When the Homily is about Immunology

Sacred time, sacred space

Thinking about Jesus' "Cleansing of the Temple."

Why did He do it? Why does He seem to ascribe so much dignity and sacredness to a physical place? This doesn't seem to jive with the Jesus the po-mo's are preaching about? I mean, Jesus likely would not have done anything had these dealings been done outside of the Temple, but His "anger" is clearly born from the fact that they were inside the Temple: His "Father's house."

Why didn't Jesus just tell his disciples: "Hey, it doesn't matter what they do there, cuz places aren't important. You see when I told the Samaritan woman about worshipping 'in spirit and truth', I was doing away with the whole notion of sacred space. Let them have the Temple and you and I will go to Joe's house down the road here and worship there after dinner."

Instead of doing this, Jesus "made a whip of cords" (read it again: "made a whip of cords") and drove them out.

Jesus left His holy Apostles with an appreciation for sacred places, sacred times, and in general sacred matter. This, the Apostles faithfully handed down to the Church. So, before we dismiss the very concept of the physically, geographically, or chronologically sacred, we'd do well to reread the Gospels - hints of these things are no doubt found in all those ununderlined areas.

Ouspensky reminded me (just this morning) of this quote from St. John of Damascus:

I do not worship matter; I worship the creator of matter who became matter for my sake, who willed to take His abode in matter; who worked out my salvation through matter.