When I ask my students if Jesus ever sinned, it is inevitable to the Gospel reading for today from John 2:13-22 that they refer. It is because in these verses we can read about the scene where Jesus, “made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area”. Jesus is not sinning here as he drives out those who are misusing the purpose of the “temple area” because as he shares this is the house of his Father, not a “marketplace.” In the line of prophetic tradition, Jesus is making a bold spectacle to drive home the point that the temple is a place of worship for his Father.

Greater still than the temple, is the people of God. Further down in the text, when those present ask for a sign as to the reason he commits this act, Jesus said: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” Clearly he was pointing to his body as the temple of God and referring to his Resurrection that would come. The temple, the house of God, believed to be the very corporal presence of God for the people of Israel, will be destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. To where will the Jews go to find God? Two groups I shared about yesterday who were intimately tied to the sacrificial cult of the temple, the Sadducees and the Essenes would in a short period of time cease to exist as a sect within Judaism. The Pharisees, who already were moving to a practice of home worship that mirrored the worship in the temple would survive and be the ancestral root of Judaism today. The followers of the new way of Jesus would become the Church, the Body of Christ.

Each of us have a unique part to play in representing the Church. For some, we may be the only Bible someone ever reads. That means in all that we do, we need to be faithful to God. Does that mean we are to be perfect? No, as we are not. We are no better than anyone else. As soon as we begin to compare ourselves to others, thinking I am not as bad as that person, we are in trouble. First, we have no idea what is truly in the heart of another nor the burdens or trials that they carry. Second, the only one we are to compare ourselves to is the cornerstone, Jesus the Christ.

Pope Francis wrote: “Believers should not be presumptuous; rather, truth leads to humility. We know it is not ourselves possessing truth, it is truth that embraces and possesses us” (14). We are all wounded and going forward doing the best we can. We need to recognize that we all fall short of the glory of God. This is not a proclamation of despair, but one of hope. Because as unworthy as we are, Jesus loves us as we are. His Father loves us more than we can ever mess up. The Holy Spirit meets us in our humanity and empowers us to actualize who we are called to be and invites us to be there to support and uplift one another.

Photo: View from the top of the mountain at Cardinal Newman High School.

Walking With Pope Francis: Thirty Days with the Encyclical The Light of Faith. New London, CT., Twenty Third Publications, 2013.

Links to today’s Mass Reading:

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/110917.cfm