3rd Sunday of Lent year B | Homily for 3rd March 2024 I Third Sunday of Lent year B

 

My dear friends today we celebrate the Third Sunday of Lent. In the first reading, we come across the Decalogue or the Ten Commandments. The chapter begins with the words “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” This verse is important as it gives us the context in which the commandments are given.  The commandments are relational and personal in nature. The law is a gift from a God who has redeemed the people and now speaks to them individually. The commandments are a response that the people give to the redemptive act of God. These commandments which are given to an already elected, redeemed, believing, and worshipping community deal with the affairs of daily life.

“You shall have no other gods before me” introduces the commandments and gives shape to all the others with idolatry being the focus. Though it commonly has reference to material images at the same time “other gods” could include any person, place, or thing that we hold to be more important or as important as God. The command is to be absolutely loyal to God. While the commandments are personal, the focus of the commandments is to serve the life and health of the community at large. In today's world which promotes individualism, the Ten Commandments remind us that our life and actions also have a social dimension. At the same time how we think about God will deeply affect how we think about and act towards our neighbor. True joy and happiness are to be found in communion with others and not as individuals. God freed his people out of slavery so that they might obey His commandments, and in this freedom and obedience, they would experience life to the full.

In the second reading taken from St. Paul's 1st letter to the Corinthians Paul highlights the cross and the proclamation of Christ crucified which are the core of Paul’s preaching. He mocks the highest educated people in the Greek or Jewish world by telling them that God has made the most educated look foolish by using a method which the intelligent would never think of - God chose to use the foolishness of the Cross. Crucifixion was reserved for those notorious individuals or groups such as rebellious slaves, or pirates, who had threatened the Roman Empire. Thus, the cross was the imperial instrument used to suppress subversion. At the same time, as it was publicly executed crucifixion was an act aimed at humiliating its victims and so served as a political statement which warned all those who went against the Roman empire. Paul uses the metaphor of the stumbling block to point out that the cross causes the Jewish person to not accept Jesus as the messiah and saviour as anyone who was crucified was considered to be cursed (Dt 21:22-23). To the Greek or Roman thinker, a god couldn't be harmed by humans, let alone be executed as the worst of criminals! God did not choose to save people by the sort of powerful act that many Jews wanted. He did not choose to impress people by his great wisdom, as people from other nations wanted. Instead, he sent his Son, Jesus, to die on the cross. God’s ways are beyond our comprehension and God has always used the unexpected person to achieve his goals so that it is clear he has done it not human wisdom or skills. To those who are called by God, the cross is not absurd. What seemed crazy when we were on the outside, suddenly comes into focus once we have an insider’s view. We can see that the cross is not foolishness at all, but is instead the power and wisdom of God. It is powerful because it has the power to save. It is wise because Christ’s death on the cross says more clearly than anything else that God’s love for us has no bounds.

In the gospel taken from John, we are presented with the narrative of Jesus cleansing the Temple. Set in the context of the Passover, like other pious Jews, Jesus too goes to the Jerusalem temple. The atmosphere in the temple was quite similar to what one would find around churches in today's times during major festivals.  With a large number of pilgrims around there was religious as well as economic activity. Jesus was not against the sacrifices but rather the commercial activity of the money changers. For an additional fee, they exchanged the money pilgrims brought from foreign lands for coins that could be used in Jerusalem and the temple.

In contrast to the other synoptic gospels where this narrative is placed at the end of the gospels, in the gospel of John the narrative is placed at the beginning as it addresses the issue of Jesus’ authority.  The key phrase is Jesus identifying the temple as “my Father’s house” as it signifies his identity and authority as the divine Son and God as his Father. It is this distinctive relationship which gives Jesus the authority to act as he does. In what is unique to the gospel of John,  the temple is depicted as a symbol of Jesus himself and Jesus reveals that the destruction and rebuilding of the temple is itself a metaphor for his death and resurrection.

The words which caught my attention were “zeal for your house will consume me”.  Remembering Psalm 69:9, the disciples perceive Jesus as demonstrating zeal for God’s “house” This zeal distinguishes him from the majority of temple pilgrims. The text compels us to ask ourselves if we have a zeal for our faith. How strongly do we feel for the church and its teachings? Do we share the faith of the early church and the martyrs or have we been practising a watered-down version of the faith? 

Second, we need to also look at the act of Jesus cleansing the temple at a spiritual level. What are we called to cleanse today in our churches and our wider society? What is it among us that needs cleansing?  Lent is a good time to begin the cleaning-up process. We are called to enter into a relationship with God. Only in union with him can we truly worship, in our hearts and in our lives. I pray that we may grow in the awareness of the true implications of the Ten Commandments in our life and through the power of the cross be able to cleanse ourselves during this period of lent. May God bless us all.