“The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:16-21)
“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good,” – Gordon Gekko from the 1987 film “Wall Street.”
Greed is one of the seven deadly sins for a reason. The Greatest greed today and most dangerous, blind, and stupid is destroying our planet to fatten portfolios. Stock market crashes repeatedly have mocked the rich fools of our days, but now as we the people’s money has been spent to pay renewable energy companies to stop producing safe energy in the midst of an energy crisis we must ask, where are the rich fossil fuel fools going to spend their ill-gotten gains when’d the planet that is our only home can no longer sustain human life?
When long-preserved parks and wilderness areas are turned over to greedy corporations who rape and pillage those sacred lands our connection to our roots and creation/creator are destroyed along with endangered species and our hope for future generations. Long before Moses received the Ten Commandments Genesis records a command for humans to be stewards and caretakers of creation. “And the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” (Genesis 2:15). Because of our greed we are failing to do that basic job humanity was entrusted with, and if we fail that task nothing else matters.
The creation story itself, at least the second one in Genesis, shows how human greed for knowledge and power doomed our relationship with God and creation from the very beginning. And that sad saga just keeps on unfolding throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Cain kills his brother because of greed and jealousy. Jacob steals his brother’s birthright for greed of status and privilege. The Hebrew people steal the homeland of other people because they feel privileged and entitled to do so.
David steals the wife of one of his own brave and honorable generals because of lust and greed. He only recognizes his own sin when the prophet Nathan reveals it to him in a parable ending with the unforgettable words “You are the man.” (2 Samuel 12:7)
And no matter what we have been led to believe, the United States is far from exempt from the human frailty of greed. Greed is what justified human slavery and the willingness of our founders to tolerate it in spite of also affirming a document that proclaimed “all men are created equal.” Greed is what motivated that same government to break at least 374 treaties with the Native American peoples who according to archeologists had occupied this land for 20,000-30,000 years before white illegal immigrants began to arrive and lay claim to their land.
Jesus himself uses the parable above to show us all the foolishness of greed in his own story of a rich fool who builds bigger barns to store a bountiful harvest only to die before being able to enjoy any of his profits. And today our leadership is building bigger barns of exorbitant wealth while destroying our planet and ignoring the existential needs of the poor and marginalized. They are doing exactly what Amos accused Israel’s leaders doing 2750 years ago – “selling the poor for a pair of shoes.” (Amos 2:6 and 8:6)
Taking President Trump as one example of the how the foolishness of greed is so apparent to anyone who is not blinded by their own greed or so deep in denial as to be unreachable by logic or reason. Donald Trump has increased his personal wealth, in total disregard for constitutional prohibitions, by a staggering total of $4.2 Billion in just the last 18. months. The man is 80 years old and in very poor health. What will he ever be able to do with all that greed-gotten wealth? He is obviously to objective observers a very miserable and lonely man. He is desperately trying to memorialize himself with arches, airports, and other structures that will bear his name, but they are as hollow and unstable as the tower of Babble because of his personal and political history of corruption and injustice and failure even in deploying our powerful military into a foolish, expensive, and disastrous war.
Greed is a dangerous and powerful part of human nature, and that is exactly why constant vigilance of ourselves and of our own leaders and government structures is necessary for it is existentially important for the survival of our planet and the human race. We white, especially male, Americans must be especially self-aware and self-critical. Our privileged status for so long has made us blind to its injustice and marginalization of everyone else that makes our comfortable status possible. Our economic system is based on a win-lose paradigm.
The popular board game Monopoly is an excellent metaphor for the inherent flaw in a capitalistic system if it is not regulated to limit the damage greed can cause. In Monopoly the whole point of the game is to accumulate so much wealth that everyone else playing the game is driven into bankruptcy. Monopoly was invented in 1903 by a progressive feminist named Lizzie Magie as The Landlord’s Game. Ironically, she created it to critique unfettered capitalism and demonstrate the negative effects of land monopolies. As one who played the game for many hours as a kid I can attest I missed the intended point of the game.
Only much later as an adult did I understand the intended purpose, and I also recognized a basic flaw in the rules of the game. In Monopoly every player starts out on an even playing field with the same amount of cash. Promoting that myth is perhaps the most dangerous lesson the game taught those of us who played it. In real life we all should know that those trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty are at a tremendous disadvantage when playing the real game of life with those who have inherited wealth or educational advantage.
Perhaps the best way to end this post is to let Jesus have the last words:
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24)
Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21)
Peacefully Harsh 