impressed by wrong things - 3rd Sunday lent B

Many times we are impressed by the wrong things.  

In our gospel today everyone is impressed by the temple, the physical temple in Jerusalem.  Construction already took forty six years.  The building must have been a sight to behold.  It was one of the most beautiful buildings in the world then, even Jesus had not failed to notice people stopping to admire the temple from afar as they passed through the Mount of Olives.  

And here was Jesus, now in the middle of the chaos after throwing out the merchants and their livestock, and after overturning the tables of money changers, saying, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up."

But the people were more impressed with the temple made of stone and mortar.  They were not impressed by Jesus who in their eyes was only made of flesh and blood.  But Jesus was saying to them, I am the temple.  You come to this temple to be in the presence of God.  But what is a temple when it could no longer help us perceive the presence of God?  What is a temple when it becomes a place unlike a market?  Thus Jesus presents an alternative - I am the temple, he said, I bring with me and I bring to you the presence of God.

Actually when John wrote this gospel, the temple in Jerusalem, the stone and mortar temple, was already destroyed by the Romans twenty years past.  Was the temple gone?  Is there no more temple then?  Can the Lord be present to us, now that we do not have a temple of mortar and stone? Yes. Because Jesus is the temple.  

Many times we are impressed by the wrong things.  And many times we are unimpressed because we do not know, we do not realize what is standing right in front of us.

When St. Augustine talked about his search for God he wrote a wonderful poem entitled “late have I loved thee.” Part of the poem read:  “This created world is glorious –katahum gid sining kalibutan, yet I could not see within, I could not see your loveliness behind all these beautiful things, I could not find the Giver in the gift.”

Psalm 69 is the psalm inserted by John to explain this ourburst of Jesus:  Zeal for your house consumes me.  Why choose this particular verse?  Psalm 69 is a psalm of lament, panalambiton.  It is a cry of somebody zealously following God all his life but it turned out nga ginayaguta sia, ginakadlawan sia, gina-ostracize sia, ginapakal-in sia because of his love, because of his zeal, his passion for God.  This is what happened to Jesus in our gospel.  His zeal for God earned him the mockery of the people, the ridicule of the people, the laughter of the people, the hatred of the people. And yet Jesus held fast.  He was not afraid, he was not ashamed, because Jesus knew that the things that impressed him were the right things, not the wrong things, but the right things.  

Many times we may find ourselves in situations where we would rather keep the practices and the opinions of our faith in private for fear that we will be ostracized, treated as weird, conservative, old-fashioned or out of date.  Nahuya kita manguros antes magkaon, natahap kita maghambal sang mga panindugan sang aton pagtuo that we are against divorce, same sex marriage, or extra judicial killings and corruption.  Today we repeat what the disciples of Jesus recalled when they saw him so passionate in his love for the Father, in his love for the temple, Zeal for your house consumes me; Lord, zeal for you house consumes me. 

When I was in high school nahuya gid ako ukon nagaka-embarrass gid ako every time mag-fiesta sang Jaro especially sa procession.  Most of my classmates then in the elementary were from Jaro, and so every fiesta, every procession, there would be that portion halin sa Commission Civil hasta sa  shrine ni Graciano Lopez Jaena  sa Fajardo, paliko sa Libertad, ara gid na dira ang mga classmates nagatilindog na da sila kag naga-udyak-udyak gid na sila kon makita nila na nila ako nga naka-gala uniform. Nagasinggitan na sila alibabes, alibabes, they gave me that name as a name of endearment.  It was then so embarrassing.  Now that I am a priest however, and we are all older, every time I come to join my classmates in class reunions they would always receive my coming or my visit as an honor.  I would always be placed at the center during photo ops and for once be surrounded by the beautiful women of my yesteryears.  I am not saying that I want these things.  I was just wondering why I was so embarrassed then.  Probably, like the people in the temple I was impressed by the wrong things.  I did not recognize then the loveliness of the vocation that I want and have embraced. Now, after almost 25 years, I appreciate what I went against in order to stand for what I believe God called me into. I appreciate what I went against – the conventions of my time, the pull of relationships, the discouragement of my father, the things I would have wanted to do but cannot do since I was in the seminary.

Zeal for your house consumes me. They may laugh now, they may shake their heads in bewilderment, but like my Jesus there are things that deeply impress me more than anything in this world.