7 March 2021-Third Sunday of Lent – Year B

 

There is so much in today’s readings but we’ll have to settle for an elaboration of the second commandment with a slight detour via the money-changers.  I used to think of the second commandment, “You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain,” in terms of cursing or swearing oaths.  However, I’ve come to believe that to dishonour what is God’s is to dishonour God, that is, we take the Lord’s name in vain.

Sheep by Rev. Dr. Victoria Marie

We are all God’s children.  Our Creator gave us teachers, starting in biblical times with the prophets and ending with Jesus.  In post biblical times, there are men and women whose lives and writings show us that God continues to send us teachers, if we would only listen.  St. Francis of Assisi and Dorothy Day are examples of what I mean.  In St. Francis’ time, lepers were the outcasts of society, forced to live apart.  Before his conversion, Francis found lepers intolerable.  Then he decided to change his life and follow Christ more completely.  Jesus cured lepers, so Francis kissed, nursed and befriended lepers.   Dorothy Day modelled, as well as urged us to break bread with the lepers of our time: the poor, the racialized and the migrants.  What I am saying is that honouring God’s name has three components:  love God, love God in and through our neighbour, and act like we do.  When we don’t do this and call ourselves Christians, we take the Lord’s name in vain.

Roman coins, which bore the image of the emperor, were forbidden for use in the temple.  We may have heard that the money-changers exchanged Roman coins into coins that could be used in the temple.  What we may not have heard is this.  Jews from all over came to Palestine and Jerusalem with foreign currencies that had to be converted, not only into coins that could be used for the temple but also into local and Roman coinage.  Furthermore, ordinary deposits were often handed over to the Temple authorities for safe deposit in the Temple treasury.  So, Jerusalem became a sort of central exchange mart, and the Temple vaults served as "safe deposit boxes" for every type of coin.  The money-changers also served as bankers, and would receive money on deposit to invest and, contrary to Jewish law, would pay out interest at a fixed rate.  Thus, the money-changers were: (a) a foreign exchange service, (b) exchangers of large denominations into small ones, and vice versa, as well as (c) bankers.[1]

The temple and its grounds are supposed to be a place of worship and prayer, the house of God.  One could say that in today’s gospel, Jesus is reacting to an expanded meaning of what comprises taking the Lord’s name in vain.  Turning the Temple into a marketplace and bank makes God into the Jerusalem’s banking CEO.  That is definitely taking the Lord’s name in vain by renaming God as the ultimate Palestinian banker.

Gen. 1:26 says in part, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.  Today, when the world needs unity in diversity and inclusion, we see the rise of racism, xenophobia and scapegoating.  The rise of these evils is a symptom of amnesia about who each human being is, that is, we forget that each human being is a child of God and an image and likeness of God.  Hateful speech and acts towards another human being, an image of God, is taking God’s name in vain precisely because doing so is an attack on the image of God. 

In Mark’s gospel, Jesus summarized the first three commandments into one saying, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”[2]  So when one insults God’s name by turning a place of worship into a business concern or by treating another human being as anything other than a child of God, one has ceased to follow the Gospel.  The second commandment that Jesus gives us is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”[3] Jesus teaches us that there is no other commandment greater than these.  These two commandments sum up the ten commandments, which can be broken up into two categories: first, how we are to behave towards God and second, how we are to behave towards everyone else, including ourselves.

Which brings me to my last point, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”[4]  Therefore just as you look after your family and friends, take the time to look after your own spiritual and physical health.  This Lent instead of giving something up, do something, start eating something, create something that is beneficial to your bodily health.  Lent is a good time to begin to take sabbath time out to give your body rest from the hustle and bustle of daily life.  Take the time to love yourself.  It is unlikely that you will take God’s name in vain if you love God, love yourself and love your neighbour.  The Spirit is always with you and the Spirit in me honours the Spirit in you.  Amen.

 

Please share your thoughts.


[1]  Encyclopedia Judaica (2018), "Money Changers"   http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/money-changers

[2] Mark 12:30 (NRSV)

[3] Mark 12:31 (NRSV)

[4] 1 Corinthians 3:16 (NRSV)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2023-06-04_Trinity Sunday_Pride Month

Image
Trinity Sunday_Pride Month June 4, 2023   Today is the Feast of the Holy Trinity.   June is both Pride Month and Indigenous Peoples Month in Canada.   Today, I used one of the bible translations accepted by the English-speaking Church because I want to share with you how word choice can limit inclusive and creative thought.   Due to the patriarchal culture of the time, God is addressed as Adonai or Lord in speaking to God, with only the first letter capitalized, as is used by Moses’ prayer in the first reading.   The word LORD in all caps is used six times in today’s first reading.   The name of God used most often in the Hebrew Bible when speaking of God is the Tetragrammaton , romanized as YHWH .   However, the Jewish people traditionally do not pronounce it, and instead refer to God as HaShem , literally "the Name".   This conveys that God cannot be reduced to a “he/him” or a “she/her”.   The culture of our time allows for the use of non-gendered, all-encompassing wo
Read more

7 July 2013 – 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Image
Shared Homily Starter First Reading: Isaiah 66.10-14 Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 62 Second Reading: Galatians 6:14-18 Gospel: Luke 10.1-12, [13-16], 17-20 Today’s gospel is about evangelization.   The word, “evangelization” has become, for many of us, a word that sends up red flags.   This is because, unfortunately, for almost two millennia, evangelization has been used more as a weapon than as an invitation to follow Christ’s example of peace and love.   Let’s examine evangelization from Jesus’ perspective.   He knows there are plenty of people out there who would be open to hearing the Good News.   He also knows that there are plenty who don’t want to hear it.   But Jesus sends out his disciples like lambs into a sea of wolves.   We live in a culture of ravenous consumption and accumulation.   We seek to accumulate more and more money, more and more power and more and more ad nauseam.   The more we have, the more we want and more we have to get; the more we get t
Read more

The High Cost of Free Trade for Indigenous and Afro-Colombians

Image
Victoria Marie, PhD Presented at the Racial Violence and the Colour Line of the New World Order Conference Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia April 2, 2005 The power of spreading the word… When governments speak they don’t speak the truth. Plan Colombia is not addressing social probems but spending more on war, which seems to have the aim of eliminating the civilian population (OFP, 2004) . Introduction Colombia has been in a state of civil war for the past 40 years. The combatants are the legitimately armed actors, such as the army and police; paramilitaries, who protect the interests of legal and illegal businesses; and two major groups of revolutionary forces. However, it is the civilian population that is most adversely impacted from the ongoing conflict. They are endangered by the warring factions, who routinely murder, displace or conscript them. The aim of this paper is to explore how this conflict and economic policies have adversely affected the people of colour in Col
Read more