Clearing the Temple Precincts of Our Lives

Television has become very much a part of our lives. Nowadays it’s hard to find a household without a TV set. We can see TV antennae even in slum areas. The wealthy people have TV sets in every room. Little children learn to watch TV before they start going to school.

Why do we spend so much time watching TV?  Most of us watch it as a form of relaxation, and also as a rich source of information – from ABS-CBN. GMA, CNN, BBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel etc.  We watch TV for news, special reports, basketball and other sports.

But of course, TV also provides us with another notable source of information: advertisement. Studies indicate that more media time is devoted to advertising now than ever before – just count the number of channels advertising all sorts of useless products. With the increased bombardment of our senses by all kinds of information, advertisers have to work harder and harder to get our attention.  Many hour-long TV programs include 18 minutes of advertising – more than one-fourth of the total viewing time!

Moreover, advertisers pay huge amounts of money for their television ads. For example, some Super Bowl ads aired in the U.S. television cost between two to three million dollars apiece.

What are these messages that we are receiving by way of the media?

Advertisers provide us with one type of beauty.  We are bombarded with highly stylized images of beautiful healthy young people, long legs and fair skins, with sunshine, bright colors, and attractive landscapes.

Advertisers also give us countless promises. If we buy this car, we’ll be most attractive to the opposite sex. If we buy this cosmetic, we’ll feel younger. If we buy this insurance policy, we’ll feel secure. If we drink this beer or this gin, we’ll be macho – “tunay na lalake.”

If we buy this furniture, our homes will be more elegant.  We’ll be with the “in-crowd” – admired by many. If you smoke this cigarette, you’ll be sexier – never mind the cancer. We know many of these promises turn out to be utterly empty.

Cars don’t make us attractive to the opposite sex, beauty products don’t make us any younger, and drinking beer does not make us more macho – only gives us a pot-belly.

Advertisers dish out seductive images of a happiness we’ll never attain. In many ways these advertising images prompt us to buy products, which simply render us more unhappy and miserable. We can never measure up to the images of the smiles, laughter, and satisfaction that we see on the TV screen.

Where do we find sources of information that provide us with new ideas and fresh visions of life without making us feel that we’ll never fully measure up to it? It is embodied in a simple message from Jesus that we hear today, “Believe in the good news.”

What is this good news? We know that it is ultimately the fact that Jesus himself, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity has come to be one of us to redeem all of God’s creation.

It is God’s ultimate promise – a promise that has already been fulfilled in Jesus’ death and resurrection. It presents us with an ideal of happiness, which is both true and attainable. It does so by presenting us with who we really are and ought to become. It is available to all of us who are ready to partake in his community of discipleship.

And what is the image of who we truly are to become?  It is really becoming like Jesus himself. Jesus is the word of God. He himself is the way to the Father. He himself is the way, the truth, and the life.

So, how do we partake in his life, his way? Today’s Gospel gives us some hints. Jesus was announced by his cousin John. John’s sole purpose was to prepare the way for Jesus; John rejected any glory for himself. He preached a conversion, in preparation for Jesus. And he preached humility; of him it could be said, “Like a bridegroom’s friend, who wants all eyes focused on the bridegroom.”

As disciples, we fix our attention on Jesus. But after his baptism by John, Jesus had to face temptations. The longer accounts in Luke and Matthew tell us that he was tempted in three ways.

First, to ignore spiritual longings by feeding only his bodily hunger. Second, to take on the power for its own sake, to be independent from God and be honored by others. Third, to be freed from all vulnerability, symbolized by having the angels support him as he falls from the parapet of the temple.

In refusing to give in to these temptations, Jesus reveals for us what our true humanity is. We are to look beyond the present need to act for the greater good. The call to resist temptation goes hand in hand with our Lenten call to penance.

On Ash Wednesday we heard Jesus’ instruction on the penitential practices of prayer and fasting. But in some ways it’s not clear why we should do penance. Why would we want to deny ourselves of good things, things that contribute to our health and wellbeing, of things that we rightfully enjoy without going to excess?

Our meditation on Jesus’ temptations can help us to see that penance is not denial for denial’s sake, but a kind of discipline. Penance makes us more open to God’s word. By disciplining our bodies and spirits, we can draw on God’s power to transform us in new ways beyond the ordinary.

The purpose of Lenten practices, ultimately, is to deepen our belief in the good news. It often seems that the command to “believe in the good news” is easy to follow.

Anyone can simply believe in something. It is often thought that the “good works” part of our faith is more difficult. But in many ways, belief is the more difficult challenge.

What concretely do we have to believe in order to believe in the good news? St. Augustine tells us that our God can bring good out of any evil we might face. He can bring good even out of the most “ordinary forms of evil,” such as our tendency to give up on our spiritual goals, to strive only for wealth and worldly success, or to despair that God is with us as we feel the bodily and spiritual weakness of aging or sickness.

To believe in the good news is to believe that God is Father to every person – and that He created each person in His image and likeness. To believe in the good news is to believe that we have an eternal destiny.

But we must always realize that this radical capacity to believe is itself a gift. We can pray for it, but ultimately, it is God’s gift. We can rejoice in it, because as God’s gift, it reveals much of who He is. And it reveals His love for us.

We share in God’s life, then, when we share in the many grace-filled gifts He gives us: our life, our commitments, our marriages, our families, our jobs, and our friendships. All of these small communities of human love mirror God’s love for us.

This Lent, we take up the penances by which we can both appreciate and deepen the good news even more. And we can begin or continue that transformation of ourselves and of others that has Jesus as its model.

There is a story of a stockbroker, who finds a magic lamp, rubs it, and shhhhh… there appears a genie, who offers him one wish – whatever he would like.

After considering this opportunity carefully, he finally makes his one request: he asks the genie for a copy of the newspaper dated one year from today. Thinking the request strange, the genie asks why he would ask for a newspaper of the future.

“Because if I can see what the stock market trading is like one year from now, I’ll be able to invest in the high growth stocks now and clean up.”

So the genie grants the request – and pop! The stockbroker is holding a copy of the newspaper of one year into the future. He quickly goes to the stock market pages. He takes note of the stocks that are doing well.

As he was scanning the stock listing, he drops part of the newspaper. As it lands on the floor, the section flips open to the obituary page. And there, to his horror, the stockbroker sees his picture.

In the temple precincts of our lives are “money changers” and exploiters – fears, ambitions, addictions, selfishness, prejudices – that distort the meaning of our lives and debase our relationships with God and with one another.

What Jesus does in the temple we must do in our lives: drive out the “money changers,” who short-change us on the time and attention we give to family and friends. Drive out the useless, meaningless, and the destructive elements that desecrate the sacred places within us where God should dwell. Drive out whatever makes our lives less than what God created us to be.