I AM MATTHEW, AND I was one of the twelve. I saw miracles, and healings, and one incident that I will never forget. It all began when I was sitting in my tax collectors booth in Capernaum, when a man walked up to me and said “follow me.”
I was compelled to do so, not out of curiosity, but there was something in his tone that made me get up and go, without asking to where or why.
I have never looked back. I was in a dead end job, contemptible in the eyes of my employers and reviled by my own people.
‘Publican’ was the title given me by the Roman empire, for whom I collected taxes, although ‘traitor’ was the most common slur I heard when my fellow countrymen spoke my name.
They had no higher regard for me than a thief or robber. Those in my profession had the reputation of having some of the collected tax money “stick to their own fingers.” And to my shame, I don’t deny having done this myself.
Buyers and sellers
In my previous profession, ostracized by my own people, there were only a few who would even associate with me. So I spent a lot of time with the dregs of society. And they taught me all the tricks.
I learned that at least some of the merchants had two sets of weights, one for buying and one for selling. And I learned the art of placing a thumb on the scales without it being noticed.
I had been taught that you could grease the palm of the high priest, for instance, to receive preferential treatment and be assured you had no competition, and then you could set the market price for essential goods.
Here’s an example: A week or more before the Passover, buy up every dove you can find, regardless of what you have to pay, and bring them to the temple to sell. The usual sacrifice offered is a lamb, but those who could not afford one could provide two doves, or pigeons. Once you have gained a monopoly you can charge whatever you want for them, and thereby prey on the poor and the widows who could not afford a more substantial sacrifice.
Passover celebration
In Jesus’ day, Passover had developed into a national pilgrimage holiday centered in Jerusalem, with priests managing thousands of sacrifices in the temple.
Two things were essential for the out of town worshiper: an animal to sacrifice and temple coins with which to pay the temple tax.
Merchants were preying upon travelers who could not bring any sacrificial animals with them, charging them high prices for pigeons, sheep or cattle.
Money changers
The temple tax was the duty of every male Jew who came to the temple to worship, to pay half a shekel for the ‘upkeep’ of the temple.
And it had to be paid in the coin of the realm. A group of unscrupulous merchants set up shop in order to exchange foreign currency, and they would manipulate the exchange rate to their own benefit. Commerce turned to exploitation.
And their presence in the temple courts, along with the buyers and sellers, kept out many who had come long distances to worship!
What is the worst part of this whole situation? The leaders of the Sanhedron, the religious elite, allowed sellers and money changers into the court of the Gentiles, claiming the profits brought in would go toward the maintenance of the temple, when in reality they were lining their own purses.
This total disregard for the purity of God’s house stirred up Jesus’ passion to defend it. And it made Him angry. Really angry, in a way I had never seen before.
Cleansing the temple
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.”
— Matt 21:12,13
•••
Maybe ‘angry’ is not the best word to describe how Jesus acted. This man whom I had never seen raise his voice suddenly became enraged! At first, Jesus’ behavior seemed rash, out of character. But this was not a case of simply losing His temper — it was Him taking a firm stand against this evil taking place in the house of God.
Righteous indignation.
A week later he was dead, turned over to be crucified by an angry mob, no doubt some of whom had been chased out of the Temple that day.
•••
This was not the end of the story, of course, as Jesus was raised from the dead and I saw Him again in the upper room. Dead, yet raised back to life.
In some ways this is the same thing that happened to me, my redemption arc; I was dead in my trespasses and raised to new life through the power of the cross. All that was required of me was to respond when Jesus said “Follow me.”
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