Suggestion for a primary school assembly

Tell the children the episode in Jesus's life when he drove the tradespeople and money-changers from Temple Mount in Jerusalem.(Matthew, chapter 21, verses 12-13.)

Explain that when people came to worship at the Temple they would buy items needed for a sacrifice. Sometimes this would mean that they had to change their money. But why was Jesus angered to find these tradespeople there? Explain that Temple Mount was - and still is - a sacred place; the Temple itself was a house of prayer. It existed to provide for spiritual needs, not commercial ones.

If we go to a church, or mosque, or synagogue, we go to pray, to focus on the divine. We expect to hear someone read from our religion's scriptures, or from some other book that tells us of God, or touches our hearts and spirits. We do not expect to find people setting up market stalls there or looking for a cash-point!

Temple Mount in Jerusalem is a specially sacred place to Jews and to Muslims. But there are sacred spaces close to where we all live. We must respect them, as Jesus did.

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