Money, money, moneymp3

I wonder how you react to the story of the Israelites who made the golden calf whilst Moses was up Mount Sinai talking with God. Exodus 32 tells us that they sang and danced before the calf, praising it for bringing them out of slavery. I suspect most of us can’t understand how they could be so stupid. Yet, it seems to me that in the present day we are plagued by a far greater idolatry: money. 

Just like the Israelites, we believe this particular idol has both freed us from slavery in the past, and contains our hope for the future. The economic system in which we participate assumes that continual wealth creation is a good thing. However, we only think that because we falsely attribute whatever fulfilment we now enjoy to the ‘stuff’ that surrounds us. We fail to appreciate that it is in relationship – primarily our relationship with God – that real fulfilment resides. Similarly, we falsely believe that if only we had a little more money, then suddenly life would be fine. All of this is just lies. And although we know that money does not satisfy, we pursue it with as little grace, and as much intensity, as the drug addict does their next fix.

What makes this worse is that this particular form of idolatry is so prevalent within the church that whilst we sweat over whether to let gay and lesbian folk at our communion tables, we don’t even notice the fact that we not only welcome, but also promote to positions of leadership, those who worship at the altar of mammon.

Jesus once told a parable about a man who built bigger and bigger barns in order to store up his wealth, and that night God demanded his life. Christ’s chilling words at the end of that passage are these: “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich towards God.” The point seems to me that our desire for money must never come before our love for God.

Given that, what would Jesus have made of the queues outside Northern Rock this week? Was this merely a case of prudent people ensuring that their hard earned savings were secure? Or, to the extent that the run on the bank was unjustified and irrational, was it evidence of an idolatrous lust for money that the Scriptures so clearly condemn.

My concern is that for many it was the latter. The message our world desperately needs to hear is that placing our hope in Christ means that we can get off this endless treadmill of consumerism, greed and wealth creation that simply doesn’t deliver, and know instead a saviour who does. Of course, I suspect that the reason we have trouble sharing that message is that we haven’t even learnt it ourselves. 

 

Justin Thacker, Head of Theology

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