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The Reverend Greg Rickel, Intern Curate
Saint Peter's Episcopal Church
March 2, 1997

Lent 3, Year B
Exodus 20: 1-17
Psalm 19: 7-14
Romans 7:13-25
John 2:13-22

The Gospel Lesson: John 2: 13-22
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.

The Old Testament Lesson Exodus 20 1-17
God spoke all these words to Moses. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall nut make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work - you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it. Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."

The Sermon
The comedian Jack Benny had a great skit on his old show. It involved Benny standing there when a man with a hood, a thief, would run up to him and stick a gun in his side and say, "Your money or your life?"

Benny would stare off into space giving no reply, and the thief, somewhat perplexed would ask him again, "Your money or your life?" Benny would look at him discerningly and say, "I'm thinking, I'm thinking"

Often when we look at scripture we have to make it fit today, you know, give it some contextual analysis so that we can make some equivalent message for today. So, let's do that here.

Jesus came from Galilee, the most troublesome of all Jewish districts to the Romans. Galilee was known for Judas the Galilean and other famous Insurrectionists.

From Galilee arose all the revolutionary movements of the time. Jesus specifically grew up in poverty. He was born into a census being taken in order to impose taxes on the people. He lived in a climate of oppressive taxation, accumulating debt, and increasing bankruptcies.1 Sound familiar?

We may not have to be so contextual today. We, too, live in a time of accumulating debt. One report last week said more personal debt than ever, more bankruptcies, more last year than even in the depression.

It is true that the temple incident is one that spells out many things about Jesus' ministry but I think it should say something to us in its pure form as well. Jesus couldn't get to the Temple that day because of the tables, the sales pitches, the money changers. He was blocked by them.

He had to fight his way toward the temple. Jesus felt threatened and I think he heard those words ringing in his ears, "Your money or your life?"

Now, I am sure that you didn't encounter sheep, oxen, pigeons, sales pitches, (Well, you might have encountered a girl scout with cookies.) or money changers today. But I would submit that we still have many things in our way as we come to the temple.

Ringing in our ears, some of us hear it, some do not, are those words, "Your money or your life?"

How many people have you heard say things like, "I just don't have tune to ~o to church or to be a part of church, with work and soccer on Sunday afternoons, and if lam going to the lake Sunday is the only day I can do it"

All may well be true, for the life we have chosen to live. But, have we ever stopped to ask why it is that way?
When people have asked me what is happening to church attendance and commitment within the church I tell them that there is a whole other religion now competing with us. I am not talking about the Baptists or Fellowship Bible Church, or any other denomination- I am not talking about Islam or Buddhism. I am talking about another religion. The religion I'll refer to is consumerism. Religion is defined in Webster' s as

a) belief in a superhuman power or powers to be obeyed and worshipped as the creators and rulers of the universe
b) expression of this belief in conduct and ritual
c) any specific system of belief worship, etc., often involving a code of ethics
d) the state or way of life of a person
e) any object that is seriously or zealously pursued 2

I would submit that consumerism has become a way of life for us that has been very alluring and seductive and in many cases destructive. If you don't believe that I would share a couple of findings with you.

In the book Your Money or Your Life the authors discuss this problem in the section entitled "The Creation of Consumers." They maintain that in the 1920's a new concept was discovered by many in politics, government, and economics which made it clear that for the economy to survive we must educate the populace to want not only old and necessary items but also new things that they didn't need. Enter the concept of "standard of living."

They cite a 1929 report by the Herbert Hoover Committee on Recent Economic Changes that says:
"The survey has proved conclusively what has long been held theoretically to be true, that wants are almost insatiable; that one want satisfied makes way for another. The conclusion is that economically we have a boundless field before us; that there are new wants which will make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied. Our situation is fortunate, our momentum is remarkable."

In the post-World-War-II era Victor Lebow writing for the retail industry said. "Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption.. . We need things consumed, burned up, worn out. replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing rate. As the authors say, "Welcome to the rat race!"3

Think of the debt in this country, the consumerism that makes us all captive to jobs we don't like, to things we don't need, and sometimes don't even want just days after we have bought them.

Maybe there is much wisdom and liberation in those words we heard last week that in denying ourselves, we might just find ourselves and perhaps Jesus' anger at the money changers in the temple has a more significant message for us today than we might want to see.

You can just hear the laughs when Jesus says, "Knock this temple down and I will rebuild it in three days." "Yeah, right. This took 46 years to get to this point. Are you nuts?" Of course, after his death and resurrection we can see what he is talking about.

But it might be true that in that statement by Jesus we also hear, "If we could knock this temple down and start over, and know it for what it really means, we might know more in three days than we would ever know m 46 years of using the temple the way it is being used."

When Michael Jordan makes more in one month from his Nike promotions than what the people that make the shoes overseas make all together in a year we must believe something to be wrong. That is consumerism.
I am firmly in it. I do not exempt myself. But I can tell you that I am beginning to work on it. It will be slow to work my way out of it. I'll probably not ever make it. Our society does not make it easy to do so.

We are bathed in it in our society. It is all around and all over us. But we can begin making progress towards it. Lent is a time to at least explore what it does to us. Lest you think it is really a new concept. You should know that it isn't. It has been around for quite some time.

The Desert Fathers felt distressed by the same kind of society. They escaped into the Desert to ask questions different from those of that society. Listen and you will see how similar they are for us.

The society they lived in asked "How can I get more?" They wanted to ask, "What can I do without ?" The society asked, "How can I find myself?" They asked, "HOW can I lose myself?" Their world asked, "How can I win friends and influence people?" They asked, "How can I love God?"

Sounds very familiar doesn't it?

Richard Foster says that contemporary culture is plagued by the passion to possess. The unreasoned boast abounds that the good life is found in accumulation, that '"more is better"4 There is really little proof that this is true.

Enough is certainly better. Most of us live with more than enough while many more live with less than enough. John D. Rockefeller was once asked how much money it would take to be really satisfied. He answered, "Just a little bit more?"

There is an undeniable truth in the passage, "You cannot serve God and money." If we try both we definitely do lose something, our families, our dreams, our values, maybe even our lives.

We have many different roles and selves within us, our working selves, our family selves, our friends, selves, our charity selves, our financial selves, and on and on. They all vie for our time.

Only if we choose to filter those wants and needs, all of them through God, will we stay centered. Only then will the path towards the temple remain free and clear and give us safe passage.

Only then will we begin to understand that question and be able to form an answer to it. "Your money or your life?"

The tables, the sales pitches, the sheep, the oxen, the pigeons, the money changers. They are all back at work. Jesus did what he could.. He made his point. We see that today, but, cleverly, they are back at it.
As we make our way to the temple they all make their way towards us, shouting, maybe even whispering, "Your money or your life?" Good Question!

1 Kenneth Leech. We Preach Christ Crucified. Cowley Publishers.
2.Webster's Dictionary
3 Joe Dominquez and Vickie Robin, Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial /independence. Penguin Press. 1992.
4 Richard Foster. Freedom of Simplicity, Harper and Row. 1981