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.
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Kim 04.02.12 at 3:45 pm
Good. Just a couple of comments.
(1) I think you overstate the lack of a commercial angle to this provocative act. Jesus was, after all, always in the face of the rich, pissed off as he was at their exploitation of the poor. And I don’t think there is any question that, though the sacrificial system demanded economic transactions, the poor were being exploited here too (wherever there are financial transactions, the poor get shafted). The cultic system hit them especially hard (cf. the story of the Widow’s Mite), and the money-changers in particular were representatives of rip-off banking interests. That said, you’re right: Jesus wasn’t really a reformer, he was as an eschatological prophet announcing the end of the Temple altogether (the Fourth Gospel is very clear here; cf. Acts 6:14 and Stephen), a cathedral that charged for its services. As Jesus, from the very beginning, had taken up the cause of John the Baptist — no fees for forgiveness — this symbolic action was a fitting conclusion to his ministry.
(2) It should be noted that Jesus’ prophetic action ocurred in the Court of Gentiles. That’s another thing that angered Jesus: the one place non-Jews could come for worship had become a place of pandemonium.
Finally, yes, a risible misue of scripture to co-opt this incident to justify violence in the name of Jesus. And absurdly-ridiculously risible when the leap is then made to turn Jesus into a proto-Just War theorist.
Chris H 04.02.12 at 4:02 pm
Interesting but not convinced!
Why was commerce ‘in’ the temple a necessity? Why were these practices occurring in the temple compound and not outside the walls where there would be no issues with cleanliness, having the ‘god-emperors’ Tiberius or Caesar’s image on the coins within and making the temple a ‘den of robbers’ as all the synoptic gospels mention? I can agree though that it can be seen as a working through of prophecy regarding the temple to come where we worship in spirit and truth though.