In some ways, today’s readings can be seen as polarities—opposites. The first reading from Exodus names the 10 Commandments—core standards for objective moral truth. The Gospel describes Jesus literally “upsetting the marketing carts” of merchants selling necessary offerings for people who came to the temple because of his personal “zeal” for his Father’s house. You could describe that as a bit of “living his subjective truth.”
How does that fit for you this week? Do you lean toward Exodus or John, the 10 Commandments or holy zeal? For that matter, is it “either/or” or “both/and.” This reflection will make a case for “both/and.”
Exodus 20:1-17
The setting is the foot of Mt. Sinai. The Israelites have made it safely out of Egypt. In Chapter 19, God calls Moses up to the top of Mt. Sinai via thunder and smoke. The people are to stay down below. Now in Chapter 20 God gives Moses the 10 Commandments.
Walter Brueggemann, in his books about the Israelites sojourns in the desert, gives good evidence that these 10 Commandments were in sharp contrast to the culture of Egypt and other cultures of that time in the Middle East. The people were to worship ONE GOD ONLY: YHWH. They were not to live a life of constant work; they were to have a day of rest every seven days. People were to treat each other with fairness: no killing each other, lying, cheating, adultery, stealing, or greed. Family ties were to be lived with respect of elders, yet also with respect for the young and vulnerable. There was to be an order to life that was stable. All because YHWH had chosen them as his people. Being YHWH’s people meant obeying YHWH’s standards.
YHWH’s standards were given because those standards were good. They were not given to be “culturally correct,” popular, or easy. There was not a popular vote—or amendments from the foot of the mountain.
And, as life is, when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai with the commandments, he found the people dancing around a golden calf. Another way of saying that is that he found them choosing to live the way they had always lived: dancing to various gods, following their comfortable habits of living.
As YHWH embraced ALL PEOPLES after Jesus’ resurrection, the 10 Commandment standards of the Israelites in the desert became the standards for Christians. Today, Part III of the Catholic Catechism includes 506 paragraphs about the 10 Commandments—paragraph 2052 through 2557.
As I have stated on other Sundays, St. Pope John Paul II described why the 10 Commandments are so important today in his encyclical, Veritatis Splendor—The Splendor of Truth: the 10 Commandments give the parameters of the Kingdom of God. Go outside those parameters, and your living no longer has the assurance of being God’s Way.
John 2:13-25
There are two stories in the Gospels of Jesus driving the merchants out of the temple. This version, from the Gospel of John, has Jesus doing it in the very beginning of his ministry. It follows the miracle of the wine at the wedding in Cana. The other version, in Matthew 21, has Jesus clearing the temple on Monday of Holy Week (Matthew 21:12-13)
Today’s story in John is the more detailed. There are some interesting word pictures: “And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins and of the money-changers and overturned their tables.” “Take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” This is more general than what Jesus says in Matthew’s memory: “My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of robbers.”
According to scholars, the issue either way was that merchants were taking advantage of pilgrims who came to offer sacrifice. They didn’t want to drive a sheep from their hometown (or maybe even from the edge of Jerusalem). They wanted someone else to catch the pigeons/doves for them. The handy merchants upped prices and perhaps cheated on scales.
[Oh, my, aren’t the omnipresent ads (including on this site) like that!]Brueggemann would say that the merchants at the temple pulled people back into the slave economy of Egypt instead of opened people to God’s economy of the common good.
Whatever the logic for Jesus’ behavior, Jesus was passionate. He cared much about this. Perhaps he remembered when he had spent three days with the scribes and leaders when he was 12. Perhaps it was something he had noted every time he had come to the temple for Holy Days all his life.
Perhaps this zealous action represented his firm opposition to ordinary religion that went through the forms of sacrifice and worship, but did not focus on a real, deep, life-altering relationship with God the Father, YHWH.
Founded on the solid objective truth of applications of the 10 Commandments and other Jewish laws, it was also a personal, subjective truth for Jesus. It was a personal witness he felt called to make.
St. Pope John Paul II describes this also in Splendor of Truth. Within the parameters of what is good according to God, there are MANY GOOD THINGS that can be done. Things we feel passionate about may well be the things God calls us to do. It is certainly at least a reason to pray and discern.
The Hinge Key of I Corinthians 1:22-25
How do we apply these readings? Pick the one we like best?
No. Pick them both. Paul says today:
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,
and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Subjective passion for one aspect of Life in Christ, rather than another, fits well within objective moral standards. We can all refrain from killing, lying, and stealing. We can’t all feed the hungry or admonish the sinner.
There are the needs of immigrants, of the unborn and their parents, of those living in war zones, of the young who need education, of the sick who will get well and the sick who will soon die–AND the needs of our children, parents, husband, wife, and friends.
What to do? Follow your passion within the Commandments.
Where is your passion? How does zeal for God consume you? The Church turns ever so gently in the Lenten readings now. Since Ash Wednesday, Sunday and daily Scripture readings have called us to identify what God seeks to change in your heart and mind this year.
As you perhaps read slowly through the 10 Commandments and maybe picture yourself as a by-stander when Jesus clears the temple, what do you see as the big change this year for you?
A commandment that you don’t quite understand—or obey?
A zeal that you’ve been burying—or that you have overdone?
Or is it procrastination….or weariness struggling with God or self?
Wherever you find yourself, give it to God now, to do with as he wills. Listen to readings all this week that describe God’s love, mercy, and wisdom. Notice what God does.
For Me
For me, some struggles come some from pulls of conservative and liberal forces around and within me to be one or the other. How do I respond and find my way? That’s one struggle.
Another struggle comes from a growing passion to resist, maybe even fight against, what yesterday in conversation with a friend I called, “gas station Christianity.” By that I mean, being satisfied to go to mass with an attitude of this is a “piece” of life. But it isn’t the center. Center is family or work or business, that I take to God on Sunday, that God may “fill me up” like a gas tank in a car to have the energy to live my life. Admittedly, there was a time some years ago, when that was true for me. It isn’t true now, but it is an attitude our culture of living too much on our own little cell phone screens engenders. Where is friendliness? Where is passion shared with others? Where is compassion for stranger and friend? I traveled last week and it seemed everyone was in their own zone with their phone–and oblivious to others and their needs.
Prayer
So here am I, Lord. I come to do your will. I see your will in the commandments, including your Gospel commandment to forgive, be poor in spirit, meek, pure of heart—yet hungry for righteousness and a creator of peace. I see the divisions in myself. I know your way IS a Way of the Cross—some form of self-emptying. What? How? Lead me, guide me, Lord.
