Buying and Selling in the Temple
“Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘My house will be a house of prayer’, but you are making it a ‘den of robbers’.”
Matthew 21:12-13
This is the one time in the New Testament when we get to see Jesus at his most human. He pitched a good old fashioned temper-tantrum. Anyone who has been to a market place in a developing country knows just how chaotic it can be. Vendors hawk their wares, bicker over prices and follow the unconvinced shopper urging him to buy. There is a cacophony of noise, color and smell, and the sellers are aggressive.
The money changers in Jesus day charged extra to line their own pockets. (Sound familiar?) He knew they cheated the poor by exacting unnecessary taxes and fees. He rose up in righteous indignation and drove them out and in doing so, riled the temple elders who, no doubt, received a kick-back for allowing those vendors to operate within the temple gates. Boy, things haven’t changed much, have they?
Jesus makes a good case for the appropriateness of anger in certain situations. When someone is being harmed, or cheated, or taken advantage of, anger is necessary and correct. When someone is being bullied, or made fun of or attacked unjustly, anger is the answer. Anger is a signal that a threat to our safety exists, whether physical or emotional. It is meant to propel us into defensive action. I can just see Jesus turning over those tables and releasing to cages of doves there to be sacrificed. Whoa be unto him who got in the way—he would have been tossed out with the rest.
Notice here that Jesus didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t take up a table leg and bash somebody’s head in. Anger is one thing, violence is another. We can feel angry and still be appropriate in how we express it. Jesus hurled a few insults, but he didn’t hurl stones. Anger in the face of injustice is righteous, but violence in the face of injustice creates two wrongs.
In the spirit,
Jane
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