John 2:13-22 (NRSV)
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 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.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
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"It is Lent three on our journey to Holy week and the gospel text has switched from St. Mark to the Gospel of John. In John’s gospel the cleansing of the temple occurs at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry rather than the end. In the other three gospels the ruckus at temple is the turning point where the temple authorities decide Jesus must be killed and it is very near the end of his ministry and close to the Crucifixion. He is threatening the Temple authority’s power by declaring them unnecessary. How is he doing this? He is saying God loves all people, has no wrath toward them and therefore does not need or want them to sacrifice animals, birds, their children nor any other creature to appease him. He didn’t need to be appeased. If this was true, if Jesus was right, or if the people began believing Jesus, the Temple would be unnecessary and it’s priests and administrators out of business.
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"[Anthony Bartlett] writes: “What renders the Temple redundant is forgiveness: if we humans forgive, i.e. respond nonviolently, then necessarily there will be no need for Temple and we will be one with the forgiveness/nonviolence of the Father. Forgiveness deconstructs and replaces sacrifice.” [Seven Stories: How to Study and Teach the Nonviolent Bible, pg. 189]
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"The sixth story of the seven that Tony says shaped how human’s think was entitled “The Temple and its Deconstruction.” Our lectionary passage from John traces the way Jesus announced the deconstruction, the taking apart of the Temple, and all other sacrificial institutions. ‘Temple’ is a worldwide human institution that produces the ‘holy’ through killing/sacrifice. I want to use Tony’s words to try to explain what Jesus was doing when he disrupted the temple:
“John’s description highlights both the expulsion of the animals and the money changers. What is going on? In both cases Jesus is bringing the actual operation of the Temple to a halt. Jesus is not simply ‘clearing’ the Temple, or ‘cleansing’ it, he is rendering sacrifice impossible. If there are no animals, there are no sacrifices. If there is no money to buy the animals, again no sacrifice.” [Seven Stories, pg. 187]
"Do you see how far this is from an angry Jesus losing his temper? This is something way, way bigger than that. From the beginning we have made God in our own image and made him angry because we have been angry. We were rivalrous and jealous toward each other and projected that onto God. Since we feel that way toward others surely God feels that way for us. Since we have seen God as wrathful and envious of us, we have attempted to appease God so that God will be good to us and let us live. The Temple is the institution that carries out this transaction. People used their scarce and hard earned money to buy cattle, sheep and doves that would then be slaughtered and burned on the altar so that the one who bought these creatures would be safe from misfortune or disease caused by an angry God who hadn’t been paid off. But if God is not angry, and maybe even forgiving, this is not necessary.
"Jesus plugs up the machinery of sacrifice. He doesn’t cleanse it as though once cleansed it can be used again. He is not clearing the Temple as though the problem had been its overcrowding with commercial interests and animal dung. He is telling the world the Temple has seen its day and Jesus is its replacement.
“The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days’ But he was speaking of the temple of his body.”
"Jesus is the new temple. Instead of allowing us to believe God wrathful and in need of being paid off to placate his wrath (like being shaken down by the Mafia), Jesus undercuts the whole thing by showing us God is not only not wrathful but nonviolent, one who not only loves us when we behave but forgives us when we misbehave. The forgiving body of Jesus whom God raised up in three days is the new temple. With Jesus being raised in three days, relationship is restored all around and none are lost. The human and the divine are on the same page and there is no gap between them that needs to be appeased. As Tony says, “forgiveness deconstructs and replaces sacrifice.” This new temple is not separate from the world but fills it completely. No one is excluded. There is no inner and outer chamber. Jesus as Temple is for all people. This temple doesn’t take life, it gives it."
- Thomas L. Truby, from "The Temple Becomes a Person," sermon delivered on March 4, 2018 (https://girardianlectionary.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Truby-Lent3-2018-The-Temple-Becomes-a-Person.pdf)
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"So the Jews - that's the Temple authorities - said to him, the translation here says, “What sign can you show us for doing this.” Interestingly, [in the Greek] ... it's not saying, “Okay, you've done this, now give us a sign." It's saying, “What is the sign that you are showing us that you are doing these things.” They want him to interpret for them what he's been doing. What he's been doing is fairly obviously a bringing together of a series of Messianic fulfilment prophecies and naturally they want to know how that goes. It's not a stupid question. ... Their first reaction, the first direction is: Hmm, we know what this means and wonder who he thinks he is who's doing these things, or what account he gives of what he's doing. In other words, there is both wisdom and cynicism and suspicion and all of these things at once in their reaction.
"And Jesus says to them, “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Now again our translations mislead: in the beginning of this [passage], it says he comes into the Temple, and ... the word Temple there, 'heeron', refers to, if you like, the Temple compound: the whole of the gated area that included the places of slaughter, the places for meeting, the Portico of Solomon and also the actual rather small Temple building ... But here Jesus answers: destroy this Temple - this 'naós', that means, that's referring only to the small bit, the nave, the sanctuary if you like - and in three days I will raise it up.
"Now, this perhaps gives us a hint of why when he was addressing the people earlier he was particularly annoyed with those who were selling the doves, because if you remember at his baptism the Holy Spirit had come upon him like a dove indicating that he was now the sanctuary, the place of piety, the real place where God's piety would be shown and worshipped. And that he had specifically rejected those who were selling the doves - the kind of piety that could be bought and that was especially the kind of piety that was made available to the poor - in other words it exploited the poor - that gave them access to this sanctuary, he was particularly annoyed with that. ... In other words, abusing the poor for the sanctuary of the Lord. And of course, what he is and who he is speaking is the sanctuary of the Lord.
"So he's saying, “Destroy this sanctuary and in three days I will build it up.” Actually, he says, “raise it up,” he uses the language of resurrection rather than actual physical building unlike in the synoptic Gospels where it's the physical building that he uses. ... And then it says but he was speaking of the Temple, the sanctuary, of his body. He's fulfilling what is said in Psalm 40, “You have said holocaust and sacrifice I do not want, and so I said here am I in my body.” He's speaking of the Temple of his body.
"“After he was raised from the dead his disciples remembered that he had said this.” In other words, they didn't understand the sign any more than the Jewish authorities. “And they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.” What scripture? I put it to that the scripture is the one that his disciples remembered: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” In other words, they are realising that what he is doing, the whole of his project has been the coming in of the zealous God who loves people for a thousand generations, and that his coming in is actually going to consume him literally, in the sense in which a holocaust or a sacrifice was consumed. And that was how he was going to rebuild the house, by becoming the Temple, the sacrifice, the altar, the victim, the priest and enabling all of us to share in that. We are going to find ourselves living in the Temple made without hands."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for the Third Sunday of Lent Year B" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2jCGnIhzXc)
[Source of link to Thomas Truby sermon, and for discussion and reflections on all of this week's lectionary texts, see: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/lent3b/]
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