Third Sunday of Lent Homily

We hear about Jesus cleansing the Temple (Jn 2:13-25). In His zeal, Jesus chased out the money changers and the people selling animals. Why were they there in the first place? The people traveling to Jerusalem would need animals to offer sacrifice. It was too difficult to travel great distances with animals, so it was much easier to buy one when you arrived at the Temple. It is important to know the layout of the Temple area. There was the Temple building, an inner court, and an outer court. The inner court was for the Jews. The outer court was for the Gentiles. King Herod the Great had expanded the Temple area to include this outer court.

It is believed by many scholars that it was in the outer court that this marketplace was held. All of the Temple grounds were to be holy. This included the outer court. However, they had turned it into a place to conduct business and make a profit. It was not a place of prayer. This is why Jesus got so upset. “Take these out of here, and stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.” God’s house, at least the outer court of Gentiles, was not a house of prayer. It had become a place filled with noise, animals, and profit-making.

The Temple was considered to be the holiest place in all of Israel. The Temple, especially the Holy of Holies, was the place where the Jews could have an encounter with God. It was a place that God called His own. The Jews were required to come to Jerusalem three times a year to offer sacrifice. One of those times was for Passover. As we heard in the Gospel reading, “The Passover of the Jews was near.” So, Jerusalem would have been filling up with tens of thousands of people. There would be a tremendous amount of business taking place. So, it was meant to be a holy time, a time of prayer and drawing close to God. However, it was also a time to make as much of a profit as possible. Money could easily be seen as a competing interest.

Jesus wanted to cleanse the Temple and bring it back to what it was meant for – a house of prayer. It was meant to be a place where the people could encounter the living God and strengthen their relationship with Him. For many people, though, it was an opportunity to make money.

We know that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. We have the living God dwelling within us. Our bodies are meant to be sacred places because of God’s presence in us. However, we have many other interests that can compete with God. One of them could easily be money and all the material things that money can buy. There are many false gods that can compete with the living God. How does Jesus see our temple? When Jesus looks within us, does He see a place of prayer? Does He see that it is swept clean and purified so that it is a worthy dwelling place for the Most Holy Trinity? Or does He see a messy place filled with the noise of many competing voices? Will Jesus find it filled with many other things that are not of God but of this world?

It’s like spring cleaning or when someone downsizes to a smaller house. We need to get rid of the clutter. When my father decided to move to a smaller place, he had to get rid of a lot of things. My father had lived in his house for over forty years, so he had a lot of stuff. He knew that this was going to take him a while, so he started two years in advance. For two years, he gradually gave away or threw away about eighty percent of his things. When he finally moved to a smaller home, it was easy to do. He had already cleaned his house, and now he was able to move forward. Fortunately, my father did this voluntarily and willingly. He was not forced to do it.

However, sometimes, some people need to be forced to do something. To cleanse the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus had to make a whip of cords and chase out all that was competing with God and making His Father’s house a marketplace. Jesus had to do this because the people would not do it voluntarily. What will Jesus have to do to cleanse our temple? What will Jesus have to chase out of us that is not holy? During this season of Lent, it is good to ask the Holy Spirit to help us see the things that need to be swept out of our temple. The Holy Spirit will point out what needs to be cleansed and the things in our lives that need to go. It may be a difficult task to clean out some of these things, but it will be necessary so that our temple will be a house of prayer. It will be a proper place in which to encounter God and become a worthy dwelling place for the Most High God.

Jesus, help us to appreciate your presence in our lives. Help us to draw closer to you so that we may learn what to truly value in this passing world. Help us to be a worthy temple for your Holy Spirit so that we may be a proper house of prayer. And may the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be pleased to dwell within our temple. Amen.

Fr. Tim Ilgen