Holy Monday

Holy Monday –‘Pigeon Day’
Yesterday was ‘Palm Day’ today is ‘Pigeon Day’! I think you can gather from the titles where I was going this year with our walk through Holy Week. So, as we cannot meet each day I thought I would give you the reading for the day, a wee reflection, a prayer and maybe even a symbolic action which might help you to focus on Jesus’ journey to the cross in your own homes. As you know I always say the journey that is Holy Week should be an uncomfortable one for us and perhaps this year it will seem ever more so as we are confined to our homes but as we walk this Holy Week let’s remember who we are walking with and also that he is our constant companion on the way.
Today’s reading is Matthew 21: 12-17

Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant. “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked him. “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, “‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?” And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.
Reflection
It was on a Monday that religion got in the way.
An outsider would have thought that it was a pet shop’s fire sale.
And the outsider, in some ways, wouldn’t have been far wrong.
Only, it wasn’t household pets, it was pigeons that were being purchased.
And it wasn’t a fire sale; it was rip-off stall in a holy temple bartering birds for sacrifice.
And the price was something only the rich could afford.
No discounts to students, pensioners, the disabled or unemployed.
Then he, the holiest man on earth, went through the bizarre bazaar like a bull in a china shop.
So the doves got liberated and the pigeon sellers got angry, and the police went crazy and the poor people clapped like mad, because he was making a sign that God was for everybody, not just those who could afford him.
He turned the tables on Monday……
The day that religion got in the way.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, as we enter this Holy Week, may we stand here with you in the place of grace religion scattered across the way. May we linger here in the work of heaven that makes love so vulnerable and so costly. May we draw breath deep enough to hold onto trust that will guide us beyond here and may we meet a faith that holds on and carries us through this and invites us as your companions. Amen
Symbolic Action
Why not look out your window and see if you can spot a pigeon and take time to reflect on the scene in the Temple that day as Jesus overturned the tables.