I will long remember the opening ceremony of this year's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang Stadium in Korea. The beautiful opener, broadcast simultaneously to 200 countries and themed "Peace in Motion," contained a number of entertainments. We were treated to 2000 fireworks, performances by a cast of 2000 including musicians. The augmented reality and 5G technology was nothing short of stunning. Yet all of that massive project was dependent on electric power, without which the entire show would have shut down.
In today's gospel [John 2:13-22], Jesus goes to the Temple in Jerusalem, uses a whip to drive out the bankers as well as all the sacrificial animals, and dumps their money on the floor by turning over the tables. Jesus has just made it impossible to buy the animals necessary for the required sacrifices and impossible to change money into the temple currency required to pay tithes. Jesus has stopped the game.
Clearly the issue is corruption. This was nothing new. The ancient Talmud (body of Jewish law) warns against overcharging for animals and against rip-off currency exchange rates. Obviously the capitalists and bankers of Jesus' day didn't get the memo. So Jesus acts out God's divine anger over greed, hypocrisy, abuse of others, and disrespect for God. The late Presiding Bishop of our Church, John Hines, nailed it when he once observed that Jesus was not crucified for saying 'behold the lilies of the field' but rather for attacking the businessmen in the Temple. Jesus could have been just another player, a run-of-the mill rabbi, careful not to rock the boat, perhaps a member of the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce. Instead he acted out how God feels about unbridled capitalism and, in so doing, signed his own death warrant.
By comparing today's text with the original story [Mark 11: 11, 15-17] we soon discover how the Johannine community has rewoven it to reflect their ideas. For here Jesus is made to speak about a new holy place: his body, the Word made Flesh. And now Jesus tells the crowd that if the Temple were completely destroyed he would rebuild it in three days. Naturally they will be depicted not understanding such words about his own resurrection nor could they anticipate how he will be the focus for Christian engagement of God, soon to be manifested sacramentally. John's community is supersessionist, portraying Christianity as supplanting Judaism rather than being, as Saint Paul said, grafted onto the Jewish vine. They fail to realize that God does not lie or go back on his promises. We see a hint of their anti-semitism in the exchange here between "the Jews" and Jesus (as if he weren't Jewish). In fact, the Jews themselves will also soon movee away from the Temple model in which God is appeased by the killing of animals and burning of cereal. They will offer a "sacrifice of the heart," manifested in the community life of the synagogue and in loving service of others. This is essentially the same selfless outreach to which we are called, fed by word and sacrament. Both traditions emphasize the same bottom line: love of God and love of our neighbour. The two great Covenants continue side-by-side in God's service.
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