Matthew 21:12-13
It might seem like a mole, a small smudge, a forgettable episode, that told in today’s gospel. When we think of Jesus we always imagine him to be very peaceful, smiling, accommodating, willing to dispense kisses and hugs to everyone, and to say honeyed phrases worthy of the best chocolates on the market. But nothing is as far from reality as this description of Jesus. Instead, he emerges in the Gospel with an extraordinarily mild, humble personality, but at the same time, strong, decisive, never duplicitous. And the episode of the expulsion of the merchants from the temple is not an exception but a gesture totally in line with His temperament. His strong gesture is not of violence against people but against a mentality, and it is enough to stop at the verbs used to understand the extent of it: he drove out, scattered, overthrew. “Drive out” is the verb that liberates those who squat in a space. In this case it is the space of the temple, God’s space that cannot be filled by those who sell and those who buy, but if anything by those who speak and those who listen. Prayer is not a place of commerce but of listening and decision-making. “Scatter” is the verb that challenges the order of those who have made their calculations and think that through them they can maneuver God and neighbor. Jesus scatters the coins that probably piled up, counted and collected were the most eloquent image of this calculation and the idea that everything has a price, when in fact Love is neither calculable nor saleable. “To overthrow” is the verb of conversion, for it consists in overthrowing a mentality. It is learning to see things from a different, contrary point of view, reversed precisely. It is then understood how this apparent violence of Jesus is not violence but zeal. It is the same zeal that animates and impassions a person as much as in front of the unhappy life of the one he loves, he cannot be quiet, but makes strong gestures in an attempt to awaken from slumber those who now seem to be dangerously asleep.
