This Sermon is prepared by
Rev.Fr.Peter Jayakanthan sss
Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament
Corpus Christi Catholic Church,
Houston, Texas, US
3rd Sunday of the LentTemple: Meeting Place……or……. Mingling Place!Ex 20:1-17, 1Cor 1:22-25 Jn 2:13-25Dear Sisters, Brothers and Children, we enter into the third week in the season of Lent. We rediscovered our desert days on the first Sunday, and then we realized our call to climb the mountain top. This week we are invited to examine how we visit and participate at God’s holy Temple when we come to Mass on Sundays. We come as a family and gather as a community to mingle with the Lord by renewing the Covenantal love: that we are His beloved people and He is our loving God. We are halfway through in our Lenten journey, where our efforts may lead us to relive this union with God, and with one another. Our participation in this Eucharist reminds us that we are called to be living, moving and witnessing temples of the Holy Spirit.“I made a vow, when I return I want to kiss the soil of my village and pray in the church;” this was the wish of one of the Assyrian Christians who escaped from the militants to Lebanon last week, whose ancient Churches and Arts were destroyed and removed. They cannot destroy our faith. How do we see and approach our churches? I don’t find the Church interesting! Our parish churches do not offer us anything new! We feel out of place to participate in Mass and other church happenings. The Church is filled old traditional practices, nothing new has evolved…it was the same during the time of my Grandma, and now too. People say various reasons for their absence and being away from the Church. In this third Sunday of Lent, the Word of God tells us that we don’t come to church to just meet our friends and wish ‘hello.’ Instead, we come to mingle with God as people of His Covenant. The question we need to ask ourselves, is whether our churches and temples are market places or mingling places? Why did Jesus go to the Jerusalem Temple? Initially Jesus was taken by His beloved parents for the Purification ceremony and to offer turtle doves for their first son, in order to fulfill the custom of their tradition and religious practices. Luke2:21-38. We read again that Jesus was lost at the temple from their parents during the Passover festival, and that He was found teaching among many teachers. Luke2:41-51. Now, according to the Evangelist John, Jesus went to Jerusalem as a 33 year-old Jew to remember and celebrate the Passover festival. Every Jew, as a family and community, went to Jerusalem to recall the liberation of their ancestors’ liberation and freedom from Egyptian Slavery. What was the history of Jerusalem Temple? The Temple in Jerusalem was the only, important and central place of worship and sacrifices for the People of Israel. First built by Solomon in 966 BC, 1Kings6-7, it was the rich and powerful symbol of the Jewish religion. The Temple covers an area of 35 acres. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 BC, when they attacked and took people as captives in exile. Ezra6.15. After 70 years of this exile, when they were able to return with the help of the Persian King Cyrus; they rebuilt it in 515 BC, under the leadership of Zerubbabel. It was again reconstructed; and again attacked by Antiochus IV in 168 BC. The final restoration and reconstruction was taken up by King Herod in 19 BC, and continued for 46years. Six years after the completion of the new Temple, the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD. The Temple consists of two divisions: Naos – which was the Sanctuary, and Heiron – which was 19 acres of courtyard. This courtyard was divided into four areas for worshippers: i) Court of Gentiles, ii) Court of the woman, iii) Court of Israel, and iv) Court of the Priests. Jesus’s focus was not on the sanctuary, but rather on the Gentiles’ Courtyard, which had been used for selling and money changing unjustly. The Gentiles were deprived of their worshipping place, and their place was used for corruption and political affairs. Only the shekel was accepted; no foreign money was taken in. Earlier, cattle and oxen were sold outside of the temple courts by animal merchants at the stall across from the Kidron Valley. Later, when religious practices were corrupted by politics, the selling and money exchange was done as a commercial business in the Courtyard of Gentiles. They were not allowed to bring their own animals; they were forced to buy from them. The merchants sold animals and birds for sacrifice 20 times more than the regular price; the merchants bribed the animal-inspectors to disqualify the cattle, animals and birds brought by poor shepherds and farmers. Thus, all were compelled to buy animals for the distorted higher prices, and lame animals were sold for less. The exchange price for a shekel with a Roman coin was increased to insure 1/6 commission. This is how religion and religious holy practices were used for commercial business corruption. Jesus’s strong words and action reveal that He has come to replace the temple which was corrupted and made into a robbers’ den. Jesus was expressive in saying, “My Father’s dwelling place has become a market place.” Jesus was responding to the breaking of the Covenant and the unfaithfulness to the Covenantal love of God. The Covenantal love is the ‘I – Thou’ relationship between God of Yahweh and the People of Israel. This was revealed in the first reading, where the Tablets of Commandments were given. The first three commandments confirm the strong I-Thou relationship of God; the rest are the call to realize the Covenantal love among the community. What is I-Thou relationship? This is God’s invitation to humanity into relationship with Him. God, giving of Himself entirely to us, comes to be part of humanity, yet again, sending Jesus to replace the temple which took away this relationship. Jesus is the Temple, mingling with us in His Body and Blood. Our body becomes a temple through Baptism; our community is called to be a temple as we break bread together. • Just as the Jerusalem Temple was desecrated many times through destruction by external forces for political reasons, as well as by the people of the Covenant for commercial and selfish pleasures, so today, the Church and temple have become meeting places for our comfort, pleasure and commercial interaction. What does the sanctuary of my inner temple look like? What does the courtyard of my temple resemble? This third week of Lent is a call to renewing the I-Thou relationship of God’s unbroken Covenantal invitation to each one, animating our zeal for His Temple, and the passion of faith to keep it holy. God’s I-Thou covenantal relationship calls us to a deeply living sanctuary, adoring the Eucharist as a living temple in community. The Church should be the place of mingling as a people of God, beloved Children of God, with the ‘consuming zeal’ of the disciples, giving ourselves entirely to loving God and dwelling within His House. God communicates with us in person, to mingle with us. Can our communities become places and moments of mingling with God’s love and compassion? “Our Lord does not come down from Heaven every day to lie in a golden ciborium. He comes to find another heaven which is infinitely dearer to him - the heaven of our souls, created in His Image, the living temples of the Adorable Trinity.” - Saint Therese of Lisieux. After the Parish church was destroyed in 2001at El Salvador Earthquake, January 13, 2001. Fr. Salvador expressed, “We have been left without a temple, but not without a Church. We are the Church, and the Church depends on us to keep it alive.”- Fr. Salvador Carranza, Pastor, Church of El Carmen, Santa Tecla, El Salvador-Amen. 
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