The All-Or-Nothing Game

It has been many years since I have heard the fairy tale that I told to the children today. There is another fairy tale… with a similar theme… that is much shorter than that one. It is one of Aesop’s Fables.  A man and his wife had the good fortune to possess a goose which laid one golden egg every day. The sale of the egg brought them many things.  As lucky as they were, however, they soon began to think they were not getting rich fast enough.  Imagining that the bird must be made of gold inside, they decided to kill it in order to secure the whole store of precious metal at once. But when they cut it open they found it was just like any other goose. Thus, they neither got rich all at once, as they had hoped, nor could they enjoy the daily addition to their wealth that the wonderful goose had given them.  The moral of the story is that much wants more and often ends up losing all.   The man in our text today certainly did not have the time to enjoy his wealth either.

Over the past two weeks, in our investigation of the “Seven Deadly Sins,” we have looked at pride and envy.  Today, we have the opportunity to look at a cousin of theirs: greed.  Greed is the selfish desire for… or the pursuit of… money… wealth… power… food… or other possessions… especially when this pursuit denies the same goods to others.  It is, quite literally, an “All-Or-Nothing Game.” Jesus often accused the Pharisees of being greedy… though Nicodemus seems to be the exception to the rule. After this meeting with Jesus, he risked his life for Christ’s sake.  Now, some desire to increase one's wealth is nearly universal and acceptable in any culture, but this simple want is not considered greed. Greed is the extreme form of this desire… especially where one desires things simply for the sake of them.  An example would be the desire to have great amounts of money not to purchase objects, but possession of the money actually becomes an end in itself.  Greed usually entails acquiring material possessions at the expense of another person's welfare.   We tend to think that this is a failing of the very rich, but a father who buys himself a new car rather than fix the roof of his family's home… or a mother who runs up a credit card debt to purchase clothing for herself, while endangering her children’s education… both reflect priorities that show the sin of greed is at work.

Greed is a form of idolatry… which is defined as valuing something… such as money, possessions, and so on… more than God.  The earliest illustration of it in the Bible is the worship of the golden calf by the children of Israel in the desert.  They were more willing to bow and worship this man-made object… to put their trust in this thing that they made… rather than trust the God who had brought them out of Egypt.  Another understanding of greed as idolatry is to recognize that our desire for these things comes from our need to put ourselves above everyone else… making us the center of our efforts… the only one we try to please… or, in essence, converting ourselves into the god that we worship.

There are at least three forms of greed.  The first is the obsessive desire for material goods for the power that comes with them.  Once again, it is easy to see this sinful desire in those who manipulate the law by bribing those sworn to uphold it… or those who buy votes to in order to change whatever laws they don’t like.  It is more difficult to see that any effort we make to control or manipulate the lives of others through the use of our possessions is greed.  It can be as subtle as paying for a meal in order to create a sense of obligation… or to influence… the person who is sharing that meal with us.  The line between generosity and greed is a slender one… and is solely determined by the ulterior motive of the person who is putting the money down.

A second form of greed is hoarding… or the fearful need to store up surplus goods for some vaguely-defined period of want.  It is said that this was the motivation for many of the so called “robber barons” of earlier centuries, like J.P. Morgan.  Having begun their lives in poverty, they amassed a fortune motivated by their fear of returning to that state.  What they eventually learned was that no amount of money could release them from that fear.   You and I also hoard things… though on a smaller scale.  My parents could vouch for the fact that I have enough Bigelow Cinnamon Stick tea to last for at least three years of drinking two cups each day.  But I freely admit that I am addicted to the stuff and it is not possible to get it in Stephenville, Texas… and yes, I am afraid that one day, I will wake up and not have any on the shelf… hence, my obsession with purchasing every box that I see. I sincerely hope that my hoarding of this tea is not depriving anyone else of drinking it, however.  An essential component of greed is the knowledge…however fleeting… that someone is being deprived of something they need due to our actions.   Oh yes, not sharing that last roll of toilet paper qualifies as greed.

The third form of greed is the desire for more material goods for their own sake.  It is said that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet were unwilling to release more than a token amount of their wealth each year because it would cause them to drop to a lower rank on Forbes annual list of the wealthiest Americans.  Having money… wealth… net worth… is the only goal of the list… and, of course, the pride that comes with being able to say that one is on the list and… no doubt… at a rank that is in a single digit… and the envy of those whose rank is higher.  I will never know… so I tend not to spend a lot of time thinking about it.    There are those who own more art than they can possibly display in their homes.  Imelda Marcos is famous for owning more shoes than she could possibly wear… while the poor people in her nation were starving.

Andrew Greeley says… and I quote… “the most serious spiritual problem in our country today is reckless and untrammeled greed.”  “Greed,” he says, “accounts for the efforts to take profitability out of the pensions and health insurance of working men and women. Greed is responsible for the obscene salaries of CEOs. In the '90s the ratio of CEO compensation to average workers' compensation was 250 to 1, meaning that the boss earned on his first day of work during a year as much as the worker did in a whole year. Recent estimates put the current ratio at 500 to 1 -- the boss makes as much before lunch as the worker does all year.”  He goes on to say, “Greed is responsible for the endless stress and ruthless competition of the workplace, and the strains and tensions of professional class marriages. Greed explains much of the cheating on college campuses. Greed generates the reckless ventures that in part caused the bubble of the late '90s. Greed causes expensive wars that shatter the budget. Greed drives the murders of the narcotics world. Greed is responsible for the exploitations of teen sports stars by colleges and… is also the cause of the use of performance drugs by young athletes.  Ambition is not evil within limits. The struggle for success is not bad within limits. Hard work and fair rewards are good within limits. [But]  it is not good to take from the poor and give to the rich.”  That, in a nutshell, is what greed is… it takes things that are needed by someone and gives them to someone who has no need of them… through the manipulation of power… through fearful hoarding of resources… or through the acquisition of possessions for their own sake.

One measure of the inequality of the distribution of resources can be found in the Gini Coefficient.  Always a number between 0 – perfect equality – and 1 – perfect inequality, the higher the number, the greater the inequality in the distribution of resources.  In the United States, the Gini Coefficient has risen from 0.394 in 1970 to 0.469 in 2005.  This means that a larger share of our nation’s resources is in the hands of a smaller number of people today as compared to 1970.  This trend began in the 1980’s and is increasing at an even more rapid rate today.  Some mark this as a sign of the success of capitalism, but others warn of the political instability that comes when nations evidence a great disparity between the economic fortunes of their wealthy citizens and the very poor.  What should our response be as Christians?  Do we care what happens to others… as long as we and our families are protected?

There are some signs that change is in the air. In 1996, billionaire Ted Turner suggested that, just as there is the Forbes magazine list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, there should be a list of the Americans who give the most to charity each year. Slate Magazine quickly took up the challenge, publishing a list of the sixty Americans who give the most to charity each year. Since 2001, the Slate 60 list has been compiled by The Chronicle of Philanthropy and published each year by Slate. Whether by coincidence or not, philanthropy has blossomed since Slate's list was created. In 1996, the top donor gave away $100 million… or more than $121 million in today’s dollars. But in 2005, the top donor gave away $404 million, and the total list (with 63 donors, counting ties) gave more than $4.3 billion. Back in 1996, Bill Gates wrote that: "Giving away money effectively is almost as hard as earning it in the first place. I'm many years away from wanting to divert a lot of my attention in that direction." But two years later Gates and his immediate family gave away $33 million, and by 2000, Gates had emerged as the world's most generous philanthropist.

But, you are saying, “I don’t have several hundred million to give away.  What can I do to combat greed in my life?   Each time you give of your possessions without a thought of what you might gain from the gift… each time you do without something to insure that others might have what they need… each time you stop yourself from the purchase of something that is desirable, but unnecessary… you take a step in the right direction.

Remember that Jesus told the Rich Young Ruler to sell all that he owned and distribute the money to the poor, so that he would have treasure in heaven… and the young man could not do it.  Even those of us who are not rich struggle with the idea of letting go of our possessions for the glory of God.  But, if following Jesus was easy, everyone would be doing it.  Following Jesus is not easy.  Each time we take the time to compare our lives with the example that Jesus set for us, we fall short.  Fortunately, we have a compassionate teacher who is willing to guide us along the way.  As we journey with him through this period of Lent to the cross, may we take time to reflect on our own lives and what we might do to become more like him.  It is, after all, an “All-Or-Nothing Game.”  The only thing at stake is our very souls.  Amen.

Luke 12:13-21