Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. (John 2:15)

“Money don’t get everything, that’s true

What it don’t get I can’t use

I want money - that’s what I want

That’s what I want. That’s what I want”

That’s a wee snatch from a song called “Money” by The Beatles. This is the third Sunday in Lent and I want to talk to you about money. And no, this isn’t an advert for a credit card.

I remember when credit cards were a pretty new thing. Access cards were marketed as “your flexible friend” that “said more about you than cash ever can.” Let’s look at this credit card. With this I can but thousands of pounds worth of stuff. But what are those pounds? Where are they? They’re not here - this is just a cheap bit of plastic. What is money? If I use the banking app on my phone I could check my bank account and let’s say it said I had £800. Where is that? The fact is that it’s just a number stored on a computer. If I pay someone the computer reduces the number. If someone pays me the computer increases it. That’s all money is - numbers on a spreadsheet. 

And yet it has such power. Jesus knew that. One of the things about Christianity is that it’s led many  Christians like Saint Francis of Assisi down the ages to embrace poverty and I totally get where they were coming from; but we shouldn’t deduce from that that money is unimportant or irrelevant. Jesus spoke about money more than pretty much any other physical aspect of the world. Jesus knew fine well how powerful money is - that money talks. He knew fine well the way money can come to dominate peoples’ lives. He knew fine well the temptations it puts in peoples’ way, and I’m not talking bribery and bank robbery here; just the temptations we all face. The temptations of the market.

So what’s going on in this passage? The cleansing of the Temple is described, in remarkably similar terms, in all four gospels so it clearly made an impression. Forget“gentle Jesus meek and mild” here - Jesus takes a whip of cords here and drives money changers and sellers of cattle, sheep, doves from the Temple courts. There are some scholars who think that this is an enacted prophecy; that Jesus is performing, in some kind of ritual way prophecies regarding the Messiah. Maybe, but I don’t think so. I think he’s come into this place and seen, placed side by side with the power of God, the power of money. The power of the market.

So what has he seen? Cattle, sheep, doves being sold. If you came to the Temple, there were all sorts of reasons why, according to Jewish law, you’d be obliged to offer a sacrifice. Herding or carting animals to Jerusalem from the boondocks of Galilee wasn’t necessarily a viable option so you’d rely on having to buy your sacrifice when you got there. We are deeply into seller’s market territory here. You’d also come to pay your Temple tax.That had to be paid in shekels. You’ve only got drachmae - or whatever currency was circulating in Galilee? That’s what the money changers were for. You had to change your currency and everyone knows you don’t change your currency at the airport.

Do we imagine that these traders - however honest they may have thought themselves - weren’t tempted to charge top-dollar for the sacrifices people felt obliged to buy? Do we imagine they weren’t tempted to rack up the exchange rate on the shekel? Do we imagine they weren’t tempted to lure the poorer pilgrims into debt: “You want a dove? Really? A fine gentleman like you should surely be sacrificing a lamb. Come - I have a few I want to show you.” None of it illegal, of course. And none of it stuff we don’t see in our own times.

So maybe Jesus sees all this and he sees the fine Temple that Herod has rebuilt. So huge. So majestic. Herod built big and impressive to show how important and how powerful he was; to show that he was top dog. And there’s another temptation that money throws in our path - to keep up with the Joneses. “Oh! So the Romans have built an aqueduct: wait until they see mine!” Darling the neighbours have got a new conservatory…” Right there - that’s the power of money and the temptation of the market.

And maybe Jesus is looking at this fine edifice and thinking “where did the money come from to let Herod make so glamorous? It came from taxes; often on folk like those getting shafted by the money-changers - often the poorest members of society. The folk who, today, ultimately pay the wages of glamorous film stars or footballers or influencers -whatever that means. But hey - that’s the market.

That’s the power of money. Think we’re immune to its temptations? Think money doesn’t matter all that much to us? That’s the most subtle and beguiling of all its temptations. If we think that then it generally means we’re well off enough not to have to worry about it. We aren’t poor enough to have to worry about whether we should eat or put the heating on in winter. We aren’t poor enough to have to worry about whether we’ll be able to pay the rent or the mortgage this month. We aren’t poor enough to have to spend hours shoving our hands down the backs of sofas looking for that fiver.

But every few years we find ourselves in the market place, standing with a pencil in our hands, ready to mark a cross - a cross of all things - to indicate who will govern us. How often are we faced with the choice: do I vote to make sure no one has to choose between food or warmth, or do I vote to reduce my taxes? Your vote is a commodity to be bought and sold. This is the power of money. These are the temptations of the market.

But back to Jesus and what drives him to do what he does. Maybe it’s this: you’ve got the power of money right next to the Temple - the place where God is believed to dwell. You shouldn’t need to finance your visit with God. You shouldn’t need to bargain with traders to enter his courts. You shouldn’t need to cough up cash to come to church - there shouldn’t be an entry fee because what God offers money can’t buy. What God offers, without regard for your wealth, your status, your title  or anything money can offer is love.

Love has no price. It is, quite literally, something you can’t buy. That’s maybe why Jesus acts the way he does; it’s the realisation that none of these things - the cattle, the sheep the doves, the money, really matter in the eyes of God because you can’t bargain with God: you don’t have anything he needs. There is no marketplace with God. You can’t haggle with God.

Nor do you need to. Love, to be love, has to be free. To love is to be free from the power of money; the power of selfish greed. It is to be free to love one another; to care for one another and make sure that no one goes cold or hungry or without a roof over their heads. It is to be free to be bound: bound to one another in the love of God

I started with a Beatles song. I’ll leave you with another:

“I don’t care too much for money. 

Money can’t buy me love.”