Read Mark 11:15–19
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“I will bring them to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and will fill them with joy in my house of prayer. I will accept their burnt offerings and sacrifices, because my Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations.” (Isaiah 56:7 NLT)
Altars reveal what we worship. Some are obvious—raised platforms of stone and flame. Others are quieter, constructed in systems, reputations, loyalties, and assumptions. Lent is a season of holy examination. It calls us to look closely at what we have built, what we defend, and what we trust. In this series, we conduct an audit—not of budgets or buildings, but of allegiances. Lent strips away every false altar until only Christ remains.
Part 14: The Altar of Profit.The noise of Palm Sunday has not quite faded yet. The crowds have thinned, but the energy lingers—the sense that something important has begun, that something is about to happen. Jesus enters the Temple in that space between celebration and outcome, where expectation still hangs in the air.
And then everything shifts.
Tables are overturned, coins scatter, and animals are driven out. The disruption is physical, violent, threatening, and immediate—not symbolic or abstract. In a crowded Temple under watchful authority, this was not a safe act. By ordinary standards, it would look foolish. Foolish by worldly standards…faithful by God’s.
It is easy to misread this moment as anger at commerce itself, but that misses the point. The Temple required money. Pilgrims needed currency exchange, and sacrifices required animals. This system had long existed and was necessary for participation in worship. Jesus and the disciples would have navigated that reality.
So this is not outrage at the presence of money. This is judgment on what the system had become.
“My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations… but you have made it a den of robbers.” A den of robbers is not where robbery happens; it is where robbers retreat. It is where what has been taken is protected, where exploitation is shielded from consequence. It is a place that feels safe—not for the vulnerable, but for those who benefit from the system as it stands.
That is the problem.
The Temple still functioned. Worship still happened. People still gathered. Nothing on the surface suggested failure. But underneath, something had shifted. A system that once served access to God had become a system that shielded injustice. It had become embedded, normalized, and—most dangerously—protected.
Because it worked.
It worked for those who benefited. It worked for those in power. It worked well enough that no one had to ask whether it was still faithful.
And that is what Jesus refuses.
Jesus does not disrupt the system because it exists. Jesus disrupts it because it has become untouchable, because what once served God had begun to serve itself, and because what should have opened the way had begun to control it.
This is not a gentle correction. It is a decisive refusal.
Not here. Not like this. Not in the name of God.
This is where the altar reveals itself.
The altar of profit is not built when money is present. It is built when systems that exploit are allowed to stand because they are useful, familiar, or beneficial—and are protected because they work for the ones in power. It is built when access is shaped by what someone can give, when belonging is quietly filtered, and when some move freely while others encounter barriers that were never meant to exist.
And most often, it goes unchallenged.
Because it works.
We are not distant from this. We inherit systems, participate in them, and benefit from them in ways we may not always recognize. Over time, what is familiar becomes unquestioned, and what is unquestioned becomes defended—not because we intend harm, but because disruption feels costly.
Because overturning tables always does.
But the gospel does not preserve what is comfortable if it is no longer faithful. Jesus does not protect systems simply because they are established. Jesus walks into the center of what we assume is holy and reveals what it has become, not only with words, but with action.
Which leaves us with a question that cannot be avoided:
What do we defend because it works…
and what might Christ overturn if Christ walked into it?
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
The altar of profit stands wherever exploitation is protected because it benefits those in power.PRAYER
God, give me the clarity to see what I have accepted without question. Where I have benefited from what is not faithful, bring truth to light. Where I have defended what should be examined, give me courage to let it go. Lead me into a faith that reflects your justice, not my comfort. Amen.
Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).