Father's House

Dedication of the Basilica of St John Lateran (9 November 2018)

Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12; Ps 45; 1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17; John 2:13-22

“My Father's house... Zeal for your house will devour me.”

The account of Jesus cleansing the temple is always a controversial passage. Jesus gets angry (or that's what it seems) and makes a small whip of cords and begins driving out those selling animals and overturning the tables of the moneychangers. He tells them, “Get out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market place!” We may ask if it is okay to get angry. Is it not sinful for Jesus to get angry and become violent?

Anger is no sin; anger in itself should not be identified with something wrong. It is a positive emotion that can be used either for good or for evil. It is a God-given gift that should be used for God's glory, not for our ego-enhancement. Jesus, in today's gospel passage, seems upset, but he didn't cause harm to any person or animal. His violence, if there is, is not directed to doing any harm to people, but perhaps to material things. But certainly his strong expression drives home a point. He says, “Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father's house into a market.”

Jesus goes to the temple to destroy the system of buying and selling, the system of consumerism. Until that mind is somehow changed, you cannot understand the gospel. The symbolism is not accidental: Buying and selling invariably takes over the temple itself. It defeats the essential work of religion, or at least as Jesus understood religion. It obviously made Jesus quite angry, and if there is any violence in Jesus' life, this is it, but he directs it towards any attempts to “buy” God. His violence is not against people, but at self-serving religion and its frequent alliance with power, prestige and money. Also Jesus is quite angry at any attempt to “buy” God's love or to make religion into an exclusive club, which is shown by the overtly inclusive quote (seen in the Synoptics but not in John's gospel) that he takes from Isaiah, “My house is to be a house of prayer for all the peoples” (Isaiah 56:7; Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46).

If God is our Father, all of us are His children. The material structure of a church or a mosque or a temple should not bring division, hatred, exclusivism, but it should point us towards God as One, as our Parent and Care-taker, as a Person deeply interested in the affairs of the world. We all become one, because God is our Father who created us all, and who keeps us in existence. The external structures should further point to a deeper truth, as today's second reading affirms: Each and every one is the Temple of God. St Pauls says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? The temple of God, which you are, is holy” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). The Holy Koran also affirms: God is nearer than our very pulse; St Augustine states: God is more intimate than one’s innermost being; moreover, the mysticism of ancient India confirms that the human person is one with Brahman. As all our cultures and religions point out, let external structures of religions convince us that God is within us, that God is actively involved in our lives here and now.

We are all created in God's image and likeness, whether Hindu or Muslim or Jew or Christian.