The Gospel for FRIDAY, June 10, 2005 (Ephrem of Edessa)
Luke 19:41-48
As he drew near and came in sight of the city he shed tears over it and said, ‘If you too had only recognised on this day the way to peace! But in fact it is hidden from your eyes! Yes, a time is coming when your enemies will raise fortifications all round you, when they will encircle you and hem you in on every side; they will dash you and the children inside your walls to the ground; they will leave not one stone standing on another within you, because you did not recognise the moment of your visitation.’ Then he went into the Temple and began driving out those who were busy trading, saying to them, ‘According to scripture, my house shall be a house of prayer but you have turned it into a bandits’ den.’ He taught in the Temple every day. The chief priests and the scribes, in company with the leading citizens, tried to do away with him, but they could not find a way to carry this out because the whole people hung on his words. -- The New Jerusalem Bible. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1995, c1985
The People
The whole people hung on his words.
Yet a few days later, their words would be, "Crucify him!".
A Reflection
And it must have been especially painful for Jesus to have them do so. Jesus, who shed tears upon entering Jerusalem the last time, shed them because He knew that Jerusalem's people would not accept Him as God's gift.
The [presumably Greek] writers of this account speed through the "cleansing of the temple." I believe it's because they didn't understand why Jesus would be so upset.
The temple's money changers charged to do their tasks at an eye-watering rate. Every male Jew owed an annual temple tax of a half shekel, about 6 cents, or two days' wages for a working man. And the only currency accepted was "temple" half shekels or Galilean shekels. They charged a ma'ah to do an exact currency exchange, and two ma'ah if change was required.
Jesus emphasized justice over and over and over again. And justice is not done when such theft is sanctioned in the name of YHWH, and when the crime is against, literally, the least of the people.
A pigeon that sold for a half shekel outside the temple could go for ten times that if purchased inside the temple courts, from the high priests' family business; they had the "franchise"! The poor Jew who tried to bring in a sacrifice from outside the courts had to have his sacrifice inspected by -- you guessed it -- the priests, who had little motivation to accept a non-franchise sacrificial victim.
Yes, the Romans oppressed Israel. But how much more did the religious establishment oppress Israel, the people on whose behalf they came to YHWH? No wonder Jesus was so upset with them so often. Between them and the arrogant ones among the Pharisees, Jesus had an "opportunity-rich environment" from whom to choose flagrant oppressive sinners.
It is not at all astounding then, that the common people -- expecting a Davidic messiah -- would turn on another rural prophet who couldn't deliver the new king for whom they were waiting, a king who would deliver them from all their oppressors.
It wasn't so much his religious understandings that put Jesus in opposition to the authorities; it was how He saw religion's application to every human. The temple elite acknowledged much, if not most, of what Jesus taught. But for them, the "targets of application" for those beliefs were men like themselves, and certainly not the peasants whom they milked for their incomes.
Justice. Mercy. Humility. Micah said it. Jesus did it. We must follow Him.
The Collect
Pour out on us, O Lord, that same Spirit by which your deacon Ephrem rejoiced to proclaim in sacred song the mysteries of faith; and so gladden our hearts that we, like him, may be devoted to you alone; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
3:22:18 PM 
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