四旬期第三主日
Fr. David Matz
“Quid Pro Quo”在拉丁文中的意思是「以這個換那個！」
用說話表達：「如果你搔我的背，我就搔你的背！」
例如，您要去度假，您請求鄰居在您外出時將垃圾桶放到路旁。鄰居期望你在他/她度假時，照樣幫他/她，這是完全合理的。這就是世界運作的方式。
如果你的鄰居借了你的工具一年，而有一次你問他借物件，他說不借？你會有什麼感受？你會憤怒的！如果你不給我這個，我不會給你那個！
在我們生活的社會和政治領域，製定交易與人類的處境息息相關。
我們與天主的靈性關係也是如此。尤其是當我們藉著加添規則，來讓自己看起來更好來調解這種關係時。
看看今天賜給梅瑟的十誡。我們必須記住它們。如果我們背誦十誡的次序錯了，天主會幫助我們！如果你背得不好，你就會被羞辱，信德不合格。如果你確實記得十誡，而且總是有這樣的一個人，經常是那個人，你就得到了獎！信德是A！
在耶穌時代，聖殿朝拜變得醜惡。交換是聖殿朝拜的主要成份。朝拜者給天主一些物件；天主給了朝拜者一些物件：一種用來寬恕罪惡和尋求幫助祭祀的動物！請注意主耶穌趕走的不同動物：祭獻越完美，得到寬恕和幫助的保證就越大。
聖殿朝拜降級成為交易。難怪主耶穌會憤怒：動物和金錢是不適當的祭品，因為它們遮蓋了我們與天主父的靈性關係，也遮蓋了天父大愛的免費禮物。没有金錢，沒有鴿子做祭獻，同天父沒有關係，也沒有愛！
天主不會用恩惠換取祭獻！天父是靈性生命和愛的自由賜予，是無法購買的。天主不是交換的！天主是免費的！天主是永久！
主耶穌來到一個被「交換條件！」束縛的世界。耶穌捨己，不求代價，不求回報！那麼，他為什麼要如此憤怒地潔淨聖殿，並激起宗教領袖的憤怒呢？請注意，主耶穌稱「聖殿」為「我父的殿宇」。
耶穌的天父並不在街市的形像的家裏，但當我們感謝生命，並盡我們所能服務生命時，他就在聖殿家裏了。聖父天主和聖子耶穌是「免費」的。當我們能夠接受和贈予，並且能夠在兩者中找到喜樂時，我們就在基督身體的「聖殿」中遊玩了。免費得到的就是免費贈予！我們已獲準進入「至聖所」。我們的朝拜是與天主聖犧牲的合作，透過奉獻自己使生命變得聖潔。我們的快樂不是「交換」，而是「免費」。
3rd Sunday of L
ent – Cycle B, 2024
Fr. David Matz
Introduction:
“Quid Pro Quo” In Latin it means, “this for that!”
In conversation we might say: I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine!
For example, you’re going on vacation, and you ask your neighbor to take out your garbage cans to the curb while you’re away. It’s perfectly reasonable to for the neighbor to expect you to return the favor when he/she goes away.
It’s the way the world works.
How would you feel if for a year your neighbor borrowed your toolbox, and the one time you need to borrow something,
he says no? You’d be annoyed!
If you don’t give me the “Quid!” I won’t give you the “Quo”!
Deal making is hardwired into the human condition.
in social and political spheres of our lives.
The same can be said of our spiritual relationship with God.
Most especially when we try to broker that relationship by adding rules to try to make ourselves look better.
Look at the 10 commandments given to Moses today.
Remember that we had to memorize them.
And God help us if we recited them out of order!
If you didn’t do it well, you were humiliated, F in Faith
If you did remember them well, and there was always that one person, I was often that person, you were rewarded! A in faith!
It turned ugly in Jesus’ time with temple worship.
Exchange was the name of the game.
Worshippers give God something; God gives worshippers something: a sacrificial animal for forgiveness of sins and for help!
Notice the different animals Jesus chased off: the more perfect the sacrifice, the more assurance of forgiveness and help.
Temple worship degenerates into deal making.
No wonder Jesus got angry: animals and money were inappropriate sacrifices because they mask our spiritual relationship with God, the Father, and they mask the priority of the Father’s free gift of love.
Can’t pay the price, can’t sacrifice the bird,
no relationship and no love!
God does not exchange favors for sacrifices! The Father is a free flow of spiritual life and love that cannot be brought.
Quid pro quo is not of God!
God is pro bono! Free and for good!
Movement:
Jesus comes into a world strapped into the constraints of “quid pro quo! And Jesus gave himself without costing the cost, without expecting to be reimbursed!
So why did he cleanse the temple in such anger and invoke the ire of the religious leaders?
Notice, Jesus calls the “temple” his “Father’s house.”
The type of worship going on was inappropriate. It was this conflict that wields the whip, frees the animals, overturns the tables, and spills the coins.
These leaders miss the sign, miss the clues, that we are given!
Jesus’ restructuring of temple worship will evoke their ire.
When Jesus used the word, “destroy” he’s talking directly to them.
They will destroy the temple of his body, we which know is the temple of God. But their malicious efforts will only reveal the Father’s power of resurrection.
Jesus’ resurrection is both the sign they seek and the sign they cannot read!
The cleansing of the Temple means so much more for us Christians.
Remember, the letter to the Hebrews sees Jesus, the Lamb of God, becoming the “once-and-for-all” perfect sacrifice that ends the need of ongoing animal sacrifices.
Paul sees the bodies of believers becoming temples of a “living sacrifice” which is a form of worship acceptable to God!
Both theses directions undermine the actual building of the Temple and its animal sacrifices.
Jesus, in the temple of his risen body, has relocated the Sacred.
God is not in a building, but in the body of Jesus,
and among community of the dead and risen Jesus!
The hard truth it’s easy to repudiate the Temple,
it’s difficult to eradicate the deal making God, quid pro quo!
Conclusion:
The Father of Jesus, who is not at home in the images of the marketplace, is at home when we are simply grateful for life and serve life in whatever way we can. God the Father and Jesus the Son is “pro bono.” When we can receive and give and when we can find joy in both, we are at play in “the temple” of Christ’s body.
What is freely given is to be freely given away!
We have been admitted to the “Holy of Holies.”
Our sacrifice is cooperation with the divine sacrifice that makes life holy by giving of our selves.
Our joy is not “quid pro quo,” but in “pro bono.”
