Holy Week: "The Seats of Them Who Sold Doves"

 

The story of Jesus flipping tables of the money changers at the temple is part of the Holy Week story, as I pondered on last year. This year, at the prompting of a Jewish person I follow on social media, I explored the significance of the Old Testament passage Jesus quotes in the story, as told in Matthew 21:12-13. Because of that prompting, it made me consider the second group that Jesus targets with his anger, whom I had never before considered: "the seats of them who sold doves."

 12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,

13 And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.

The "den of robbers" from Jeremiah 7 references a time when the worship of the Jews had become casual, specifically to repentance. They viewed sacrifices as a license to sin, thinking that the temple would cover them with its inherent holiness.

3 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place.

4 Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these.

5 For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour;

6 If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:

7 Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever.

8 Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit.

9 Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not;

10 And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?

11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord.

This is the condemnation Jesus is delivering to his people in his day. They must give true sin offerings not just according to the Law of Moses, but in the spirit of that law. They must offer with the lamb, kid goat, or two doves real contrition for wrong doing and a sincere commitment to change their behavior. Sacrifices that fail to change souls are a waste of time, life, and money.

I wonder also if there was an abuse of the dove sacrifices specifically. Examining the accusation Jesus Christ is leveling through this additional context, there are some possibilities to consider. One is that the doves were being used in sacrifices and offerings to foreign gods. Another possibility is the doves were being used inappropriately as sin offerings by those without the right. Doves were prescribed as low cost alternatives for those without the means to rear or buy a lamb or kid goat. Those with the means had a responsibility to use a lamb or kid goat at increased cost. Choosing to use doves instead nullified a measure of sacrifice prescribed by the law. It disregarding both the letter and spirit of the law through self-justification. Either or both would explain why the seats of the dove sellers were also overturned with the money changers.

The abuse of sacrifices defiles the temple, robbing the sacrifices of any power they might have held. The temple has no holiness of itself, deriving its holiness from the people within, from their faith and consecration. If they don't come bearing true faith and genuine sacrifices, the temple loses its power. It becomes empty of holiness and full of the robbers and thieves who openly steal that holiness.

That is the intent of Jeremiah 7. It condemns the specific behaviors and attitudes that were defiling the temple, making it a den of robbers. Jesus echoes those condemnations because the Jews of his day were repeating the mistakes of the past. While I have long thought about how the money changers had done this through short changing and bribery to the priests, I hadn't considered how defiling the sacrifices would also be a reason for Jesus to interrupt the business of the temple.

Easter is an important time to celebrate the gift and sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It's also a time of reflection upon the offerings and sacrifices we make in our own faith. Do we honor and perform them with the correct method and the right spirit? Do we seek to overcome those weaknesses in ourselves, or make excuses that we've done enough? 

Especially with Latter-day Saints in our temple worship, do we bring the sacrifice of a broken heart and contrite spirit, resolved to lay aside our sins in the genuine spirit of repentance? Or do we make excuses that because we qualify for a temple recommend, there's nothing else we need to do to improve? Like our predecessors, do we use the temple as an excuse not to repent? Do we oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow? Do we trust in lying words? Do we teal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely? Do we worship false gods and put our dedication to those who would make themselves gods?

I can't think of a better time for reflecting on these questions than now. As immigrants in my country are being forcibly and wrongfully sent across the world to suffer in concentration camps from a malicious and corrupt administration, it's an important time for my community to consider what oppressing the stranger means.Who has this administration made widowed and fatherless already? What should repentance look like for those violations of divine law? And how do we encourage our own to consider that just because they qualify for a temple recommend does not mean that God will forgive them automatically for the violence they've supported and defended from this administration.

Repentance is the place to begin Holy Week because repentance is a necessary, precursory step to coming closer to Jesus Christ. It was for those who followed him in life, and it remains so for those who follow him still. And in the texts we have to study during Holy Week from the Old and New Testaments, we have a rich history to consider of what that repentance should include.

I'm especially grateful for the direction from Jewish people on the correct interpretation of the New Testament from closer examination of the Hebrew Bible. Interfaith interactions are ones I seek out specifically because we have so much to learn from each other on the worship of the God of Abraham and the meaning of scripture. We come much closer to the truth when we learn from each other than when we remain isolated in our own beliefs.