Worship & Prayer, Not Robbery & Greed

This passage is often reduced to an essay about righteous indignation, the fact that Jesus was no wimp, and that anger is no sin when it is prompted by an offence to the glory of God.
But, what was the greatest concern of the Savior? The way priests washed their hands? The number of steps allowable on the Sabbath? No, His concern was the heart. Particularly the hearts of the people and their leaders in what was set apart as the house of God.
But here's what I want to concentrate on and it's this — in the cleansing of the temple, Jesus is indicating that His people are in the grip of the sin of religious hypocrisy. They gather for public worship, they go through the motions of worshipping the living God, but they do not live in such a way to indicate that they’re really worshipping the living God.
They show up and busy themselves in the activities of the temple. They rush and hurry and not only fail to worship but they prevent others.