Imagine the  scene. Jesus makes a whip and drives the money changers from the temple. Everywhere sheep and cattle are careering out of control. Doves are flapping up to the  rafters…. coins and feathers everywhere and the money changers in an uproar. Jesus makes things clear. “Stop making my Father’s house a market place!”

De we feel an element of discomfort. How many parishes use the back of church to raise funds? How often do we stand at the back of church selling raffle tickets? How many years have we invited donations for votive candles, or sold newspapers, books, rosary beads, cards and    statues? If Jesus walked in today, would he tip over our collecting boxes and reprimand us?

Perhaps before we answer this question we need to     understand the context of today’s reading. In Jesus’ day it was expected that visitors to the temple should present a sacrifice, and for that purpose, the temple officials made it easy to purchase cattle and turtle doves. The second practical consideration was that because the Roman coinage was considered idolatrous by the Jews, the     temple permitted money changers to exchange roman coins for tokens. The original system was not a bad idea, but it became corrupt. It was all too easy for the price of doves to become extortionate, and the exchange rate for tokens to come down on the side of the money changers. Soon it was the case that something that had originally been intended to oil the practicalities of worship in itself cheated would-be worshippers, especially those with little money. Jesus had a passion for exposing hypocrisy, and this was hypocrisy at its worst.

Jesus probably would not have a problem with us using the back of church for selling newspapers or raising funds. At the end of the day it isn’t buildings of worship in themselves that are of the greater importance, but what lies in our hearts and in our intentions. Our bodies are the real temples. Jesus challenged impurity at its roots, and the root of all impurity is wherever we have a thought or an idea that lacks integrity or smacks of hypocrisy.

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