Seven: Greed

Greed is the fourth in our nefarious line-up of deadly "root sins" (1 Timothy 6.10). The ancients called it avarice. Perhaps the most famous icon of greed is Ebenezer Scrooge, described by Dickens as a "squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner." Judas betrayed Jesus for money-he loved it so much that he stole from the money the disciples collected to help the poor (John 12.6). Tolstoy tells the story of a man named Pakhom who lives in a culture where a man can have as much land as he can walk around in one day as long as he makes it back to his starting point by sundown. Pakhom kept seeing more and walking around it until he realized the sun was going down. Frantic, he runs to make it back to his starting point as the sun set. When he arrived, he died of a heart attack.
Greed has the power to turn money into God, to cause one to betray God, and to turn God's house into a den of thieves. Greed leads us into "temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge [us] into ruin and destruction….Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (1 Timothy 6.9-10)" Greed can deceive us into believing that life consists in the abundance of the things we possess. Scripture teaches us to work so we can provide for our needs and the needs of others (Ephesians 4.28; 2 Thessalonians 3.6-13). But when we buy food, shelter, and clothing and still have money left over, it's awfully hard to give the rest back to our employers or to the poor.
Greed is hard to identify in ourselves, but exceedingly easy to identify in others. "Excess," someone said, "is seen in the one who has more than I." It's easy to see why greed seems to be an especially American past-time: turn on the telly. Madison Avenue preaches a lot more than I do. It's gospel? Happiness is found in three basic goals: "I need more. I need better. I need now." A great book illustrating our national excess is Material World: A Global Family Portrait.
However, knowing that an Ethiopian family's worldly goods would fit in one of my cabinets doesn't really help me deal with greed. After all, there're different degrees of food, shelter, and clothing. Food in Ethiopia probably costs less than it does at Yoke's. It is probably not as good, either.
Greed fuels the inability to make credit card, mortgage, and utility payments as much as it fuels the companies who fire employees yet pay CEOs millions just in perks. Greed sires divorce over irreconcilable checkbooks as surely as it sired Enron. Greed causes workaholics as surely as it causes prostitution, theft, and drug dealers. Why? Because greed is basically about feeling important, independent, secure, successful, valued, needed, and powerful but obtaining the wrong things to make us feel those things. It is like being hungry, but only having Cool-Whip to eat. Those felt needs are really found in a living relationship with God.
How do we fight greed when we are surrounded and imbued with it? One way is to argue out the meaning of want and need. Many of the things we "need" or are told we need are really only wants. A boat is not the same as medical insurance. Another way is to make it your goal to give God back 10% of your gross income. If you already do, then up it a percentage point every year or two and pick another good work to which to give your extra. Make sure it causes discomfort. "When it starts itching, it means it's healing." Another way is to have annual clearance sales of your household goods. You'd be surprised at how much stuff you have that you haven't seen or even needed in a year (we'll exclude Christmas decorations). One last way to at least raise our fist at greed is to wait ten days before we make any major purchase.

The Elders