Hilton Head Island, SC – April 2, 2023
The Chapel Without Walls
Matthew 21:12-17
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – And Jesus entered the temple of God and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. Matthew 21:12 (RSV)
On the previous two Sundays we considered some of the events that occurred in the last days of Jesus’ life before his crucifixion. Today we will focus on the temple in Jerusalem. That was where Jesus went when the Palm Sunday processional was finished.
To the Jews, the temple was the holiest place in the world. It was to them what St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome is to Roman Catholics or what the Ka’aba in Mecca is to Muslims. Thousands of Jewish pilgrims went to the temple three times a year from all over the Mediterranean region to celebrate the three most important religious holidays. When the pilgrims went to the temple, they arranged for the priests to sacrifice birds or animals to God on their behalf. The Torah gave very specific instructions on how they were to do this, and when the sacrifices had been accomplished, they felt closer to God.
In Latin, the word for priest is pontifex. It literally means “bridge-builder.” It was believed that the temple priests built a bridge to God by means of their sacrifices. Historically, the Pope has always been called the Pontifex Maximus, the High Priest. In biblical times, the Jews always had one man who was called the High Priest.
Not everyone could be a priest. In the first place, no woman could be a priest. Further, only those who were descendants of Levi, one of the sons of Jacob, or those who were related to Aaron, the brother of Moses, could be priests. Thus the priesthood was an inherited, not an earned or conferred, position.
To those who became followers of Jesus, he was perceived to be part of the prophetic tradition of Judaism. Words were the tools of the prophets, not the knives which were used by the priests to slaughter the sacrificial animals. Thus prophets were recognized mainly for what they said, but the priests for what they did.
As was noted in last Sunday’s sermon, Jesus was staying in the village of Bethany at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. In retrospect, it seems clear that Jesus clearly had something in mind when he chose to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey on what Christians later called Palm Sunday. Each Synoptic Gospel states that he told his disciples that they were to go to a certain man who would provide the donkey upon which Jesus was to ride. When they brought the animal to Jesus, he sat on it, and a large crowd followed him. As they walked along, some in the crowd spread their cloaks in the road as a sign of their devotion to Jesus, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them before Jesus. This was a parade of people who were singing “Hosanna!” That word means “Salvation Now!” Apparently they wanted onlookers to see that in their eyes, Jesus was a Messiah coming into the holy city in peace. Over the next few days, not everyone was thrilled with that notion.
According to Mark, Jesus only briefly visited the temple on Palm Sunday, but He did not drive out the money changers until the next day. Matthew and Luke say the so-called "cleansing of the temple" occurred on Palm Sunday itself. Perhaps typically, John does not mention anywhere that Jesus drove out the people who were selling animals. Nobody can be sure when the temple-cleansing took place, but three out of four Gospels say that it happened, and today we are assuming not only that it happened, but that it happened on Palm Sunday.
There was much more to the temple area than just the temple building itself. The temple proper was a magnificent building, constructed in imported marble. It glistened majestically in the morning sun. Only priests could go into it. In addition to the temple building, outside that was a courtyard into which Jewish men and boys gathered. Outside that was the Court of Women, where all Jewish females of any age were allowed to go. Females couldn't get close to the temple itself, because women were considered unclean, because of a monthly matter with which they are confronted during their childbearing years. If that seems naturally unfair to you, you are not alone in that thought.
Nevertheless, women could take consolation that there was a temple court outside the Court of Women, and that was the Court of Gentiles. It was the largest courtyard of all, and anybody could go there. In fact Jews had to go through it to get into the particular courtyard to which they were entitled. At the entrance from the Court of Gentiles into the inner courts, there was a sign which read, "ANY GENTILES WHO GO BEYOND THIS POINT ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN DEATHS!"
From this we may deduce that the temple was the most sacred place in the entire world for the Jews, and that no one other than Jewish priests were allowed to go into it. At the center of the temple building, hidden from the view of the masses, including the priests, was a small room called the Holy of Holies, the Sanctum Sanctorum in Latin. Only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and then only on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. That area, about the size of the average dining room, was considered to be the most sacred space in existence anywhere in the world.
After having heard these details about the temple, we need to ask why people would be selling animals there. The answer to that is very straight-forward: the animals were sold to anyone who wanted the priests to make a sacrifice on their behalf. The religious practices which were laid down in the Torah, the Law of Moses, required that all observant Jews should periodically go to the temple in Jerusalem and have a priest sacrifice an animal for them. They could not do the sacrificing themselves; only a priest could do it.
Further, you couldn't just take any dove, pigeon, goat, or sheep; you had to choose a completely unblemished animal or bird. And the only certified animals were those which were sold outside the temple environs, in and around the Court of Gentiles.
Since nobody but the priests could sacrifice animals or birds, nobody could have a sacrifice offered who didn't purchase a proper sacrificial animal or bird at the temple, and nobody could get such an animal or bird without paying for it. In addition, many of the Jews who went to the temple came from foreign countries, so they had foreign money, which they had to get changed into the local money. The animal merchants charged a small commission for the monetary conversion, in addition, perhaps, to over-charging for the doomed beasts in the first place.
Jesus probably was grateful for the immense show of support he felt by the affirmation and excitement of the throng who led him into Jerusalem, but it was the exclusivity of the temple that apparently got under his skin. Jesus was fundamentally inclusive, at least in many --- but not all --- Gospel stories. When he entered the Court of Gentiles, and saw the moneychangers at their tables, he went ballistic. This episode is called “the temple tantrum” by many scholars, and indeed, that is what it seems like. Here we get into one of the primary issues which led to his death only five days after his grand entry into Jerusalem and his spectacular if unceremonious outburst at the temple.
Matthew 21 does not state it, and none of the Gospels is very clear about it, but in all probability Jesus was strongly opposed to the whole concept into which the Levitical and Mosaic priesthood and their animal sacrifices had evolved. Jesus took the position of the prophets in opposition to the priests, especially the prophet Micah, who asked, "Shall I come before the Lord with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil?" (Micah 6:6-7) Then, in that famous proclamation, Micah declared that what God truly wants of us is not sacrifice, but rather that we do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with our God. Micah was quite snarky to say that, but then, prophets can be snarky sometimes.
When Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple, he was doing more than merely venting his spleen on people who were probably charging too much for something he felt nobody needed anyway; he was taking a public swipe at the priesthood, a very central feature of what Judaism had become. In that regard Jesus was like the Pharisees, because the Pharisees also opposed the priests. Furthermore, forty years later, when the Romans destroyed the temple, as Jesus vaguely predicted they would do, the entire future of Judaism no longer lay with the priests, but rather with the Pharisees, which is to say, the rabbis. Rabbinic Judaism became normative Judaism, and rabbis are the key figures in Judaism to this day. Without a temple there is no function for priests. In effect, then, Jesus was deliberately and provocatively attacking a major part of the religious establishment when he flipped over the tables, spilling coins everywhere, and driving out the startled dove merchants with a whip.
Talk about making trouble: here was an unprecedented troublemaker! He was attacking what to many Jews was the very essence of their religion! He was not only overturning tables; he was overturning the central feature of what many of his fellow Jews considered to be the heart of their faith!
We need a clear perspective on Jesus, if we ever hope to understand him. The man was utterly, totally, unreservedly radical! We're not talking "liberal" here; we're talking beyond-the-pale radical. If anybody looks at the Gospel record from a purely historical standpoint, setting aside a theological one, it is not surprising that Jesus was killed. The only surprising thing is that he lasted as long as he did. If anyone attacks the establishment with the ferocity of a Jesus, that person is almost certain to experience a demise like that of Jesus.
There is a kind of naive incredulity in many people with respect to the crucifixion. They think it was some kind of horrible mistake, a cosmic blunder. What it was was a horrible certainty. There is no way Jesus could have done what he did without getting into serious, very likely lethal, trouble. It could not have ended otherwise than it did.
There's no point in sorrowfully asking how God could ever allow Jesus to be defeated on the cross; on the basis of what Jesus said and did, it was inevitable that he should end up on a cross. The question was never whether it would happen; the only issue was when.
Jesus did not single-handedly obliterate the temple priesthood; it took the military prowess of imperial Rome to do that. But Jesus clearly suggested by his drastic act that the temple and its priesthood were as good as gone, and the sooner the better. Even those Jews who were the most opposed to the priests would still be shocked by the seeming irreverence of what Jesus did, because as unnecessary as the temple may have seemed, it was still the temple of the Jews, and to strike out against it so publicly somehow seemed a public striking out against Jews and Judaism. We might not approve of many things the state or federal government does, but who among us is willing to burn a flag inside the State House or the United States Capitol?
Sometimes, however, public demonstrations of action are necessary, even if they appear at the time to have no lasting effects. Symbolic actions often have profound meanings. The freedom riders of the 1960s led the movement to break down the walls of Jim Crow. The burning of draft cards during the war in Viet Nam was a powerful display which hastened our exit from that disastrous conflict.
A man who wears a large tattoo on his forehead is making a statement. A woman who constantly carries a riding whip is making a statement. And a man who went into the temple in Jerusalem and turned over the tables of the moneychangers was making a statement. Such a thing was guaranteed to get people's attention, which is exactly what it is designed to do.
Listen closely, Christian people: dead doves don't do anything for us! Burned bulls buy us nothing! There is no sacrifice we can make, no sacrifice any of us can make on behalf of one another, which will accomplish anything! But if God should choose to do His own sacrificing on our behalf, if Jesus should take extreme measures on our behalf, including going to a cross: now that would make an enormous difference! That does make a huge difference! It did make a difference: for then, for now, forever! There is no salvation in anything humanity can do for itself; our only salvation comes in what God can do for us! And what He does, by means of the Nazarene Radical, is to demonstrate once and for all that everything has been done to insure that people who can't save themselves shall be saved! Religion can never save us, including the Christian religion, but God can and does save us, illustrated through the saving actions of Jesus, the Messiah on a donkey!