Bleachable Moments: Cleansing Our Religious Practices to Reflect the Heart of God

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Note: This article has been adapted from a sermon preached at LeTourneau University’s chapel service in Longview, Texas.

A recent advertisement shows a young boy carefully mopping the bathroom floor. His mom walks in, smiling in surprise as she watches him swish the mop back and forth across the tile. Her smile quickly turns to an expression of horror when her son rinses the mop in the toilet bowl and then continues to mop the floor. The voiceover declares, “For life’s bleachable moments,” and advertises the bleach brand.

The humorous commercial makes a startling but important point. Some things should not be misused. The purpose of a mop is to clean, and that purpose necessarily excludes certain approaches to the task. Although the boy made an innovative choice in his use of cleaning supplies, his approach contradicted the very purpose of mopping. 

We’ve always got to keep the bigger purpose in mind when making important choices.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus rebukes the temple leaders for the innovative choices they have made in running the temple. They may have had good intentions, but their practices contradicted God’s purpose for the temple. Luke 19:45-48 reports:

When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling. “It is written,” he said to them, “My house will be a house of prayer; but you have made it a den of robbers.”

Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him. Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words.

Prior to this passage, Luke describes Jesus traveling toward Jerusalem. Although the name of the city means, “Foundation of peace,” as Jesus approaches the city, he weeps over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes” (19:42).

The people of Jerusalem should have known what would bring them peace. The Hebrew idea of “peace” comes from the word shalom, and it means so much more than the absence of violence. Peace is about wholeness and well-being. It implies good relationships and material prosperity. When you have shalom, everyone in the community is cared for. 

But for Jesus, he enters the city that is supposed to be the Foundation of Peace, and there is none of this kind of shalom. The various groups within Judaism argue about how to keep the law, what the messiah will be like when he comes, when he will come, and how they can define “neighbor” so that the Levitical call to love your neighbor only includes other Jews who hold the same beliefs as they do. This is not the city of shalom.

Jesus predicts the destruction of the city “because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you” (19:44). They are so focused on their in-fighting that they fail to see the messiah bringing God’s shalom into their midst—a messiah who heals the sick, frees the oppressed, and provides for the needs of the people, especially their need to be forgiven and cleansed of their sins. 

It will be hard for them to ignore Jesus, however. During this last week of his life he acts like one of the prophets of old—performing prophetic sign-acts that illustrate the word of God for the people of God. Jeremiah used broken pottery to symbolize God’s judgment on the people. Isaiah walked through the streets naked for three years to show how the Israelites would be led as slaves, naked, into the hands of the Assyrians. Hosea married a prostitute to symbolize Israel’s unfaithfulness to God and God’s patient love for his bride. And now Jesus chases out of the temple those who are selling goods in the outer courts. How do we make sense of this prophetic sign-act?

Although Luke only says that Jesus was “driving out” the sellers, the other gospels paint a fuller picture of the chaos. Jesus was flipping over the tables of those who exchanged money, emptying their bags of coins, cracking a whip at the feet of those who sold animals, and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. The religious leaders who ran the temple—who had approved the marketplace in the temple courts—must have been livid about this staggering, tumultuous interruption of their planned events.

After all, the activities taking place in the emple were necessary ones. Anyone coming to Jerusalem for the Passover festival—and that would be thousands upon thousands of Jews—would need to purchase animals for sacrifices and for the Passover meal. These same Jewish visitors would also need to pay the annual temple tax while in town. But they couldn’t use the coins that the Roman Empire issued—coins that contained the image of emperor Tiberius and the inscription, “Son of the deified Augustus.” You simply couldn’t bring into God’s holy temple coins that promoted a false god! If you were going to protect the holiness of the temple, then money changers were needed to exchange the Roman coins for the temple shekel. Both animal sellers and money changers provided important services for the temple.

So why on earth does Jesus get so upset? 

To understand his message, we have to put a finer point on what was happening in the temple. During this time period, the high priest Caiaphas introduced a new market for selling animals. Perhaps he had good intentions—competition would help the Jewish pilgrims by driving down prices. Some scholars, however, suggest his intentions were not so good—Caiaphas may have been punishing his political rivals who sold their wares on the Mount of Olives. In either case, this new market was placed in the Court of the Gentiles—the outermost court of the temple, and the only place where Gentiles could come to worship Yahweh; they were not allowed any closer to the holy temple, on penalty of death. The high priest’s actions meant that foreigners no longer had space to worship the one true God.

There is also some indication that by the first century, the chief priests required the temple tax to be paid only in the form of the Tyrian shekel. This was problematic, however, because that coin included the image of a pagan god. Why would Jewish leaders allow this? Because the coin had the highest content of silver of any coin. Profits trumped pure worship.

In addition, the moneychangers may have been charging an exorbitant fee to exchange the Roman currency into the temple shekel. New Testament scholar Darrell Bock notes that some of the built-in surcharge likely was given to the high priest’s family. “In Jesus’ view,” Bock says, “the temple has become an excessively commercial enterprise, not a place of worship and prayer” (Luke, New International Version Application Commentary, 1996, 500).

Just like a mop can only do its job if you use clean water—not toilet water—so, too, the temple can only serve as the holy house of God if the activities within bring honor to God. 

Now we have a better sense of why Jesus was upset. This is not Jesus getting up on the wrong side of the bed. This is not Jesus having a bad day. This is Jesus, in righteous anger, defending the temple as a place of right worship and holiness. 

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. As he “casts out” the sellers (Luke uses the same word for “casting out” demons), Jesus quotes from the Jewish Scriptures, “My house will be a house of prayer”; and he declares that the sellers have made it “a den of robbers.” The Jews will recognize that Jesus combines a passage from Isaiah and a passage from Jeremiah in offering his critique of the temple. This choice of passages is not coincidental. 

When Jesus says, “my house will be a house of prayer,” he is quoting Isa. 56:7. Chapter 56 begins with the prophet’s call to “keep justice and do what is right”—which many scholars see as a summary of the covenant requirements (see, for example, Gilberto Lozano, Isaiah 40-66, New Beacon Bible Commentary, 2020, 186). The concepts of justice and righteousness are closely related and frequently appear together in Scripture. Justice is about setting things right when God’s shalom is lost. Often a legal remedy is required to restore wholeness, and “justice” captures this idea (Bethany Hanke Hoang and Kristen Deede Johnson, The Justice Calling: Where Passion Meets Perseverance, 2016, 20). Closely related is the concept of righteousness, which in the ancient Jewish context emphasizes flourishing and abundant life. It is about right living—that is, when people of the community live in right relationships with one another (The Justice Calling, 20-21). Hoang and Johnson describe it this way: “As an integrated, holistic understanding of what it means to live rightly, loving others and following God’s rules are both essential to living in a deeply connected way with one another as God intended…. Righteousness is not about an abstract moral standard to which we need to adhere perfectly but rather about living faithfully in each of our relationships” (The Justice Calling, 21). The OT commands to do what is just and right repeatedly emphasize the need to care for those whom Nicholas Wolterstorff calls “the quartet of the vulnerable”—the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, and the poor. These were the most vulnerable in ancient society, and so they were most likely to be victims of injustice. As Hoang and Johnson describe it, “God calls his holy people to seek justice on behalf of those living farthest from his vision of shalom so that all in the community might flourish” (The Justice Calling, 27).

Isaiah 56 specifically emphasizes the foreigner who comes to God in worship. The Israelites had long taken pride in their identity as the elect people of God, receiving God’s favor and protection as they faithfully separated themselves from foreign nations. But Isaiah declares that the foreigner who comes to worship God and holds fast to his covenant requirements will be welcomed and blessed by God. Thus, God’s house—the temple in Jerusalem—will be called a “house of prayer for all nations.” 

When the high priest Caiaphas allowed a market for selling animals to displace the one place of prayer for the Gentiles, Caiaphas was neglecting to do what was right—to make a place of shalom for even the foreigner—in the temple precincts. 

But Jesus did not stop there in his critique. He cites Jer. 7:11, which is embedded within a chapter warning of judgment against those who misuse the temple. God had called Jeremiah to stand in the gate to the temple and call the people to repentance for their many sins. Jeremiah tells them, “If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever” (Jer. 7:5-7). In other words, care for the most vulnerable in your midst—bring shalom throughout your community—and worship God alone, and it will go well with you.

Jeremiah condemns the people, however, because they have broken God’s commandments. He rolls off a litany of sins—half of the Ten Commandments in one fell swoop. Despite these great sins, the people of God come to the temple, trusting that they will be safe even in their wickedness because they think God will never allow his holy house to be destroyed. 

And it’s in that context in which Jeremiah says, “Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.”  There is no mistaking the condemnation in this section of Jeremiah. The next verse tells the people of God to go to Shiloh and see what God did there because of the wickedness of his people. Shiloh was an earlier place of worship that God had allowed to be destroyed. The people must not trust in buildings or institutions or long-standing traditions and assume they are safe—only those who trust in God and follow his ways shall remain standing. Those who claim religion but forget love of God and neighbor, instead bringing their wicked ways into God’s house, defile the holy place of God and turn it into a lair of thieves. If God is to protect his holiness, then he must deal with the wickedness trying to shelter in his holy house.

Old Testament scholar Alex Varughese describes one aspect of Jeremiah’s vision for true worship: 

In our social life, love for God is best displayed when we provide homes for the homeless, show care for the widows and orphans, and defend the rights of aliens in our lands. Our silence to these issues means a total disregard for the poor and the disenfranchised in the world. [Jeremiah’s] sermon reminds us that the God we worship is indeed the God who is on the side of the widows, orphans and aliens in the world. Worship that does not move us to be on the side of God on behalf of these defenseless poor is nothing more than a display of false religiosity (Jeremiah 1-25, New Beacon Bible Commentary, 2018, 118).

It is this condemnation that Jesus brings to the religious leaders when he flips tables and cracks his whip in the temple. When Jesus quotes these passages from Isaiah and Jeremiah, the leaders will hear God’s condemnation for their failure to care for the most vulnerable in society, as well as their misuse of the temple as a place of self-centered economic gain. 

The religious leaders had lost sight of what was important to God. At one time they may have had God’s shalom in mind, but by the time Jesus appeared on the scene, they were more concerned with keeping their power, authority, and economic success. Instead of seeking God’s shalom, they were seeking to kill God’s son.

David Garland describes how even Christian leaders today can succumb to the trappings of power, trying to exclude others out of fear of lessening their own power: 

Consequently, they are always on the defensive to preserve their institutional power and to resist any prophet who proclaims divine truth that would dethrone them and transform the institution. To serve selfish ends, they transmute falsehoods into accepted truths. They enforce conformity of practice and belief to reinforce their domination. They ignore the biblical mandate to show mercy and resort to injustice and call it justice. They tout a theology of glory that glorifies them. They desire to control divine power and channel it to abet their own evil purposes. This brand of leadership earns God’s judgment (Luke, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, 2011, 777-78).

Jesus’ entire ministry was a demonstration of trying to help the people of God understand what true worship of God looks like. It is not only about salvation and cleansing from our sins, but also about bringing shalom to our communities. Jesus cared for the poor, healed the sick, and freed the oppressed. Since he cared for the most vulnerable in his communities, shouldn’t we do the same? John Wesley affirmed the believer’s need to practice works of mercy, which included “feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, entertaining the stranger, visiting those that are in prison, or sick, or variously afflicted…. This is the repentance, and these the ‘fruits meet for repentance,’ which are necessary to full sanctification” (“The Scripture Way of Salvation,” III.10).

We who are leaders in the church must be willing to scrub away those traditions, practices, or institutions that are so inward-focused that they keep us from serving the most vulnerable in our communities. We need to have eyes to see those among us who are farthest from experiencing God’s shalom—whether the homeless, those addicted to drugs, the working poor, immigrants, or others who often are overlooked and exploited. Our mission statements—and our budgets—must accentuate ways that we can bring shalom to all of those whom God loves. Let us not lose sight of God’s vision of true worship: love for God and neighbor by working to build God’s shalom in our communities.

Suzanne Nicholson is Professor of New Testament at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. She is a Deacon in the United Methodist Church and serves as Assistant Lead Editor of Firebrand.