A Holy Uprooar

When Jesus went into the Temple that Monday and threw everything into a holy uproar, He touched an economic nerve which was more than the religious authorities could stand.  They had put up with His disregard for their rituals.  They had struggled in their theological debates.  They had argued with His interpretations of Scripture.  What He did in the Temple was the last straw.  It was the intolerable act.  Money was the issue that Monday.  The religious authorities had allowed the House of Prayer to be turned into a profitable enterprise for everyone who was corruptible and they were some of them.

 

We can only wonder what He would think of today's church.  Today's church is much like the pre-Reformation church.  Money drives it.  It would seem that something spiritual would be the driving force for today's institutionalized church, but the bottom line has become a line item on a financial spread sheet.  Perhaps, in the beginning the local church was driven by sharing Jesus and inviting others to Jesus, but what pushes the church forward today is the amount of money it can raise and spend on itself.  If this seems harsh, look at a church budget see how much of the money given to it is actually used on some mission enterprise which gives no financial benefit to the institutional church.

 

Churches are measured today not by the number of baptisms, but by its wealth, by its building program, and the size of the Sunday morning congregation.   The church pats itself on its back when it achieves success as success is determined by the secular community.  If Jesus threw over a few tables because of the way the spiritual mission of the sacred community had been corrupted, nothing would be upright within today's sacred spaces.