The Elephant in the Room

Scripture: John 2.13-22; 1 Corinthians 1.18-25


There is a company called Travel Mansions. Travel Mansions comes to big homes and makes them bigger by adding on huge rooms and major additions. Their motto is, “We sell what no one needs.” We sell what no one needs. This has the virtue of being honest, but it also has the vice of raw and wicked materialism. Advertising is not about filling needs, but creating them, or rather, creating the perception of need.

Every one of us here, and I mean every one, must own up to the fact that we live in a super-consuming society. We are super consumers. We are the first generations of average people in this country dealing with a surplus of wealth and we don’t know how to deal with it. We don’t know how to say no. You may say, “Not me, I don’t have a surplus – you ought to see all my bills!” Well, I believe you, but that just proves the point. A lot of us don’t have a surplus of cash or assets, but we live like we do. In other words, we borrow so we can live as super-consumers, according to the standard we think we need.

We have bought into the lie that says satisfaction of desire is the key to happiness. Some desires you can’t satisfy. The more you give, the more they take. You can’t stand on desire. It is a losing game!

Take, for example, the story of Antoine Yates. Yates lived in New York City and for some reason brought home a 2 month-old tiger cub and later, an alligator. It’s not clear where he found them. But they were with him for two years – in his apartment. What was a little tiger cub became a 500 pound Bengal tiger monstrosity.

It was inevitable. The police got a call about a “dog” bite and when they got to the 19-story public housing apartment building, they discovered Yates in the lobby with injuries to his right arm and leg. Someone alerted them to the possibility a “wild animal” was at his apartment. Apparently, neighbors had complained about a “cat odor.” I bet!
When they arrived, the police peered through a hole and saw the huge cat prowling around the apartment. Long story short, they tranquilized the cat, which was lying on a pile of newspapers. The alligator was nearby. Both animals were relocated to shelters. As for Antoine Yates, he says he misses the tiger, demonstrating that it’s possible to be in love with the very things that can kill you.

Yates had a tiger and alligator. He didn’t have an elephant. We do. The elephant in our room is big and just as dangerous as the tiger. The elephant’s name is Money. Do we realize that Money can kill us? Do we realize that the misuse of money is killing people right now, taking the life right out of them – people we know. Maybe people right here today.

I never understood quite why Jesus got so mad at the people buying and selling in the Temple courtyard. After all, they were selling stuff for religious purposes, and it wasn’t like they were right in the worship area either. But now I think I understand. He was angry because the people were not honoring God at God’s temple, they were honoring Mammon, Money god, the very god that would destroy them if it could.

Jesus emphasizes this point time and again in his teaching and storytelling. Remember the rich young ruler? He was a good, religious man. He had all his ducks in a row. He was feeling good about his prospects in eternity. “I have kept all the commandments since the day I was born, Rabbi, what else is there for me to do?” And Jesus sees the man’s wealth and just blows him up with this – “One more thing you must do – sell everything you’ve got, give it to the poor, and then come and follow me.” And the man went away with his back to Jesus and his eyes on the ground, “for he had many possessions.”

This is the only place in the New Testament where Jesus invites someone to be a disciple and they turn him down. That ought to give us pause. If you love your stuff too much, you can’t love God. Loving money and the stuff of this world kills your relationship with God. Can you see why Jesus is ticked off?

Now, church folks ought to know better. What’s more, we ought to be telling others to watch out. We ought to be showing people that there is a better way to live. I think we are not doing a better job than we are because we haven’t yet admitted that there is an elephant in the room. We are still schizophrenic about money. Six days a week we think about it, talk about it, use it, revel in it or despair over it. Money runs the show! Then, come Sunday, things get quiet. We don’t talk about it. We act like we never heard of it before.

Let me give you an example. When I came to Hicks my salary package was set up a certain way in which my giving, my tithe, was included in my salary package, so that there was figure in my salary that was my tithe but it was then deducted so that I was not paid that money. It was set up this way for legitimate reasons, but it was impressed upon us by some folks in the conference that this was probably not a legal deduction according to the IRS. So, we changed how we do my salary. And for the first time in about five years I actually have the pleasure and responsibility of writing a check out of my salary to the church as a tithe. A couple weeks ago, we were getting ready to leave for San Diego and I asked my mother if she would drop my check in the offering plate for me the Sunday I would not be here. She said sure, but then she looked me and said with a funny look on her face that only I and my siblings truly understand, and then said, “Don’t you have an envelope to put it in.” What I want you to understand is, my mother was not concerned about the record-keeping procedures of the church. No, knowing her, I know there is a part of her that thinks it’s, well, unseemly to just throw a check in the plate, or cash for that matter, because money is unseemly in church.

She and her parents before her felt that way, maybe, based on this very Gospel lesson we study today. But again, the anger of Jesus is directed at people not because they have money in church. Jesus is angry because Money has them. Money drives what they do. Even when they come to church. Money drives what we do when we fail to give it to God in prayer; when we fail to honor God with how we spend and save (provided that we do save). Money is in the driver’s seat when we make giving and afterthought rather than the first and best thought.

There is an old story, a true story, about a king of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, which at one time once one of the greatest kingdoms in the world. This king had a very beautiful daughter who was of age to be married. There was a great Roman general, a pagan, who saw this princess and immediately fell in love with her and asked her father, the king, for her hand in marriage. The Austrian king said to the soldier, “You are a man of violence and an unbeliever, if you would marry my daughter, you must renounce your violent life, be baptized into the Christian faith and then you may marry. Well, this general seriously considered the matter, and agreed to the terms. The general’s men were so inspired by their leader’s decision that they too wanted to be baptized into the Christian faith. They had a problem however. They were to go into battle soon. So when it came time for them to be baptized with their general, they all walked into the river of baptism, but as they did so, they all held their swords aloft over their heads, so the waters of baptism would not touch them.

Maybe you have baptized your sword, but for many of us, our wallets and checkbooks and possessions, we struggle to keep out of the baptismal water. We must baptize our money. We must put that idol in its proper place. When we do, then the idol becomes a holy servant. It becomes God’s servant. And it becomes our servant.

Jesus would have us be free of Mammon’s clutches and servitude. Jesus gets angry when he sees our lives being destroyed by something that should serve us instead.

Make no mistake – this is a spiritual issue. When Jesus said, “It is better to give than receive,” he knew what he was talking about. Jesus ties giving to forgiveness and joy and loving relationships. “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” Luke 6.38 Our growth as persons corresponds directly to the generosity or meanness of our giving.

Next week is Consecration Sunday. Believe me when I say this: Our goal for next week is not to pay the bills, or get more money in our church account. Our goal is for you to keep growing into the person God intends for you to be. Our goal is for all of us together to follow the Master in all of our ways, with all our hearts, all our minds, and all our strength.

That commitment card – don’t throw it away. Don’t ignore it. It’s a prayer. It’s a response to the invitation Jesus gives you to follow.