3RD SUNDAY OF LENT, CYCLE B
First Reading, Exodus (20:1-17): God once again takes the initiative to establish a special RELATIONSHIP with his people, a covenant – this is what this first reading of today’s liturgy reminds us. God in some way puts himself within our reach, allows himself to be taken to heart: «I am the Lord your God» and draws before the people an image of peace, justice and mutual respect that we know as the Decalogue. It can help us to look at it not so much as «commandments» as «promises»: God tells us that if we accept him as Lord and God among us there will be no theft, adultery, lies or betrayal. The covenant demands me, but it also protects me. It is one of the expressions of God’s love for us, his people.
Psalm 18, 8. 9. 10. 11: The psalm is a song full of gratitude for the law with which the Lord instructs us. The experience that the psalmist transmits to us can also be done by us remembering our RELATIONSHIP with Him: the moments in which the Word of God has been for us «rest», the «light» that the Lord has given us in some moment of doubt or darkness, the «sweetness» that we have experienced in our relationship with God… It is an invitation to sing from our heart «Lord, you have the words of eternal life».
Contemplate
Jesus and his disciples went up to Jerusalem, probably singing, as was the custom of the pilgrims, one of the psalms: «What joy it was when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord (…) to celebrate the name of the Lord'» (Ps 122:1,4). But if we try to unite ourselves wholeheartedly to the group of Jesus’ disciples who enter the temple with their Master, perhaps we will be able to perceive how strange he felt in the temple. In Jesus, God comes «to the end» to humanity. Gratuitously, even «in spite of everything». And humanity does not try to «celebrate the name of the Lord» but to buy it. The temple, which was to be a sign of the covenant with God (relationship!), becomes «a marketplace». The evangelist tells us that the disciples, upon observing Jesus, remember another very different psalm: «The zeal of your house devours me» (Ps 69:10). If today the disciples of Jesus were to enter with us into our temple, our space of encounter with God, what psalm would they intone? What would they sing when they reached our hearts?
If we read the text carefully we can see that what is directly affected by Jesus’ indignation are the sheep, the oxen, the coins, the tables of the money changers and perhaps the stalls of the pigeon sellers. Things. Not people. For people there is always room in the Father’s house. With his gesture Jesus makes it clear that in relationship with God we do not need to bargain, to exchange something for his favors. God desires a personal RELATIONSHIP with us. What he wants is that we «celebrate his name» and that we let him enjoy us. And that our life be enkindled, enlightened, beautified in relationship with Him.
The word «temple» appears several times in this Sunday’s pericope. St. John points out the difference in the understanding of its meaning between the Jews and Jesus. The former speak of a building built over 46 years and which has replaced the previous ones. Jesus speaks first of «my Father’s house» and then of «the temple of his body». The former went from considering the temple as a place of encounter with God to converting religion into commerce and the temple into a marketplace. And it is also a temptation for us to want to «earn God’s favors» by mark of… Jesus points out, in this prophetic gesture that he makes, that now, it is not a building, but he himself is the place of encounter with the Father.
And of course we need concrete spaces (churches, chapels, oratories…) that help us to pray. But it is precisely their role is to facilitate silence and the encounter in communion of brothers and sisters, to enter into the heart of Jesus and with Him into the heart of the Father in the Holy Spirit. There we all find ourselves: in RELATIONSHIP with Jesus, in His Heart.
Invitation:
The whole liturgy of the Word this Sunday makes us an invitation to review our RELATIONSHIP with God. And perhaps it would do us good not so much to think about it as to ask Jesus what he would say to us today. Perhaps there is also in our heart some ox (or a small and shiny coin…) with which we want to negotiate with God. It is good that we allow ourselves to be reminded by Jesus that his love is gratuitous, merciful and goes to the extreme, beyond our misery. Let us look at Jesus crucified and learn from him what God is like (and how he is a fully human person).
Sr. Alicja Grzywocz , tc
Province of Nazaret