MY HOUSE MUST BE CLEAN

HOMILY FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT, YEAR B

Rev. Fr. Ezekoka Peter Onyekachi

A dirty house affects negatively its inhabitants. No clean person likes to live in a dirty house. The consequences of dirtiness are many. There is repulsion. The house would be repulsive to many, to such an extent that no person who knows the state of the house would want to visit. The house necessarily would smell, and such an odour would repel people from coming near. If the inmates are reasonable enough, shame would inhibit them to invite and welcome visitors. A dirty house invites dirty things. It is harmful to the inmates. A dirty house makes its inmates prone to diseases, and as such makes the diseases to spread easily, thereby causing ill health and sickness. Surely, the sick needs the doctor and the hospital; and so, a dirty house affects the financial economy of the inmates negatively and renders them poorer. We need a neat and clean house to live in. This is it with physical houses connected with human beings. Beyond the domicile houses, there are also houses of prayer. Our churches require cleanliness and beauty. And beyond the places of worship, we too are spiritual houses. These spiritual houses require cleanliness and neatness. This is the insistence of Jesus today.

The Gospel Reading (John 2:13-25) has a lot to teach us as regards the cleanliness of the house of God; that is, the cleansing of the temple. One peculiar thing we discover about the text is that whereas the synoptic gospels set the story of the cleansing of the temple at the end of their stories (Matt. 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-46), John sets it right at the beginning. Barclay gives various interpretations to this discovery. The first is that this may suggest that Jesus cleansed the temple twice; at the beginning and at the end of his ministry. This is very unlikely that he would ever have had the chance to do it again. His reappearance in the temple would have been a sign for such precautions to be taken that a repetition of it would not have been possible. It is also probable that John taught in line with the prophecy of Malachi 3:1-4 that the Lord would suddenly come to his temple and would initiate purification on the sons of Levi. John was interested in telling men that Jesus, the messiah did cleanse the temple, and not the time he did it. What mattered to John was to show that Jesus; action proved him to be the promised one of God.

The story of the cleansing of the temple demonstrates the anger of Jesus. The picture of Jesus with the whip is an awe-inspiring one. So, what is it that actually pushed Jesus to this anger in the Temple courts? We must notice that the Passover was near. The Passover was a feast that attracted every Jew to Jerusalem. It was necessary that every adult Jew must pay tax, and so there sat money changers in the temple courts for possible services. The money changers were corrupt in their trade. They changed half the value of the original sum. It is true that some gain is needed in trading as with the case of the money changers, what annoyed Jesus is that it was a rampart social injustice; worse still, it was done in the name of religion. Besides the money changers, there were also sellers of oxen, sheep and doves. These are meant for any pilgrim who desires to buy them for temple sacrifices. The law was that such animals for sacrifice must be perfect an unblemished. And so, an inspection was conducted, and there was a fee charged for that. It was most likely that any animal bought outside the temple would be rejected to impose it on buyers to buy from the sellers in the temple. Due to this inspection fee the sellers must pay for, theirs were costly much more than the animals bought outside the temple. Here again is a bare-faced extortion at the expense of the poor pilgrims who were practically forced into buying from costly sellers. This is social injustice. And Jesus was moved to anger.

Jesus acted this way because these corrupt practices ended up desecrating the temple of God. This is also to show us that the animal sacrifices were less important and irrelevant than the sense of worship and obedience which must be preserved in the temple. Those sacrifices with such background ended up being vain. We recall the word of God in the prophet Isaiah 1:11-17: I do not delight in the blood of bulls...bring no more vain offerings. Indeed, the respect and obedience to God is better than sacrifice. And we must note that the part of the temple that these activities were going on was in the court of the gentiles. The temple had series of courts. The first is the court of the Gentiles, then the court of women, the court of the Israelites, and the court of priests. So, if there was any gentile who felt touched to come and pray, he was meant to be in the first court. So, under such circumstance, how can a gentile have an enabling atmosphere for prayer? The temple authorities practically disregarded the court of the gentiles, and thus those activities rendered the court a place where no man could worship. Thus, they made it impossible for the gentiles to pray. They seemed to jettison the message of Paul in the Second Reading (1 Cor.1:22-25) that Jews as well as Greeks are called to God. Hence, their action was an indirect message to gentiles that they are not fit to pray or worship. This is an exhibition of relegation with the aim of ostracising gentiles. In our places of worship, we must distance ourselves from those ways and manners that give the impression of a repetition of such an error.

The reply of Jesus to the Jews who asked him a question is noteworthy. To the question of what sign he has to give them, Jesus spoke figuratively, speaking of the temple of his body. This answer of Jesus establishes too our own bodies as temples which must undergo some cleansing. The Ten Commandments are the ingredients for the examination of self for cleansing. The first reading (Exod. 20:1-17) is an outline of these commandments. Living our lives as not to break the rules makes the temple of our bodies clean and sacred, but a reckless lifestyle of breaking the rules with impunity does the opposite to our bodies. To remain clean and sacred, practice the commandments. Another temple that must be kept sacred is the place of worship. Comportments and attentiveness is needed in worship. When you are in church just to meet friends or play politics, you end up ruining yourself. This is desecration. You are making unholy the church that ought to be the icon of holiness and morality. Contribute in purifying the church and the body for they are temples of the Lord. One last thing, we must remember that Jesus is angered when we desecrate these temples. In our homes, businesses, roads, schools, we must remember that we carry the temple of God with us, and that is our body. May this temple be constantly made holy. Amen. Happy new week. God bless you.