A House of Prayer... for All the Nations

"I pray for the desire to pray and meditate regularly.  I ask for patience, tolerance, gentleness, humility, compassion and empathy.  I ask to abstain from anger, anxiety, compulsive behaviour, discouragement, and shame.  I ask to know Jesus more intimately, love him more deeply and follow him more closely.  I ask to experience myself and others as made in the image and likeness of God."


Mark 11:15-19


15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; ¹⁶and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. ¹⁷He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written,
“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?
   But you have made it a den of robbers.’
¹⁸And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. ¹⁹And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples^* went out of the city.


1) "...for all the nations;" "...spellbound by his teaching;" "...a house of prayer for all the nations;"


2) I am actually struck by profound grief that there really are  no temples that can be called "a house of prayer for all the nations."  We have all become adept at creating "a house of prayer for us not them."  What would it mean to build "a house of prayer for all nations?"  Rather than a house of prayer for my kind of Christian, or my kind of whatever?  We really do not understand service, let alone service "to the least of these."  What kind of "spellbound" could turn us around?  What kind of "spellbound" would have us change our ways to creating spaces that were a house of prayer for all nations, where the "least of these" could be served?  This isn't just moralistic teaching.  It's something that casts a spell on the heart and changes it, so that our desire becomes a desire for "the other" rather than for ourselves or our tiny little tribes.  It doesn't seem to me that overturning the tables was particularly effective.  I get it.  I so get the anger, the frustration, the indignant outrage.  But how many hearts were changed?  Well... "the whole crowd was spellbound".  So maybe it was more effective than I'm feeling right now.  How do we instill that change again, in a world that is all about me, me, me and Make America Great Again... at the expense of every other person and nation?


3) What is the invitation in all this?  to reflect on how I can open up this house to be a house of prayer for all the nations.  In John, this passage became a reflection on the resurrection, "tear down this temple and I will raise it up in three days."  How is this body, my heart, a house of prayer for all the nations?


"Holy One, open my heart to pray for even my enemy with empathy and compassion."


Breathprayer: "A house of prayer... for all the nations."