“Don’t forget to bring home lentils,” she said, smoothing her shawl over her hair. “And if you see any linen cheaper than last week, ask the merchant.”
I’m only half-listening to her, I confess. I’m busy gathering my scales and weights for another riveting day at the temple. I hope you detected my sarcasm. Truth be told, I’m exhausted at having to get up earlier than everyone else so I can get my prime spot near the outer colonnade.
I grab my scale, my bag of Tryian shekels, the little stool that’s giving me back troubles, and the board I’ll use as a table. I sling my money chest over my shoulder, tuck a few flat cakes and olives in my belt, and tie up my outer robe for the climb. I acknowledge her request, but secretly wonder, “Do I even have room for bringing lentils home?” I scurry out the door.
Most days blend into the next, the clink of coins and coo of doves dulling into background noise. But something in the air felt off that morning. Like the kind of silence that comes before a storm. Or at least I think it did. You know how you can retell a story and the details change –how memory bends to meaning over time.
I think I remember a stillness.
But it probably wasn’t any different than any other day. Me, third from the left, tucked under the cracked arch near the east colonnade. Sleep in my eyes from having to get up early to beat the rush, day after day after day. But if I wait too long all the good spots are gone and I’m stuck behind the olive seller with that annoying voice and sticky fingers.
I set out my weights. Test the balance scale—making sure it leans in my favor. I do that little stretch you do in the morning when your body is older than your mind is. And I try to harden myself against the grumbling of the pilgrims complaining about exchange rates. But if Adonai shines on me today, I can make enough off their unpreparedness to bring home those lentils and silver to spare.
The Court of Gentiles is where the real movement happens. Locals know how to prepare, but the foreigners? Not a chance. They show up wide-eyed and confused, clutching onto Roman coins as if that’ll get them anywhere. They are completely ignorant of the temple tax rules. And that’s where I step in to help them. Easy profit for me.
I have what they need—Tryian shekels. It has to be pure silver, no emperor’s face. They need doves and lambs—ones without blemish. They come to worship, but they don’t’ know the language, the customs, or what we require for them to have access. That’s where I come in. I carry a bag. I help them get access—they help me bring home lentils for the wife.
We’ve got a well-oiled machine going here. A one-stop-shop for worship. Coin, animal, receipt, prayer. Done. That’s the way we do things around here. And it works quite well. Everyone profits.
Let’s get back to the moment where that eerie stillness seems to have entered. It started, or at least that’s what I think, when this poor man came forward. His clothes were dusty, eyes sunken, and one sandal dragging behind the other like he was about to give up on life. This was probably some last-ditch effort to draw the favor of the Most High. He held out two lepta, trembling between his fingers. Barely enough for bread, let alone a sacrifice.
“Just a dove,” he said. “For my son.”
I glanced at the coin, then at him. “You’re short.”
He tried to explain. I could barely understand him. And honestly, even if I had compassion on him there isn’t much I could do. Rules are rules. Prices are prices. Long journey. Thieves on the road. Illness. I’ve heard them all. If you cave to one person you have to lower standards for others.
I shook my head and waved him off. With business booming, there isn’t time to argue with beggars. A line of paying customers was behind him.
One of those potential customers was a man with these dark penetrating eyes. He looked furious. I was dreading him coming to my table. I prepared myself for the daily tongue lashing, trying to focus on the customer in front of me. When I looked up again, the man was gone. “Adonai has shined upon me,” I muttered under my breath.
And I went back to work.
I was weighing out coins for a man from Alexandria when the shouting started.
At first, I thought it was the animal boys—sometimes lambs break loose, or someone gets a little too noisy with their haggling. But then I heard the crashing, the animals shrieking, and the merchants yelling.
And there he was. The same man. With those same eyes. But now in His hand was a corded whip—rough, quickly made, but purposeful. Not wild. Not flailing. He didn’t lash out at random. He drove them—the animals, the sellers, the herders, the merchants. Doves burst from cages. Lambs scattered. Coins skittered across the pavement like startled beetles.
He overturned one table after another. He shouted. Something about His Father’s house. And sharply rebuking us for turning it into a market.
I didn’t catch all the words, but I knew he was heading for me. A smarter man would have started grabbing his things and packing up before he got to me. But I was just standing there like a fool, holding someone’s half-filled coin pouch, and watching our whole business get upended.
And then we locked eyes.
This wasn’t rage. It wasn’t malice. Something cleaner. Like a fire without smoke.
And that’s when his hands grabbed hold of my table. Just like all the others in our row, he flipped it. Coins went everywhere.
And now I’m here, stunned, wondering what do I do with these hands that flipped my table. What kind of hands are they? I feel anger rising up within me. How dare this man? Who does he think he is? Does he not care about my livelihood?
But there’s something about them. A sharp mercy. These aren’t the hands that are accustomed to flipping tables. They are softer. These aren’t the fists of a zealot—prone to combat. They are calloused but the type of calloused hands that build things, not tear them down. Hands that could wipe a tear just as easy as craft a whip.
What do you do with hands like that? When they tear down what you thought was sacred—but maybe wasn’t? When they don’t strike you in anger, but still leave you exposed? What do you do when those hands are right, and you’ve been wrong so long you don’t know how to come back? I don’t know if I should rebuild what He destroyed… or follow Him wherever He’s going next.
I don’t even know if I still have the coins for the lentils. They went everywhere—some into the crowds, some into the cracks in the stone. I did see one roll away, spinning with intention, toward a mangled old sandal, and clunking up against the dusty toes of the man I’d previously rejected.
I watched him as he bent down, picked it up, looked at it for a second, then tucked it into his belt and walked toward the inner courts.
Access granted.
And with my lentil money.
