark.

Jesus lived in a time of much desire for reform of religious traditions. It was a time in which people were seeking a better understanding of how they were expected to live with God, how they were expected to live in a world in which the people of Israel were oppressed. In this light, Jesus entering and condemning the activity in the Temple is not the act of one condemning Judaism, but of one seeking to reform. Recall the people extolling Jesus as one who teachings with authority, with newness. Jesus was a reformer, seeking to renew the bonds between Israel and God. Jesus was not the only one seeking reform, he actually is one of many and the masses sensed this in him. He tapped into that yearning, he spoke to it. The people would see this kind of reform in his actions at the Temple, not a denunciation of the whole system of beliefs, but of an urgent wake up call.

If that is the case, then the question we must ask ourselves is, in what ways must we renew our bonds with God? What ways must the church reform to be true to its calling?Does this mean Christianity is corrupt, or that it just needs a renewal? As we journey with Jesus, today, that is our question. Tomorrow we will find another.