The Moneychangers

I am going to guess that there will be various takes on these two gospels.Is it the buying and selling that made Jesus mad in itself, or that the whole thing was a secular mess?Taking it literally, Jesus was mad because the church/temple is a place of worship. It is unpopular today to make churches all hush-hush and unwelcoming, but from a Catholic perspective I think Jesus could be very mad at buying and selling or any other disrespectful displays being done today. In Catholic churches there is the tabernacle of course, and usually a consecrated host signifying that Jesus is really present in the church. You are expected to behave in the manner you would if Jesus was in the room in person.Of course, you can always take the Body of Jesus out of there if you need to do something in the church, but I have never understood the big necessity of holding choir performances, baptism classes, sales and fundraisers right in the middle of the churches when there are usually 3 or 4 defunct convents and schools nearby, not to mention parish offices and social centers, school gyms, etc. All you get is a bunch of people milling around in a bad mood and totally fogetting about all the fake rituals they do when they come to church on the weekends.I don't imagine it to be the type of thing you would get condemned to hell over but in life you need some things to be treated just a little bit more seriously or it gets very hard to say 'enough is enough' and to keep the sense of the sacred in a place where everyone in the neighborhood has climbed all over the altar.It's not about God wanting us to be miserable and afraid to be human in church, but since we bother believing in this God, I think it makes sense to act like we do. You stop acting the part, you stop believing. Personally, I don't hesitae when it comes to throwing out the Avon magazines in the ladies' rooms.

Hm, sorry. Choirs can perform in church but I was talking more like when orchestras and choirs are sitting in the altar area during performances outside of services...I saw one recently and they were all screaming at each other and acting prissy. It was nice though The baptism classes make me mad because they set up tv's right next to the altar and gossip away. Unfortunately, yes. I remember growing up we had to dress up every week. Then when we got older and started running late to church for the evening mass, mom was just glad we made it. Just coming in jeans once or twice kinda left me thinking 'well, what's the point of dressing up now'? Then you start coming late, then you start skipping, and you find out nothing bad happens to you then either. Just another snap of your fingers and poof! you're a nominal Catholic.

It is like the thread 'There is a God...what now?' Do we worship Him?We humans have been in awe of the unknown for countless years. We have assumed that if there is a God He must be very worthy of worship, maybe even command worship just by being seen.Worship is not as easy to deal with in our culture as it was in the age of kings and lords. We like to think of a friendly happy God who loves us the way He made us. Still, we have things we do to show respect even for public dignitaries, like clapping, keeping quiet, shaking hands. There is no ABSOLUTE to determine the correct way to worship. It evolves and changes from culture to culture and age to age. But if we claim to believe in God and are doing things that we wouldn't get away with in the White House that might be a problem.

No, I don't think God cares, afterall it is the DOING of going to church that matters.But I think for US we lose a little when we go from doing something to the best of our abilities, to doing it in a slip-shod manner. I have never dressed up for someone to see me (well, unless there were boys in church) but I have always felt that seeing other people take their faith to heart and act decent in church is pretty inspiring.WEll, the point is that I could be sloppy because I stopped believing, or if I was sloppy long enough it would start to convince me too.

I am thinking about it Ringo. Right now it sems like you are turning it into the 'publican and the pharisee'. The two-faced-ness of the Jewish law abiders is a common theme in the gospels and Paul.Even if Jesus' reaction was more heated based on WHO was selling in the temple, I think the point is still that it was not respectful. It does make sense to say 'if some stray gentiles were in there selling stuff' Jesus might have let them off easy for not knowing.We know what we are doing when we profane God's holy churches, so you are right. That is what God finds more irritating than seeing a non-believer show up in short-shorts with her christian boyfriend.

I think you are right about the greed of the money-changers and how they forgot to act like they were even God's children the moment they saw the chance to make money, but...I don't think as per your reply that there is anything wrong with a church making money. Tithing was a law I think? and sure they all have to survive somehow. It's just, where would you set up the book shop?But there I draw the line, because I know that catholic churches have more designated 'holy' areas, and other churches might not see this passage as clean-cut in that area.