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I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt.
In the first reading, we hear how God's commandments were given to Moses
so that the people could live according to God’s plan.
Most of these laws were not very extraordinary.
In fact, most of these rules or commands
mirrored the ethics of civilizations of their time:
No society condoned lying, stealing or abandoning the elderly.
But Israel's Sabbath was very different!
No other group or religion had that understanding.
The Israelites were imitating their God
and consecrated one of every seven days
for worship, family celebrations and leisure.
This Sabbath affirmed that people are more important than work,
that strong relationships with God and others outvalue any accomplishment
and that everyone needs time for re-creation,
for recentering themselves in relation to everything else.
Sabbath became a way to understand and treasure people's time and leisure.
It enhanced the people's relationship with God
while intensifying their shared identity.
Keeping the Sabbath holy was another way that
Israel better appreciated the sacredness surrounding them
and highlighted places and practices
that sharpened their awareness of the presence of God
and indeed the meaning of their life.
While the God of Israel could appear anywhere,
the temple functioned as a focal point for prayer
and other expressions of the peoples' relationship with God.
It was considered a holy place.
In this context of the Sabbath, the temple was also sacred.
The day Jesus entered the temple, as we hear in today’s Gospel,
he observed not faith, but sacrilege.
This place of worship, the religious center for all God's people,
looked like a bazaar and Jesus gets really angry.
Rather than being an inducement to prayer,
sacrifice had become a business,
supporting the money changers and merchants
who made fortunes by selling supposed access to God.
Operating as the opposite of what it was intended to be,
the temple could impede people's experience of a merciful, loving God.
In Jesus' eyes, the temple had become a blasphemy,
the anti-reign of God
After evicting the religious retailers,
Jesus made the famous statement,
"Destroy this temple and in three days, I will raise it up again."
John explains that "this temple" referred to Jesus himself,
not an architectural wonder.
Jesus claims that he definitively replaces the temple and sacrifice.
He sacramentalized the presence of God
through his loving relationships and all that flowed from them.
When we say that God is love,
we assert that God's presence is mediated in relationships.
Institutions may facilitate our awareness of God's presence,
but we encounter God in prayer,
especially communal prayer as at Mass on Sundays.
But we also encounter God in the love shared among us
especially in the loving actions towards those most in need.
Jesus' anger in the temple is at the twisting of God’s love for the world.
They had distorted their faith and desecrated God's house.
They offered a counterfeit relationship with God
based on sacrifice over love and Jesus rails against this.
It is not enough to “say” we are putting God first
but we must act in accordance with our words,
whether those words are prayer or just conversational words.
Historically, we can give Judaism credit for the beginning of the weekend.
With their Sabbath being on a Friday night through Saturday
and then the addition of the day of worship and celebrate, Sunday.
Eventually the weekend was slowly adopted as a standard
when most people rested and recreated.
Unfortunately we have lost most of that understanding
and it is shame we use these days for so much other work.
One of the challenges for us, is to return the original Sabbath command
and take seriously time to rest, recreate, do service for others and pray.
Maybe we cannot get the full weekend back
but could we take at least ONE day off and rest and recreate.
I have to hear this myself as much as you all.
If could we take one day off every week,
it would help us all to be better versions of ourselves.
And if we paired this with the temple attendance,
or coming to Mass as a part of our shared identity,
I believe it would serve it well.
We would all do well to rest more and sleep more.
We need each other in community on Sundays.
It will be good for our souls.
I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt.
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