Temple is a place of worship. A holy place.
The Bible tells us, in the Gospel of John, at Chapter 2, Verse 13, that at the time of Passover, Jesus went to the Temple in Jerusalem.
On that day, He saw people going to the Temple to worship and to offer animals in sacrifice, but they weren’t allowed to bring their own. Instead, they had to buy animals that were on sale at the Temple.
Also, the worshippers weren’t allowed to use their own money. Instead, they first had to exchange it into Temple money, which they would then use to buy the sacrificial animals, and to otherwise dispose of, in the Temple.
And, of course, with every transaction, the moneychangers, who were a powerful group in those days and an integral part of the Temple hierarchy, and the Temple authorities, collected handsomely.
The whole thing was a classic hustle. One that was being perpetrated in the holiest of places, the Temple, against people who went there, not to do business, but to worship and to offer sacrifice.
Deeply disturbed by it all, Jesus said to the hustlers: “How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market?”
But He didn’t just speak. He acted. He drove the hustlers out of the Temple, along with their animals. And he overturned the moneychangers’ tables, scattering money all over the place.
But the commercialization and the desecration of the Temple weren’t the only things that disturbed Him that day.
There were different sections in the Temple. Jews could enter all of them, but non-Jews (Gentiles) could only enter one section, which was called ‘the Court of the Gentiles’. It was in the Court of the Gentiles that the selling of sacrificial animals and the money changing took place.
Perhaps the authorities had reasoned that having it happen there wouldn’t be seen as a violation of the sanctity of the Temple.
But they were wrong.
Because in Jesus’ mind, the Temple was the Temple, and one public part of it couldn’t be distinguished from another. Jews and Gentiles were all children of God alike, all deserving to be welcomed completely and equally into the Temple to sacrifice and to worship.
Here He was, travelling the length and breadth of the Middle East preaching to everybody, while the Temple authorities in Jerusalem were not only hustling in the Temple, but also discriminating in it. While He was trying to bring people together, the Temple authorities were keeping people divided.
No wonder He went ballistic!
These men were working in a holy place, entrusted with a sacred authority and responsibility. They breached that trust, and they cheated the people. Instead of providing a facility for worship and sacrifice, and preserving it as a sanctuary of spirituality and human goodness, they turned it into a commercial centre. In fact, using Jesus’ own words, they turned it into “a den of thieves”.
Imagine if that were to happen at your Church!
But this thing isn’t about churches only. Because the principles upon which the Temple authorities were to be guided are universal principles of leadership, whether it’s in a religious, social, economic or political setting. The institution must be used for its proper purposes, and the authorities are not to abuse it, abuse their power, unjustly enrich themselves or their friends from it, or in any way take advantage of the people for whose benefit the institution was established.
And every such institution is a ‘Temple’ in its own right. And its leaders must act respectfully, responsibly, accountably, and in the best interests of all of its beneficiaries, ‘Jew’ or ‘Gentile’. They must not turn the Temple into a den of inequity, or a den of thieves.
So if two boat-loads of people are brought in from a nearby Temple to vote in an election to elect the authorities of the Temple (none of whom had ever before darkened the doors of the Temple Voter Registration Office); and if people who live in distant Temples are handed Temple Identification Cards and find their names on the Temple List of Voters without having visited the Temple; and if people with origins in the Temple but who were born in distant Temples and who have no actual residential or other connection with the Temple, or the slightest clue about the Temple, are being handed Temple passes and voting credentials faster than a bakery sale , then it’s time to cleanse the Temple.
If Temple officials rig elections, unlawfully deprive members of their right to vote, then it’s time to cleanse the Temple.
Likewise if, through administrative inefficiency, fiscal recklessness, and downright callousness on the part of the rabbi and his retinue, there’s a calamitous deterioration in Temple finances and a loss of massive portions of sacred Temple lands by foreclosure to creditors.
Especially when you consider the importance of land to the Jews.
If, through utter disregard for the Constitution and other laws, and the traditions, of the Temple, there’s a breakdown in morals, ethics and morale, and in the fabric of the Temple staff, and its members generally, then it’s time to cleanse the Temple.
If the rabbi himself dismisses the debt by saying “Temple debt, me ass!”, if he boasts that he’s bad since he was born and that he has incited already and can incite again, and if he threatens revolution if a certain person is allowed to become an official in the temple, then it’s time to cleanse the Temple.
If he treats the Executive Council, the General Council and all of the divisions and sections of the Temple, and the people in them, with disdain and disrespect, and if he hand-picks stooges and puts them in positions of greater authority than persons who are lawfully elected by the members of the Temple, so that he can have enough ‘yes men’ and ‘yes women’ around him to keep himself in power, then it’s time to cleanse the Temple.
If, instead of an increase in the spiritual wealth of its members, all that really happens is that the rabbi, a small group of Temple officials, and a few other sycophants keep becoming materially wealthier and wealthier while Temple services get worse and worse and Temple members are made to give more and more of their dwindling resources, then it’s time to cleanse the Temple.
And if members, not having previously detected the badness in the Temple, now detect it, or even having detected it before, are only now acting on it, then, in either case, it’s time to cleanse the Temple.
If this might not have been the case before, it certainly is the case now. It is time.
That is what Jesus, Mohammed, Shiva, and Buddha would do, and would expect to be done.
