All the gospel-writers include an episode about Jesus driving out the traders from the Temple precincts.

No matter how they might differ in their claims about who Jesus truly was - whether it's Mark determined to prove that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah; or Matthew adapting and adding to Mark for his Jewish readership; or Luke adapting and adding to Mark for his worldwide and largely gentile readership; or John presenting his view of a cosmic Christ who has been the Word of God from the beginning of time - they all include this episode of Jesus carrying out a cleansing act in the temple precincts.

In the stories about Jesus, and in the sharing of his teachings - which took place in the synagogues for the 40 years after his death until Mark finally wrote an account of his life, this event in the Temple was important. Why? Because it had the best possible Jewish credentials - it had been foretold by the prophets. And in fulfilling those prophecies, the gospel-writers saw that Jesus strengthened his own credentials as the Messiah who was so long-expected.

Hosea says (9:15):

'Every evil of theirs began at Gilgal;
there I came to hate them.
Because of the wickedness of their deeds
I will drive them out of my house.
I will love them no more;
all their officials are rebels.'

Zechariah says (14:21):

'And every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the Lord of Hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and use them to boil the flesh of their sacrifice. And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of Hosts on that day.'

Malachi says (3:1-2, 5)

'See, I am sending my messenger to prepare a way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight - indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of Hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?... Then I will draw near to you for judgment: I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of Hosts.'

So, when Jesus drove out the traders and the money-changers - and provoked the fury of the Jewish authorities during that final week of his life - the event came to be interpreted as the Messiah coming to his people, surrounded by the signs which the prophets had foretold.

That's the interpretation: and that's why the four versions in our gospels are different from each other - because they come at the story from different angles. But what was the reality behind the story as we have received it?

In a previous sermon on the Temple, Andy pointed out how unusual and progressive it was that the Temple dedicated to the God of the Jews should have a courtyard within it for Gentiles - non-Jews. It was this feature that enabled the Temple to claim its title as a House of Prayer for All Peoples. A designated place in the Temple was offered to anyone who wished to go there and offer worship to God - you might only be allowed into the outer courts, but you had a recognised place to go - the Court of the Gentiles - and an open invitation to be there.

Where were the traders in sacrificial animals and the money-changers? In the Court of the Gentiles!

Perhaps we can see different levels of holiness working here - where the secular, worldly, trading activities are too mundane to be permitted into the deeper, more holy parts of the Temple precincts. But who cares if this essential and profitable enterprise happens in the outermost, least influential court? Is God really bothered about how non-Jews might experience the presence of God in the Temple? Does the House of Prayer for all Peoples really extend out as far as the Court of the Gentiles, the Court of the Stranger, the Court of the Alien? That's a very familiar type of question for those of us who are regularly told by others just where the boundaries of God's interest are actually drawn.

In another recent sermon on the gift of the widow's two small coins to the Temple treasury, I drew attention to the corruption and self-serving nature of the way the Temple was administered. I suggested that Jesus saw the widow as a victim of a greedy, overbearing system which distorted the loving act of giving to God's work into a burden which left the poorest in society destitute. Was this part of the reason why Jesus drove the traders and money-changers away? Was he angered by the dishonesty of the exchange rates and the inflated prices of sacrificial goods? Was worship of God dependent on whether you could afford the traders rates?

This is a frequently-held view. But there is research which suggests that the Temple authorities, especially the Pharisees (about whom we rarely hear anything good said), did regulate the Temple traders quite effectively, and that prices of goods, and exchange rates to convert street money into temple coinage, were controlled and held at a broadly fair level. So, although the Temple Treasury was happy to relieve a widow of all she had to live on, the idea of rampantly dishonest trading doesn't seem to be quite the motive we're looking for to explain Jesus's dramatic act against the traders - which, interestingly, is the only act reported by any of the gospel-writers which could be classed as violent. In no other part of any of the gospels do we hear of Jesus lashing out in a physical way.

So what was it about the Temple traders' market taking place in the Court of the Gentiles that turned this passive man - the one we look to for a peaceful and loving response to everything we experience - into a violent, whip-wielding maniac?

This is where we need to apply our own interpretation, rather like the gospel-writers did when trying to portray Jesus in their own terms.

I don't think this was about Jesus seeking to fulfil the messianic prophecies. I don't think it was simple anger at ordinary people being defrauded by money-grabbing traders. I think this whole episode was about sacred space.

One commentator puts it this way:

'It would appear that what Jesus objected to was the secularization of a place which should have been kept holy for worship'. (D.E. Nineham: Saint Mark. Penguin, 1969)

If Jesus was looking at the Temple as the focus of Jewish worship; if he was expecting it to fulfil its traditional and respected function within the Jewish religion out of which it emerged and through which it had been shaped; if he was expecting it to fulfil its role as a place where all people could come to worship God and be welcomed into the courts of the King; then what he saw was an institution which had become focused too much on the profane at the cost of the holy, devoting energy and resources to the secular rather than the sacred.

Perhaps our challenge is to take the same hard look at our own lives and see if we have the balance right between the secular and the sacred. Perhaps we need to take an audit of the sacred space in ourselves. Do we allow today's temple traders and money-changers to encroach onto our sacred spaces? Do we allow the outer courts of our experience of God to be overtaken by external pressures to abandon our core principles or lower our standards. If those outer courts of our spirituality are where strangers encounter us, shouldn't we be keeping them as welcoming and holy places?

The culture of the time of Jesus held to a view of the universe which believed you could place God in a building - that God needed a house, a physical dwelling place to be among God's people.

It would be desperately easy to turn this building into our modern-day temple: to confine God here; to make this our sacred space - a place where we come to be holy, while the outside world is a place where we go to be profane. Perhaps we even become temple traders if we sell you a cup of coffee after the service - especially if we make a bit of profit on the price!

But we no longer think about God in 1st century terms: we know God dwells around us, among us, within us, and within others. And this is where perhaps we need to be seeking our sacred spaces - around us, among us, within us, and within others.

The holiness which Jesus found lacking in the Jerusalem Temple is not about buildings, or the ceremonies which happen within them, or events that happen on their outer fringes. The holiness which Jesus seeks is to do with how we respond to the experience of God in our lives; it's to do with choices, priorities, the discernment and use of our gifts, and how we negotiate the route of our journey between the secular and the sacred.

In our prayers throughout this week, perhaps we should use some time in our sacred spaces to see if anything is encroaching into the outer courts of our life which is affecting the balance of our choices between the sacred and secular.

Jesus drove the distractions out of his temple. What will we do?

Amen.

(Philip Jones)

This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.