Friday in the 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, November 19, 2021

Luke 19:45-48

Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out those who were selling things, saying to them, “It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.” And every day he was teaching in the temple area. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people, meanwhile, were seeking to put him to death, but they could find no way to accomplish their purpose because all the people were hanging on his words.

According to the Gospels, Jesus went straight to the Temple once he entered Jerusalem at the beginning of his last week on earth.  His followers would have expected this, for in their understanding the Messiah was to purge the Temple and restore true worship, and then to declare that the kingdom of Israel was restored with himself at its head.  Thus, the anxiety of the Pharisees in Luke 19, 39.  Going to the Temple and expelling the merchants doing business in the courtyard seemed exactly what the Messiah was supposed to do.  In fact, his actions meant that the worship in the Temple with its animal sacrifices had served its purpose as a sign and had now come to an end: the true worship of God with its offering to the Father of his Body and Blood, was about to be inaugurated.

“It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’, but you have made it a den of thieves.”  The Lord quotes from Isaiah 56, 7.  The whole verse runs: “I will bring them [the faithful Jews] into my holy mount, and will make them joyful in my house of prayer: their holocausts, and their victims shall please me upon my altar: for my house shall be called the house of prayer, for all nations.”  Almighty God promises to give joy to those who obey his Commandments in his house of prayer.  His glory will be their glory.  He says that their sacrifices will please him.  The dead animals offered up at that time represented the one making the offering, and so “a sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51, 19).  That is, a heart emptied of its pride, and a will conformed to the will of God.  

Jesus particularly declares the Temple God’s “house of prayer” in opposing the merchants, contrasting it with the “den of thieves” the merchants and their backers, the Sanhedrin, had made it.  A den of thieves is a dangerous place for any person to go.  Because it is hidden, a person could walk into it unwary, realizing his mistake only when it was too late.  In this den, within the rocky hills of Judea, all sorts of evil would be planned, and in this hideout the bandits felt safe.  Here also they would divide their loot and celebrate their successes.  The Lord is declaring that this is what the Temple had become, with the Sanhedrin and Pharisees as the thieves.  It is as if they lured the innocent believers into their den in order to rob and kill them.  That is, they take their money and endanger their souls with false teachings that draw them away from God.

“And every day he was teaching in the temple area.”  The Lord began to cast out the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees with his teaching that enthralled crowds who had thirsted all their lives for the truth about God.  “The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people, meanwhile, were seeking to put him to death.”  These thieves could not abide a single challenge and so banded together to find the best way to eliminate the One who showed them for who they were.  “But they could find no way to accomplish their purpose because all the people were hanging on his words.”  Out of desperation they would finally try to use the hated procurator Pilate to do their work for them.  But what was this teaching that so inflamed them?  Was this man from Nazareth preaching a war with Rome and announcing that he was a king?  No, rather, he taught the people to love God with all their hearts and their neighbors as themselves. Instead of inciting his followers, he was calming them.

“All the people were hanging on his words.”  They clung to his words as though they were jewels — or the ropes of rescue ships.  His words were life to them.  Perhaps many still expected him to restore the kingdom, but all his words were about God.  

The freer from sin we are and the more prayerful, the more we will hang on his words, too, for it will seem to us as we read them that we are hearing him speak them to us.  So let us cast out the vices from us, his temples, and become ourselves true houses of prayer.