Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’” The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant. “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?” And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night. Matthew 21:12-17
“For one brief moment, the house was no longer a den of robbers, it was a house of prayer. What a picture! The Temple was not tidy. There were overturned tables, and money scattered everywhere. The debris of a great reconstruction. But there were the blind and the lame; and the face that a moment before had flamed with indignation was soft with the radiance of a great pity. That is one of the greatest pictures in the Gospel according to Matthew. He casts out, but He takes in; He overturns, but He builds up.”
G. Campbell Morgan in The Gospel According to Matthew, Reprint Series(Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2017) 252.
The scene in today’s Scripture reading took place on Monday of Holy Week. Do you see the beauty of this “great reconstruction” as Morgan puts it? Jesus is making space for everyone and driving out those who are using God’s house for their own gain.
It relates to generosity because as God’s workers we must make space for everyone to come to God, and the broken feel at home when things are not tidy. Often in churches and ministries, making everything just right with money becomes the central focus instead. In so doing, we then do things just to make money to meet budget. No wonder there were money changers and merchants in the Temple. Away with all that. Jesus would cast it out and overturn it.
Make God’s house this week (and every week) a place that takes in and builds up. Does a great reconstruction need to happen at your church or ministry? I will use this as an illustration today in my remarks in this Philippines, in the town of Bacolod, as some of my comments are related to the faithful administration of God’s work.