Book of Common Prayer Lectionary
Exodus 20:1-17
Psalm 19
Romans 7:13-25
John 2:13-22

Revised Common Lectionary
Exodus 20:1-17
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 2:13-22

Reflection and Response
Prayer Starter

Today’s readings invite renewed commitment to our covenant relationship with God. In Exodus, the Ten Commandments become the standard of life for God’s people. In Romans (BCP), Paul describes how God, despite our tendency to continue sinning, rescues us through Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians (RCL), Paul assures us that our commitment to Christ, though foolish to the world, is the powerful core of Christian faith. In today’s gospel, Jesus’ passionate love for God ignites his anger against those who treat God’s house with disrespect.

First Reading: Exodus 20:1-17
The Ten Commandments set forth the duties of the Israelites to God and to those within the community. The commandments are covenant demands founded on their special relationship to God which specify ways that right relationships are endangered or violated. The commandments concerning human interrelationships have parallels in other ancient cultures, but those concerning the people's relationship to God are unique to the Old Testament.

Verses 4-6 probably originally forbade physical representations of Yahweh, confirmed by the absence of such artifacts in excavations of Israelite sites even when idols of other gods are found. Verse 7 is not a prohibition against God's name in oaths, but against swearing falsely or misusing God's name for spells and incantations. This led eventually to a refusal among pious Jews to pronounce the sacred name of Yahweh at all. Verse 12 is directed more toward the responsibilities of grown children for the support of and respect for aged parents than toward the behavior of young children. Verse 13 prohibits murder, not capital punishment or warfare. "Covet" (v. 17) probably implies an attempt to acquire unlawfully ("defraud," Mark 10:19).

Exodus 20:1-17
Then God spoke all these words:
I am the LORD your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery;
you shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol,
whether in the form of anything
that is in heaven above,
or that is on the earth beneath,
or that is in the water under the earth.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
for I the LORD your God am a jealous God,
punishing children for the iniquity of parents,
to the third and the fourth generation
of those who reject me,
but showing steadfast love
to the thousandth generation
of those who love me
and keep my commandments.

You shall not make wrongful use
of the name of the LORD your God,
for the LORD will not acquit
anyone who misuses his name.
Remember the sabbath day,
and keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor
and do all your work.
But the seventh day is a sabbath
to the LORD your God;
you shall not do any work–
you, your son or your daughter,
your male or female slave,
your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
but rested the seventh day;
therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day
and consecrated it.

Honor your father and your mother,
so that your days may be long in the land
that the LORD your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house;
you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife,
or male or female slave,
or ox, or donkey,
or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Psalm: Psalm 19
The psalmist celebrates God's revelation, expressed universally in creation and specially in the law. Pagan nations acclaimed the divinity of certain elements in nature (sun, moon, fire, etc.). Here the psalmist counters those claims by boasting that all of nature declares the glory of Israel's God, the Creator.

Psalm 19
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.

Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.

In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
and like a strong man runs its course with joy.

Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them;
and nothing is hid from its heat.

The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the decrees of the LORD are sure,
making wise the simple.

The precepts of the LORD are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the LORD is clear,
enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever;
the ordinances of the LORD are true
and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey,
and drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.

But who can detect their errors?
Clear me from hidden faults.

Keep back your servant also from the insolent;
do not let them have dominion over me.
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable to you, O LORD,
my rock and my redeemer.

Second Reading: Romans 7:13-25 (BCP)
From Augustine through Luther to the present, today's passage has been read as an account of the interior struggle of a man with his troubled conscience. Paul has been hailed as a pioneer in psychological insight, exploring the universal human dilemma. The "flesh" is morally neutral, not evil in itself, but weak and mortal.

Paul sees several laws at work in the human sphere. There is the moral law, "the law of God" (vv. 22, 25), which is both natural law as known to the Gentiles and specifically the Mosaic law. The law is approved by the mind but does not give a person the power to keep it. Opposed to this law is "the law of sin and of death" (v. 25), which has might but not right. It is "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (8:2) that has both right and might to empower the Christian in the effort to live out the status acquired in baptism.

Romans 7:13-25
Did what is good, then, bring death to me?
By no means!
It was sin,
working death in me through what is good,
in order that sin might be shown to be sin,
and through the commandment
might become sinful beyond measure.
For we know that the law is spiritual;
but I am of the flesh,
sold into slavery under sin.
I do not understand my own actions.
For I do not do what I want,
but I do the very thing I hate.
Now if I do what I do not want,
I agree that the law is good.
But in fact it is no longer I that do it,
but sin that dwells within me.
For I know that nothing good dwells within me,
that is, in my flesh.
I can will what is right,
but I cannot do it.
For I do not do the good I want,
but the evil I do not want is what I do.
Now if I do what I do not want,
it is no longer I that do it,
but sin that dwells within me.
So I find it to be a law that
when I want to do what is good,
evil lies close at hand.
For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self,
but I see in my members another law
at war with the law of my mind,
making me captive to the law of sin
that dwells in my members.
Wretched man that I am!
Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God,
but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (RCL)
Paul sets forth the general principle that the wisdom of God appears to be folly to those wise in worldly terms, while to those in the process of salvation, it reveals the power of God. Human-centered wisdom, which is itself closely related to our efforts, will be overturned by God.

Knowledge of God is possible through natural revelation, but the certainty sought for by submitting God to the world's criteria of proof, either pragmatically in "signs" (v. 22) of power or intellectually in "wisdom" (V. 22) is not possible. God's act of "foolishness" and "weakness" (V. 25) confounds both what the Jews expected of the Messiah and what Greeks believed about the immortal and impassible nature of divinity.

This principle of reversal is illustrated by the Corinthian church itself. Most of its members were not from the intellectual, political or social elite. (Indeed, the gospel appealed to slaves, women and children!) God chooses what the world counts worthless to overturn the world's expectations.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25
The message about the cross
is foolishness
to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved
it is the power of God.
For it is written,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning
I will thwart."
Where is the one who is wise?
Where is the scribe?
Where is the debater of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since, in the wisdom of God,
the world did not know God through wisdom,
God decided,
through the foolishness of our proclamation,
to save those who believe.
For Jews demand signs
and Greeks desire wisdom,
but we proclaim Christ crucified,
a stumbling block to Jews
and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those who are the called,
both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God
and the wisdom of God.
For God’s foolishness
is wiser than human wisdom,
and God’s weakness
is stronger than human strength.

Gospel: John 2:13-25
Today's reading recounts the cleansing of the temple and the questioning of Jesus' authority. Jesus gives an enacted parable similar to the prophetic deeds of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

In the temple courtyard, unblemished animals were sold for sacrifice, and pagan coins were exchanged for Jewish coinage to pay the temple tax. Jesus attacks not only the dishonesty of the temple trade but its very existence. The merchants had set up shop in the temple's outer courts, the only area open to Gentiles who came to pray and seek Israel's God.

Jesus' death and resurrection are the ultimate sign of his authority. As the water of the old covenant has been replaced with the wine of the new (2:1-11), so Jesus replaces the temple as the focus of worship.

John 2:13-25
The Passover of the Jews was near,
and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
In the temple he found people
selling cattle, sheep, and doves,
and the money changers seated at their tables.
Making a whip of cords,
he drove all of them out of the temple,
both the sheep and the cattle.
He also poured out the coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables.
He told those who were selling the doves,
"Take these things out of here!
Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!"
His disciples remembered that it was written,
"Zeal for your house will consume me."
The Jews then said to him,
"What sign can you show us for doing this?"
Jesus answered them,
"Destroy this temple,
and in three days I will raise it up."
The Jews then said,
"This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and will you raise it up in three days?"
But he was speaking of the temple of his body.
After he was raised from the dead,
his disciples remembered that he had said this;
and they believed the scripture
and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Reflection and Response
In today's gospel, Jesus personifies the title given him in 1 Corinthians: stumbling block. Perhaps we can appreciate his apparent folly if we transpose the scene to the modern site of Vatican City: Imagine a young man entering St. Peter's Square, ranting at the sellers of postcards and souvenirs. He overturns their pushcarts and stands, dumps their money, then proceeds inside the basilica. There, he slashes expensive altar cloths and luxurious vestments. He overturns golden chalices and splinters exquisitely carved monstrances. He shatters marble sculptures and destroys relics. The security guards who question his authority receive some obscure answer about the odd young man's ability to rebuild the elaborate edifice three days after its destruction. The whole scenario is so bizarre that police commit him to a mental institution. Needless to say, the religious establishment continues along its well-oiled grooves.

Jesus envisions an order so far beyond ours that the two cannot even stand in comparison. He is trying to shift the reverence that people feel for the temple where they worship to a different temple, his body. He attempts to move the focus of peoples' relationships with God away from the domes and spires of Jerusalem to the inner sanctums of their own hearts.

His action echoes God's liberation of the Jews. Just as they were once enslaved in Egypt, so in Jesus' day, they had become chained by the dictates of religious legalism. He calls the people to something better: a sense of the holy that surpasses one place, one culture, one set of customs. He envisions a sacred space wide enough to include all those who had been banned from the temple precincts. He invites them to reject empty religious formulas and discover new meaning, new life in himself. In place of a God who had become distant and dead to them, he reveals a God as close as their skin.

The only real wisdom we will ever find is in Christ, and what we discover in him may not look like our traditional concepts. By the same token, the sign of a crucified corpse may look as absurd to us as it did to the Jews. But if we enter into this irony, we too may find the power of God in weakness and the wisdom of God in folly.

Quietly consider:
In what weakness have I found God’s power?
In what folly have I found God’s wisdom?

Prayer Starter
Jesus, teach me to channel my anger as wisely as you did...