Third Sunday of Lent (2)

Notes
Transcript

Title

Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Outline

1. The readings today, especially the Gospel, form one of the stumbling blocks for me about the Catholic Church

I realize that this is not that different from the Episcopal Church and some others
But I come from an ecclesial community that always trusted in God through prayer to provide
And it was so strange to me to see things being sold in the narthex or around the church, especially raffle tickets

2. Look at the Gospel

In John Jesus is offended and stirred to zeal by the sale of sacrificial animals in the Court of the Gentiles
It could be justified as necessary and appropriate, for how could the faithful who were not relatively local bring a sacrificial animal with them? And if they tried, might it not be injured (and thus unfit) or might it not escape or even die?
Yet in John this was clearly condemned by Jesus as making the holy Temple a “house of trade” or “emporium”
[The Synoptics speaking of the Temple becoming a “house of revolutionaries” and so the driving out of sacrificial animals becomes a prophetic demonstration, for it stops the sacrifices and therefore points to the destruction of the Temple in the revolution that some there would participate in]
There is no violence in Jesus’ action - the whip was likely used to get the cattle and sheep moving; he only speaks to the sellers of doves - but there is holy zeal
There may also be the implication of freeing up the court of the Gentiles for Gentiles to come and worship, but that it also explicitly in the Synoptics and not in John

3. But the point Jesus is making goes deeper

Yes, the Temple is to be a holy place, set apart from regular commerce
Yet the Sabbath is time of rest connected to the Temple in popular thought and so is set apart from the haggling of the marketplace
Yes, the Temple is identified with the name of the Lord and so should be a place of awe and reverence
But Jesus goes further: “Destroy this Temple and in 3 days I will raise it up.”
As in the Synoptics he talks about the destruction of the Temple, but in John it is made clear that the Temple is already redundant in that the Temple of the Lord is the body of Jesus: “he spoke of the Temple of his body.”
And, as usual, the people do not get it; some look at the buildings and see the human impossibility of his statement, while others grasp that he is a prophet but do not get that he is claiming to be the Lord of the Temple and therefore God.
He is Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God, but the wisdom of God is foolishness to human beings

4. How, then, should we respond?

First, while it is proper to create the beautiful and set it aside in honor of God as a place of worship, we should never deify it.
Pope Benedict XVI, among others, predicted that the Catholic Church would have to live without many of its beautiful buildings - and that it could so live
Second, we always need to remember that the Temple of God is the New Jerusalem, identified with the people of God, which is Temple because it is “in Christ” the true Temple where the true priest offers the true sacrifice. Buildings have a secondary sanctity as the home of the Church. But every so often the Church is forced to discover that mass can be held in someone’s parlor or in a jail cell
Third, we need to ask about all of our activities associated with our place of worship whether they are degenerating into a dishonoring of the holy name? Do they contribute to worship or draw away from worship?
It may be that the selling of tickets for a raffle or advertisements for a church bazar become too focal
I know that I felt very conflicted about tourists walking and gawking in the Dom in Wien while a mass was going on in the front half of the building - and I was not a Catholic!
Let us then keep our priorities straight: the Lord our God as our focus; Jesus as our God, high priest and sacrifice; the Church as the body of Christ and not as building, holiness of life flowing from this worship (as in the decalogue) - and then, because we are ourselves embodied, we will properly use our temples when we have them and not be totally at a loss if God sees fit to withdraw them from us for a while, for our good and for the good of the mission of Christ.

Readings

Old Testament

Exodus 20:7-8, 12-17
7 ¶“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
8 ¶“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. [9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; 11 for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.]
12 ¶‖“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.
13 ¶‖“You shall not kill.
14 ¶“You shall not commit adultery.
15 ¶“You shall not steal.
16 ¶“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 ¶“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
20:7: Lev 19:12; Deut 5:11.
20:8: Ex 23:12; 31:12–17; 34:21; 35:2, 3; Lev 19:3; Deut 5:12–15.
20:12–16: Mt 19:18, 19; Mk 10:19; Lk 18:20.
20:12: Lev 19:3; Deut 5:16; Mt 15:4; Mk 7:10; Eph 6:2.
20:13: Gen 9:6; Ex 21:12; Lev 24:17; Deut 5:17; Mt 5:21; Jas 2:11.
20:13–17: Rom 13:9.
20:14: Lev 20:10; Deut 5:18; Mt 5:27; Rom 7:7.
20:15: Lev 19:11; Deut 5:19.
20:16: Ex 23:1; Deut 5:20.
20:17: Deut 5:21; Rom 7:7.
The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version; Second Catholic Edition. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), Ex 20:7–17.

Epistle

1 Corinthians 1:22-25
22 ¶ For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 ¶ but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1:22: Mt 12:38.
1:23: 1 Cor 2:2; Gal 3:1; 5:11.
The Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version; Second Catholic Edition. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 1 Co 1:22–25.

Gospel

John 2:13-25

13 ¶ The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 ¶ In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. 16 ¶ And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” 17 ¶ His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 ¶ The Jews then said to him, “What sign have you to show us for doing this?” 19 ¶ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 ¶ But he spoke of the temple of his body. 22 ¶ When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.

23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did; 24 but Jesus did not trust himself to them, 25 ¶ because he knew all men and needed no one to bear witness of man; for he himself knew what was in man.

Notes

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