Greed and the Good Life

What would you do if you were given 100 million dollars?

·    Pay off the mortgage

·    Help out your children and grandchildren?

·    Go on a holiday?

100 million is a lot of money, I can think of what to do with one million, possibly 2 million, but more than that, I would have to think really hard about what to do with it all.

Those of us who grow fruit and veggies at home know that some years there is an abundant crop, and some years very little. What do we do with the excess crop – most people I know preserve some and give some away. I know when we were growing chockos, we would take them to church and everyone had ample. At the moment there is a box in the foyer at Umina with some oranges and lemons for people to take.  

The farmer in the parable is often known as ‘the rich fool’. As a landowner he is well off, and now the rain and sun have worked their magic and a bumper crop is on the way.

In the story of Joseph in the Old Testament, we read how he built bigger barns to store grain during the 7 fat years, put it away for the community during the 7 lean years.

But this farmer doesn’t store the grain for the community, he stores it for himself, so he no longer needs to work. The man is called a fool, not because he had a bumper crop, not because he stored the grain, but because he was selfish.

What matters isn’t what is in the bank account, but what we do with the resources we have. Do we spend wisely, share generously and live compassionately.  Remember Herbert in our story, he had the treasure, but all he did was worry about it, he didn’t benefit from it, in fact he lost his relationship with his brother and he lost sleep.

It seems at times like the Bible speaks against being financially well of, but it doesn’t. It speaks against relying on wealth instead of God, it speaks against the focus on money, it speaks against greed.

By greed I am not meaning having enough to live, but the way we place emphasis on having more for the sake of having more.

Greed hurts us, because it blinds us to what God has done and is doing in our lives.
Greed hurts us because it cuts is of from relationship with others and with God.
Greed hurts us because we are unable to see the riches of God,
 salvation,
redemption,
freedom.

We live in a culture which promotes the building of bigger barns - larger houses, expressways for private vehicles rather than improving public transport for everyone; we encourage people to prepare for the future, to accumulate, to hoard. We spend time and energy counting and securing our treasure. We look to give our children an advantage over other children, to give ourselves an advantage over those who might be in competition with us for work or housing or prestige.

When did life become a competition rather than co-operative?
it was amazing to watch the grand finale of Master Chef last week, when one contestant helped another in the last few minutes of a 5 hour cook off.

We build walls around ourselves, physical and emotional walls, so that we feel safe. Yet we are all diminished as humans. In the story of the creation, God realised that people were not to live without relationships.

The person who came and asked Jesus to judge in a family dispute wanted more. When we are looking for more resources what inadequacy are trying to fill? When we try and hold our things close to us, when we try and get more, when we spend our time and energy and money on getting and keeping resources, what are we missing out on?

Because in the end our security comes from God, our life is a gift from God.  Jesus said: “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

It is easy to get hooked into the expectations of the society we live in.
it is easy to get caught up in wanting more.
It is easy to look to possessions to make us
feel whole,
to feel secure,
to feel worthwhile.
And we end up on a treadmill of always wanting more.

How much of what we own, actually owns us. The bigger our houses, the more cleaning there is to do. The more expensive our car, the more we worry about getting it damaged.  And if you have a backyard pool, you need to spend time on keeping it clean and the water treated and tested. And all that can take time away from our relationships.

Jesus said: “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

The value of our lives is not determined by our possessions or our bank account or our status. Each person is precious in the sight of God.

Here is a paraphrase of some of the Colossians reading:

If you are fair dinkum when you say you have been raised to new life with Christ, then commit yourself to the things that belong to such a life. Look to Christ — God’s right hand man — and take your cues from him. Concentrate on the things that matter to Christ, and don’t let yourselves get hooked into the agendas that preoccupy the world around you. Your old life is behind you — dead and buried — and your new life is intimately bound up with Christ, and lived in God. The full reality of this new life is not visible to the general public yet, but it will be. Because your life is now bound to Christ, when Christ makes his triumphant return to the public stage, you will be there with him, in all your glory, for all to see.
........So, since your old life has been extinguished, make sure you stamp out any remnants of it that might spark up within you and set it off again. Don’t char your sexuality with trivialised, loveless flings. Expel the fumes of moral contamination. Douse smouldering compulsions. Remove anything that might fuel greed, because after all, greed is just another form of idolatry. God is getting ready to deal with those who have been defiantly allowing these sorts of things to burn out of control. You were once implicated in all this, because those things were all part the kind of life you used to live. But now you must purge yourselves of all such things — bitterness, vengefulness, spite, slander, and any tendency to mouth off in ways that insult and humiliate others. And don’t lie to one another. Dishonesty may have been a natural part of the old persona you all once wore, but you’ve stripped all that off, along with all its accessories, and decked yourselves out in a whole new persona. The new you is becoming more and more like your creator as your minds are reconstructed and your understanding grows. In this renewed life, we are no longer divided up into factions based on our backgrounds. It no longer makes any difference at all whether you were from this ethnic group or that, one religious tradition or another; whether you were educated or illiterate, refined or rough-nut, welfare dependent or money-to-burn. Every possible distinction among you is rendered irrelevant, because now Christ is in all of you and all of you are in Christ.

©2001 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net

“Christian faith is not about a religious adventure on the side of daily life, but about a total orientation of one's being in which, through Christ, God is back being God for us, and we are back to being human in the way we were made to be.” Bill Loader