Greed is a Bottomless Pit: Luke 12: 13-21

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 05:57:34 -0600

“Take heed, and keep yourselves from all covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.”

In the 1987 film, Wall Street, Michael Douglas won an Academy Award for his role as Gordon Gekko, the very personification of greed. In a speech to the stockholders of a corporation he was about to take over, Gekko delivered a riveting speech in which he declared:

"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right; greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you mark my words – will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA."

The inspiration for Gekko's speech was the 1986 commencement address delivered by Wall Street money maven Ivan Boesky at the UC Berkeley's School of Business Adminsitration. Boesky told the assembly that, "Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself." Not long afterward, Boesky was sent to prison for insider trading.

In today's Gospel, Jesus refuses to be drawn into a sibling rivalry in which one brother demands that the other brother give him his share of his inheritance. The custom at that time was for the heirs to share the inherited land and work it together rather than divide it up.

Jesus saw the man's request as a sign of greed.

The Bible warns us about greed 25 times and reminds us that our lives do not consist of the abundance of our possessions. Yet, we live in a society that encourages conspicuous, profligate consumption, a country in which children learn to "Super size me" and where parents “shop ‘til they drop.”

Greed is responsible for many of the recent scandals that have wracked corporate America. We now have CEOs of major corporations earning more before lunch time than their employees earn in a year. Yet they still want more. Greed is behind the credit crisis that has brought Wall Street and Main Street to the edge of a financial abyss. Yet they all expect a government bailout. Greed is what drives the pharmaceutical companies to charge exorbitant prices. Greed is what fuels the sale of illicit drugs and the use of steroids by athletes who are supposed to be role models. What we really need is a pill to treat the feverish spread of greed.

When we approach the altar to receive communion, we extend an empty hand to receive the host. That outward gesture symbolizes the way we must let go of the things of this world and break the grip of greed in order to take Jesus into our lives. What is Jesus asking you to let go of today?

Our Daily Bread: Matthew 6: 9-15

Wed, 6 Feb 2008 10:16:36 -0600

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

Our consumer-oriented society is continually creating and marketing new things that we never realized we needed until advertisers convinced us we couldn’t live without them. Today's average supermarket carries more than 30,000 products.

We've come a long way from the day when Christ told us to pray for our daily bread.

Heinz ketchup has 57 varieties. Baskin-Robbins has over 100 flavors (Penguin Swirl, anyone?). We have dozens of bottled waters to choose from - - imported or domestic, spring, mineral, organic, flavored, vitamin-enriched, fluoride or fiber added. We even have endless varieties of trash bags. A single brand of trash bag, Hefty, has 21 different ways to dispose of our garbage. Maybe more. I stopped counting.

We have so many choices that the value of anyone choice is depreciated by the seeming abundance of alternatives. If our first choice doesn't satisfy, we simply try another one. But the plethora of consumer goods always leaves us wondering if we made the very best choice; always wondering whether there is something better out there that we just haven't tried yet. Far from satisfying us, the profusion of choices leaves us with an uneasy feeling of not being fully satisfied.

Our affluence also encourages us to make impulsive purchases because, if we make the wrong choice, all is not lost; there is always another choice to be made. Choice becomes our answer to everything, our God.

Often, the next choice is more costly. We may want a cup of coffee in the morning but we reach for a Mocha Grande Frappuccino. We may want an auto but we drive an Infinit QX56 SUV. We may want a new television set, but we take home Samsung's state-of-the-art fourth generation plasma screen TV with surround sound.

It's easy to confuse our wants and our needs. We're bombarded daily by advertising messages that boggle the mind and breed discontent. A typical half hour block of television programming contains eight minutes of advertising and as many as 16 commercials. If you spend three and a half hours a night watching television, you're exposed to almost an hour of advertising daily.

By the time you arrive at church on Sunday, you will have been exposed to 29 times more advertising messages than the message you'll hear from the pulpit in a 15-minute sermon.

When Jesus said we were to pray for our daily bread, He was encouraging us to pray daily so that we would have the wisdom and insight to know the difference between our needs and our wants. We need the daily devotion to prayer as a form of spiritual station break.

Money Matters

Greed is a Bottomless Pit: Luke 12: 13-21

Our Daily Bread: Matthew 6: 9-15