Third Sunday of Lent – March 7, 2021 – Exodus 20: 1-17; 1 Corinthians 1: 22-25; John 2: 13-25 – Cycle “B” of Readings
If you and I had time, we could collect lots of Bible stories illustrating all the battles between good & evil. We’d start at the Garden of Eden, & Adam & Eve’s disobedience; onto Cain killing his brother Abel; onto the Pharaoh in Exodus, holding the Israelites hostage until God forced him to let them go; onto even the crucifixion of Jesus, and ultimately, GOD’S judgment, which is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But I received a quotation via e-mail, a Lenten statement from St. Nikolai Velimirovich. Who? Yes: he’s a saint on the Greek Orthodox Church calendar. St. Nikolai – not related to St. Nicholas or Santa Claus - lived as a bishop, teacher & writer; he was born in 1880 & died a martyr in 1956. St. Nikolai gave me a new set of ears & eyes to think and hear differently during this holy season of Lent we’re in. St. Nikolai says that the BIGGEST conflict we have to face again and again is between me AND me! That’s right: between the ME that I am right NOW, with all the ways I resist God’s influence and direction, & the ME whom God created, the ME whom God can STILL see LOCKED inside of me BY me! Just think for a minute: GOD is the ONLY One who can say: I know what I put inside you: I was THERE at your conception and your birth.
So, if we apply St. Nikolai’s wisdom to today’s Gospel, & specifically to that moneychanger’s table, then to OVERTURN that table, with the coins & money flying away, means the end of business as usual. You may already know that, up in the temple area, there was a certain practice that when pilgrims came from far away to pray, visit, & tour the temple, they’d exchange currency from home into local currency. What those visitors did NOT know is they were being gypped TWICE: first, the visitors received a TERRIBLE exchange rate; 2nd, a heavy tax accompanied each exchange. So Jesus, the champion of truth and justice was righteously angry, furious on seeing this STEALING occur, so in BOTH word and deed, Jesus says, “this GREED is sinful; God’s reign rights wrongs that are being done here, even in God’s House!”
Now, after listening to all those sins listed in Exodus, (Exodus 20: 1-17), more popularly known as the Ten Commandments, you may perhaps say, “well, I’m not greedy, like the people at the temple, so I’m okay.” Really? There are LOTS of battles between Me & Me going on throughout the world here & now, and you and I KNOW it! Let’s take a moment of quiet: see if you can within yourselves identify where and about what the battle that sometimes saps YOUR ENERGY, where you KNOW can be better & DO better, because God MADE you better than you are doing now [pause].
If you need some prompting, let me suggest 4 areas that some people are in conflict with themselves: 1) they’re impatient with themselves or others = need patience & a forgiving heart with themselves FIRST; 2) they’re unkind to others = need to generously care for someone or something; some start small, with a plant! 3) Some are jealous of what they think others have = they need gratitude for what they do have; 4) they’re “always right” & ALWAYS HAVE to be right = they need some good experiences of humility.
Let us all take this invitation and look deeply within: let us pray and work to become our best selves, so that our WHOLE selves – including our spirits and souls – will thrive. And yes…. Happy Lent!