Matthew 21: 12-17
12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
14 The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. 15 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.
16 “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’?”
17 And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.
Yesterday we reimagined Palm Sunday as an act of protest, but I left unanswered the matter of what Jesus was protesting about. What happened next might begin to give us an answer as Jesus entered the temple courts and started turning the market sellers’ tables. This wasn’t a protest against Sunday trading or such like, rather it was a protest against the way children, Gentiles and disabled were being excluded, with the market tables being one such barrier to their participation in worship.
What barriers do we erect to others coming to know God? Father, help us to be welcoming to all!
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