Jesus does some necessary house cleaning in this Sunday’s Gospel. “Jesus found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money changers seated there. He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area, the sheep and oxen, and spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.”
We clutter our lives with so many unhealthy things. It can be difficult to rid our lives of unhealthy people, dispositions, and practices. We become attached to the unhealthy people though they are not good for us. We feel secure with the unhealthy disposition though it contributes to our being unhappy. We find satisfaction from the unhealthy practices though they are harmful. When Jesus physically clears out all that is unhealthy in the temple, he is clearing out the rulers, their plundering dispositions, their blood sacrifice practice against animals. We too can physically clear out from our lives all that is unhealthy. It is the ritual intended for every Lent. We physically clear out from the Body of Christ that is our Beautiful self all that makes us unhealthy. We give up sugar or cigarettes, no longer drink coffee or beer, release the anger that is our disposition with that person and the gossip that is our habit with another. We clear out from the Body of Christ that is our Beautiful neighborhood the feud that has lasted too long between us and old friends, the litter that lines the curb, the vacant lots and businesses collecting trash. We clear out from the Body of Christ all that is unhealthy. We rid ourselves and our communities of relationships, dispositions, and practices that are harming us. We physically provide for ourselves new space, open space; space in which to dream, to plan, to create. We create new healthy relationships, new healthy dispositions, new healthy practices. We also create a new healthy God/Ultimacy – just like Jesus did. Amongst the things Jesus cleared out when he cleared out the temple was the temple’s old god. He cleared out the unhealthy deity the rulers invented to justify their plunder and sanctify their blood sacrifice. Jesus made physical space for a new Beautiful Spirit. We can create and share with others that same space. In that Beautiful space we can relate as a free person, move as a free energy, effect a free agency. We can live in light and in radiance with the Beautiful Spirit.
“There’s a street where the Beautiful One is known to take a stroll. When a certain radiance is noticed through the latticed windows of that neighborhood, people whisper, The Beloved must be near. Listen: open a window to God and breathe. Delight yourself with what comes through that opening. The work of love is to create a window in the heart, for the breast is illumined by the beauty of the Beloved. Gaze incessantly on that Face! Listen, this is in your power, my friend! Find a way to your innermost secret. Let no other perception distract you. You, yourself, possess the elixir, so rub it into your skin, and by this alchemy your inner enemies will become friends. And as you are made beautiful, the Beautiful One will become your own, the intimate of your once lonely spirit. (Open the Window – Rumi)
Prayer: Spirit, I receive your Beauty
Question: What is taking up space that I need to clear out so I might receive the Beautiful One?
March 03, 2024 Gospel John 2:13-25 Third Sunday of Lent