Ex 10:1-17/ 1 Cor 1:22-25/ Jn 2:13-25
We may have heard of this book, or we may even have read this book called "Who moved my cheese?" by Spencer Johnson.
Basically, it is about how to adapt and handle changes in one's work and in one's life.
In the corporate environment, some managements have been known to distribute this book to employees during times of structural re-organization and during cost-cutting measures.
It is an attempt to portray unfavourable or difficult changes in an opportunistic or optimistic way.
But the books is not just for the corporate and working environment.
It is about change, how to handle and adapt to change, whether it is at work or in life.
Basically in the book, there are these two characters called Haw and Hem, and they live in a maze and they have to find cheese to survive.
One day they managed to find a room filled with cheese.
Contended with their find, they began to establish routines around their daily intake of cheese, and they slowly began to be complacent and arrogant in the process.
But they were unaware that the cheese supply was depleting, and one day Haw and Hem came and found that there was no more cheese left.
Angered and annoyed, Hem demand: Who moved my cheese?
They had counted on the cheese supply to be constant and so they were unprepared for this eventuality.
Still thinking that someone moved their cheese, they went home hungry and angry and they thought that the cheese would come back the next day.
And of course, when they returned the next day, there was still no cheese, and that made them even angrier and also hungrier.
Haw begins to realize the reality of the situation, and he proposed a search for new cheese, but Hem was dead against it because he was stuck to his old routine and also frightened of the unknown out there (in denial too).
But Haw knew that they had to move on, and so he chiseled these words on the wall for his friend Hem to see: If you do not change, you will become extinct.
Those were simple but profound words of truth - if you do not change, you will become extinct.
It's a truth that applies to countries, to companies, to organizations, to institutions, and as well as to the individuals.
Yes we get stuck in our old familiar convenient ways and we get threatened and become defensive when someone wants to change the way things are.
Yet we do not realize it, that when we don't change, we actually stagnate, and anything that is stagnate is as good as deteriorating and decaying.
That was the situation that Jesus found in the Temple courtyard in today's gospel.
What started out with a religious purpose, slowly degenerated into a lucrative business enterprise.
And because it was a lucrative business enterprise with a religious facade, no one dared to change anything.
What Jesus was angry about was that besides this veil of hypocrisy, there was also injustice, cheating, oppression and extortion.
And of all places, it was happening right there in His Father's house.
We have to note that what Jesus did was not out of the spur of anger and let fly His fury.
He had observed, He had calculated His moves, as He tied those cords to make a whip.
His actions were intentional, and the impact was also intentional.
Jesus intended to cleanse the Temple, and it was also intended to create a reaction from the people.
This image of an angry Jesus with a whip in His hand is not the Jesus that we like to have in our minds.
We want the sweet and gentle, caring and loving Jesus; we don't want an angry Jesus with a whip in His hand.
Because when we see an angry Jesus, we know that there is something that must be changed, something that must be cleansed, and we are not going to like it.
One of the signs that the Church is deteriorating and decaying is when the goal of the Church is to simply maintain the way things are - don't rock the boat, don't upset anyone.
As long as people are happy, then just let it be.
But not for Jesus. In order to cleanse us of the filth and evil within us, He will even bring us down to our knees.
It is the common human experience that when something bad happens, as in a crisis, and we go crumbling down to the dust, there is always a cleansing.
Because the hand that hurts is also the hand that heals.
If God whips us, it is because God wants to save us.
God wants to whip out the sinfulness in us so that we can worship Him in spirit and in truth.
There is this story about St. Jerome. He was the one who translated the Hebrew scriptures into the Latin Vulgate.
One day he had a vision of Jesus, and he was in estasy, and so he exclaimed : Lord, I want to give You all my intelligence, all my time, all my energy, my life even.
Jesus replied : No, I don't need all that.
St. Jerome became a bit upset and so he asked : Lord Jesus, what do You want from me?
Jesus said : I want your sins. Give me all your sins.
Yes, Jesus want our sins so that He can forgive us and heal us of our sinfulness.
Yet in order to hand over our sins, we must be willing to accept to be cleansed so that we can change.
So whether it is an addiction to drinking, smoking, gambling, pornography, we must accept the pain of cleansing.
As that profound statement in the book "Who moved my cheese" said : If you do not change, you will be extinct.
If we do not want to be cleansed, then we will not change; then we will become extinct.