The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 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.”
The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. John 2:13 - 22 (NRSVA)
Many things drive us to do the things we do; money is one of the strongest motivators, and it usually tends towards evil or greed.
A very old rich skinflint in declining health finally gets serious about his eternal state. He goes to the local pastor and asks what he can do to account for the fact that he’s never given God much time or given the church a dime. The pastor just looks at him with that knowing expression that says, "Well, you finally got around to it, eh?" Convicted, the old miser finally says, "OK...how about if I give the church every cent I’ve got? Will that do it; will that guarantee I’ll go to heaven when I die – if I give my entire fortune to you?" The Pastor paused a moment, then replied, "Well, it’s worth a try!" [1]
The abuse of position in order to get money has always been big news – in church or out! The former Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich tried to sell former Senator Obama’s place in the U.S. Senate. It didn’t work!
The name Bernard Maddoff is big news right now. His “Ponzi” scheme promised double-digit returns to investors. His smiling face was trusted as he convinced folks to give him their life savings. He would take their money, but the only investing he did was in yachts, villas and private jets for himself.
He would pay off 15-20% to the first investor and then brag to the next prospective investor – meanwhile he had 80-85% in his pocket. His scam/swindle totals somewhere near $50 billion.
Another familiar name is Stanford Kurland. He ran Countrywide Mortgage through 2006. Then, after the mortgage crisis began (for which Kurland may be partially responsible) he opened up PennyMac, a company that says they will help bail out the mortgage industry by buying the troubled mortgages at a reduced rate to help the homeowners. Such a philanthropist!
So, let’s get this straight – Kurland, over a 27-year career helps Countrywide (with irresponsible lending practices), become the big bubble that will cripple the mortgage industry and become possibly the biggest factor in the American/worldwide economic crises. He bails-out just before the bubble bursts, showing up a year later to ride in on his white horse named PennyMac, buying up the putrid mortgages he created, at pennies on the dollar to save us. Wow…what a guy!
On CNN this week a professor of economics at the business school of Southern California University said of Kurland, and the whole affair, “It’s completely legal…it just doesn’t pass the smell test”.
• Some have said Maddoff, et al, are just the tip of the iceberg in corporate America.
• Is the picture in focus? Can you hear me yet?
It’s not hard to figure out, in the wake of these accounts, why Americans do not go to church any more. They have switched religions; they now attend the Temple of Greed!
The temple in Jerusalem was not a whole lot different. It was like Spring Break at Daytona Beach, Florida…a tourist trap! What Jesus saw was the ancient equivalent of carpetbaggers, trying to turn a quick profit at the expense of the poor who had come to worship.
How did they do it? The Temple tax was important. Roman coins had Caesar’s picture on it. A coin with an image of the Emperor’s face was forbidden in the Temple. Roman coins had to be exchanged for Jewish Temple script; it was big business, and subject to abuse.
Whenever any system is in place, the lower nature in humankind will find a way to abuse the system for a profit. The money changers were making a “killing” so-to-speak. They were raking-in huge profits in the name of religion, and driving the poor into the ground.
Jesus performed an exorcism, driving out those who were defiling the temple with their greed and dishonest practices.
Now, the whole problem with what was going on was not really the practice of money exchange. The function they performed was actually important; they just shouldn’t have been charging exorbitant exchange rates. The real problem was what was NOT happening.
The Temple’s outer court was the place of the Gentiles. The purpose for this place was so that people of other nations might have a place to respond in worship to God. Gentiles weren’t allowed in the inner courts – only this peripheral attachment to the Temple.
It was there the money-changers and animal sellers were fleecing their brother Jews. It was all done in plain sight of the Gentiles, and Jesus’ righteous indignation went off the meter when He saw it. The wrong focus of animals and clinking coins cost the Temple its evangelism posture.
The religious leaders believed in the stability of their system and its main symbol – the Temple. It was a massive, impressive structure. The Temple had been under construction for 46 years. It wasn’t yet done (and wouldn’t be for another 40 years). This upstart little son of a carpenter from Nazareth began to brag he could re-build it in three days. What did he know?
The Jews were the established religious group.
• They had the power.
• They had the Temple.
• They had influence in Rome and Jerusalem.
This was the controlling party. The problem with that kind of thinking is – having a majority means nothing if you’re wrong! Adolph Hitler had a majority and he had control!
The problem, extended, is one of focus. When you trust in institutions, everything you think, say and do will be slanted in the direction of maintaining and expanding the institution. You miss the mark with this, because in any endeavor the institution is supposed to serve the mission. Our denomination needs to remember that!
Sometimes we church people place more importance on the institutions of the church, (buildings, programs, & other sacred cows), than people. When this happens, the institutions become central, and the mission (to make and train disciples to change the world) suffers.
The Taj Mahal is a good example. It is one of the most beautiful and costly tombs ever built. In 1629, when the favorite wife of Indian ruler Shah Jahan died, he ordered that a magnificent tomb be built as a memorial to her. The shah placed his wife’s casket in the middle of a parcel of land, and construction of the temple literally began around it.
But several years into the venture, the Shah’s grief for his wife gave way to a passion for the project. Records show that one day while he was surveying the sight, he stumbled over a wooden box, and he had some workers throw it out. It was months before he realized that it was his wife’s casket that he had destroyed. The original purpose for the memorial became lost in the details of construction. [2]
On that day in the temple Jesus called the religious leaders (and all of us) back to their purpose. He called for a renewal of commitment to worship that was unpolluted by greed, pride and control issues. He looked like He was up against city hall that day; what could one itinerant preacher do?
The odds didn’t make Jesus flinch the least bit; He told them to give up their agendas and give God glory in everything.
We face a similar set of circumstances today. Greed abounds in government, on Wall Street, but it is not limited to leadership. The thousands of so-called ordinary people that gave Bernie Maddoff and others their life savings were not content with customary interest rates…they were greedy, after a quick killing in an insider deal that would put them way ahead of others.
Greed is even in the church, with 403B retirement plans driving the greed in preachers. It’s hard to resist that “aggressive fund” that outperforms the rest!
So, preacher…what now? I’m glad you asked. Here’s what:
if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NRSVA)
It’s time for a return to humility in America; and church, it is time for us to begin to do the right thing and lead the way. It’s time for us to humbly serve God! It’s what Christ expects of us.
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ENDNOTES
As told by Bishop J. Lawrence McCleskey at the clergy session of the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, June 6, 2007
Dr. James Dobson, Coming Home, Timeless Wisdom for Families, (Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton; 1998), p. 122.
