“And He told those who sold the
pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make My Father’s house a house of
trade.”
In my previous post I asked: Do you
think they [the money changers and sellers of sacrificial animals] thought they
were doing anything wrong? Do you think they understood why Jesus was driving
them out of the temple?
I don’t know how long these practices
had been going on, but I suspect they weren’t new, I suspect they represented
life in the temple as usual for that period of history. The practices
represented a service to worshippers; surely there could be nothing wrong with
providing a needed service, even if it resulted in a profit?
How many ways of thinking about money
have infiltrated the Kingdom that are opposed to the Spirit of Christ? How
often do we engage in ministry and worship as a business? I’m not sure that
these questions can be easily answered anymore than a fish in an ocean, which
has never lived anywhere else, has a perspective on any other living
environment. If something is all we know then that is all we know. Maybe the
sellers of animals and the money exchangers had a twinge of conscience now and
then, maybe some had more of a twinge than others, maybe some never questioned
the propriety of doing business in a House of Prayer – we don’t know. Whether
they did or didn’t wrestle with their practices Jesus was unambiguous, “Don’t
make My Father’s house a house of business.”
It is easy for some of us to look at
ostentatious “ministries” whose leaders lead opulent lifestyles and see
heretical thinking and living; we wonder how anymore can keep sending “those
people” money. But do we examine ourselves, our educational institutions, our
churches, and our para-church ministries with respect to money? Even if we want
to examine ourselves do we have the capacity to do so or is our way of monetary
life so ingrained that we can’t see the ocean we live in? Do we experience
tension with respect to money and ministry? Do we have a healthy fear that money
can be a monster that once unleashed will devour all in its path?
Having served in churches, in
para-church ministries, and in a seminary, I have wrestled with the issue of
money and ministry. Perhaps my biggest question is why I haven’t see self-examination
regarding money as a way of collective ministerial life. Why haven’t I seen the
potential conflict of interest between ministerial decision making and money
put out on the table to be discussed and prayed about? I write this as one who
does not have the answers to the tension but rather as one who would have
appreciated it if the tension (at least for me) and conflict of interest had
been acknowledged, discussed, and prayed about.
I have been in more than one leadership
meeting in which a new educational or outreach program has been considered and
which the questions have been: Will this pay for itself? How much will it make?
It is as if we were a business considering launching a new product and were
considering the financial viability and profitability of the venture. There was
no acknowledgement of a potential conflict of interest between doing what God
wanted us to do and trusting Him to support our obedience to His direction, and
us doing ministry that we could sustain through marketing and which would also,
by the way, provide a living.
These issues are not easily resolved,
and at one level I don’t know that resolution is possible. I think they are a
tension that one hopefully lives with throughout life – resolution is not
important to me on this issue, acknowledgment and prayerful wrestling are
important.
Jesus, by His actions in cleaning out
the temple at the beginning and end of His ministry, made a statement regarding
the relationship of money and worship – it is a statement that we should not
ignore.
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