Polite conversation between church-going Christians often steers clear of an uncomfortable fact: there are very real contradictions between the four gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry.  Some seem to worry that this casts a shadow of doubt over their reliability, and struggle to explain away the differences.

The story of Jesus cleansing the temple is a case in point.  The so-called synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) locate the incident right after the Triumphal Entry.  John tells a similar story, but places it at the beginning of his gospel.  Many find it hard to believe that Jesus could have done such a thing twice.  And if he didn’t, why did John relocate the story?

Even if we were to solve that one, there’s still the disjunction between Matthew and Mark.  After the Triumphal Entry, Mark has Jesus enter Jerusalem, look around, and leave.  The next day, on his way into the city, he encounters a barren fig tree and curses it (see next post).  When he arrives in Jerusalem, he cleanses the temple.  The story of the fig tree isn’t completed until the following day, when they pass by again and tree is withered.

But in Matthew’s version, the narrative is compressed: there’s the Triumphal Entry, followed immediately by the cleansing of the temple, not the story of the fig tree.  That takes place the following morning, with the cursing and the withering happening all at once.

Someone, it would seem, doesn’t have the facts straight.  Does it matter?

To begin with, we may need to surrender the implicit modern expectation that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John should act like journalists, attempting to give unbiased and chronologically ordered reports of who, what, when, where, and why.  (And that’s assuming we believe that even journalists can do this.)  They’re not writing for the Jerusalem Times; each has his own audience and purpose, drawing upon a variety of sources to tell a story and make a point.  If they don’t tell the story exactly the same way, that doesn’t mean that someone is playing us false.

And we should keep in mind that Matthew probably had a copy of Mark’s gospel in hand when he composed his own.  That means that if we want to understand Matthew’s message to his readers, we would do well to pay specific attention to how his account differs from Mark’s.

Here’s what they share in common.  Jesus enters the temple.  He overturns the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those selling the doves that the pilgrims need for their temple sacrifice.  He quotes Scripture to the effect that the business-as-usual routine at the temple has eclipsed its essential spiritual purpose: prayer.

Matthew leaves out a couple of small details from Mark’s account.  But here’s what he adds:

The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them.  But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.  “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him.  “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?”  (Matt 21:14-16, NIV)

Those who have a vested interest in the operations of the temple, particularly during the festival, are predictably incensed that Jesus would have the gall to walk in and act like he owns the place.  But there’s more.  They’re indignant, Matthew says, because Jesus is healing the blind and the lame in the temple courts, and not silencing the children who are running around playfully using sacred messianic language they couldn’t possibly understand.  “Do you hear what these little ankle-biters are saying?” they demand, expecting Jesus to do something about it.  He gives the most infuriating answer possible: “Yes, I hear them.  And don’t you read your Bible?”

Jesus doesn’t merely quote Scripture, he enacts it.  The healing of the blind and lame are messianic acts.  Put together with Jesus’ acceptance of the praise of children, they signal what kind of kingdom Jesus is bringing: one that provides a place for the powerless, the insignificant, the marginalized.

Some scholars, like N. T. Wright, believe that when Jesus quotes Jeremiah 7:11–“you have made it a den of robbers”–he is condemning the growing insurrectionist movement of those who hope to overthrow Rome by force, and for whom the temple had become the symbol of their nationalistic pride.  If this is so, then the significance of Jesus’ care for the blind, lame, and children becomes even more pointed: the way of God’s people is not to be violence, but prayer and the embrace of humility.

For us, the threat of insurrection may not be much of an issue (though I do wonder about some of the rhetoric and emotion in the air during an election year).  But we might well ask ourselves to what extent business-as-usual pushes aside the kind of true worship embodied in prayer and a ministry of humility.

What if Jesus were to walk into our church, acting like he owned the place?  Would my table be the first to go?