“WARM WITH GOD’S LOVE”
Lenten Reflections
4thMarch 2018.
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SUNDAY, THIRD WEEK OF LENT
Reading 1: Ex 20:1-17 We hear of the commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. They are a map of life for a people that has a special relationship with God.
Res. Psalm: Ps 19:8-11 “the law of the Lord is perfect, it revives the soul”.
Reading 2: 1 Cor 1:22-25 St. Paul reveals the content of his preaching, namely, Christ crucified. To some the idea of a crucified Saviour makes no sense whatsoever. But to those who can grasp it, it is a sign of the wisdom of God.
Gospel:Jn 2: 13-25 John gives his account of the cleansing of the Temple and how the Jews reacted to this “sign.”
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TRUE WORSHIP OF THE HEART
In the first reading: God speaks his commandments, as though one would deliver a child. With his words, he gives birth to a new people, a nation, and a new way of life; by rendering a future out of a desert band of wandering folk. The Ten Commandments become the basis of the Jewish community’s relationship with God and one another. Their actions and way of governing themselves are to be signs to other nations that they belong to Yahweh. For Christians, God’s mercy and saving presence in drawing the chosen people out of slavery in Egypt has been extended to all in the waters of baptism and the death of Jesus. We now fulfill the Law as Jesus did, in our lives, relationships, and communities, so that the nations will see our presence among them as a beacon of hope that lights the way to freedom. The commandments reveal the holiness of God in the life of God’s people.
The Responsorial Psalm sums up what scripture offers us: “Lord, you have the words of everlasting life” (Ps 19). Words can set us free, instill hope and freedom in us. The Law, the word of the Lord, is perfect, trustworthy, and wise; it refreshes the soul, it offers vision, truth, and justice. They are worth more than any treasure of precious metal or jewels. They are sweeter than honey.
St. Paul underlines to the Corinthians, that Christ crucified is the sign of God’s love. A sign to which no one can remain indifferent. However to the Jews, the crucified Jesus was a scandal and to the Greeks, it was foolish. The Jews were expecting spectacular demonstrations of God’s power, as it happened during the Exodus from Egypt. The Greeks did not believe in miracles, but in rationality. The death of Jesus on the cross did not respond to any human logic and was therefore to them a genuine madness. Many of us to fall into the category of the Jews or Greeks, if we lack faith.
During Passover, Jerusalem was full of pilgrims, from all over the world. They went to the temple to pray, to seek counsel from the priests, to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, to deliver their generous offers with copper coins, the only ones that could be used in the holy place. The money of Rome was declared legally unclean and had to be changed with the money changers. The traders used this time to accumulate more gains than throughout the rest of the year. It was also a time when the temple priests made a profitable buck. They allowed the traders and money changers around the temple area. The place was filled with the clamor of merchants, farmers, tanners, guards and pilgrims. The house of prayer had been transformed by its own ministers in a market place. It is on this occasion of a Passover feast that Jesus came to the temple. Jesus did not say a word; he made a whip using ropes and began to furiously overturned chairs, money, cages of doves. Then, without pausing, overturned the tables of the money changers. In addition to the vendors, Jesus also drove out the sheep and oxen.
The gesture of Jesus was to end the religion related to the offering of animals. In the greatest proof of love, Jesus was going to give, the only sacrifice pleasing to the Father: “This is how we have known what love is; he gave his life for us, for our brothers and sisters” (1 Jn 3:16). Jesus who presented himself “meek and humble of heart” (Mt 11:29), now commands: “Take all this away, and stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace”. He was referring to an oracle of Prophet Zechariah: “There will no longer be merchants in the house of the Lord” (Zec 14:21). By purifying the temple of the merchants, Jesus pronounced his severe, final sentence against mingling religion and money, between worship the Lord and economic interests.
Lent demands a hard look at ourselves, our parishes, and our church. Do our “Temples” of God resemble the “Body of Jesus”. The Jews enslaved themselves with rules, laws that did not offer God true worship. Worship is true adoration of God. Worship validates the rituals practiced in the Temple only if it is lived and honored outside of liturgy. True worship is found in living the heart of the commandments: in care for our neighbor and the poor; in respect for all people and the earth; in giving and sharing what we have been given and what has been shared with us; and in always remembering that we were brought out of slavery and are never to tolerate the enslavement of others, let alone subject them to that humiliation because of our sin and evil ways. To worship God without living truthfully and in obedience to the commandments is to dishonor God and insult and mar the image of God that we profess to worship.
Jesus was zealous in defending God’s house. Are you zealous for God’s house, for the worship of God, and for God’s honor and glory in public? Jesus says, in the words of Psalm 69: “Zeal for your house consumes me.” What consumes you—time, work, money, worries, sports, children, marriage, gossip, insecurity, health? Jesus spoke of the Temple as his body. How do you treat the temple of your body, the temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you? How do you treat the bodies of others: the sick, the infirm and old, the homeless, the outcast, your enemies, those you fear and detest?
Prayer: Lord, help me mend my ways and allow Jesus to find his dwelling in me. Amen
Lenten Act: Spend more time with God and less time on the phone and the internet.