Homily

“The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” This is how the Gospel passage we heard starts as if to remind us too that Passover is drawing near. Through the Liturgy, with maternal concern, the Church once again unites us to the group of disciples accompanying Jesus who goes up to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. Three weeks have passed since we were called to start our journey. We cannot but ask ourselves once again: are we faithful to the path that was proposed to us? And more, how far have we gone on the Lenten journey till today? It is easy also for us, as it was for the disciples then, to focus more on our concerns than those of the Gospel, slowing our pace and getting farther from the thoughts of the Lord. Indeed every time our “self” prevails, every time we follow primarily our reasons, we get far from the Lord and from his brothers and sisters. But the Lord comes back to speak to us. In the Holy Liturgy of the Day of the Lord we are immersed again in the itinerary that the Word of God shapes for us. We are not a people who walk without words or a destination to reach. If anything, we should ask whether the light of this Word continues to shine before our eyes. Faithfulness to the Lord is to remember every day his Word. The Lord does not fail to provide us with the light that enlightens our steps.
The reading from Exodus reminds us of the “ten words” God gave Moses on Sinai. They were the first words that the Israelites heard. And maybe they were the first we also heard in our infancy. The Ten Commandments, looking at them attentively, however, are not simply a series of high and universal moral norms. They are much more: in them is expressed the entire fundamental content from which are derived the whole of the law and the prophets, in other words, love of the Lord and love for one’s neighbour. The two tablets are tightly connected one another, and express this double love that must form and govern the itinerary of believers. Through them we are guided to the goal. However we all know how easy it to get distracted from love, and not having the goal in front of our eyes, become prey to that other lord who continues to hinder our life. In his first letter Peter reminds Christians to be sober and watchful – this is what Lent is! – “Discipline yourselves; keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith” (1 Pt 5:8-9).
In today’s Gospel the evangelist John presents to us the first trip of Jesus to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover as if to make us enter from now to our destination. One could even interpret the scene of the expulsion of the sellers in the temple as a manifestation of jealousy on the part of Jesus. Moreover, does the prophet not say: “Zeal for your house devours me,” to the point of jealousy? Jesus, once he saw the temple invaded by vendors ?the evangelist notes? made a whip out of cords and began to whip them, overturning their benches. It is a Jesus particularly hard and resolute; he cannot tolerate that God’s house be contaminated, even if it is a matter of small and even indispensable transactions. Jesus well knows that in a temple where these small transactions are accepted, it can get to the point that even the life of a man can be sold for a mere thirty silver pieces. But what is the market that scandalizes Jesus? What is the buying and selling that Jesus cannot bear? Are our churches truly places of prayer and encounter with God or are they sloppy and full of confusion? In the same way it asks those with pastoral responsibilities to care greatly that they and their communities do not become gyms for their egocentrism and interest, or for whatever does not concern “ zeal for the house of the Lord.”
There is another market to which it is important to pay attention: it is that which happens in our hearts. It is a market that scandalizes the Lord Jesus even more because the heart is the true temple in which God wants to dwell. Such a market has to do with the way one conceives and conducts one’s life. How often is life reduced to a long and greedy buying and selling process, no longer with gratuitous love! How many times do we witness, beginning with ourselves, how gratuitousness, generosity, kindness, mercy, pardon, become more and more rare! The iron law of self-interest, or that of the group or nation, seems to inexorably preside over human life. All of us, some more and some less, are busy dealing for ourselves and for our profit; we do not care whether from this practice the poisonous weeds of arrogance, insatiability and voraciousness stem. What counts is our personal profit at any price.
Jesus once again enters into our life, as he entered the temple, and turns this primacy upside down; he throws up in the air the little benches of our petty interests and reaffirms God’s absolute primacy. It is the zeal that Jesus has for each one of us, for our heart, for our life, that it might open up to receive God. This is why every Sunday becomes like the scourge which Jesus uses to change hearts and lives. Indeed, each time that small book is opened, it expels from the heart of those who hear their attachment to self, and overturns the tenacity to pursue every which way our own affairs. The Gospel is the “double-edged sword” of which the apostle Paul speaks that cuts till the marrow in order to separate us from evil. Unfortunately, it often happens that we place ourselves on the side of those “Jews” who are scandalized, seeing a “layperson,” as Jesus, was in the sacred precincts of the temple, and demand a reason for such an abrupt and “irreverent” intervention. “What sign can you show us to do these things?” they ask Jesus. It is the deaf opposition that we still put before the Gospel when it intrudes in our life. Evil and sin, pride and selfishness seek all means to hinder the invasion of love in the life of the world. And yet it is precisely in accepting the Lord’s love that we find salvation. It is now more necessary than ever to let ourselves be scourged by the Gospel in order to be freed from the law of the marketplace, and thus enter into the temple of love which is Jesus himself.