Zeal for God's House
Zeal for God's House
...
by Jerry Fuller, OMI
Well, I'm sure we can forgive such a pastor who did not read English for wearing his T-shirt, especially since his congregation seemed quite Spirit-filled, as he himself must have been.

We wonder, however, how much knowledge we bring to the weekly celebration of Mass, to worship. Have we read the Scriptures beforehand? Have we prepared for the Mass by reading the lessons for the day at home and prepping ourselves to be ready to be open to what the homilist might say?

In other words, do we work at informing ourselves about our act of worship? And while at Mass, do we participate with full faith that Jesus comes down on our altar, that he gives himself to us under the form of bread and wine? Do we listen to the words of the hymns and take them into our hearts? Do we truly embrace our brother, sister, at the gesture of peace and hope they are as glad as we are to be together, celebrating as a family?

In today's gospel Jesus, as we would say, "gets mad." Whom is Jesus mad at? He is angry with the money lenders in what was called the Court of the Gentiles. That area was for Gentiles and others to exchange their Roman and other foreign coins for the approved Jewish script. Most foreign coins had images of emperors on them, and Jewish law strictly forbade bringing into the temple any coin with images on them. This was considered blasphemy.

In that court also animals were sold for worship. Animals from turtle-doves, which, we remember, Joseph and Mary bought to offer up as their sacrifice when they presented the child Jesus in the temple, to animal as big and expensive as oxen.

There was nothing wrong with this exchange of coins and buying of animals for sacrifice. But tradition has it that the sellers sold the animals at exorbitant prices and pocketed the profit. Also they charged excessively for converting the coins into approved Jewish legal tender. Both these abuses are what Jesus is angry with. The temple, as Jesus points out, is the Father's house...and these sellers have made it a den of thieves.

Jesus took worship very seriously. He probably attended worship in the temple or synagogue each Sabbath. He probably had most of the scriptures memorized, for in his ministry we hear him quoting quite liberally and easily from the Old Testament. For Jesus, worship is a serious business, it is what we owe in all due respect to the Father. Jesus became very incensed to think that these sellers had made the temple into a den of thieves.

How would we apply this gospel to our modern worship? What comes to mind first of all are televangelists, who take about fifteen minutes or more from an hour program to push money, to sell their religious statuettes, and some of whom even promise miracles if you will send in a certain amount of money, usually quite exorbitant.

Of course, God understands that it takes money to run a parish or church. In the Old Testament God commands the people to tithe, that is, to give ten percent of their income to support the upkeep of their churches and other religious duties such as helping the poor, the orphans and widows. It's interesting that Protestants are much more generous than Catholics in this area of tithing, perhaps because they have been trained to tithe from little up. Catholics do give generously to support their church's building programs when needed. But Catholics still are at the bottom of the list when one sees how much all churches contribute.

God is not interested in money as such, however. He is interested that we contribute of our goods, our money, to help the needy, the poor, the homeless, those in the missions. That's why our Catholic church takes up second collections: to help, for instance, the home missions here in the United States, or to help the Catholic Relief Services, or the Campaign for Human Development.

Our weekly worship is about much more than money. The collection is just a throwback to the days when people, mostly farmers, brought their goods to church--crops, vegetables, produce--and put them before the altar. Afterwards needy families came forward and received what they needed to feed their families. Today we substitute a collection of money for this purpose.

Today we must be concerned about what we are doing at our weekly act of worship. Does our daily life reflect what we do in church on Sundays? If we realize that on Sundays we celebrate Jesus' sacrifice of himself for the redemption of all mankind, then during the week we, too, will reflect that we have absorbed this lesson by how we go out to our brothers and sisters, how we love one another, how we help one another in need.

This is exactly what happened to the Temple in Jesus' time. There were people in the Temple who had been surrounded by the Temple for years, but the God of the Temple had not entered their lives and penetrated their hearts. As St. Paul once put it: they had the form of godliness, but not the real thing.

Recently, evangelist and now pastor David Wilkerson, who wrote the book The Cross and the Switchblade, shared with pain and remorse that, "The hardest hearts in this world are not among the ungodly, but among God's people." (2)

This is similar to what Jesus did in the temple. Some find Jesus' anger puzzling, as if they are used only to a gentle, meek and mild Jesus. Some wonder how this anger fits into their image of Jesus. But Jesus knew that if we are serious about our faith, we may have to get angry at those forces that would corrupt the worship of God. Archbishop Oscar Romero, like his leader, Jesus, died for what he believed in. Some things that happen in church are silly. Some things are down right scandalous. But we are still Christ's body. It was for the church that Christ died. (5)

Let us remember, Jesus took our place on the cross.

References

1) "The deed that freed from greed," Lectionaid 8 (2): 21 (LectionAid, Inc., P.O. Box 19229 Boulder 80308 - 2229) March 2000.
2) "Times Square Pulpit Series," 9-1-97, p. 1, as quoted in "Beware, Jesus is coming to church!" Dynamic Preaching 15 (1): 78 (Seven Worlds, 310F Simmons Road, Knoxville TN 37922) March 2000.
3) "The deed that freed from greed," Lectionaid 8 (2): 20 (LectionAid, Inc., P.O. Box 19229 Boulder 80308 - 2229) March 2000.
4) "The deed that freed from greed," Lectionaid 8 (2): 20-1 (LectionAid, Inc., P.O. Box 19229 Boulder 80308 - 2229) March 2000.
5) "Beware, Jesus is coming to church!" Dynamic Preaching 15 (1): 78 (Seven Worlds, 310F Simmons Road, Knoxville TN 37922) March

(Comments to Jerry at padre@tri-lakes.net. Jerry's book, Stories For All Seasons, is available at a discount through the Homiletic Resource Center.)