Readings (Year C):
Ezekiel 47:1 – 2, 8 – 9, 12
Psalm 46:2 – 3, 5 – 6, 8 – 9
1 Corinthians 3:9c – 11, 16 – 17
John 2:13 – 22
Reflection: Let us live as Eucharistic witnesses
As an experiment, let’s imagine this story from the perspective of the money-changers and the animal vendors. Are they the bad guys? After all, people travelled a long distance to Jerusalem for Passover, and it wasn’t practical to make that trip with animals to sacrifice. Mosaic law called for a temple tax to be paid by every adult male Jew (Exodus 30:11-16). That’s the way things are. That’s business as usual. It’s just how life works.
And that temple tax? It had to be paid in Syrian currency. It couldn’t be paid with coins with the emperor’s image. So people needed to exchange their coins. And the money changers need to charge extra because they have to earn a living. You can’t fault them for that, right? They don’t make the rules. They are just doing their jobs.
And if the temple tax, the cost of the animals, and the additional fees means impoverished people, already worn down by Rome’s heavy taxes, are forced into crushing poverty, that’s just how life works. And if this means people go hungry, it’s a shame. But you have to be realistic.
And if this whole system doesn’t line up with the Torah’s teaching that worship of God cannot be separated from caring for the poor, if it doesn’t line up with the prophets’ vision of righteousness, well, come on. Those prophets are poets—dreamers! We don’t have to take that literally, right? There are institutions that must be upheld, people in power you don’t want to get on the wrong side of. That’s the way things are. That’s business as usual.
Let’s call this attitude the logic of the moneychanger’s table. This logic always creates exclusion, injustice, and pain for people on the margins. Not because people are being evil on purpose, but because in a fallen, sinful world, power, status, and wealth will accumulate for some and be denied to others. With the logic of the moneychanger’s table, you accept the status quo.
Jesus enters the scene and literally turns the moneychanger’s tables—and that logic—upside down. Jesus will not accept business as usual. Because Jesus is on fire with the reign of God and the vision of the prophets: justice rolling down like waters, righteousness like a mighty stream. Everyone beneath their own vine and fig tree, in peace and not afraid. All the people streaming to the Lord’s mountain. Swords into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, no more training for war. The wolf and the lamb, the calf and the young lion, resting together in peace.
Jesus is filled with zeal for the reign of God which operates with the logic of the Eucharistic table, where there is room for everyone. Where the poor and ashamed and hurting are not only welcome but given a place of honor. Where power is for service. Where leadership means washing one another’s feet.
Jesus’ entire ministry is fueled by zeal for the reign of God. This zeal causes him to weep for Jerusalem, to announce he came to bring fire to the earth, to share meals with people of every walk of life, to heal and restore those who were wounded. And this zeal causes him to make a whip of cords to disrupt the logic of the moneychanger’s table.
But this isn’t blind rage. This is not “burn it all down” energy. The Greek verb tense shows that Jesus had made a whip ahead of time. This was an action planned in advance, a prophetic display. Jesus interrupts the status quo to begin something new: the logic of the Eucharistic table, where Jesus’ body is the new and final temple, where people of every nation, tribe, and tongue gather as brothers and sisters.
What about us—you and me? We live in the world of the moneychanger’s table, but we are people of the Eucharistic table. This is what our tradition offers us, and it is rooted in the same prophets that shaped Jesus’ imagination: a vision of a world where every human life is respected, where workers get fair pay and enough rest, where we are one human family, where the good things of creation are available to everyone.
You can hear the moneychangers now: “Come on! Be realistic. That’s not how the world works.”
But what if this vision helps us to move with more courage, more compassion? What if coming to Mass to share in the Eucharistic table, to hear the stories of God’s dream for the world, to hear the poetry of the prophets, to celebrate the saints on fire with this same dream, trains our hearts so we can see as God sees? What if this vision helps us act and pray in service of this dream? Not because we have to solve all the problems (the position of Savior of the world has already been filled) but because God wants us to share in the dream, to offer our few loaves and fishes to the effort.
As so many things go terribly off course in our nation and world, what if we ask God for the grace to live as Eucharistic witnesses—for Jesus’ zeal to consume us, too?
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