God's economy versus the money economy

Scripture: John 2:13-25

            This is a sermon about economics (more frightening words may never before have been uttered here). Consider yourself warned—that’s all I’m saying.

There was something going around the internet awhile back and, since it’s the internet it’s still going around somewhere out there, which said, “When someone asks you ‘What would Jesus do?’ remind them that freaking out and flipping tables is a viable option.” I might add: whipping people and animals and driving them out of the temple.

            Now, this is a Jesus we can get behind--beat those moneychangers! whip those cows!--but it’s also a case of Jesus making a statement about economic priorities. There were certainly other cases of abuse that Jesus witnessed in his ministry, but it is this scene of moneychangers and merchants in the outer wings of the temple that really sets him off. Jesus seemed to understand the kind of things that we hold in our hearts to be most important. He understood how naïve we are about the idea of economies. And in the outer wings of the temple two very distinct economies were clashing.

            The word “economy” comes from two Greek words: “oikos” and “nomos.” Oikos means “house” or “household” and nomos means “custom” or “law.” So, in essence an economy is the “law (or custom) of the household,” which means two things: 1. all economies are built from the small-scale of the individual household, and 2. any large-scale economy that does not take into account the customs of households has been corrupted. This becomes real for Jesus when he visits the temple, because the customs of the temple should have been distinct from the customs of the marketplace. To exchange money in the temple was to send the dangerous message that, like the marketplace, God’s economy trades in money. Jesus was not against economies—in fact, the temple participated in a kind of economy that I’ll get to in a minute—but he was very much against the wrong economy in the wrong place. To trade in money in God’s house was to engage in the wrong kind of commerce for the location. It is too easy to ally ourselves with money; too easy to make of it an idol.

            Jesus’ primary concern is to enforce the house rules of the temple; to correct the local economy. I understand that people have reservations about making this a story about economics, but I think most of those reservations are because some preacher made large-scale, sweeping generalizations about national and international economies based on this scene. I think we are right to be wary of that, but I think that concern has more to do with our poor understanding of what an economy is than it does with whether or not this is what Jesus is doing.

Money is not bad on its own. Only when it captures our hearts in unhealthy ways or becomes something we pile up or use against our neighbor does it become a serious problem. But money also has little to do with the kind of God-sharing that is part and parcel of the temple economy. Just as you shouldn’t be playing baseball in the temple, neither should you be making money. There is simply no way to participate in both economies at once. The money-economy with all of its written rules of wealth and unwritten rules of status has to be checked at the door.

Now, I think we can infer a step further that Jesus’ actions suggest a good economy is not concerned only with making money. A good economy is concerned both with the “household” it supports—meaning the people who live there—and the place where that household lives. A good economy abides in a specific location. So, in the case of the temple, a good temple economy values both the purpose of the temple and what the temple serves; i.e. the temple is for worship and it is located both in a physical place and wherever at least two or three are gathered in God’s name. This is where the rubber meets the road for us: the temple economy stretches far further than the actual temple building. The spiritual gifts we practice in any “house of God” should carry forward into all aspects of our lives, because, unlike the money economy, God’s economy actually has inherit worth in and of itself. It is not given worth by something abstract. And God’s economy is practiced in every place we inhabit—the church, and the home, the marketplace, and everywhere in-between.

Our challenge as a church is that our business happens right at the intersection of the money economy and God’s economy. This is why churches are terrible at talking about money. I’ve said this before (quoting Rolf Jacobson): "We tell you two things: 1. Money is evil, and 2. Give us your money"—which is more than a little hypocritical. And we say these two things because we have failed to make the distinction between a self-serving, preservation-oriented economy, and an economy based on mission that is more concerned with God-sharing than survival.

There may be some collateral benefit to a worshiping community that struggles along just trying to raise enough money to cover the rent and maybe pay a pastor, just as a macro-economy that does not remember or care for individual households may still be of some benefit to them. Even a church that has no mission except to its own privileged few is likely to do some good; just as individual people who participate in a global economy are benefited by the interest their investments collect. But a church, like the temple, that is overly concerned with finances will forget its primary economic identity, which is to be earthly residents of the Kingdom of God. If we believe that that identity depends on money in the bank account then we’ve shown which economy we really trust.

The congregations I serve are financially secure right now, but it’s possible than someday we might not be. It’s also possible that we may accumulate so much of a safety net for an unknown future that we miss opportunities for mission now. The truth is that our bank accounts don’t actually tell us anything about our mission. Unlike the money economy, our success or failure is determined not by the bottom line but by the mission we share. God’s economy is the perfect local economy, because it rests on the absolute needs of each household, but it also encompasses all of God’s people. God’s economy has two primary goals: 1. to show us Christ, and 2. to serve those in need—so honoring the two tablets of the Ten Commandments. If the church is more concerned with money-making than God-sharing then the church is not actually a house of God, because it is not following the “customs of the house,” and so it is no longer working as God’s economy.

Our church is both very different from the temple and very much the same. We don’t sell worship paraphernalia before you enter the sanctuary and we don’t sacrifice animals, but we do walk the narrow road of participation in the money economy—something we tend to focus on more this time of year with annual meetings and questions about the budget. In a healthy congregation, the bottom line is a by-product of our economy as God’s church and not indicative of our success or failure. This is where a church is fundamentally different from a business. Our success is completely independent of our bank account. In fact, our success is completely independent of our survival. This branch of God’s church is just a passing thing--just like the temple. By the time John wrote his Gospel the temple was already destroyed. It happened less than a half century after Jesus. The longest lasting churches will all close their doors. The sturdiest church buildings will crumble, whether in five years, fifty, or five hundred. But God’s economy is bigger than the individual church building and, unlike the global money economy, God’s economy doesn’t cheapen goods or promote competition. Rather, it is one set of house rules for the whole body of Christ.
We carry forward all the worries we have about large-scale economies into our churches. We wonder: Will we have enough? Are we financially secure? How much will it take for us to be comfortable? The challenge for those of us who live in both these worlds is that God’s economy does not care about those questions. God’s economy demands your whole life—security, comfort, and all—and we just don’t like that very much.

Neither did the temple leaders. So, they tried to mix the two—God’s economy and the money economy—and that’s why Jesus freaked out. He understood how dangerous that combination could be; he understood how easily we prefer the one to the other. We tend to prefer business principles that measure our success or failure, but God’s economy has little to do with that. There are no marginal goals or numerical benchmarks for success. This can be awfully frustrating, especially when we think that there aren’t enough people in the church or that those people who are members don’t come often enough. We talk a lot about “growing” in the church, but we can’t get out of this mindset that the only way to determine growth is through worship attendance, new members, and income. We rarely consider that growth might be outwards into new kinds of ministries that happen outside of Sunday morning and outside of the church building, which are far more important to God’s economy than the number of people in the pews.

God’s economy is not limited by walls or worship times or statistics, which makes it tough to quantify. Sorry, that’s life. The best things in life can’t be added up on a ledger, and that’s because the best things in life tend to be part of God’s economy. God’s household is ours—our family, our faith, our life together as the body of Christ. May our church continue to reflect that economy, and may we have the courage—like Jesus—to stand up to other economies that get in the way of our mission.

Amen.