Pollution

Matthew 21:12-17 “Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of thieves.'" 14 Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. 15 But when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple and saying, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" they were indignant 16 and said to Him, "Do You hear what these are saying?" And Jesus said to them, "Yes. Have you never read, 'Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have perfected praise'?" 17 Then He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and He lodged there.”

Sin pollutes the temple. Pollution is unwanted and unnatural. It doesn’t belong. If something is polluted, its intended purpose is corrupted, mixed with that which does not belong.

I grew up on the North Fork of the Kentucky River in Breathitt County, Kentucky. My parents were part of a home mission group where they served as dorm supervisors, teachers, and administrators. Eventually my father became the president and CEO of the organization. My first 16 years of life were lived in our family apartment in the boys’ dorm.

I grew up roaming the hills, creeks, and hollers surrounding the campus. My brother is only 20 months younger than I, so we were playmates and best friends. One year for Christmas, Dad and Mom gave us .22 caliber single-shot Marlin rifles. We were about 15 and 16 years old.

We could buy a box of 100 long-rifle shells for a few dollars at Maloney’s Discount Store in the county seat town of Jackson, Kentucky. Our pockets filled with shells, we made our way to the North Fork of the Kentucky River. The river was spanned by two bridges in our community. The first was a low-water bridge that Raymond Swauger had built in the 1950’s. The bridge was flooded about 6 months out of the year. The second was a high-water, steel-cable, suspension bridge about one-quarter of a mile downstream from the low-water bridge. The second bridge was a walking bridge. The only vehicles that could fit across it were bicycles, motorcycles, and a tiny European car called a Simca could fit across the narrow confines of the “swinging bridge.”

The Environmental Protection Agency was slow to bring its environmental efforts to the confined mountains of Appalachia. Landfills did not exist. Instead, locals created dumps alongside the rivers and streams. Generally, a wide spot in the road next to a river bank sufficed, and a local dump was established. When the river was high, the pollution of the dump-site was swept out into its flow. The North Fork of the Kentucky River would be clogged with garbage on its way to be delivered first to Beattyville, then Irvine, Frankfort, and into the Ohio River.

My brother, James, and I stood on the swinging bridge. The whirlpools and eddies swirled below as the violent current of the flooded North Fork, brown with mud and clogged with garbage swept past beneath us. Our pockets were stuffed with rifle shells. Our hands held our rifles. The bolt was cold to our touch as we fumbled with the shells. One after another we chambered a shell and fired at garbage floating by. My favorite target was Kentucky River garbage swans—Clorox bottles and milk jugs. Pollution.

Jesus saw the pollution of Father’s House. It angered him. Something had to be done. He would take matters into His own hands and declare war on the disgusting pollution.

The sale of sacrificial animals (sheep, doves, and cattle) was a convenience that had been offered by the temple to traveling pilgrims. However, by Jesus’ time it had become an unethical source of fund raising for the chief priest and his minions, polluting the temple. Priests would inspect and purposely pronounce the sacrificial animals brought by worshipers as unfit for sacrifice. The worshiper was left with no other alternative but to sell their rejected animal to the temple, and buy a “fit” animal from the temple sellers at a greatly inflated price. It is probable that the worshiper’s original animal was then entered into the temple herd for later sacrifice, thus completing the cycle of fraud that so enraged our Lord.

Money changing was the next step in the exploitation process. The temple prohibited the use of profane Roman currency in the celebration of the holy. The worshiper must have temple currency in order to make a temple purchase and pay the temple tax. Roman currency was unclean and would never do. The hawkish money changers pressed their talons into the helpless flesh of their prey, gouging a grossly unfair exchange rate of Roman coins for temple currency.

It had gone on throughout Jesus’ entire life. He had observed the abuse and exploitation of the people at the hands of the powerful priests from His earliest visit. When Jesus was twelve years old, His parents realized that Jesus was missing from their northern-bound caravan. They were leaving Jerusalem after visiting temple. Mary thought Jesus was with Joseph. Joseph thought Jesus was with Mary. When the compared notes, they realized that their son was missing.

Mary and Joseph hurried to Jerusalem. Their instincts drew them to the temple mount. They searched the temple courts until they found Jesus discussing the Law with the Hebrew lawyers and teachers. Can you imagine their surprise? Their twelve-year-old son was holding his own with the wisest legal scholars of the land.

What were they discussing? What were the questions that Jesus was asking? Was he asking about the temple tax, the money changing, the sacrifices for sale? Was he asking about the theology of the atonement, knowing all of the while that He was to be the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world? Jesus was in His element at temple. The Son of God was at Father’s house. He longed for Father’s house to be clean and holy, free of exploitation, cleansed from pollution, a house of prayer.