Beware of Predators
It might surprise you that there is not much difference between today and what happened in the temple back in Jesus’ day.

One of our lessons today talks about the 10 commandments. Right after the 10 commandments, there is a list of many other rules and regulations. The following from Exodus 22:21, 25-27, comes under the subheading, “Social Responsibility.”
It says, You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt…If you lend money to my people, to the poor among you, you shall not deal with them as a creditor; you shall not exact interest from them. If you take your neighbor’s cloak in pawn, you shall restore it before the sun goes down; for it may be your neighbor’s only clothing to use as cover; in what else shall that person sleep? And if your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.

So as you can tell, it was not socially responsible to loan money to someone and charge them interest. Yet, when Jesus came into the temple, a holy place. In fact, a better reading than the one in John is in Mark 11:17, where Jesus said, “Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.”

The money changers in the temple had a racket. It was required for every Jew to pay a half-shekel each year to support the temple. However, Gentile money was the coin most commonly used, but it was refused at the temple. So then came the money brokers, agents of the priests, who furnished Jewish coins at a heavy charge. The traffic during the Jewish Passover alone cleared the priests about $300,000 a year.

So what has changed? You see many Payday Lenders. You think credit cards are bad? Here is how the Payday Lenders operate.

Payday lending (sometimes called cash advance) is the practice of using a post-dated check or electronic checking account information as collateral for a short-term loan. These loans are structured so that borrowers typically cannot pay them off, and must keep renewing them for months on end. The interest payments—about $50 each pay period for a $300 loan—never reduce the loan principal. If you got a loan every two weeks, you would pay $1,300 a year in interest. If they had 100 people doing that, it adds up to $130,000 in one year. And I’m sure many are paying more than $50 in interest.

Borrowers of payday loans are often faced with the same decision as the ancient Jews: either pay for the convenience of an overpriced good, or not have an important need met. As Jesus deemed this type of exploitation to be unacceptable during His time, we should stand up against such practices today.
Predatory lending is all over the place. You barely get into Aberdeen and you’ll see a pay day lender. You hear their ads on the radio. They make it sound it easy and painless. But once they have you, you’re hooked. Listen to what one lady said, “Different things were going on. My boss couldn’t make payroll, I was drawing unemployment, and I had just purchased a house and the AC broke down. I had four [payday lenders] at a time. I owed $1,200. Now I owe $900. They are harassing my references, my friends about my debts. ‘Can you have T. Brown contact us? Can you have her call me?’ I am in a vicious cycle and I don’t see a way out.”

When we look around us, there are many predators lurking around. How many times do we get something in the mail, wanting $5 here and $5 there? When you get a credit card, you are charged a huge fee for overdrafts. Around Valentine’s Day, the florists jack up the prices of their flowers to take advantage of the holiday. When you go to an ATM, they’ll charge you a dollar or two to get some of your own cash.

How about Christmas? What happens at that time of the year? People spend money on gifts they cannot afford. We take something that is special and allow predators to ruin it.

Weddings are another example. Think of the expense of putting on a wedding – the clothing, the food, the rentals, the limousine, the honeymoon, the invitations, the thank yous, and the list goes on and on. You put an engagement notice in the paper and it wont be long when predators will have your mailbox stuffed with their propaganda. Something special is allowing predators to ruin it.

How about our bodies? Predators know how to tempt people into promises that cannot be kept. But once they have your money, they are happy predators.

When you try to seek the kingdom of God, the devil puts road blocks in the way. So we must be strong. We must put on the full armor of God. Paul writes in Ephesians 6 10Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Jesus was against the Predatory lending in the temple and he did something about it. In rage, he turned over their tables and drove them out of the temple. That, of course, upset the Jewish officials and they asked Jesus on what authority he had to do this? His response is rather surprising. “Destroy this temple and in three days, I’ll raise it up.”

Well, that’s didn’t make any sense. The temple had been under construction for 46 years, since Herod the Great began the reconstruction of the temple. Later, when Jesus is put on trial, those words would come back to haunt him and they used those words as blasphemy.

Many times, when Jesus talks, he speaks of the spiritual world. We, as humans, think only on human terms. The disciples would not understand until after Jesus’ resurrection that the temple Jesus was talking about was his own body. Our bodies are considered a temple. It is much like a temple. A temple is a physical structure that houses a sanctuary, a lobby, an eating area, everything that is needed for a holy place of God. Our body is a physical structure that houses a heart, a mind, liver, kidneys, and everything that we need to live. Paul says that our dwelling places of the Holy Spirit.
The cleaning did not stop at the temple, it continued until his resurrection. He cleaned the temple in Jerusalem of the traders and money changers. We are cleaned by baptism, by Holy Communion, and by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And this is done in zeal. Jesus is referring to Psalm 69:9 when the disciples remembered, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Jesus’ reaction in our Gospel lesson today gets to the root of his devotion. When you have zeal, you have eagerness, your main focus is on something, it consumes you day and night. You can think of nothing else. Your zeal is on your goal. That is what happened to Jesus. He was consumed by his goal clean us. He was bound and determined to follow through with his mission. He led by example.

You may notice that he was not angry with those leading the worship service. He was angry with those using the temple as a means to make a buck. He was angry with the predators who say nothing but dollar signs in their eyes. Their zeal to make a dollar was overcome by Jesus’ zeal to clean the temple. “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

The predators are trying to make our temples into a marketplace. You see pictures of people who are perfectly toned in magazines and on television. They make you envious of what you see and wish you could be like them.

The predators are trying to make us rich. They have these “Think and Grow Rich” books and programs that promise you a lot of wealth.

The predators are trying to make you poor. They want you to borrow money from them to help ease your financial problems.

The Predator wants you to think that going to church is not important by planting a hundred different reasons not to go.

We must have a zeal for Christ. We must focus on the spiritual things and not on the earthly things. If we had even half the zeal of Jesus Christ, we steer clear of the wide path and go down the road of the narrow path – the path to heaven. Psalm 122:1 states, “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.”

Predators – beware – we have the zeal of Jesus Christ with us! Amen.