By Donald M. Tuttle

Jesus in a snit!

It is not the image we normally have of Jesus. We prefer to imagine him as a babe in the manger, a teacher on the seashore, a pray-er in a garden, even a host at a table. We prefer a loving, compassionate, patient Jesus. We prefer the kind and controlled Lord.

But Jesus did get into a snit every once in a while. On at least one occasion he gave the religious leaders a tongue-lashing. On another he expressed frustration with his disciples. He even cursed a fig tree that failed to produce figs out of season. And, of course, there was his most famous snit--the cleansing of the Temple. Actually it was more than a snit. It was a fit of anger. What else could we call his stampeding the cattle and sheep, tossing the money-changers tables and ordering those who sold birds to leave? Clearly he was mad.

But folks don’t generally get mad just to get mad. Usually they are responding to something, usually they are reacting to what they believe to be an injustice. And I would imagine that is true of Jesus as well. So what provoked him? What set him off that day in the Temple? What injustice did he confront?

Some have suggested that Jesus was almost literally cleaning the Temple. They suggests what angered Jesus was the presence of the animals—the cattle, sheep and doves—in the outer court. According to those who follow this line of thought, the presence of the animals was an “innovation” that the High Priest Caiaphas had brought to the Temple. He allowed the merchants to move them into the Outer Court as a way of making it easier for worshippers to find the sacrifices they needed. It is hard for us to imagine such a thing. I guess it would be like having a Bible salesman in the narthex every Sunday or maybe having an Automatic Teller Machine at the end of each pew. Whatever the modern equivalent, the idea is that Jesus saw the commercialization of the sacred, the profaning of the holy by the presence of these beast. And so he got mad and cleansed the Temple of them.

That may have been what Jesus did—confront the injustice of a Temple turned into a mall. It would certainly reflect the zeal for God’s house of which the disciples’ spoke.

But there are other possibilities. Some have suggested that Jesus was responding to the injustice of extortion.

Can you imagine being told at the church door that your bills with Washington or Lincoln, Jefferson or Jackson aren’t acceptable, but that for a small fee you can exchange them for holy tokens?

That was in broad terms what the worshippers in the Temple experienced. At Passover, pilgrims from all over Israel would come to the Temple. As part of their religious duty, they would offer sacrifices to God. But pilgrims traveling from afar wouldn’t bring animals with them. They would buy them there. But that was a problem because the money they brought was Roman. And Roman coins bore the image of Caesar or images of the Roman deities. Using such coins in the Temple was unacceptable, and thus the moneychangers. The pilgrims could exchange Roman coins for Tyrian ones, unacceptable ones for acceptable ones—but for a price, maybe even a high price.

Some have suggested that Jesus was angry because the moneychangers were taking advantage of those in need, of good people simply trying to do their religious duty. That he was confronting that injustice makes some sense, particularly in the light of the other accounts of the cleansing. In the other Gospels, Jesus accuses those in the Temple of making it a “den of robbers.” That certainly sounds like he was confronting people who were extorting money from others.

Yet I would suggest that Jesus’ anger is about more than where the cows are kept or what kind of profit the moneychangers made. There is a larger issue at stake—that issue is access to God. Jesus was angry because people were setting up barriers to keep others from the worship of God.

What angered Jesus was the fact that the moneychangers and the sacrifice sellers stood between those seeking to worship and their God. They were gatekeepers who by their practices were limiting who could and who couldn’t come before their Creator.

And that made Jesus mad!

After all, the point of his coming—of his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection—was to tear down the barriers between humanity and God. He came to destroy the walls created by sin—and here in the Temple he saw such a wall, one built in the name of the faith. And so Jesus acted. He ran out the animals, tossed the tables and ordered the rest away. He purged those standing between humanity and God so that he and he alone would stand between God and God’s children.

What took place that day in the Temple would be confirmed on the day of his death. The other Gospel writers tell us that at the moment Jesus died on the cross the curtain that was used to separate the Holy of Holies, the dwelling of God, from the rest of the Temple was torn in two. It was ripped from top to bottom, from heaven to earth. Jesus destroyed the barrier between people and God, securing forever our access to God.

What then does this mean for us? My answer is two-fold. First, we thank God for what Jesus has done. Thanks to our Lord, we don’t have to worship in Jerusalem; we can worship anywhere. Thanks to our Lord, we don’t make sacrifices; we rejoice in the sacrifice he made. Thanks to our Lord, we don’t need special moneychangers in our churches; we bring our gifts, whatever they may be, knowing that are acceptable to God. Thanks to our Lord, nothing stands between us and our God except the sin we fail to confess.

But Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple not only invites us to thank God, it invites us to get in a snit over the barriers that continue to be placed between people and God.

What barriers?

How about denominationalism, where people, including ourselves, often act as if the only Christians are those who believe as we believe or act as we act? Can we get angry enough with such arrogance that we break down such attitudes?

How about intellectualism? Can we get in a snit about those who would demand that people embrace only a carefully nuanced Jesus rather than the one who simply came down from heaven to die for our sins? Can we get upset enough to say to them that a simple faith is still faith and deserves to be honored and respected?

Or how about sociological barriers? Can we get mad because our culture has not only built barriers keeping, for the most part, African-Americans, Anglos and Hispanics in separate congregations but has built barriers between the rich and the poor, and is even today dividing young from old? Can we get angry enough about such divisions to tear down such walls?

And how about Traditionalism? I am not talking about Tradition. Tradition is good. It can be a gift from God. But Traditionalism is the blind allegiance to way we have always done it, regardless of who that excludes. Can we get in a snit because such dogmatism keeps people from experiencing the Jesus Christ who speaks to them in their own language and style?

I could go on, but the point is that Jesus has set us free to worship God and we cannot be truly happy until every barrier between humanity and God has been destroyed. As body of Christ, we need to get upset. We need to get a little angry until that vision of worship set forth in the Book of Revelation—a vision in which people from every nation, every language, every class, every conceivable part of humanity gathers before God’s throne—is lived out in our church and every church. We need to get in a snit until what is done in the church, among us, is what is done in heaven.