And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, “‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there. (Matthew 21:12-17 ESV).
Never let it be said that Jesus was afraid of conflict. He did not seek it; however, He did not run from it when it presented itself either. On Monday, after the Triumphant Entry, Jesus makes His way to the Temple. There He confronts the “moneychangers.” It wasn’t just the Gentiles who were being pushed to the margins by the business trade in the temple. The poor were also prevented from worshiping God as God intended.
God had commanded that no one “should appear before the LORD empty-handed. Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way your God has blessed you” (Deuteronomy 16:16-17). The place for buying animals for sacrifice and the exchange of money had always been outside the temple courts. But the religious leaders had moved the marketplace inside the temple. Worshipers were allowed to sacrifice only those animals they had bought in the temple court. Offerings too were to be of money exchanged only by the official moneychangers. Since the prices charged in the temple were higher than those outside the temple, the religious authorities were making exorbitant profits from the poor.
Matthew records that Jesus overturned the benches of the dove sellers. A dove was the offering that someone brought if they could not afford a lamb. With prices so high, the poor could not even fulfill the command not to come empty-handed before the Lord. Jesus’ point is clear. He gets angry when the poor are prevented from worshiping God. I must consider if there are any barriers that I have erected keeping people from the presence of God.