Saturday, March 7, 2015

3rd Sunday of Lent, Year B, 08.03.15

Exodus 20:1-17 / 1 Cor 1:22-25 / John 2:13-25

Whenever we come into contact with a group of strangers, the first impression that we will make is the way we introduce ourselves.

Firstly will be the how, and of course we will use our best tone of voice, or our “broadcasting” voice, a voice that is mellow and clear and steady.

Following that will be the what, as in what are we going to say about ourselves, and how are we going to describe ourselves.

Having a name that is easily pronounceable is helpful. (But when you have a name that is spelt STEPHEN, and if someone else were to introduce you and he is unsure about the pronunciation, then you will hear your name as “Ste-fen” or even “Step-hen”.)

And then of course you want to be impressive and probably give a 3-minute résumé that others will forget in three seconds.

Or you can try to be cheeky and even funny if you are daring enough. An example could be this : Hi I am Fr. Stephen, I have just finished my first movie… and after Mass I will go over to the cinema to watch the next one : )

Whatever it might be, when we introduce ourselves, we can be anything from passive to impressive. It depends on how much we want to reveal ourselves.

Well, Jesus needs no introduction surely. From what we read and from what we heard, we know Jesus is kind and compassionate, loving and forgiving, and almost everything is nice about Him.

But today’s gospel gives us that rare glimpse of Jesus that we might not want to hear about or imagine.

The gospel begins by telling us that Jesus went up to the Temple and He found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons and the money changers sitting at their counters.

And then making a whip out of some cord, He drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money changers coins and knocked their tables over.

And then comes the reason for His actions as He declares: Take all this out of here and stop turning my Father’s house into a market.

No doubt we can imagine that anger of Jesus as He takes that whip and drove out those merchants and cattle and sheep out of the Temple.

This instance is often termed as “Jesus cleansing the Temple.”

And as we hear this, we may feel rather uncomfortable about this angry and even violent side of Jesus.

But as we reflect deeper about it, we will also know that there is something in us that needs some cleansing. 

1 Cor 3:16 tells us this - Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?

So each of us is the temple of God and it is the Spirit that makes us temples of God’s glory. And united in Jesus we become the Church that is the sign of salvation.

But we have let sin defile the temple in us. Instead of cattle and sheep and money changers, we have let selfishness and greed and impurity into our hearts and we forget who we are and what we are called to be.

And so when we introduce ourselves to others, we take pride in making an impression on others with whatever we think is impressive.

But as the gospel tells us, Jesus could tell what a man had in him. Yes, Jesus knows the state of our hearts, and He knows that we all need cleansing.

Someone who needs no introduction is Pope Francis.

In an interview after he became Pope, he was asked this question: Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio? 

And his reply was this: I am a sinner. This the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech; I am a sinner, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned His gaze.

The Pope could have said other things to describe himself, and he has enough of impressive things to say about himself, but that would not mean much to us.

But in saying that he is a sinner, Pope Francis has identified himself with us and in turn we too can identify ourselves with him.

And even though he calls himself a sinner, Pope Francis speaks with a voice of authority that flows from his authenticity and honesty.

It is here that Pope Francis follows the footsteps of none other than Jesus his Master.

Even the enemies of Jesus acknowledged His authenticity and honesty, even though they tried to trap Him in the question of paying taxes to Caesar.

Because this is what they said to Him – Master, we know that you say and teach what is right; you favour no one, but teach the way of God in all honesty.

That was what the people saw in Jesus, including His enemies, and that was why they know that His teaching carries authority, an authority that flows from His authenticity and honesty.

When we acknowledge ourselves as sinners, as Pope Francis did, then we are letting Jesus cleanse the temple of our hearts.

What we need to be cleansed are the lies that come out of our mouths, lies that spring from the sin of pride that lurks in our hearts.

When our hearts are cleansed of the sin of pride and lies are driven out of our mouths, then we will be able to speak the truth, and speak the truth all the time.

Then we don’t have to tell people who we are or even tell lies to impress them.

By our words of truth spoken in honesty, they will know who we really are and that God indeed dwells in us.