Monday, June 12, 2006

The cleansing of the temple

I have been reading a lot about the "cleansing of the Temple" story and trying to understand its significance, its meaning. Note that in the synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke), the incident comes at the end of Jesus' ministry and is usually considered the action by Jesus that led to his arrest and ultimate execution. In the Gospel of John, the incident comes at the beginning of Jesus' ministry.

Traditionally, the story is interpreted as Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers and bird sellers as way to show his condemnation of using the Temple for the purpose of conducting business. The idea is that God's Temple is holy and should only be used for prayer and worship... kind of like our church.

On the surface, this interpretation makes complete sense.

However, it is entirely possible that this interpretation may be missing some facts that would change it rather dramatically.

In his book, The Trial of Jesus, Alan Watson notes:

"The sellers were there for the benefit of pilgrims who had come to sacrifice as Passover. Animals for sacrifice had to meet stringent requirements and would not be easily found by those coming for the festival if it were not for the sellers in the Temple precincts. No prohibition against buying sacrificial animals in the Temple existed, and Mishnah Shekalim 7.2 show incidentally that the presence there of the sellers was both lawful and known. The sale of doves for sacrifice in the Temple at any time was even controlled by Temple authorities."

Jesus was an obervant Jew. He would not have objected to the Temple system of making sacrifices to God. That was the accepted tradition for the Temple, and particularly so during the Feast of Passover when Jewish pilgrims traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate Israel's liberation from Egypt and to offer animal sacrifices.

I think the reason traditional Christianity has taken the "anti-business in a holy place" interpretation is that it has not seen the incident from the Jewish perpective. It has perhaps failed to put "Jesus the observant Jew" in that story.

In the recent book, The Last Week, by theologians Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, the authors stress that Jesus' consistent and primary message was to proclaim the coming of The Kingdom of God and to challenge the dominant political system: the Romans and their local collaborators (the ruling Jewish class dominated by the Sadducees, Pharisees and Scribes). That ruling class had its base of operations in the Temple.

Jesus' attack on the money changers and bird sellers was much more than an attack on simple tradesman. It was less about defiling the Temple with needed and commonly accepted money transactions and more about attacking the power structure of Jewish society at the time. The "den" of thieves refers to the safe haven of the thieves -- the Roman collaborators who ran the Temple.

Jesus' teachings were mostly and consistently about social justice. They strongly opposed the domination system of the time and thereby probably any system that creates an elite and powerful class that keeps the masses poor and powerless... for whatever reason. Jesus was a social revolutionary, a radical. He wanted to change the status quo, and that of course ended up getting him into a heckuva lot of trouble.

I often wonder what Jesus would think of the US and capitalism. I wonder what he would think of the world's free market system, where essentially the strong, influential and clever do very well and the vast majority of our brothers and sisters are either dying of hunger or are barely able to earn a living.

If we simply interpret the cleansing of the Temple story in the traditional manner, all you have is a critique against "defiling" a holy place of worship -- a physical structure made of stone. The assumption is that somehow the Source of the universe, of all creation is offended by a few businessman. I have no idea what to DO with this lesson.

However, if we interpret the story from the standpoint opposing the domination of the people by a small elite class collaborating with a foreign occupying power (Rome) and truly establishing the "Kingdom of God" on earth in the here and now, then the message is clear.

We are called to transform our world by seeking justice, a fair distribution of the resources that God has temporarily "lent" us.

I grant you, this is pretty radical stuff. It is revolutionary. It almost sounds un-American. It is the kind of stuff that people who might try to implement this Way would likely be persecuted, even killed. Sound familiar?

2 comments:

Mystical Seeker said...

I think this makes a lot of sense. I read a book years ago that made the same point about the money changing being a necessary part of the Temple and that it wouldn't have made sense for Jesus as an observant Jew to have opposed this out of moral considerations. The explanation that I read at the time (I can't remember the book, unfortunately, but it was maybe 20 years ago) talked about Jesus demonstrating the coming Kingdom of God. But that book didn't introduce the pollitical considerations of Jesus's social justice message, and I think the explanation that you cit from Borg and Crossan makes much more sense.

As for how Jesus would view the current capitalist economic system, I doubt that he would approve of it. There is so much injustice built into the current system, so much oppression and authoritarianism and heirarchy, that so much contradicts the kind of Kingdom of God and social justice that Jesus proclaimed, that I can't imagine him supporting our economic and political system.

Anonymous said...

The body of man is too his temple, as the scripture tells us time and time again. Christ wanted all things to be pure, all things given without the ego, without pride, as seen in his turn the other cheek teachings. The temple was a parallel as well to the body of man, and for this to be defiled and consumed with materialism and selfishness was counter-productive to Christ's teachings. Even though on the outside they SEEM to be in benefit of the temple (such as selling doves for sacrifice) they are still things that detract from the true harmony of living with and in the temple of God.