Mark 11: Cleansing our temples

After another healing story, in which a man's faith is reported to be what cures his blindness, the gospel of Mark moves into the story of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, often called the "triumphal entry." The other gospels echo and elaborate on the entry into Jerusalem as depicted in Mark, and this scene leads into the passion narrative, which culminates in the crucifixion scene (or the resurrection scene). While some have elevated the passion story above other teachings of Jesus as conveyed in the canonical gospels, these pseudo-historical events do not actually instruct anyone as to how people should live. They are largely constructed after the fact (at least 35 years after the fact) with the agenda of imposing Hebrew prophecies about a messiah (some of which weren't originally intended as prophecies about a messiah) onto the Jesus figure, in order to "prove" him as the Messiah. As such, the passion narratives serve primarily to bolster the faith of people who already believe in the divinity of Jesus and to portray what we already know about the power of fear.

The author of Mark has Jesus do a bit of teaching amidst the scenes of the passion narrative, however, and these teachings are of more potential use to those among us who are willing to recognize "divinity" as a human characteristic and those among us who see human beings as having inherent worth and dignity rather than seeing people as broken and in need of saving. Indeed, if Jesus' actions as stated in the passion stories really took care of "sin" once and for all, then there is nothing more for people to worry about on that front. We can all focus on the important work of building better relationships with one another, rather than judging ourselves and everyone around us and trying to determine eternal matters that no one can prove or know anything about anyway.

In Mark 11, Jesus does three things when he first enters the city of Jerusalem. First, he curses a fig tree for not having any figs, even though it isn't the season for figs. Petty, perhaps, but there it is. Next, he causes a scene at the temple by disrupting trade. This is worth a closer look. Then, he refuses to establish any outside authorization for his actions or teachings. This, as it turns out, is related to the incident with the fig tree. For now, we'll keep ourselves to the "cleansing" of the temple, a rare story in that all four gospels have a version of it. The version of this scene in the gospel of Luke is almost identical to the version in Mark. The gospel of Matthew expands it to indicate that people who had been prevented from access to the temple (people who were blind or lame) were able to approach Jesus there for healing. Placing this scene much earlier in the narrative, removed from the passion story, the gospel of John includes a prediction about Jesus' resurrection in the temple cleansing.

One must assume from the accusation against the people driven out of the temple that they were making a profit off of people coming to offer the sacrifices required of their faith. In changing coins from Roman currency (which depicted the emperor) to currency that had no hint of idolatry, it must be assumed that the moneychangers were charging a fee of some kind. In selling the sacrificial animals for people to offer in the required Jewish rites, merchants were essentially taking advantage of people's faith, making money because of the devout practices of others. The original idea behind the Jewish sacrificial system was that people would offer the best of what they had to Yahweh, but it was not intended to keep anyone from accessing Yahweh's grace and mercy. Jerusalem's temple had been turned into something even worse than a profit-making enterprise. People who were indigent or infirm were essentially unable to participate in Jewish ceremonies to the same extent as everyone else. Worship had become something for those who could afford it; God had become a commodity.

There are many who will proclaim how much good religion has done in the world, but one thing that religion seems to do very well is delineate who is in and who is out -- who belongs and who doesn't. It usually has nothing to do with any sort of god; it's more about who we're comfortable with and who makes us uncomfortable. At the temple in Jerusalem, the Jewish authorities had developed a system that helped to invite acceptable people into God's presence while keeping the unacceptable people on the fringes. The author of Mark, and perhaps a historical Jesus, had a serious problem with that system. Everybody in Jewish society was meant to have equal access to God. In fact, one of the main culminating points of the passion narrative is that the old priesthood is obsolete -- the old way of managing human access to God was eradicated. Which is a fine message, except that the church continued to find new ways to regulate access to God for centuries. In many ways, it still does.

I believe that the cleansing of the temple suggests that all people matter -- that just because someone is poor or sick or inconvenient or unsightly or annoying or somehow not like me, it doesn't mean that they are worth any less than I am. Without any belief in an actual god, I assert that all people have inherent worth and dignity, and I am challenged by that when I encounter people who are in circumstances I wouldn't want to be in. We set up barriers within ourselves, protections that we thought necessary during times of vulnerability, and those protective barriers sometimes prevent us from recognizing the deep truth, beauty, and creativity within us. When we have trouble connecting with our authentic selves, we have trouble connecting meaningfully with other people. The temple cleansing may represent the kind of housecleaning we all need to do within ourselves to dismantle the barriers we've created around our deepest, most noble selves in some misguided attempt to protect ourselves.

I also believe that people will always be drawn to help those who are less fortunate because human beings are compassionate. I don't suggest that everyone is equally willing to respond to the compassion they feel, but I do believe that there is some part of every person that cares about people who are sick, injured, poor, malnourished, abused, or oppressed. Sometimes our fears get the best of us and override that compassion, but that doesn't mean that our feelings of compassion aren't there. I believe that we, as a species, are inherently compassionate toward those who have their homes destroyed in natural disasters or who lose loved ones to violence. We don't necessarily like feeling that tug of compassion, because there isn't always something obvious that we can do. We don't like feeling helpless.

Like the temple in Jerusalem, we might decide that some people are in the circumstances they're in because of some divine proclamation. "God is in control, so whatever happened to those people is his will." We are absolved from feeling inconvenient or uncomfortable compassion when we concoct a scenario by which things are the way they're "supposed" to be. Like the temple in Jerusalem, we might also develop systems by which we can outsource our compassion, which means that -- to a certain extent -- we can more or less ignore our feelings of both compassion and helplessness and move on. Whether we are religious or not, we have a tendency to invent systems to welcome desirable people into our lives and keep undesirable people at bay.

Sometimes, though, religion helps us outsource our compassion. We can pray for people without ever having to come into uncomfortable contact with them. We can write a check or hand over some cash to a non-profit organization, and while this actually sources a lot of good for people, our monetary contributions don't necessarily address our unwillingness to be with people we see as poor, sick, hungry, abused, oppressed, or inconvenient -- to look those people in the eye and say, "You matter." Religion sometimes serves as a buffer for us, but it doesn't have to. It's possible to contribute some money to a worthwhile organization, offer some prayers, and look people in the eye and say, "You are a human being, like me."

Even better, I think, would be to scrap the whole idea that a supernatural has any control over what people experience in life. Human beings created the problems that we experience in the world, and human beings can create solutions to those problems. If we abdicate responsibility by assuming that some higher power is in control, though, we won't necessarily feel any sense of personal attachment to the kind of world that we create. Compassion is a feature of being human. It isn't something to try to dismiss or protect ourselves from. Compassion isn't weakness. We feel helpless sometimes because the real work that needs to be done is on the level of systems and structures that go way beyond what any individual can control. 

Our sense of helplessness can feed into old lies we hold about ourselves and other people, vows that we have made about what we must be or do, and fears about being taken advantage of or being worthless -- our feelings of helplessness bump up against whatever barriers keep us from being the people we most want to be in the world. Like Jesus taking radical action in turning over tables, letting loose caged animals, and whipping the perpetrators of injustice, we sometimes have to take radical action within ourselves. We have to be more conscious of what keeps us from being honest about who we are. We have to be more conscious of what we do that keeps other people at arm's length. We have to be more conscious of how we respond to feelings of compassion. We have the capability to do something different, if we choose to. 

When we recognize the importance of living by the principle that every human being matters, we can start creating something better. When we refuse to outsource our compassion, even as we continue to fund organizations that are doing meaningful work in the world, that emotional fuel can ignite our creativity. When we accept that we need one another in order to build a better world, we can forge stronger relationships and find ways to confront the issues that keep people poor, sick, hungry, abused, and oppressed. Tough circumstances can prevent people from recognizing their own inherent worth and dignity. At the very least, we have the opportunity to help people see that circumstances do not define a person's value. If we commit to the work of breaking through some barricades within ourselves, we influence more lives than just our own. As we continually dismantle whatever fears make our compassion seem uncomfortable, people may stop seeming inconvenient, and might just start seeming like people. Like us.

Isaiah 6: Dull Ears, Blind Eyes, and Calloused Hearts

Well into the book of Isaiah, in chapter 6, we finally see a typical version of a prophetic calling story, which we have noted in books named after other prophets. Here, the author describes supernatural creatures with six wings who shake the temple with their song of praise to Yahweh. Moreover, the author claims to have seen Yahweh himself, before the temple is filled with smoke. Isaiah's purification (so that he can deliver his prophetic message) takes the form of a hot coal, with which a seraphim scorches his lips. This action is said to remove Isaiah's guilt and sin, which is remarkable in an ancient Israelite context in that no blood is spilt. Then, Isaiah receives his first message about the people of Israel.

Obviously, this credentialing of a prophet is either fabrication or is an internal experience of the messenger. At the time, such supernatural legitimization was respected -- indeed, expected -- as evidence that a message was from God. For us, the truth of a message can suffice to determine its worthiness. Isaiah may have been addressing the ancient Israelites specifically, in the time preceding the Babylonian captivity. His words may have value for twenty-first century readers as well.

He accuses his people of being willfully deaf, blind, and calloused. The truth is all around them, but they choose not to acknowledge it. So, Yahweh decides that they should stay that way -- that their blindness, deafness, and lack of understanding should be kept in place, so that they have no chance to turn and find healing for their society. Isaiah asks how long that will go on, and he is given a rather ominous answer: until everything but the barest stump is destroyed.

First of all, this presents Yahweh as a rather small-minded and vindictive deity. People have been disobedient, and so he chooses to eliminate the possibility that they might straighten up and fly right, at least until they have experienced the full measure of consequences. He actively forces the Israelites' heartlessness, spiritual blindness, and ethical deafness. Not very nice. Of course, Isaiah may well have been reporting on the condition of things, portraying God as being in control while still acknowledging the sad state of affairs. If God is all-powerful and people are behaving like heartless jackals, then God must have chosen for them to behave that way, right?

Second, though, the state of affairs in ancient Jewish society was not all that different from what we see at work in the world today. People typically only take in information from sources with which they already agree, so their worldview is rarely challenged. People often select theological positions based on what makes them most comfortable. Our sense of morality and ethics is often clear in the abstract and murky when it comes to specific decisions in our own lives. We sometimes choose to be blind to the injustices going on around us, if our involvement would be risky or inconvenient. We sometimes choose to be deaf to the data of scientific discovery, especially if dealing with certain issues would cost us a bit of money or require a change to our lifestyle. We sometimes harden our hearts against the people around us, and we call it "tough love" when we aren't outright critical or vindictive. We sometimes even say, "I wish I could do something," when we have no real interest in learning what we could actually do to make a difference.

Most likely, the people of Isaiah's day didn't really need any help from a supernatural to keep their willing blindness, deafness, and callousness in place. People seem to be pretty adept at turning a blind eye to the things they don't want to address in their lives and in the world. It's also likely that the Assyrians -- and later the Babylonians -- would have overrun Israel and Judah and taken people into exile, because those actions were based on the irresponsible decisions of a few leaders and not the behavior of an entire nation. So, there probably is no actual cause and effect relationship between the destruction that Judah and Israel experienced and their culture of willful blindness. That doesn't mean that being deaf, blind, and heartless is a good idea. It just means that we can be motivated by something other than wrathful destruction.

If we choose to, we can open our eyes, ears, and hearts to the people around us and to the world we all share. We can give a little bit (or a little bit more) to organizations that make changes in people's lives. We can vote for representatives that stand on the side of social justice rather than on the side of partisan power mongering. We can reach out to the people in our communities who are less fortunate and volunteer a bit of our time to teach them, feed them, clothe them, befriend them. Sometimes having open ears just means being willing to listen to someone tell their story. Sometimes having open eyes just means acknowledging another person with a smile and a kind word. Sometimes having an open heart just means giving up a fancy cup of coffee once a week so that the money we would have spent on caffeine can allow someone on the other side of the world to eat.

And sometimes having open eyes, ears, and hearts means a little more. Sometimes it caring enough not to mind being inconvenienced when your neighbor needs a little help. Sometimes it means listening to the same story you've heard a dozen times because your friend just hasn't gotten through this particular issue yet. Sometimes, it means broadening our concept of who we're willing to befriend -- who we're willing to treat like a human being of innate value.

We are busy and overburdened people, and some of that is not by our choice. There is no deity deciding one way or the other whether we will be blind or have our eyes wide open to the world; we are the only ones who can decide how much we are willing to see, hear, and feel. The world is an incredible place, though, and the people who share it with us are even more incredible. We need one another. None of us is utterly self-sufficient. So, let's open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts a bit. Let's model a way of being in the world that inspires others to have more open eyes, ears, and hearts. Whatever it costs us, we will reap in dividends of human connection and personal satisfaction. There is something deeply satisfying about caring, particularly when we are clear about the principles that guide our lives.

Open your eyes.
Open your ears.
Open your heart.
And let others know when you need them to open their eyes, ears, and heart to you a bit, too.
Sometimes we all need a little reminder.