Deacon Ray Ortman - "I AM A JEALOUS GOD"
When I first learned about the Ten Commandments as a child, it bothered me to think that God could be jealous. Jealousy seems such a negative emotion — easily capable of getting out of hand or pushing us to take extreme actions to hold on to something we want. But there it is in Exodus chapter 20: God Himself declares that He is jealous. And because God is good; so must His jealousy be good. But how?
For insight we can take a moment to dive deeper into the Ten Commandments to see what divine jealousy is NOT. For example, it is not coveting or envying someone or something that is not ours. Coveting is forbidden by the last two commandments. Nor is it taking someone or something that is not ours; that also is forbidden by the commandments before those.
So if jealousy is permissible at all, it must be directed only toward what properly belongs to the one who is jealous. For us humans, that is problematic, because no one belongs to us by right, and for that matter, no thing truly belongs to us either. The old adage is true: you can’t take it with you. For God, however, all things truly do belong to Him. With one exception. God desires our love to be freely given to Him, but He has made it a law unto Himself that He will not take it. He will not force us to love Him. He will not possess us against our will. But He will go to extreme lengths to woo us and to protect us! Like a jealous lover.
Therefore, the word jealousy as God applies it to Himself appears to be an emotional enhancer for how passionately He loves us. And for how intensely He desires that we will love Him in return. Even the context in which the Ten Commandments were given demonstrates the extreme actions that God will take for His beloved insofar as He had just delivered them out of slavery in Egypt by many mighty and miraculous deeds.
Moreover, the placement of the revelation of God’s jealousy within the Ten Commandments leaves no doubt that what God intensely desires from us is for us to love Him intensely in return. That is what it means, after all, to have no other gods besides Him. To love God with a passion that surpasses all other desires; to be ready to fight for God even as He fights for us. We can love God jealously because He really is ours. He gave Himself to us. He is OUR God.
But as it happens, we often get distracted. Emotional intensity comes and goes — particularly when we don’t work as hard as we might at our relationships: especially our relationship with God. Too often, concern for the cares of this life, for money and other worldly priorities, consumes our energy and attention.
Consumed is an apt word for it too. Because the more we lose sight of God, the more we lose ourselves. In the final analysis, we exist only in relation to God. So it was in today’s Gospel that Jesus encountered money changers and merchants in the Temple area. They gave the appearance of facilitating the worship of God, but their heart was not in it for worship or love of God. Their heart was in it only for the money. Idolatrous money, no less, dealing with coins bearing the image of Caesar. And they weren’t even honest merchants.
At the pitiful sight of them, Jesus sprang into action and drove them out, reminding them that the Temple was supposed to be a place of encounter with God, not with merchandise. “Zeal for your house will consume me” the evangelist said of the intensity of Jesus’ reaction. Jesus acted zealously.
Zealous. Jealous. These words are more than mere rhymes. These two words mean the same thing, as they come from the same Hebrew (and Greek) roots. Therefore, when Jesus acted zealously, He was manifesting the same intensity of divine love for God’s people (even those he drove out) as Yahweh exhibited so powerfully in Exodus. The moneychangers had lost their way pursuing that which was not God. Notice that even in zeal Jesus’ reaction was measured. He did them no harm; but He did get their attention! The spilled coins they could pick up. The animals they could retrieve. And the doves were still in their cages. Nothing was bruised except a few wayward egos.
The disciples understood Jesus’ motivating zeal in the context of a quote from Psalm 69: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” This context sheds additional light on what was going on in the Gospel. Psalm 69 is a psalm of David, who lived and ruled before the Temple was built. Therefore, the “house” in question was NOT the Temple. This was not an “honor” deed for a sacred building so much as it was a “love” deed for a sacred people. The house of God, for David, therefore, could only mean the household of God, the people of God, the family of God, the beloved of God.
In the context of the Gospel, the principal association of Jesus’ “zeal” with “love” for God’s people persists. But a new and deeper meaning also is given when Jesus alludes to the temple of His body. By overturning the tables of the purveyors of animal sacrifice while simultaneously speaking of this extraordinary new Temple of His body, Jesus points to a new and better covenant relationship — surpassing both the Ten Commandments per se and the doomed temple sacrificial system.
A temple is where the divine and the human have a mutual encounter. That encounter is now eternally realized in the person of Christ, who is both God and Man. The love that God has for us, and the love that we are invited to have for God exist in perfect union in the person of Christ. For God’s part, that love is a jealous love indeed. So passionate and intense is His love that Jesus gave His life fighting for it, fighting for us against all enemies. For us. For you. For me. Which leaves us this question to ponder: How do we love God in return? Jealously or tentatively? May our love be an intense love, devoting the whole of ourselves, mind, heart, soul and strength to Him.
