In asking the question ‘What would Jesus do?’ in the context of the spat between the Occupy camp and St Paul’s Cathedral a reference was made by some to the Gospel story about Jesus cleansing the Temple in Jerusalem. The inference was that just as Jesus cleared out the Temple of its commercial aspects he would also bring judgement upon St Paul’s tacit support of Western capitalism. Not only was this a simplistic account of the Cathedral’s position it also rests on a wrong interpretation of the biblical story itself.

Commercialisation of the Temple?

I do not believe that the commercialisation of the sacrificial system was Jesus’ main concern when he overturned the tables and threw out the money changers in the Temple courts. Rather he was more concerned about the way 1st century Judaism was failing to fulfil its calling to be a light and blessing to the nations. Let’s look at the evidence and take John’s Gospel account as our main reference.

Promised Messiah

John’s context for the telling of the Temple story is rather different to the Synoptic Gospels. He places the account at the beginning of Jesus’ ‘ministry’ and it is crucial that we notice two key things that he includes before coming to the incident. First, Jesus is declared by Nathanael to be the ‘Son of God’ and the ‘King of Israel’ (1:49). Jesus, therefore, is the fulfilment of God’s promises to Israel of an everlasting King and Messiah and of being a blessing to the nations. Second, Jesus’ role as Bridegroom to Israel’s bride is then introduced. This time the introduction is not by the title being declared by an individual in the story but by placing Jesus in an actual wedding in Cana (2:1-11). This account is far more than just an introduction to ‘Jesus the miracle-worker’, but as Jesus Israel’s Bridegroom. Israel as God’s bride is, of course, a picture seen in the Old Testament – especially as God’s unfaithful bride in Hosea. In the wedding story it is, of course, important that we understand that Jesus is not rejecting ordinary Jewish people but embraces their hospitality and blesses them with abundance.

Seeing this context is crucial as we come to the Temple account. It is Jesus the King of Israel, the Messiah, the fulfilment of God’s promises to the nation who comes to the Temple in Jerusalem. And it is as this person that he cleanses it of its activities.

House of Prayer for all nations

To the picture presented by John needs to be added some detail from Mark’s Gospel where Jesus is quoted as saying, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations?” But you have made it a den of robbers’. Jesus himself is quoting from Isaiah 56 – a chapter that emphasises the joining of the nations to God. What Jesus did as he cleansed the Temple was to rid it of all things that kept the Temple as being a place for the Jews only. It was meant to be a place for all nations to gather – and did have a ‘court of the Gentiles’, though for any Gentile to step outside this court into the rest of the premises would have meant certain death to them. The religious authorities of the time had made the Temple, therefore, a place exclusively for Jews. The money changers were one symbol of this exclusivity. In a time when Jerusalem was occupied by the Romans, coinage from many nations would have been in circulation and because only Jewish money could be used to buy animals for sacrifice the money changers were providing an essential service. Not only were Gentiles intolerable to the Jews in their Temple, so was their money.

Excluding others

The story, therefore, has little to do with commercialisation and cannot so easily be hijacked by anti-capitalism protestors. Jesus’ actions are symbolic of his judgement upon the exclusive Jewish faith of his day. It would be far better to borrow the story and hold it up as a mirror to religious exclusivity in the church in our own time.

So … to who does today’s church shut its doors when Jesus would hold them open?


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