A section of the Gospel that still has resonance today beyond the Christian community is the story of Jesus chasing the money changers out of the Temple. That happens to be today's Gospel reading for the Mass (and you can find it here along with the other readings for the service). It's an odd reading. First it seems as if Jesus has lost it...the turn-turn-the-other-cheek, the-meek-shall-inherit-the-earth guy here seems anything but. Also, there is a bit of a conflict in English translations and even between Gospels. In some accounts it is "marketplace" or "house of trade," but in others it is "den of thieves."
Aside from jokes asking what's the difference (and seriously, looking at modern economics and economic history, it's a fair question!), what is going on here? Had Our Lord truly lost it upon seeing the chaos on Temple grounds, or is there something else at work here?
The problem with the Jewish Temple system (and we can see the same issue arise in every Ecclesiastical and other religious system, even the "disorganized" ones) is that worship has become a commodity, like agricultural futures or petroleum by the barrel. You need to make a sin-offering? "That will be X shekels...oh, wait, those are Alexandrian drachma, um, the exchange rate is..." You need a spot at the next holy day? "That's seven bucks for the nave, thirty for a transept seat, a hundred fifty for the chancel." The issue is as old as need for access to the divine...if it can be made a commodity and access can be controlled, it will happen.
Jesus here is making a point. Yes, the sacrifices cost the offering something, otherwise it would not be a sacrifice, but access to God cannot be bought or sold. Prayer is free, and prayer can be done anywhere. Jesus is making a point that commerce has no place in our relationship to God, it is not transactional. And when He is challenged on that point, he states that if the Temple is destroyed, He can raise it in three days...and He did not mean the organized heap of rock, wood, metallurgy, and textiles on the top of Jerusalem's Temple Mount, He meant His own body, where God dwelt among us.
Likewise, for those willing to host the Holy Spirit, to allow Our Lord to indwell their being, these bodies too are the Temple. It costs nothing to pray, it should not cost anything to pray, and to make the claim that the right to prayer can be made a commodity is silly. Jesus' disruption was not zeal for keeping animals out of the Temple courtyards, but zeal for proving that God can be encountered in THE Temple and without a commercial transaction.
So perhaps we should start taking advantage of that and speaking to God regularly, often, and sincerely. God is closer than we think.