Under the Table

Reflection

A major corporation offers a well-known businessman money under the table to breach his contract and advertise their products. A successful athlete takes a bribe under the table in exchange for fixing matches. Both transactions are hidden, both are dishonest—both are sinful.

Jesus entered the court of the Gentiles to a cacophony of odors, hustle and bustle: many thousands of livestock, those buying and selling, money changers, and those taking a shortcut through the temple court from one side of the city to another, with no thought for worship. It was not a scene conducive for prayer.

In collusion with the priests, the buyers and sellers were hawking sacrificial animals to Jews and Gentile proselytes, haggling and outrageously inflating prices. Money changers exchanged travelers’ currency for temple money, necessary for all purchases, taxes, and offerings. Their transactions also were sinful, but they were not hidden. The place of prayer for the devout of all nations had been turned into a marketplace for thieves.

Jesus did not hesitate; he reacted with righteous anger, overturning tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, the only sacrifices the poor could afford, also at inflated costs (often more than 25 times the fair price). He forbade merchants disrespecting the temple by simply using it as a thoroughfare for their business errands. And he taught the people from Isaiah 56:7.

Let us be ever mindful of God’s vision in our own “houses of prayer.” Looking at this passage, we can see many of the things important to him. Church is a sacred space for worship and prayer, for focusing on God. Everyone should be welcomed to meet with him there, be respected there, be safe there. And God’s Word must be taught there.

You and I are to be people of prayer, as individuals and as a body of believers. We are to grow in our knowledge of God’s Word. Are there ways, this Lent, that you can invest in these gifts in new ways, develop new habits?