Has this house which bears my name become in your eyes a den of thieves?  In our Judeo-Christian tradition, we have grown accustomed to identifying the house of the Lord with temples, synagogues, churches, chapels, and shrines. These places are held as sacred by us, both for the reasons why we gather in them, and most importantly for our belief that they are houses of God. They are places where we go to offer our prayers to God as a family. They are places where we go to seek and find God. Traditionally, a house of God was also a place of refuge. An individual on the run from the law would not be apprehended inside a house of God, and as long as he stayed there, he was “safe,” for the house of God is not only a holy place but also a sanctuary for life. There always has been a general understanding (even if silent) of what should (and can) be done in the house of God and its vicinity.
In our first reading, the prophet Jeremiah has been sent by God to remind the children of Israel of how they have violated the sanctity of the house of God (the very reason that would be cited by Jesus later on as he chased dealers from the Temple [cf. Matthew 21:12-13]). The children of Israel are rightly claiming the presence of God in the temple. And they troop therein to offer sacrifices and prayer to God. But even as they do that, the Lord reminds them that their prayers and sacrifices do not rise up to him because he no longer dwells in the temple! Through their actions, the children of Israel have desecrated and driven God out of the temple! Through the crimes of injustice and oppression that have been perpetrated against the poor and vulnerable, the children of Israel have made the Lord to walk away from them. For when they throng the temple to offer their prayers, the crimes they have committed follow them. When they offer sacrifices in the temple, it is the cries of the poor and vulnerable whom they have oppressed that rises to God. Watching from a distance, the Lord has a message for the sons and daughter of Israel: “Clean your acts. Reform your ways and deeds for only thus will the temple’s holiness be reclaimed. Let your acts of justice, kindness and love follow you into the temple. Let what rises up to me be shouts of thanksgiving from the poor and vulnerable. Let them say ‘How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord mighty God!’ Let them find in the Lord’s house their sanctuary.”