Luke 19:45-48
And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, `My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.”
And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people sought to destroy him; but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people hung upon his words.
Homily:
There is always a temptation to turn a crowd into a profit centre. Any place where people frequently visit, becomes a place where businesses spring up and thrive. The temple was not an exception.
The businesses that sprang up were linked to the rituals of the temple. And as business boomed, rituals replaced communion with God. Business owners blossomed at the expense of sinners requiring reconciliation. The rituals were becoming so burdensome, it was getting preferable to those economically challenged, to just due in sin.
It is very important to continually ask, “What is this for?”
Stripped off the fanfare, “What is this for?”
“What is this for?” is a “Why” question.
What was the temple for? Prayer and Learning.
Every ritual was hinged on either or both. Strip off the rituals, and you can still have either or both.
So when Jesus chose to freely teach, the people found a “Why” without the burden of ritual, and they protected him from those that sought to destroy him.