Away from the hungry marketplace

In tomorrow's Gospel reading we read in John's Gospel of how Jesus cleared the Temple,

In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me."

Why is Jesus' angry? The Temple has become a marketplace instead of a house of prayer. In a culture that seems like wall to wall marketing from billboards to print ads to logos on the clothes we wear and advertisements filling the airwaves, how can we settle away from the back and forth of sales to find a quiet place to be with God? In response to the Gospel reading, here is a poem from the Center for Liturgy at St. Louis University:

Christ,
help us turn away
from the hungry marketplace

and come to your Father’s house.

Let us drink your
quiet.

Please give us your hands,
clutching nothing
but love.