Mark 11:15-19 A Den Isn't Where You Do the Robbing

Observation: Jesus' driving sellers out of the temple comes with very different rationale in John's Gospel (which some may have heard on Sunday) and in Mark's Gospel. In John, Jesus says the money-changers have turned his Father's house into "a marketplace," implying that it is something about the temple system itself that is the problem: a system of for-profit forgiveness. 

But in Mark, Jesus calls it a "den of robbers." This always reminds me of the book The Last Week, a collaboration of John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. Though I have some disagreements with their theological conclusions, I appreciate their Biblical scholarship. They note that a "den" is not the place where robbers rob. It is the place where they hide out from the law. Jesus is not necessarily calling the temple system itself into question, but like prophets before him, he could be expressing outrage that temple worship is used as a "hideout", a substitute for economic and social justice. If the people think they can rob their neighbors for the rest of the year, and offer sacrifices to clear their conscience, Jesus wants to disabuse them of that notion. 

Application: This may be the single oldest and most intractable problem in the history of spirituality. We use piety and religious practice as an escape. We use it as a way to feel like "good people", when our behavior toward our neighbors near and far might indicate otherwise. Our churches become "dens of robbers" when we go there to be comforted but not challenged, to be filled with heavenly bliss while our neighbors may still be going through hell. 

I'll admit, I get a lot out of doing this devotional blog. I hope you get something out of reading it. But if it serves as a distraction for me from the conditions of the very workers who assembled the cell phone and laptop I write it on, or the miners who dug out the heavy metals for the batteries, it doesn't help me or anyone else. Worship, prayer and Bible study should help us see our neighbors and act to help them. It should help us take a look at the mirror. It should be self-critical, in order to remind us that Christ is to be found every bit as much in the poor as in the book, the bread and  the wine. 

Prayer: Jesus, cleanse the temple of my heart. Cleanse the temples where we meet on Sundays. Remind us why we gather, and in whose name, for the sake of the world you so loved. Amen.