When the Money-god Came to Town

“No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24, NIV.

The Kwan Im Tong Hood Chee Buddhist Temple in Singapore is famous because of many testimonies about miraculous answers to prayers made there. People come from all over Singapore, and some pilgrims even come from the neighboring nations of Malaysia and Indonesia to pray at this temple.

The Chinese follow a lunar calendar that has many auspicious days for various ceremonies and acts of worship. My office is walking distance from this temple and I often go by during the lunch hour. March 15th was an especially busy day at the temple.

Kwan Yin, the goddess of mercy, is a very popular goddess in Southeast Asia. Her birthday is celebrated four times a year. I thought perhaps the crowds were gathering for her, but this was the biggest crowd I had ever seen at the temple, with the exception of Vesak Day, which is the holiest day on the Buddhist calendar.

The crowds had grown so large that armed police manned yellow, metal barricades to control the flow of worshipers into the temple. The worshipers came with flowers and large, tan-colored joss sticks. These joss sticks were more than ten times larger than the ordinary red joss sticks. The lines of people waiting to enter the temple reminded me of a line for a major attraction at Disneyland.

I ducked through a hawker stall (outdoor food court) and ran into a portable shrine on the back of a pickup truck. The Buddha image had bright blue hair, and reminded me of the style of Buddha that you often see in a Thai Wat (temple). A lady offered me a red joss stick to give to the Buddha statue. She said it would bring me good fortune. I declined, and kept walking.

When I returned to the office I asked one of my Singaporean co-workers if it was Kuan Yin’s birthday again. “No,” she replied. “Tsai Sheng, the god of wealth is supposed to visit the temple today.” That made sense. Among the Chinese, the god of wealth would certainly have a much greater draw than the goddess of mercy.

However, it wasn’t just the Chinese who stood in line on this auspicious day. A Malay woman who works in the office next door admitted to standing in line for over an hour for the chance to garner favor with this Chinese deity.

“Aren’t you Muslim?” a Chinese Christian asked her.

“Oh, yes,” she responded. “But this was just for the fun of the experience, and why not if it will help my luck?” Then she added, “Oh, you Christians don’t do that, do you?”

I’m not so sure that I’d share this Singaporean-Malay woman’s kind assumption. Likely there were Singaporean Christians waiting in line for the “experience” as well.

Apparently, once the worshipers entered the temple, monks gave them a red, ang pow envelope with ten cents that had been blessed. With this in hand the worshipers were entitled to petition the god of wealth for however much money they needed or wanted. The money was considered as a loan from the god, but nobody seemed to know how repayment will be made.

I might be tempted to think the whole thing was funny, if it weren’t for the deadly serious expressions on the faces of the people I saw as they entered the temple. On the day that the god of wealth came to town, I was graphically reminded that you cannot serve both God and money.

I was also reminded that we do some pretty funny things in the pursuit of happiness and the American dream. Have you ever owned a lucky rabbit’s foot? Have you ever had a lucky number or outfit? Have you ever consulted a horoscope? Do you avoid black cats, or walking under ladders? Need I even ask about putting the pursuit of wealth above your relationship with God? As we pray for Singapore, perhaps we ought to pray the same things for America. God have mercy on us all.

Pray that:

The Chinese of Singapore will come to realize that there is only One God, and He is the giver of all good things.

The strangle hold that the pursuit of wealth has over many Chinese will be broken, and they will find true riches in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Lukewarm Singaporean Christians will experience revival, and that the churches in Singapore will grow exponentially.

Pacific Rim is a region of the International Mission Board, SBC.