Quick Summary:

The first lessons this Lenten season focus on the COVENANTS God initiates in the Hebrew Scriptures. This week’s covenant takes place at Mount Sinai—the Ten Words or Ten Commandments—the core curriculum of God’s Torah or teaching. In Exodus God gathers the Hebrew children, liberated from slavery, and like a caring parent gives them a set of BOUNDARIES, in which to live in relationship with God and each other. In fact, these 10 commands don’t make sense outside of a relationship with the Lord.

The Bible’s grand story—the great ARC that runs from Creation to Covenant to Exile to New Covenant to Cross and Resurrection—makes it clear that how we behave with respect to God and our neighbor, how we treat someone—whether they’re part of our tribe or not—matters to God; and it ought to matter to us.

When Jesus walks into the Temple courts in today’s gospel he sees first hand how the living spiritual core of Israel’s relationship with God has been replaced with an economic system that takes advantage of people, and makes relationship with God a secondary concern. His actions oppose what the Temple has become.

Jesus went seeking a sacred place, but what he found was a market place, a system that interposed itself between the people and the God they came to worship. And when Jesus saw this, he became outraged...