Feast of St. John Lateran (Jn. 2:12-16) “Good Trouble?”
The Cleansing of the Temple is a controversial Gospel. People use it to justify violence. If the cause is righteous some would say, then violence is all right. If one is being attacked, verbally, physically, then one has the right to answer back in kind. After all Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple with a whip and harsh words. Debates flourish regarding this story.
But there is a lot to think about concerning this, Gospel. We see this episode in all four Gospels, so this means that some kind of episode like this happened in the life of Jesus. In three of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) this incident happens at the beginning of Jesus’ last week on earth. Some would say, his actions led directly to his death. In the Gospel of John, Jesus expels the money changers at the beginning of his ministry. The ramifications of his actions take longer to unfold. Jesus is constantly at odds with powerful people, but he always seems to allude punishment until the very last hours of his life.
What was Jesus angry about? He seemed to be mad at the corruption he saw in the system. The corruption was encapsulated by how the Temple operated. Simple believers who came to worship were abused in several ways. Jews were told that they had a religious obligation to sacrifice in Jerusalem. The sacrifices were made to thank God, but also to atone for sins. The sacrifice was to be an animal. Usually, the animal was to be purchased at the temple. The temple had its own currency. When a pilgrim came to make sacrifice, they had to exchange the Roman currency for the temple currency. A service charge was added. The animals and birds offered on the altar were costly. And of course, there were other fees that were charged. The Roman authorities got compensated as did the Jewish governmental leaders. People who couldn’t afford all these taxes had to pay them if they were going to engage in a religious ritual. Jesus sees injustice. He reacted.
He resisted. He protested. He broke the rules. Was it a political protest? Or was it a religious dispute? Isn’t this always the question when a religious leader stands against injustice? Is it right to break the law to confront social sin in society? Such questions are complicated. We say that it comes down to what our sense of morality is. We have more than one way to determine what is moral and what isn’t.
We all know that we grow physically in our lives. We also grow through moral stages in our lives. Just as we can be stilted in our physical growth we can be arrested in our moral growth. Two things embody a child’s sense of morality. One motivator is whether there is reward or punishment. The other determination of moral behavior for a child is whether something is thought to be fair or not. Sometimes these childlike moral standards are carried over into adulthood which is embodied by the person who says, “I am sorry for what I have done because I got caught.”
An adult perspective would start with the realization that there are laws that must be kept for the good of a society. Something is right or wrong based on these laws. But what if the law doesn’t cover the situation? We must then appeal to something that everyone possesses. We must consider our conscience. Exercising the conscience isn’t about what we feel is right. No, it is about making an ethical search. We base our decision on moral principles. When asked, we explain the principles that are guiding us. People who have the highest moral principles exercise the Law of Love. Charity, according to Christian morality, is the fulfillment of the law. If we violate charity we act immorally.
Jesus always did the right thing. Why? Because he was operating out of the highest motivations. When Jesus chased the money changers out of the temple, turning over tables, he was motived by a sense of justice and charity. Jesus is the one we always try to follow. At times his moral code was put at odds with the accepted norms. But our constant challenge as disciples is to do the loving thing even if it gets us into trouble. Jesus got into what we might call “good trouble.” Someone once said: “If we never get into trouble for our Christian beliefs, we are probably not following Jesus.”.