Father Nolan's Homily - November 9, 2008 |
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“Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” John 2:15 Today we celebrate the dedication of St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome. It was dedicated on this day the ninth of November in the year 324 by Pope Sylvester. It was presented as a gift to the Pope by the first Christian Emperor Constantine in the year 312. It is the cathedral church of the Bishop of Rome. It is the mother and head of all the churches of the world and the highest ranking church in the world. So when a Pope is elected he is brought to take over St. John Lateran as his Cathedral as Bishop of Rome. It has been the residence of the Popes since the fourth century. In the first reading taken from the Book of Ezekiel he reminds us that the temple of God is a source of refreshment and renewal of God’s people. Those who would turn the temple to their own profit will stand the judgment of God. In the second letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians the apostle Paul challenges his fellow Christians to be God’s building. As the master builder Paul had laid the foundation of Jesus Christ. If they built on that foundation with care, he says, they would become truly the temple of God. In the gospel we see a side of Jesus we do not often see. Angered at those who sold animals dishonestly and charged money for temple rituals, He scattered their animals and overturned their tables. Righteousness demanded that He drive out those who were profaning the temple. There is a place for anger; Anger over systems that put the corrupt in palaces. Anger over distended little stomachs, swollen by simple hunger, while food rots in the warehouses of governments without souls. What was Jesus angry about in today’s gospel? If we pay close attention we will see what Jesus was angry about. It was Passover when as many as thirty thousand pilgrims came to Jerusalem. So many that Pilate had to come to Jerusalem from Caesarea to keep order. These Passover pilgrims coming from lands near and far away needed to find sacrificial offerings for their observance of Passover. Lambs could be purchased throughout the city but there was a problem. The offerings had to be unblemished and only the ones sold in the temple precincts had been inspected by the temple officials. You had to pay more but you knew what you were getting. Here was a situation ripe for abuse. Every Jew had to pay a temple tax of one half shekel and it had to be paid improper currency. Thus Jews from other countries had to buy shekels in Jerusalem. In the temple precincts money changers had become another racket. A fee was charged for exchanging money and then another fee if it was necessary to make change. And remember these pilgrims were largely peasants traveling on little resources and in great risk in an act of religious devotion. Is it any wonder that Jesus became enraged. Here these simple people of faith, often for the only time in their lives, had come to the holy temple of Jerusalem. Then to find the temple booths operated by hustler and to be cheated by vendors over the price of an offering to God clearly suggested that something was not right. But it must be right. This was the holiest place on earth. This is why Jesus’ anger flared and He cleared house. “You have made the house of prayer a den of robbers” He said. Do you think this act of violence was not an act of love? Is God’s judgment the opposite of God’s love. I think not. Listen to what St. John says in the Book of Revelations. “I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest therefore and repent.” God’s love has no limits but also remember God’s love is not over indulgent – irresponsible permissive. It is like the love of any good father or mother.
Jerusalem would ask of Jesus “Who are you to take such action
against the temple?” Who indeed!! The temple was not to last
long anyway. By 70 A.D. it was flattened to the ground by the
Romans by order of General Titus. There has been no temple in
Jerusalem since. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
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