He went into the temple and began to throw out those who were selling, and he said, “It is written, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!” -Luke 19:45
In the gospels, Jesus “throws out” the money changers and sellers in the temple. These men were profiting off the needs of foreign Jews who traveled to Jerusalem to worship at the temple and needed to buy an animal for sacrifice. First, these travelers had to change their foreign money, but temple money-changers charged an exorbitant amount for this service. When all was said and done, buying a dove at the temple might have been a little bit like my husband’s experience buying lemonade at the Wisconsin State Fair on a hot August Saturday last summer: he paid four times what the drink was worth.
But it wasn’t just the money changing and sales in God’s house that Jesus objected to. It was the money changers’ thievery. They were ripping people off, placing burdens on sincere worshippers who had traveled a long way.
So Jesus, defender of the poor and oppressed, is angry. John’s gospel says Jesus drove out with a whip everyone involved in the scam—cattle included.
These temple passages often come up in conversations about God’s anger at injustice, a conversation that occasionally functions as a guise for reflection on whether and how we should or shouldn’t emulate God’s anger. Enough is enough, we feel about injustice, just like Jesus. Even Jesus got violent-adjacent.
Certainly, all sorts of horrific acts of violence or otherwise dehumanizing behavior have been done in the name of God and God’s wrath. Most reasonable Christians condemn these actions. And, because we are human and marred by sin, it is wise for us to be suspicious of our judgments of others, and certainly suspicious of our impulses to punish them, even in ways deemed socially and culturally acceptable (a social media rant, incessant gossip).
Earlier in Luke 19 is the classic story of Zacchaeus, the small-in-stature tax collector who was much hated by common Jewish folk. Jewish tax collectors like Zacchaeus were in cahoots with the Romans, served as their middlemen, and extorted their own Jewish countrymen for personal gain. By all counts in Jericho the day Jesus was passing through, “Tax collector” equaled “temple money changer” equaled “sinner.”
And yet, Jesus stopped at the foot of the tree in which Zacchaeus was perched, and he said, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down because today it is necessary for me to stay at your house.”
This was not a con job on Jesus’ part. He had no whip in hand, poised to strike the sinner when he climbed down from the tree.
Why, then, was it “necessary” for Jesus to stay at the home of a sinful tax collector?
Necessary because the Creator of the universe wanted a place to sleep? Probably not.
Necessary for Zacchaeus, for his repentance and salvation? Of course.
But it was also necessary for the crowd. The onlookers.
They who were not suspicious of their judgments had complained together: “He’s gone to stay with a sinful man!” Their displeasure in Jesus’ welcome of Zacchaeus was the seed of revolt, of riot, of “just” war.
Despite the growing din of the crowd, the shame and social pressure, Zacchaeus stood before Jesus and said,“Look, I’ll give half of my possessions to the poor, Lord. And if I have extorted anything from anyone, I’ll pay back four times as much.”1
As if this were a well-timed photo op, Jesus replied, speaking both to Zacchaeus and to the crowd about Zacchaeus: “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”2
He is justified. He is your brother. He is why I came.
We’ve heard it said only God knows what’s in a human heart. Jesus recognized Zacchaeus’s hunger for God while the crowd was blind to it. Jesus recognized a man poised for repentance while the crowd saw only an enemy. Jesus saw his way into a sinner’s heart; the crowd saw only its offensive shell.
In the temple, Jesus did not invite himself to any money changer’s houses. Perhaps there were none poised for repentance. But only he would know that.
Friends, may we continue to gaze upon the face of Zacchaeus through the eyes of Jesus. May we extricate ourselves from the befuddlement, confusion, anger, and annoyance of the crowd, from the certainty of our judgments. May Jesus’ words so echo in our hearts so that we anticipate the next pronouncement that he (or she!), too, is a Son of Abraham.
Lk19:8
Lk 19:9-10
Thanks for reading! I’m a book-obsessed pastor, podcaster, author, and holistic life and leadership coach. For essays and podcasts that come straight to your inbox, subscribe to this Dear Exiles newsletter in the subscription box above. Fun fact: I’m also the author of Dear Boy:, An Epistolary Memoir and the host of the Your Pastor Reads Books podcast.
a good word!