FRIDAY HOMILY 33RD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME - YEAR A

FRIDAY HOMILY 33RD WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR A

THEME: GOD’S HOUSE.

BY: FR. KARABARI PAUL

‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.’

In the Gospel passage (Luke 19:45-48), Jesus acts symbolically in the temple. In the temple, money changing was done because only certain coinage was then accepted in the temple from those who bought animals for sacrifices. The religious leaders made money off the system of buying and selling animals for sacrifice (thus making the temple a den of robbers). Also they led the people into mere formalism. A pilgrim traveling to Jerusalem could go to the temple, buy an animal, and offer it as a sacrifice without ever having anything to do with the animal. This led to an impersonalization of the sacrificial system. The commercial system was apparently set up in the area of the temple which had been designated for devout Gentiles to pray and so was disrupting Israel’s witness to the surrounding world.

Traders in sacrificial animals and supplies were allowed by the temple authorities to set up their stalls in the court of the Gentiles. For Jesus, this indicates that the whole institution has lost its way as a center for the worship of God (as evidenced by his reference to “My Father’s house”). Instead, it had become a human commercial enterprise. But now his own teaching “the way to God” in the temple courts begins to supplant the commerce that he had thrown out. In this way, it becomes clear that God’s will triumphs over the desires of man.

Luke also references to two Old Testament texts in this passage. The first comes from Isa. 56:7, which expressing the temple’s intended role as a religious focal point for all nations, while the second (Jer. 7:11) was drawn from the prophet Jeremiah’s great temple sermon, which had similarly denounced the people’s sinful behavior while still claiming God’s presence among them.

The way we see God’s presence and our attitude towards it is very important. We sometimes approach God just from the point of gains. Our relationship is purely business. We get angry when prayers are not granted exactly when and how we desired. There are still some of us who have turned the church into a commercial enterprise.

We have to learn how we can begin to see our body as a temple and how we can focus on making it a “house of prayer” and not a “den of thieves”. That is, to see the what changes we can make in our daily life to be more committed to worshipping God and communicating with him through prayer. We are created for him and it is his desire to always find our body ready to dwell in. GOD IS STILL ON THE THRONE. May God have mercy on us, heal our world and land, bless and protect us all through Christ Our Lord Amen. Good morning

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