We are now back to reading the gospel of Luke more consistently for ordinary time. As you remember, Luke is part 1 of 2, the continuation being Acts of the Apostles. Both Luke and Acts have two major themes, the action of the Holy Spirit and the Temple.

As to the Holy Spirit, Luke opens with the coming of the Spirit upon Mary as the life of Jesus begins. Acts begins with the coming of the Spirit upon the Church on the day of Pentecost. In Luke, the Spirit then comes upon Jesus at his baptism as he begins his mission and today Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit which leads him to the temple on the Sabbath day and gives his mission statements drawn from chapter 61 of the book of the prophet Isaiah.

As to the temple, the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist happens in the temple. After the birth of Jesus, at the eight day they take him to the temple for his naming and presentation. Then at twelve years old Jesus is found in the temple, studying scripture and amazing his teachers with his questions and insights.

What did it mean for Jesus to be led into the temple by the Spirit and why did he specifically proclaim from the prophet Isaiah as he began his mission? He is announcing the movement of the Spirit for the world. Isaiah 61 that he quotes is a proclamation of what the Messiah will come to do: unleash the mercy of God upon anyone who otherwise would have thought of being abandoned by God: the poor, the afflicted, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners, the blind, the oppressed – no matter who they were, no one would be excluded from this promise.

This is something that was supposed to happen in the Temple. Earlier in Isaiah 56 it says:

The foreigner joined to the LORD should not say,

“The LORD will surely exclude me from his people”;

For thus says the LORD:

Them I will bring to my holy mountain

and make them joyful in my house of prayer;

Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices

will be acceptable on my altar,

For my house shall be called

a house of prayer for all peoples.

Well after Jesus is led by the Spirit to proclaim proclaims this good news in the temple, people should have replied AMEN with acceptance and excitement, but the following verse which we didn’t read says: they rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.

Temple was not the house of God, it had become something else. Fast forward to the week leading up to the crucifixion, Jesus enters the temple once again and is angry at how they are stealing money from the poor, the afflicted, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners, the bling, the oppressed. He turns tables and drives out people who are selling things and there he reveals the identity of the temple by quoting Isaiah 56; my house shall be called a House of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. The temples and synagogues had become nothing but corrupt marketplaces where people would come, buy their sacrifices and their devotional objects, go through the motions of religious habits, but it did not affect or change their lives in any deep way. The rich would get richer, the poor just stayed poor. Money was being moved in the temple, but they were not allowing the Spirit to move them, to help them grow in the Spiritual life, which can only happen through prayer. Without prayer, they had become weak.

When Solomon built the first temple, people felt spiritually strong, it was a sign of God’s presence and people could come and feel the nearness of God as they anticipated the future of being a light to the nations. They came to the temple to pray and worship and that kept them on point, on mission. But then they began to get distracted. They started to focus on political power, prayer became mere religious rituals as signs of moral superiority, and before they knew it, the where spiritually weak and temple was destroyed.

And so they lamented and prayed again for forgiveness and restoration, and because God is faithful, they where given a second chance. The temple was rebuilt with help from the Persian kings.

This first reading today from the prophet Nehemiah was written at the time of the dedication of this second temple. It was a new opportunity to make this temple a house of prayer again, you can hear the religious enthusiasm: reading scripture from daybreak till midday in the presence of all, woman, men and children, and everyone listened attentively, they blessed the Lord, the Great God and said “Amen, amen!” as they bowed down and all were overjoyed. After lamenting and crying for years over the loss of the first temple, Nehemiah encourages them to start over, to not be saddened but to rejoice and regain their proper place in the temple as a people of prayer led by the Spirit.

You would think they had learned their lesson, that they would not repeat history, that they would not once again make the temple a tool, but that didn’t happen. That is why we need the Old Testament by the way. In early Christianity there was a movement to get rid of the Old Testament as if it was no longer needed since we have the New Testament, but that is a heresy. We need to know the history of our sin as it tends to repeat itself. By the time of Jesus, the temple had once again become void of being a house of prayer. That enthusiasm that people had when this second temple was dedicated had worn off, they had become spiritually weak, a den of thieves.

Part of the mission of Jesus is to help us see our spiritual weakness, our spiritual mediocrity, and give us a way to be the temple that God needs us to be in the world, the temple that Isaiah described. If a house of prayer is for all peoples, and prayer allows the Spirit to move us, the Spirit will always move us towards God. For that reason the new temple that Jesus established as his body of believers which we now call the Church, is described as: the sacrament of union with God and the unity of humanity (in case you have not gotten the clues by now, that is our main theme this year).

That is what happens when we live the vision of the temple of God proclaimed by Isaiah, it happens through concern for people at the lowest levels of human development to help them overcome sin.

A life of sin is to not live the fullness of how God created me to live, it is to be led by my wounds, passions, desires which is easily wakened and deceived. Sin leads me to creating a temple after my own glory which is self-serving.

A spiritual life, on the other hand, is a life led by the Spirit which leads me to grow in my authentic God given image, and therefore creating a temple of God’s glory which is not self-serving but in self-giving. Out of that comes the concern for people at the lowest level of development: the poor, the afflicted, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners, the blind, the oppressed.

In families that means concern for children. In society that means concern for the poor and disadvantaged. In the Church community that means concern for those whose gifts are not yet being seen in the community. Paul talks about this by describing the Church as a body where one part cannot determine that another part is unnecessary.

As a Church community we have to constantly ask ourselves: is our priority our spiritual life? We have to be proactive at keeping this temple a house of prayer otherwise any community can easily become a den of thieves, a place of empty ritual, a place where the priests just ask for your money but is not doing anything to care for the most vulnerable.

The people of God in the old covenant became weak as they came into competition with the surrounding nations. To help return to prayer, they established a jubilee year every 50^th year or so. It was a year to ensure that no one would remain unable to live a full life. Debts were forgiven, those who had lost land had their land returned, those who had become enslaved through poverty were freed.

The people of God and the new covenant will be internally weak if we become distracted from the mission of Jesus. To help us, every 25 years we ourselves enter into a Jubilee year, which we are in right now, the year of Hope. A jubilee year is intended to be a time of renewal, forgiveness, and pilgrimage, a year to focus on how we can better be a sign of unity with God and with each other, a year to let the Spirit guide us in a more intentional way to be the temple God needs us to be especially for the most vulnerable.

This year we also celebrate the Centennial for St. Anthony’s Chapel, and the 175^th anniversary of the Archdiocese of Seattle. We have many reasons for hope, many reasons to be united, many reasons to continue growing in our spiritual lives. Let’s help each other remain focused on how to activate all the gifts of the spirit among us so that we can truly be a House of prayer for all.