Overturned Tables

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone. John 2:13-25 

Overturned Tables

O God, the author of peace and concord
you have blessed us all so abundantly
yet we fight and bargain with the poor
daily you witness our greed and selfishness.

We live in times where normal is upended
all of us feel the tables have been overturned
none of us feel secure from day to day
we are prone to wage war against one another.

You came among us so human living and true
and could not abide the cruelty of the wealthy
the buying and selling of religious sacrifices
the denying entrance to the poor and pure of heart.

Help us to see this time as pandemic as invitation
a time to change and be redeemed by love
let us turn the tables on hate and exclusion
and may we all be temples of divine compassion. Amen