Mark 11:15-18

Jesus Rejects the Temple (2) – Paralysing Activity in the Temple

Mark 11:15-18 – Jesus Disrupts Business in the Temple

15 They came into Jerusalem.
When he entered the Temple,
he began to remove those selling things and buying things
in the temple precinct.
He turned upside down the tables of the  money-changers
and the benches of those selling pigeons,
16 and prevented anyone carrying goods through the temple. 

Whatever about the Galilean peasants, visiting Jews from the diaspora could not bring with them the animals required for sacrifices. They had to buy them from dealers in the temple. Pigeons particularly were sacrificed in the process of the ritual purification of women who had borne children, the cleansing of lepers and other general purposes. In a few days, the temple would be choked with pilgrims bringing or buying lambs to be sacrificed and then eaten at the evening Passover meal.

The moneychangers, too, were necessary because overseas pilgrims needed to exchange their Greek or Roman money into currency acceptable in the temple. All Jews accepted the obligation of paying the annual temple tax, whether they were resident in Judaea or not. The temple tax had come over the years to substitute for the earlier obligation of Jews to pay tithes of their produce to support the members of the tribe of Levi who were deputed to serve in the temple and who consequently had been apportioned no land. Levites generally worked in the temple, acting as public servants and police, assisting with sacrifices, providing the music, and generally preserving law and order. They acted under the direction of the high priest and the priestly aristocracy, who, in the original vision, were themselves of the tribe of Levi and specifically of the House of Aaron.

Jesus’ action was deliberately provocative. He took on the priestly establishment right at their seat of power. His actions were not directed particularly against crooked dealings, but at the essential requirements for any worship in the temple. In preventing people carrying goods through the temple, he effectively shut down all activity, and, indeed, made the temple virtually redundant. 

17 He taught them, saying,
“Is it not written,
 
 
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for  all nations’?
 
 
You have made it a  den of thieves.”

Mark gave some indication of the reason for Jesus’ actions by showing Jesus quoting firstly from Isaiah and then from Jeremiah. Jesus was not specifically accusing the money changers and merchants of being dishonest. It was what the whole temple system represented, and the chief priests who administered it, that were his targets.

Third Isaiah, writing at the end of the period of Babylonian captivity (after fifty years of close contact with pagan culture), had written:

And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,
to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,
and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath, and do not profane it,
and hold fast my covenant - 
these I will bring to my holy mountain,
and make them joyful in my house of prayer;
their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house shall be called a house of prayer
for all peoples.
Thus says the Lord God,
who gathers the outcasts of Israel,
I will gather others to them
besides those already gathered. (Isaiah 56:6-8)

Isaiah’s prophecy was remarkable in itself, with its wonderful sense of openness. He spoke of a new temple, God’s “house of prayer”, that would welcome foreigners, as well as the outcasts of Israel. Jesus’ Galilean ministry had brought him into trouble precisely because of his ministry to the outcasts and to pagans. 

Such openness ran counter to the inevitable exclusivist tendency of most institutions. The temple was no exception. Israel’s purity laws reinforced its sense of being specially chosen. The temple itself spatially represented the special holiness of God. People with physical deformities were forbidden entry into the temple. Pagans could go only as far as the external courtyard, as could women. Within the enclosure reserved for male Jews, the Holy of Holies was off limits, and was entered by the High Priest only on special occasions.

Such exclusivism stood in stark contrast to the inclusive vision of Jesus, and his action in preventing any movement through the temple expressed a symbolic rejection of the whole system.

The positive openness of Isaiah stood in contrast to the text from Jeremiah cited by Jesus. Jeremiah had been active at the time of the first temple before its destruction by the Babylonians. For him the sin and injustice of the people had made temple worship meaningless.

Do not trust in these deceptive words: 
“This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.”
For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, 
if you truly act justly one with another, 
if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, 
or shed innocent blood in this place, 
and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, 
then I will dwell with you in this place, 
in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.
Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. 
Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal,
and go after other gods that you have not known, 
and then come and stand before me in this house, 
which is called by my name, and say, “We are safe!”—
only to go on doing all these abominations? 
Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? (Jeremiah 7:4-11)

By the time of Jesus, many Jews felt distinct uneasiness with the worship conducted in the temple. The Essenes, for example, strongly reacted against the illegitimacy of the High Priesthood that had earlier become the preserve of the Hasmonean dynasty. They had retreated to the desert where they lived in community, waiting for a definitive cleansing of the temple and of temple worship. Pharisees, too, generally, had lost confidence in the High Priesthood, and though still participating in temple worship, saw personal holiness as the priority. By the time of Jesus, the High Priest had become a Roman appointment, and the role was open to the highest bidder. 

The High Priest and the priestly aristocracy controlled the Sanhedrin, the Jewish supreme administrative council. While the Roman conquerors kept overall control of the country, the Sanhedrin took care of everyday administration and exercised its limited control as a virtual theocracy. They had accommodated to Roman occupation, and had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Jesus’ rejection of the temple was due, not just to the exclusiveness that it embodied, but also to the injustice practised by many of its hierarchy. In Jesus’ mind injustice was a betrayal of God.

18 The chief priests and scribes heard this,
and they searched for ways to destroy him.
They were frightened of him, however,
because everyone in the crowd were quite amazed with his teaching. 

Jesus’ action in symbolically closing down all activity in the temple was a flagrantly provocative gesture. It was no wonder that those with a vested interest in preserving the current state of affairs saw clearly the significance of his action and sought to remove him once and for all.

Mark maintained that Jesus' teaching amazed everyone in the crowd. Many in the crowd were undoubtedly pilgrims from Galilee, with nothing much to do until the Passover occurred. Some would have been from Jerusalem itself and the surrounding Judean countryside. The temple courtyards would have provided one of the few clear spaces in the city where people could gather. 

Jesus’ attitude to the temple possibly struck a sympathetic chord in the hearts of many of his hearers. The poor primary producers felt the burden of the temple tax. Yet it never occurred to the great majority to wonder about the system itself. 

Some of them resented the aristocracy’s easy accommodation to Roman rule. Unrest was in the air. The criminals who would die with Jesus had been found guilty of murder and sedition. Since they would be crucified, their actions were obviously seen as politically subversive. (One of Jesus’ closer disciples, Simon the Cananean, was effectively a Zealot, though the Zealot movement did not really become significant until some years after Jesus’ death). Already there were obviously some Jews highly resistant to Roman domination.

Given the presence of great crowds of Galileans in and around Jerusalem for the feast, it was little wonder that the chief priests and scribes were afraid of Jesus.

19 When evening came,
they went out of the city.

Next >> Mark 11:20-25