John 2:13-22

(The best bits of this are the Rene Girard quotes at the end)

Jesus arrived in Jerusalem and headed to the Temple (as one would on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover). What does the story of Jesus making a whip and driving out all the cattle and sheep and people involved in selling them out of the Temple mean? In John’s Gospel Jesus goes to Jerusalem three times in his ministry whereas the other three Gospels only mention one visit and that visit was just before he was crucified. Why did Jesus go to Jerusalem? He got stuck into those who were in the Temple and into the religious leaders but there was no political attack on the injustice of the Romans, nothing directed at Pontius Pilate or towards Herod and yet he was put to death for being a possible threat. Jesus only attacks the religious practices and the injustice at the heart of it. Has he come to clean up religion? Are we in the church to be more concerned with cleaning up our own act and our unjust practices rather than telling politicians to clean up their act? Are we acting justly within the church? Is there discrimination? Is there exploitation? How are we treating people who are poorer? Do we show favouritism to the wealthier people? How is our religion relating to people in society who are poorer in society, in the world?

Some see his visit to the Temple and especially the words where he said, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up’ as Jesus replacing the sacrificial system and worship centred in the temple to a religious system focused on Christ as the supreme sacrifice and worship centred in Christ.  Was it coincidental to Jesus’ death that he was killed during the Passover? Our theology suggests that it wasn’t but that it was all God’s sacrificial plan or are we just reading that into it with hindsight?  The first Corinthians reading (1 Corinthians 1:18-25) seems to confirm that. Some see this as Jesus replacing Judaism with Christianity. There is a reference here to the destruction of the temple but then it is translated to mean the resurrection of Christ’s body. The Temple of his body is more important. Perhaps he was saying when you are exploiting people you are destroying the real temple, where God really resides, in the lives of people. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Was what was going on in the temple but outer evidence of the real religion and motives of people?  In order to clean up our religion do we need to clean up our own motives, our own souls, our own beings?

I was glad to see that even though Jesus himself physically drove the sheep and cattle out he told those who were selling the doves to take them out. They weren’t hurt.  Jesus liberates animals and birds from certain death. The accusation is that they have made his Father’s house into a marketplace. What I see here is passion - passion for something different. Exploitation was taking place in the very space that was deemed to be the holiest place in Judaism, the place where God resided. Here the good is being tainted. Those selling cattle, sheep and doves are profiting from the people who have come a long way, days and weeks away, to the Temple to offer sacrifice.

I am fascinated by the mention of the doves. A dove is an internationally known symbol for peace. Noah sent out a dove and it came back to him with an olive leaf -another symbol of peace (Genesis 8:11). As Jesus was being baptised, ‘just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descended like a dove on him’ (Mark 1:10). I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained in him (John 1:32). The metaphorical imagery surrounding Jesus is of a person of peace. It seems ironic to me that here Jesus throws out the symbols of peace from the Temple.

All of this seems like scratching the surface of what Jesus was doing on the way to the cross. A deeper insight for me is hinted in the words ‘But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people… for he knew himself what was in everyone’(v24, 25). For me this is our thirst for power and our justification of violence in order to get what we want –even peace. Some see Jesus’ anger and actions in the Temple as justification for the use of force and violence in order to bring about change.

I want to finish with some thoughts from Rene Girard for further reflection which call us to look forward towards the cross. For me the cross is not about a blood sacrifice as articulated by the doctrines of ‘Sacrificial atonement and substitution’. Nor is it simply believing in these things. The cross invites participation in a non-violent path. The cross is about revealing a path for all humans to follow if we hope to see real peace and real transformative change. In the cross Jesus reveals a mystery that I cannot but partially grasp but which excites me greatly. Jesus may have driven out the cattle, sheep and doves out of the Temple but I think he was only demonstrating that the religious leaders had already driven God out of the Temple and that they would drive Jesus out from the world too.

Rene Girard - ‘A non-violent deity can only signal his existence to mankind by having himself driven out by violence – by demonstrating that he is not able to establish himself in the Kingdom of Violence. (p219)

But this very demonstration is bound to remain ambiguous for a very long time, and it is not capable of achieving a decisive result, since it looks like total impotence to those who live under the regime of violence. That is why at first it can only have some effect under a guise, deceptive through the admixture of some sacrificial elements, through the surreptitious re-insertion of some violence into the conception of the divine. (p220)

Behaving in a truly divine manner, on an earth still in the clutches of violence, means not dominating humans, not overwhelming them with supernatural power, it means not terrifying and astonishing them in turn, through the sufferings and blessings one can confer; it means not creating difference between doubles and not taking part in their disputes.(p234)

(Quotes courtesy of Brian McLaren from the Book ‘Things hidden since the foundation of the world’ by Rene Girard)