Cleansing of the Sanctuary - 2

I am fascinated by this story as I ponder what must have gone on that day. I wish that there were more details reported but that is not possible to know at this point. I wish I knew the words He said to the money-changers before He poured out their coins and upended their tables. I wonder how the coins were situated before He disrupted them. Were they stacked in neat rows on the tables or were most of them hidden away in large bags so that people would not notice how much they were being skimmed? Was Jesus' actions in pouring out the coins a means of exposing just how much more money there was involved than the public generally realized?

I do notice that it mentions the pouring out of the coins and the overturning of their tables as two separate things. That would seem to suggest that not all of the coins were sitting on the tables. But it also seems that there potentially might have been a considerable amount of resistance to this confrontation or else Jesus caught them so off guard that they did not have time to object before they found themselves totally exposed and publicly ashamed for their oppressive and offensive practices.

As I understand it, the whole concept and justification behind the very existence of money-changers was a scheme to defraud as many as possible to enrich the people in control of temple access. And since every good Jew felt spiritually obligated to come and offer sacrifices in the temple, the Jewish leaders had figured out a number of ways to exploit this sense of devotion and obligation on the part of thousands of people to skim off more and more wealth for themselves. They insisted on inspecting all the animals brought for offerings and would pretend to find something wrong with them even if there was not. They would then use this as an excuse to force the worshiper to exchange their own animal for a different one at of course a very inflated price. But then they would recycle that animal into an upcoming sale in exchange for yet another person's “imperfect” animal.

Likewise, the whole system of money-changing was also a very easy means of “taxing” people in the name of the temple service. Not only were there taxes imposed on people all throughout the country for the purpose of supporting the temple, but when one arrived at the temple to worship and found that they needed to buy an animal to sacrifice, they were forced to convert their currency into a special temple-only currency at a highly inflated rate before they were allowed to procure the necessary things with which they were required to complete their worship. Nearly everyone is aware of how easy it is for money-exchangers to confuse and take advantage of people even in today's world and how useless it is to mount objections. But for all of this to be taking place in the temple area and in the name of worship for God was nearly the height of blasphemy. For the actions and attitudes of these exploiters was directly influencing the opinions and perceptions being formed in the minds and hearts of millions of people about the character of God.

What was clearly taking place in the temple under the name of God was very damaging to God's reputation in the world. This open exploitation and oppression directly caused many people to believe deeply that God was also out to exploit them and take advantage of them just as those who claimed to represent Him were doing. Thus their hearts were becoming cold and hardened against being able to trust Him and were certainly not inclined to love Him. Religion was quickly becoming known only as a means by which to intimidate others for one's own benefit and had little or nothing to do with love. Religion and God were seen as only a means to appease a very selfish and threatening Deity who was little different from the way the pagan gods were viewed in the rest of the world. God's reputation was sinking into the miasma of being just like any other man-invented God and Jesus was very jealous to do something to correct it.

But I still wonder how we may still be indulging today in similar things and attitudes that may have the same effect on God's reputation as the shameless activities that were being carried out in the temple court long ago. It is very easy to restrict commerce in a church building and think that we have avoided the mistakes of the Jews. But is that external carefulness really what Jesus was addressing when He cleansed the temple? Was it the external symptoms of money changing hands or even the fraud and exploitation that Jesus wanted to get rid of or were there much deeper issues involved?

I believe that unless we perceive the deeper roots that Jesus wanted to expose and correct that we will always remain in danger of misrepresenting God just as badly as those people Jesus chased out of the temple were doing. We still have means of exploiting other people for our benefit but have possibly made our methods much more subtle so as to mask our real intentions better. Maybe we don't set up a tax table in the lobby of our church or force people to exchange their currency into a specialized money system before they can give their offerings. But do we have other ways of robbing those around us of their assets or gifts given to them of God? Do we have much more subtle ways of taking advantage of the weak and vulnerable? Have we so masked and concealed our forms of exploitation that even we may not be aware of how much we are insulting the reputation of our Father in Heaven?

Making God's house a place of business goes far beyond open exploitation of people financially, doesn't it? I can think of churches where a pastor amasses around him a following of people who hang on his every word and depend on him to help them make even some of the smallest decisions in their lives. Isn't this an exploitive attitude in the name of God.

I know of churches where the teachings are designed to frighten people into submission or people are manipulated in various ways to surrender more and more of their income to enrich the church. That is not to say that people should not be supportive of their local church. But when is the line crossed between willing support of the church and manipulative practices that use pleasure or fear to induce enhanced financial support? There is even a lot of misapplication of Scriptures to induce people to fork over more and more of their income in hopes of their receiving increased blessings from God. This is sometimes referred to as a prosperity gospel. But is God one who can have His blessings purchased at a price? Are we just as effective at turning God's honor and reputation into something more similar to a business transaction than an intimate family relationship?

There is another point that is very easy to miss in this story. In the temple there were several areas that were separated from each other. There were several courtyards and the outer court was the only one where women and foreigners were allowed to enter. This was actually the area that was being filled up and crowded with most of the business activities that Jesus disrupted.

The effect of filling up this courtyard that was designated for gentiles and women meant that there was less and less room for those classes of people to come and worship. The selfish and exploitive presence of all this commerce in the name of God was literally displacing the people already on the fringes making them feel even less important to God. Society already looked down on them as far less valuable than other more eligible worshipers and now they couldn't even physically get access to the only areas allowed for their presence because of the obtrusive presence of those who were merchandising religion.

I have to ponder how we today may be having the same affect on those who are on the margins. I have observed over the years how people sometimes show up at a church unexpectedly and want to worship with us because they had tasted something about God from other sources that made them curious. But after attending for a week or two they were never seen again. I suspect that the attitudes and atmosphere that they found in our church were largely responsible for their not coming back though we are usually quick to blame them for that decision. We like to believe that they were simply not devoted enough or honest enough to hang out with us more permanently. But I strongly believe that the real reason often is that though we think we are generally friendly on the outside, we are so misrepresenting of the Spirit of Jesus that they could not find a place of acceptance and love that they had hoped to discover during their visits.

Church's obsessions with keeping up appearances more than nurturing and protecting the vulnerable and wounded hearts among us is one of the greatest offenses that we commit against the reputation of God in my opinion. Is this how we make religion more like a business enterprise, how we make “doing church” more important to us than the hearts and souls of people? We seem far more interested in keeping track of membership numbers and offering figures than we are in cultivating deep and healing heart connections with people who are weak, fearful or uneducated. We are eager to spend thousands of dollars on large public evangelistic campaigns in order to increase the numbers of our church but as soon as they become members we seem to lose interest in staying connected with them and move on to looking for more inflated numbers. And in all of this we far too often fail to introduce people to a realistic, personal connection with God from their own heart.

Just in the last few months I have chosen to take time to become friends with a person who was not long ago brought into the church through public evangelism. I had noticed that he seemed to be almost lethargic during the Bible study time in church and was not really engaged in an meaningful discussion and was not asking any questions. In fact I could not even observe meaningful discussions taking place anywhere myself. This concerned me and I sensed that he was only hanging on the edge of church membership and likely did not feel very much a part of the congregation. He was showing up each week physically but it appeared to me that no one was paying any attention to listening to his heart or helping him to know God better.

I decided to join the very small class that he had been assigned to for indoctrination and to try to connect with him. Over several months I asked lots of questions about the real meaning of religion and encouraged him and others in the class to think more clearly and to question many of their assumptions. As I did so I began to notice a light beginning to appear in his eyes and he began to come alive. He started asking real questions and was startled to find out that religion was more than just subscribing to a list of doctrines. When I shared with the class the importance of having a personal and intimate relationship with God he began asking how one goes about doing that. We have spent quite some time since then in discussions about how to know God better and I am very excited to see his hunger for God increasing each week.

What really got my attention was what he told me about a week or two ago. He said that before I came to his class that he was seriously questioning why he was even coming to church at all. He said that he felt he had no reason at all to keep coming but for some reason he did anyway. Now that we have begun having serious discussions about questions that he has and have been exploring how to know God more intimately he said that he now feels he has a reason to come to church.

This made me realize that there are many more in the church who very likely have similar feelings to what he expressed. I fear that our business model approach to conducting church as so skewed people's perceptions of God that very few have any idea of the God's desire to connect with their heart. They are just showing up at church from habit or from fear of being lost or any number of other useless reasons that fail to move them into a real relationship with Him. I feel that we really do need another temple cleansing visit from Jesus. But the people asked to get out of the way this time may be even more surprising than those who were evicted two thousand years ago.

And he said to me, "For two thousand three hundred days; then the sanctuary shall be cleansed." (Daniel 8:14 NKJV)

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." (John 2:14-17 NRSV)