This week’s gospel focuses on the Temple and the powerful symbolise of holiness and the connection and relationship between God and the Hebrew people. It is often assumed that Jesus’ anger when he tipped over the tables in the Temple, was directed at the traders and money changers. The Temple was the holiest site for sacrifice to God. The tradition dictated that sacrifice made by a priest on the altar was the highest form of worship. The best animal to sacrifice was a healthy, properly formed creature. Rather than walking a lamb all the way from somewhere like Galilee to Jerusalem, the faithful would purchase their sacrificial animal at the Temple itself – thus the presence of the people selling cattle, sheep and doves. However, the Temple traders would not accept Roman coins to purchase the sacrificial animals as they bore the image of the deified emperor. Therefore, money changers were required to exchange Roman currency for acceptable coinage – so the money changers were also playing their part in the prayer life of the Temple.

Jesus’ outrage is not so much with the traders and the money-changers as with the whole religious practice and hierarchical structure that has developed to a point where the only way a person can pray in a ‘valid’ way is to purchase an animal and hand it over to a priest who goes behind a screened wall to sacrifice the animal. The only way to seek God’s forgiveness and mercy was to ‘buy’ it at the Temple. This was what outraged Jesus. He could not stomach the injustice nor the barriers that had been erected between the people and their God. This about our world today …. What injustices do we see around us? How can we challenge these injustices?