Word to the Wise
Friday, November 22, 2024 - Friday in the 33th Week in Ordinary Time
[Rev 10:8-11 and Luke 19:45-48]Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, "It is written: My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves." And every day he was teaching in the temple area. The chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people, meanwhile, were seeking to put him to death, but they could find no way to accomplish their purpose because all the people were hanging on his words. [Luke]
NOVEMBER 22 ST. CECILIA, virgin and martyr
The three "synoptic" gospels [Mark, Matthew, Luke] report the event of Jesus' "cleansing of the temple" in the last days of Jesus' life. The Gospel According to John reports it at the first of three visits by Jesus to Jerusalem. In the Gospel According to Luke, the account of the cleansing is almost like a book end to the account in his infancy narrative when Jesus was brought to the temple as an infant to be "presented to the Lord." The incident in today's gospel scripture was a direct attack on the whole temple "system," in which the chief priests, scribes and elders all had a big stake. The scene must have been chaotic because temple worship required cattle, sheep and birds, oil and flour and also money-changers so that people could convert Roman coinage to Jewish coinage to pay their temple tax. Animals running loose, oil and flour spilled, and money scattered on the floor - one can only imagine the havoc - one BIG mess. It was the culmination of the building tension between Jesus and the Jewish leadership. They determined he had to be eliminated but they had to be sneaky about it because "all the people were hanging on his words." All of this makes a bit more sense to us in Holy Week which occurs in the Spring, but we are nearing the end of the liturgical year, so the lectionary brings us up to the edge of those events. In a few days, we start telling the story of Jesus all over again with Advent!
To the disciples and curious crowds, Jesus had shown himself to be a charismatic preacher and healer. To the leadership of the Jewish people he was a dangerous nuisance. The drama of Holy Week tells us who Jesus really is, but we don't start telling this story by starting at the end, even if we know what the end is. We start with Adam and Eve, Abraham, David, Solomon, the prophets, the young girl in Nazareth who gets a surprising angelic visitor, etc.. The final episode is saved for Holy Week. Advent is just around the corner! Stay tuned! AMEN