Oh, Craps

Monday in Holy Week

 

Matthew 21:12–17 (NRSV)        Jesus Cleanses the Temple

Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.  He said to them, “It is written,

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’;

but you are making it a den of robbers.”

The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them.  But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,

‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies

you have prepared praise for yourself’?”

He left them, went out of the city to Bethany, and spent the night there.

 

I was surprised to find out that the first 7-Eleven store was started in Las Vegas, and the name is from gambling (craps). I always thought the name came from the store hours, seven to eleven.

In this reading about the cleansing of the Temple, Jesus gives us another 7/11. The 7 is the seventh verse of Isaiah 56 which concludes, “for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.”

Isaiah, writing hundreds of years before Jesus, already spoke God’s vision for creation. God’s house is a place where the concerns of all nations and nationalities are considered important. It’s no wonder God cannot be contained within the walls of some building; God’s house is greater than creation itself, but creation is the limit of our understanding.

In Isaiah 66 we hear God speaking, “Heaven is my throne and earth is my footstool.” Creation is a small part of God’s house indeed. God’s house is greater than we can imagine, and it is to be a place of prayer, a place where we raise up the needs of all peoples.

The 11, unfortunately, is the eleventh verse of Jeremiah 7. “But you have made it a den of robbers.” How easy it is to read this text and forget that we ourselves are part of the story. God’s house, the creation that is only a footstool, has become the place of war and profiteering. We work so hard at trying to get the most we can for ourselves, and we pay the price—$2.25 gasoline, $2.99 bread, young people dying for their country, and thousands who go to bed hungry each night.

There is a sigh of relief in our voices when we say those people didn’t understand who Jesus was, but do we? Jesus’ words are as frightening to us today as they were almost 2000 years ago.

Prayer

Lord, you know our needs. Help us work for the welfare of all your people. Teach us to see your face in our enemies and help us share the abundance of your footstool. Amen