Matthew 21:12-13
Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them,” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
The Temple was the center of worship for the Jews. In the scriptures, we are reminded over and over again that true worship is more than rituals, fasting, and sacrifices – it is also about helping those in need, treating people fairly, and welcoming all. So after “triumphantly” entering Jerusalem and reminding people that the Messiah comes to serve and welcome all nations, Jesus proceeds on the Monday of Holy Week to the Temple. But as he enters the temple he sees systems set in place for aiding in sacrifices that apparently were taking advantage of the poor – overcharging them and cheating them on exchange. I’m sure as the scattered Jews trickled in for Passover some people saw them as easy targets to be exploited – all in the name of worship. And Jesus is outraged. He comes in, turns over the tables, and says that stuff about how this should be a house of prayer but it has turned into a den of robbers.
The house of prayer passage Jesus references here (Isaiah 56:7) is one of inclusions – of welcoming the nations. Not just the scattered Jews, but all nations. But in reality, at the Temple it was often more common for exclusions to be upheld. Jesus saw the discrimination against poor and foreign Jews and showed his displeasure. But others were regularly not allowed to fully worship in the temple either. Only Jewish men were allowed inside the Temple proper – women, children, and gentiles were only allowed in the outer courts, and eunuch’s were not even allowed to step foot on temple grounds. But Jesus welcomes even the most despised into God’s Kingdom – giving them a special place. The Messiah extends his grace to all – tearing down barriers of nationality, race, gender, sexuality and ability symbolically in the later rending of the curtain in the Temple and literally in the tangible acts of his kingdom.
In his indignation, Jesus affirms the idea that a place of worship be a “house of prayer” that welcomes even those society typically rejects. Those who seek to worship should not be excluded on any account. For Jesus, his church should always be radically inclusive.
This week I will be cross-posting the reflections I wrote for Journey’s IFC’s blog relating the events of Holy Week to our church’s value statements. Some of these have appeared in different forms here at onehandclapping in the past. Image – “Jesus Drives the Merchants from the Temple” – Nicaragua