Sunday Homily 3-15-09, 3rd Lent
Readings: Exodus 20, 1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1, 22-25; John 2, 13-25
Exodus: 2nd book of the Bible & of the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible.
Date of Composition: put together ca 450-400 BCE, though elements come from 1000 BCE at least.
Author(s): Moses, no. At least 3 sources, maybe 4, e.g., the Yahweh (J) source, the Elohim (E) source, the Priestly (P) source, and even the Deuteronomy Source.
Subject Matter Today: The 10 Commandments–2 observations:
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Academics see 3 maybe 4 versions of the 10 commandments, Exodus 34 (the oldest), Exodus 20 (our selection), Deuteronomy 5 (the last)
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The versions come from the sources composing at different times, for example,
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The Yahweh Source, 10th Century BCE, therefore, Exodus 34
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The Elohim Source, 9th Century BCE, therefore Exodus 20
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The Deuteronomy Source, 7th Century BCE, therefore Deuteronomy 5
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The Priestly Source, edited all the sources in 6th Century BCE (450-400 BCE, at the end of the Babylonian Captivity). The 7 Day Creation Story comes from this source at this time.
Source: Bishop (Episcopal) John Shelby Spong
Anger Management
I think it was October last year when Rosemary & I were at DFW taking a flight to Philadelphia (probably departing out of the international terminal) to celebrate Jean Kovatis' wedding. It was a morning flight so we bought a couple of lattes to take on board.
We end up at the middle of the pack and head for our double seats in the middle of the plane on the right side facing forward. Since I like the window & Rosemary doesn't, I squeezed in first, seated myself, opened the table, and put my latte on the table. Then Rosemary begins to squeeze in.
At some point in this process her purse or arm or something hits my latte. It flips over to the right, hits the wall and my leg, tumbles down, and finally lands on the floor below the seat in front of me. I cannot see it. As fast as I can, I lock up my table, get my book out of the way, and squeeze down to pick up the paper cup, hoping that the top was still on. The top was not still on. My half gallon of latte spilled all over the carpet creating a lake of coffee with milk under the double seats in front of us.
Rosemary is still standing so she piles into the line of people waiting in the aisle and heads to the rear restrooms to scavenge paper towels. With these finally we begin to sop up the lake, apologizing to the people in front of us because of the latte lake at their feet. We succeeded pretty well under the circumstances. You could hardly tell there had been an accident.
When it was all over, finally seated and buckled in, me without my latte, Rosemary says to me, "I don't know what you got so mad about." I confess I had been steamed. "You know I do this frequently," she adds. True enough. There had been other special occasions.
I mention this little event (with Her permission) because it came to mind when I see the story of Jesus getting all steamed up at the vendors in the temple. I have to laugh. Lucky he never got married. What is he so hyped up about? Was he having a bad mood day? Can he have bad moods? Was he getting old and cranky? He apparently was about 30 at this time, which would make him a pretty old geezer for those days when most people checked out in their mid-twenties. If you look at the scene with amusement and detachment, you might want to laugh.
On the other hand, there might have been some significant reasons for anger, like:
1. he was angry because the vendors were supposed to remain in the outer courtyard and they were inching into the inner sanctum, the holy place.
2. he was angry because he was watching the vendors cheat a little bit here, a little bit there. Maybe his mom had been cheated by one of these guys 20 years ago and he still was angry about that.
3. he was angry because he saw the obsession of some of these people with money. He was seeing the Bernie Madoffs, the Stanfords, and the Ken Lays of his day.
But, note that
1. it was customary for animals to be sold at the temple. These animals were destined to be bought by people, taken to the priestly cast inside the temple, and given as a sacrifice. These people were heavy into sacrifice. The idea: I give something to Yahweh, I get something from Yahweh. Maybe it was gratitude for already getting something. The rich bought larger animals, like sheep & goats, the poor bought small critters, like a dove or a pigeon. So animals were always expected around the temple.
2. it was customary that the temple was a center for all sorts of trade. People went there for sacrifice, giving thanks, and socializing. The market naturally set up near, in, and around the temple. The markets I saw in Tanzania when I lived there were probably similar and were fascinating events. Take our farmers market and multiply, then add bushels of women chatting, snooping around for deals, and bargaining. Men are drifting around and some are running the meat market. Both men & women are selling. You tell the butcher, "I would like a kilo of that beef." It is hanging from a hook and the butcher uses a sharp knife to slice off a kilo. It gets wrapped in newspaper you bring or a piece of material you bring with you.
So why was Jesus so angry, why was I angry? We did not read about it in Exodus, but when Moses came down the mountain and found that his son Aron had built some kind of little idol and all the people were worshiping it, Moses broke the stone tablets of the 10 commandments. I don't know about Jesus & Moses, but I would suggest that I got caught off guard. I have a little trick that helps with this craziness. I would call it expectation adjustment. The idea comes not from my head, but from a man named Albert Ellis (American Psychologist, developed RET, Rational-emotive Therapy, d. 2007, 93).
The idea is that I have an expectation about how a person should behave & how things should be. If I get obsessive compulsive or as Rosemary might gently describe it, I get anal, then I can go off when the person behaves in a way contrary to my expectation. What do you think is the dynamic behind road rage? For example, I expect that truckers will drive in the lanes other than the left lane. I see trucker in left lane. I go off.
Want to fix it? Adjust my expectation. Trucker is in left lane. So what. Moses comes down the mountain and the people are messing up. Expectation. Jesus seems to have done some expectation adjustment, because faced with condemnation by the Pharisees at the end of his life he does not fight back.
How do you manage your anger?
Sources: Center for Liturgy, St. Louis U.; Alfred Ellis
AUDIO: http://mysite.verizon.net/reso7rjy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2009-03-15.mp3
Picture 1: Mass with Noah & Rosemary
Picture 2: Birthdays–Jzckie, Shiela, & JoJo
Picture 3: Wedding begins, Fred & Martha, her daughter April & best man Manuel
Picture 4: Fred & Martha share their vows