On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.
Mark 11:15-16 (New International Version)
The 3 synoptic gospels tell us that after Jesus had made his grand entrance into Jerusalem, he went to the temple and chased out the moneychangers and the sellers of sacrificial animals. It’s a story that many Christians are fond of. Here is none of that wimpy turn-the-other-cheek guff. This is a kick ass Jesus who knows how to sort out the bad guys. Time and again, this incident has been used by Christians to justify their participation in violence. Faced with the exploitation of the temple courtyards, Jesus forgets the idealistic nonsense and gives them a taste of the only language they’ll understand.
Yes?
No!
First, forget any assumption that Jesus is objecting to commerce in the temple. This was essential for two reasons. First, the law demanded the sacrifice of unblemished animals. Having animals available for sale ‘on the spot’ made a good deal of sense. How irritating would it be to drag a basket with a couple of doves in it all the way from Galilee to discover when you arrived in Jerusalem that they weren’t up to scratch? Like the animal sellers, the moneychangers provided an essential service, turning Roman money (with its image of the emperor) into something which could be taken into the temple without breaking the Law of God. So these weren’t corrupt practices, but essential to the running of the temple.
What we see when Jesus goes to the temple is not a violent confrontation with evil-doers. Like Palm Sunday, it’s another bit of street theatre — or enacted prophecy, if you’d rather. Jesus is declaring the end of the temple and its sacrifices, not acting decisively to protect its purity. Here he stands in a direct line which runs from the prophets, who were ever suspicious of the temple and its hierarchy. For this reason, the title ‘cleansing of the temple’ is a bit of a misnomer. Jesus isn’t seeking to reform or renew the Temple. In this prophetic act, he’s declaring its end.
To try to use this incident as a justification for Christian involvement in violence is an act of utter desperation. Faced with the overwhelming evidence of the life and teaching of Jesus, the only way such reasoning can be sustained is by giving priority to an existing commitment to pursue violence over the Lordship of Christ. It’s as simple as that. No one can serve two masters, he said. And he meant it.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Kim 04.19.11 at 7:50 pm
Very good. One additional point: Jesus’ prophetic act, like the allusion to Jermiah’s prophetic Temple sermon (Mark 11:17 - Jeremiah 7:1ff.), is indeed an attack on injustice, but not (as you point out) on any supposed injustice regarding currency exchanges (which seem to have been closely monitored and regulated), rather on the entire system with its priestly collusion with Roman imperial authority.
Earl 04.20.11 at 1:40 am
When Jesus cleaned house, he really cleaned house! The whip fits right in with the metaphorical imagery of winnowing fork and fire and axe in John’s preaching. And Jesus quoting the temple sermon of Jeremiah is supremely apt although those who were on the receiving end of his attention probably thought he was just engaging in some very low quality prooftexting. After all… he did not cite the text in its full context did he?
Disturbing? Of course. It should be disturbing. But that whip in the hand of Jesus was no more a fashion statement than a rod in the hand of a shepherd. If this was street theater, then one has to wonder just who was being entertained. One thing is clear, by whip and word Jesus made himself plainly understood.
Justification for violence? It depends. When he first sent them out, Jesus told the disciples to take no extra supplies, etc. Later he specifically told them to carry what they would need. He very specifically told them they would need swords. James spoke to our obligation as believers to act and not sit idly by in the face of need.
As to the money changers, etc., abuse of those who came to worship in the name of convenience and the facilitation of corruption is without basis in Scripture. There was nothing essential about the role of the money changers. Specie by weight would have served just as well as any particular “sterile” coinage. But then that would have eliminated a source of reliable income to fund the temple cultus.
Jesus made the temple obsolete. But that obsolescence was not effected or even declared when he cleaned the place out. That was accomplished in His death, burial and resurrection. Hebrews makes this extremely clear. His is the one sacrifice that cancels sin. The Church knows no other.
Confronted by evil, one must choose how to respond. The good folks in Rwanda probably were thankful when someone finally moved beyond mere words and took action to stop the evil that the u.n. could not bring itself to call genocide. After all, by their own rules, had they used the word “genocide,” they would have been bound to take action. Talking about it and expressing concern was not however very effective. They should have remembered their Bonhoffer, that responsibility is reflected in action. He came late to see the value of action in confronting evil.
Kim 04.20.11 at 8:14 am
“Swords” (Luke 22:38)? Irony. Even a “rebuke” (I. H. Marshall). Or are we to imagine, as an addition to the fifth and sixth Antitheses in Matthew 5: “And if anyone should attack you with a knife, cut his balls off; indeed, do it to him before he does it to you”? And the leap from this enacted parable of prophetic anger to a justification of armed conflict - like it’s not obvious that this is the ideological tail wagging the exegetical dog with a vengeance?
“Cleaned the place out”. The Temple courtyard was HUGE. The scope of the demonstration was no doubt limited, otherwise Pilate’s troops would have been on it like stink on, er … We must imagine a local demonstration, no doubt (like the counter-imperial “triumphal entry” to Jerusalem) pre-planned (it’s not as if Jesus were taken by surprise), short but bitter, to make (I repeat) a prophetic point about the systemic collaboration of the Temple authorities with Roman oppression.
As for the “Bonhoeffer”, anyone who has read Bethge and, now, Schlingensiepen, let alone the man himself, will know that your cheap deployment of him for (yet again) ideological purposes is biographically and theologically risible.
Paul F. 04.20.11 at 9:11 am
Earl, since you are a pastor I fully expect you to back up your interpretation of Jesus’ “sword” talk by handing one out to each of your parishioners at your next worship service. After all, it’s hard to be a disciple of Christ when you’re not equipped with what he apparently said you’d need.
Tony Buglass 04.20.11 at 9:52 am
“…your cheap deployment of [Bonheoffer] for (yet again) ideological purposes is biographically and theologically risible.”
And yet it is true that he was involved in the Stauffenberg plot, isn’t it? Or at least approved of it - he was certainly in cahoots with Admiral Canaris.
It has often been pondered as to where his theology would have gone if he’d survived. I wonder if there is an element here of the idealist/pacifist discovering that some ideals may need to compromise according to context.
And thus to Paul F’s comment - context if all. Speaking as a pastor, there is no need for my congregations to bear swords in their Pennine context. I can’t speak for Earl’s lot and their specific needs, but I can speak for mine.
Tony Buglass 04.20.11 at 9:53 am
That should have read “context IS all.”
Kim 04.20.11 at 12:04 pm
Yes, that is, of course, true, Tony. But what Earl actually said is:
They should have remembered their Bonhoffer, that responsibility is reflected in action. He came late to see the value of action in confronting evil.
As if what Bonhoeffer had been doing for years was not engaging in action, not even as but especially as a pacifist. As if Bonhoeffer’s involvement in the plot to kill Hitler were not an exceptional case, an action which he himself regarded as sinful. Indeed he told his brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi that murder is still murder, that his participation in the plot incurred guilt, and he wondered whether he could still be a pastor after the assassination (attempt). And as if this exceptional action renders Bonhoeffer’s principled pacifism null and void - it doesn’t.
No! Only by a thelogical and biographical sleight of hand can one co-opt Bonhoeffer as an apologist for violence and armed conflict as such. And as for, say, the recent military venturres of the US, well, his friend and biographer Eberhard Bethge was absolutely horrified at the kind of Christianity being peddled by Jerry Falwell when he visited his church, actually comparing it to the Christianity of the so- called German Christians. Enough said.
Alec Macph 04.20.11 at 12:38 pm
Canaris is interesting. He certainly was a old reactionary Prussian, and we may yet see that he was involved with high-up contacts in the Allied structures.
He might have said summat like “the Holocaust confronts us with unanswerable questions. But let us agree to one principle: no statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of the burning children”.
As for the title post, I have more often heard the Cleansing of the Temple used as a justification for street protests, building occupations, road blockings and so on (often erroneously refered to as civil disobedience). At least two of these are inherently violent.
~alec
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Kim 04.20.11 at 2:57 pm
Historical note: At least from 1934, and particulary after the Steglitz synod in 1935, Bonhoeffer became increasingly critical of the Confessing Church: he thought it was far too preoccupied with self-defence when it should have been showing solidarity, come what may, with the Jews.
Alec, I presume that it’s street protests that might not be “inherently violent”, such that it is forced removals (building occupations, road blockings) that, for you, constitute violence? But that would be violence received, not given, which pacifists are ready to acccept. Or do I misunderstand you?
Earl 04.20.11 at 3:05 pm
“‘Swords” (Luke 22:38)? Irony. Even a “rebuke’ (I. H. Marshall). Or are we to imagine,” etc. Irony? No. I appreciate Marshall, but there is no reason to soften what Jesus said. He states plainly a hard truth. Take it like he states it.
As to complaint of a tail wagging a dog… not impressed. There is a time and place for everything. There is a time for peace. And sometimes it is not the time for peace.
Of course the temple proper was surrounded by the very expansive support structures, etc. And of course what Jesus did was not to expell each and every single person who turned His Father’s house into a place of crime and a harbor for criminals. But what he did was sufficient that everyone concerned got the message. And, if one wonders at the temple guards not descending upon him, it is easy to explain. When sent to arrest him, they had previously returned empty handed. Asked why, they replied, “No man ever spoke like this man!” (Jn. 7:46). The purpose of his action is clearly stated in Scripture. It was a condemnation of corruption of cultic practice and commercialized abuse by priest and their operatives of those who came to worship God. Caesar is not in view.
The tragic figure of Bonhoeffer is cited with full appreciation and respect of his life and work but also a full recognition of his own naive failure to grasp just exactly what would be required in terms of concrete action to counter the otherwise unrestrained evil that engulfed Germany and Europe. Had they acted sooner and with a greater degree of resolve and resource, untold millions of lives would not have been lost. And what is more, the terrible consequences for post-WWII Europe would have been much different as there would have been no opportunity for stalin to seize a variety of crippled little countries and squeeze them dry for the benefit of his efforts to perpetuate the crime of communism that for a while passed as a legitimate state.
Earl 04.20.11 at 3:07 pm
“Back up your interpretation…” etc. Jesus asked if they had any swords. He did not provide them. Apparently he expected the disciples to procure swords from whatever local sources were available.
Earl 04.20.11 at 3:12 pm
“As if what Bonhoeffer had been doing…” etc. What he had been doing was useful. There came a point at which it was not useful. More had to be done. Had he and others acted earlier… much evil would have been prevented. Evil ran rampant over the world because for to long good men did nothing but what they had already been doing.
As to the estimate of Bethge, he is welcome to his opinion. It does not invalidate the view of others.
Alec Macph 04.20.11 at 3:16 pm
You’re correct about which of the three I was equivocating on, but I meant the other two were inherently violent in that _given_. I am not saying that this is inherently wrong; just observing that the participants in the other two actions cannot have it both ways. They cannot claim to be opposed to violence or to be pacifists whilst engaging in violence themselves.
It’s not just the State which is capable to delivering violence (although there’s an argument, which I sympathize with, that its agents should be the only ones who do). Sitting down on a bus seat reserved for another social/racial class is civil disobedience. Blocking the right of passage to others or smashing-up designated businesses or dropping fire extinguishers onto Police officers’ heads is not.
A true pacifist who abhors violence can always hold a vigil or enter a life of prayer.
~alec
Kim 04.20.11 at 5:22 pm
And she can demonstrate.
Blocking the right of passage to others or smashing-up designated businesses or dropping fire extinguishers onto Police officers’ heads is not.
I certainly agree that no pacifist, with integrity, can injure people. Property is a different matter - and then it all depends. To wit, the cleansing of the Temple! Or, for example, the action of the “Catonsville Nine”, the Catholic peace activists who used napalm to destroy service files at a draft board office in May 1969. Of course those who break state law must be prepared to pay the state’s penalty. That is an intrinsic part of the pacifist witness.