Monday of the Fourth Week in Lent
by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK
Today’s reading from the book of Kings records an occasion when two woman who were harlots came before King Solomon. One of them said to him that they both dwelt in the same house. She give birth to a child and a few days later the other woman also was delivered. She said that the other woman’s child died in the night and she exchanged the dead child for the living child. When she woke she found it was not her child that was with her, but the dead child. The other woman said that the story was false and the exact opposite was true. “The king therefore said: Bring me a sword. And when they had brought a sword before the king: Divide, said he, the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other. But the woman whose child was alive said to the king (for her bowels were moved upon the child): I beseech thee, my lord, give her the child alive and do not kill it. But the other said: Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. The king answered and said: Give the living child to this woman, and let it not be killed: for she is the mother thereof.”
The Israelites had derived their identity as a nation from their covenant with God. They had repudiated the type of oppressive autocratic regime that they had escaped in Egypt. After they had conquered the promised land they continued to live as a tribal confederacy. But this proved difficult to sustain in the face of attacks from other surrounding peoples, notably the Philistines. They therefore requested the prophet Samuel for a king. He warned them that this would involve the loss of many of their liberties, but, as is usually the case in moments of national emergency, the people believed they needed a strong leader to protect them. The first king, Saul, was too unstable a personality to establish a dynasty. His rival and later successor, David, was a man of higher calibre, who conquered Jerusalem and made it his capital. It was under his son and heir Solomon that the kingdom successfully established supremacy in the region. It was Solomon who built the Temple in Jerusalem and who increasingly modelled himself on the type of monarchical despotism that the Israelites had escaped in Egypt. This sowed the seed for later tensions and the kingdom divided after Solomon’s death into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah which retained the Davidic dynasty.
Whatever his limitations, Solomon was noted for his wisdom. This is exemplified by the story we heard today of how, faced by competing accounts of what had happened by the two harlots who both claimed to be the mother of the same child, he told them to divide the child in two. The genuine mother was prepared to give the child to the other woman. The other showed the falsity of her claims by being willing to divide it. King Solomon in his wisdom recognised that true love is very different from possession, and the mother was the one who preferred that the child should be given away rather than harmed.
The Gospel from St. John (which we heard today) states that when the Passover was near Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple those that sold oxen and doves and also the money changers. He made a scourge out of cords and drove out the sheep and oxen from the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers. He told those that sold doves not to make his Father’s house one of trade. The Jews therefore asked him for a sign to justify his actions. “Jesus answered and said to them: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said: Six and forty years was this temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body.”
St. John’s Gospel had previously recounted how Jesus had called his first disciples from the followers of St. John the Baptist, who had pointed to him as the coming one who would deliver his people. He would baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire and would separate the wheat from the chaff. It was as the coming one of the Baptist’s preaching that Jesus went up to Jerusalem before the Passover. The prophet Malachi had looked forward to one who would come to the temple and be like a refiners fire and fullers soap. He would purify the sons of Levi that they would bring right offerings to the Lord. When Jesus drove out those selling animals and overturned the tables of the money changers he was clearly modelling himself on Malachi’s prophecy.
It has often been supposed that St. John has moved this incident in the temple from the last Passover at the end of Jesus’ ministry, where it occurs in the other Gospels, to the one at the beginning. In response to this it has been rightly pointed out that this action fits very well at the start of Jesus’ ministry when he was clearly pointing to himself as the coming one of the Baptist’s preaching. The other Gospels, which report only the last visit to Jerusalem had therefore to place the incident there as well, but St. John, as so often, gives us the precise chronological information. But the event was of such significance that it may well have occurred twice, both at the beginning and the end of Jesus’ ministry.
It is often referred to as the cleansing of the temple. But it is better understood as an acted parable of judgement. Those that sold animals and changed money in the temple precincts were not simply a superfluous commercial accessory, but performing a role that was necessary for the sacrificial system to operate. In driving them out Jesus was performing an action of powerful symbolism to demonstrate that they were now living in the days of fulfilment and the old dispensation was no longer adequate. Hence, when asked for a sign to justify his actions, Jesus told them to destroy this temple and in three days he would raise it up again. They were understandably baffled by this statement. The massive building project of restoring the temple had been started by King Herod and was still underway forty six years later. How could Jesus possibly both destroy it and raise it again in three days? It was natural for a king to build the temple. It was how Solomon demonstrated his greatness and how Herod (who clearly modelled himself on Solomon) sought to buttress his own putative kingship. How could Jesus claim to be able to do something that even they had not achieved?
It was only later, after his resurrection, that his disciples finally understood that he spake of the temple of his body. The present Jewish establishment was doomed and a new temple would indeed emerge from the ruins. But it would not be one of bricks and mortar, but the Body of Christ himself risen from dead, along with all who were incorporated into it through faith in him. It was not so much a matter of replacement as of resurrection.
Let us pray that we will continue in the faith of those first disciples, who came to understand that he spake of the temple of his body. Let us continue to believe the scriptures and the word that Jesus said.
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