3rd Sunday of Lent 2024
Exodus 20: 1-17; 1Cor 1:22-25; John 2:13-25
“Jesus knew them all, and did not trust Himself to them.” Jesus knows us. Do you think He would trust Himself to us, to you or to me? That is something worth pondering. Are you someone to whom the Son of God could safely entrust Himself?
He is not impressed by the belief shown by many of those who have seen the signs: He knows what that belief is worth. It will pass, like any sudden enthusiasm, replaced by the next sensation to come along.
How many fads have come and gone in our lifetime? It used to be said, before the practice was banned by Health and Safety, that today’s headlines are tomorrow’s chip paper. In 1969, when Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales, he was the darling of the hour: when he was crowned King, hardly anybody noticed. Che Guevara, John F Kennedy, Tony Blair, what do your legacy, your reputation, amount to now?
Enthusiasms fade, and the greater they are, the more quickly they disappear. When I was based at the Diocesan Youth Centre, groups would leave us on a Friday morning filled with fervour. It might survive the journey home: it rarely lasted the weekend. A weekend course, bringing together young adults from Lancaster and Preston, filled the participants with deep concern about the dangers associated with drugs and alcohol. We later learned that, on the homeward bound coach, before going their separate ways, the two groups had arranged to meet up in one of the cities for a pub crawl.
There is nothing wrong with enthusiasm in itself, despite the dire warning addressed to John Wesley by an Anglican bishop, that enthusiasm is a dangerous and wicked thing. We need enthusiasm, but it must be allied with reason: the more unreasoning it is, and the more fervent, the more quickly is it likely to burn out.
A balanced steady response, which will stand the test of time, is of far greater value. For the Jewish people, the framework of this balance and this steadiness was provided by the Law, and especially by the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, which we have heard today.
Even this, however, could turn into an obstacle, if it became an end, rather than the means to an end, the end being closer union with God. Throughout Christian history there have been waves of iconoclasts, carried away by enthusiasm for the prohibition of graven images, who have gone around smashing statues and stained glass windows, failing completely to understand the purpose behind the Commandment, which was intended simply to prevent the worship of false gods.
Jesus Himself, followed by St. Paul, encapsulated the Commandments within two precepts: you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and your neighbour as yourself. These are the essentials, rather than anything concerned with images or your neighbour’s donkey.
Today’s Gospel shows that, even when lip service, or even total adherence, is given to the Decalogue, things can go horribly wrong. Supposedly devout, religious people saw nothing wrong with carrying on commerce within the precincts of the Temple, selling there the animals which were to be offered in sacrifice, and changing the imperial coinage for the money which was considered fit to be offered in the Temple.
There is enthusiasm, indeed zeal, in Our Lord’s cleansing of the Temple. Zeal is enthusiasm carried to extreme, and zealots should usually be discouraged. Jesus, however, knew exactly what He was doing: His zeal was for God’s house, as foretold in the psalms, and He was the only person who could safely be a zealot.
One more thing needs to be added. Although the Temple is God’s house, it is, like all our sacred buildings, a means to an end. Its time is drawing to a close, as it is to be replaced by the true and everlasting Temple which is the Body of Jesus, a Body which will be destroyed in death, but raised in glory. We are the members of that Body, nourished by that Body in the Eucharist, the reason for a calm and reasoned enthusiasm, and a deep and enduring joy.
