For the season of Lent here we are exploring together some of the habits that we are invited to take on during our journey toward the cross and Easter Sunday. Today’s holy habit is about money and our faith. You are probably wondering what such a topic has to do with Lent, but as you might already know Jesus talked about money just as much as he talked about the Kingdom of God, actually on occasion he talked about money more. Our New Testament scripture today comes from the Gospel of John, which was written the latest of all of the gospels and so is furthest from the time in which Jesus lived. It tends to focus less on the facts of Jesus life and instead wants the readers to know the point of his life. It is full of poetry and some of Jesus’ most intense moments. Today we meet Jesus on one of these occasions. He is extremely angry when he enters the Temple and does not like what he finds.
There is rarely a day that goes by where I do not wonder what life is all about. Perhaps it is the pastoral vocation that invites me to engage in perpetual reflection about the purpose of life and the meaning to which we give it. Or maybe it is simply how I am wired. Unlike many of my peers, I am constantly faced with the earth shattering truth that life is fragile and that death is something that no human heart can avoid. I never went through that twenty-something phase where I fooled myself into thinking that I was invincible or was tempted by the idea that I would be different and would be able to live to the edge without glimpsing fear. I have seen how small we human beings become in the face of the great unknown. But there is rarely a day that goes by where I do not wonder what life is all about.
And it seems that as our country and the world have become more deeply mired in what we have been told is an economic downturn and certainly a recession, I have heard more commentary about the point of this thing we call life. I suppose it is not uncommon for us to ask the profound questions when times are tough. It is on occasions such as these where our lives are focused and our values are crystallized. I have read that many Americans are eating out less, avoiding the purchase of unnecessary stuff, generally spending less money and instead spending more time together. In fact, our government is beginning to criticize us for saving too much because our money is required in our overly consumer economy. But as some politicos and talking heads continue to rant about who is to blame and how we Americans managed to let unrealistic attempts and quick cash be bundled and sold, thus sharing our toxic assets with the whole world and leaving Wall Street to watch out for our pensions and life’s savings, I can’t help but to wonder if the righteous anger Jesus shared on that day in the Temple would emerge today. Most of us could easily get ourselves off of the hook by saying that it wasn’t our fault, we trusted the government, we trusted those whose job it is to watch out for our money, we trusted that with such high rates of return, how could this go wrong? But while we might exclude ourselves from this game of betting on the fact that just maybe the Emperor had clothes after all, none of us can escape guilt free. Most of us have joined the wagon train and at least in some way fooled ourselves, even if just for a moment, that money can make us happy. So, it is no surprise that as our country talks about money more now than ever, we are left with less money and more questions about the point and purpose of our time here on earth.
There is a reason these questions are emerging and it is because money points us to what matters. To be sure, I don’t mean that money is the point of life, but that money is the way we tell ourselves and the world what it is that matters to us. And because of that, money has a way of peeling away the layers and forcing us to get real about what our values really are. I have seen families torn apart when a loved one dies and the fate of the money that remains is yet to be determined. I have seen money mask itself as influence and limit the dreams of a teenager seeking a way out. I have seen a man let go of his fear of being without money by giving away nearly all of what he had only to find the most joy a soul could manage. And as much as we dismiss money as secondary to the life of faith, our money is the way that we tell ourselves and the world what it is that our life is about. It is funny how it works. We human beings tend to be motivated by money; we work for it, pray for enough of it and wish that we could find a way to save more. But money is not just the means to live the way that we do, it is the way that God can tell what it is, that our life is about.
A few years ago I faced something that struck fear deep within me. I agreed to attend a faith based budgeting workshop. In preparation, I saved all of my receipts for a month and agreed to put them in a worksheet divided by categories of spending. The workshop was grounded in the premise that our personal budgets at their core are statements of faith, testaments to our values, which is exactly what Jesus had in mind when he said, “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Jesus meant this as a twofold proclamation. Look where your treasure is, if you want to know what really matters to you. And likewise, if you want to change your heart to what really matters, put your treasure there. I wasn’t afraid to look at my budget out of fear of debt; I have always been quite frugal. But I was afraid that I would find that my budget didn’t reflect the person that I said I was. And I was right. It wasn’t until I put everything out on the table including my heart that I saw with the brightness of a neon sign. My personal budget was not one who claimed to be a follower of Jesus. I gave very little to my church home, the place I claimed was the core of my spiritual life and I hardly saved at all. I frequented Dunkin’ Donuts, but couldn’t justify the expense of healthy produce or a gym membership. I wasn’t honoring my body or my professed love of my spiritual home. I saw the truth: my budget mirrored back to me, a person I didn’t want to be and my budget was not the budget of a person who wanted her heart to be grounded in God.
And it seems that this moment in our economic life has been for many Americans a mirror moment. We said that we were generous and brilliant, enterprising and the country full of dreams, but when the messiness was cleared away and the truth sat all alone with nothing to cover it, we saw something else.
Jesus knew that we tend to get all tied up when it comes to money. When we find him in the Temple, he is more than angry. In fact, he is furious. For Jesus, the Temple was the literal house of God and the sight of his friends and fellow faithful selling things and changing money in the Temple was more than he could bear. He curses at those he meets there and his behavior might be called violent. Theologians and scholars disagree about exactly why he was so angry, but I think that his heart was broken for the simple fact that his people didn’t get it. He didn’t want them to give money more power. He didn’t want them to move God further out of the way. He didn’t want them to join the political powers of the day by letting money become a god. Jesus knew that money is not just the means to live the way that we do, it is the way that God can tell what it is, that our life is about.
In my almost four years pastoring here in New England, I have learned that talking about money in the context of Christian community can easily empty a room. Most of us find it difficult to ask about money or to get specific about what our needs related to it might be. We struggle to share when we feel we don’t have enough and we fail to structure our own money in such a way that God might be first on our list. Talking about money is something we tell ourselves is not appropriate. And yet, Jesus’ life tells us that if we are serious about God, serious about having a heart for God and a life grounded in love, we cannot talk about the purpose of the Christian heart without also talking about money. Money matters. And it doesn’t matter just because we need it to live the way that we do, it matters because it is the way that God can tell what it is that our life is about. As we enter another week in this holy season, this season of renewing our commitment to God, I invite you to pray about your money. If you want to know what your life is about, what matters to you, where it is that you have invested your heart, I invite you to sit with your budget. I invite you to make a list of what matters, to make a list of what is at the core of your purpose and see if what is mirrored back to you is the person that you want to be with God. May it be so. Amen.