1 Rose Hill Presbyterian Proverbs 11:24-26; 23:6-8; 28:25; Luke 12:16-21 Rev. Brian North February 24 th, 2013 Old School Wisdom Kirkland, WA Need Or Greed? Leo Tolstoy once wrote a story about a successful peasant farmer who was not satisfied with what the amount of land he had. One day he received a novel offer. For 1000 rubles, he could buy all the land he could walk around in a day. The only catch in the deal was that he had to be back at his starting point by sundown. Early the next morning he started out walking at a fast pace. By midday he was very tired, but he kept going, covering more and more ground. Well into the afternoon he realized that his greed had taken him far from the starting point. He quickened his pace and as the sun began to sink low in the sky, he began to run, knowing that if he did not make it back by sundown the opportunity to become an even bigger landholder would be lost. As the sun began to sink below the horizon he came within sight of the finish line. Gasping for breath, his heart pounding, he called upon every bit of strength left in his body and staggered across the line just before the sun disappeared. He immediately collapsed, and in a few minutes he was dead. Afterwards, his servants dug a grave. It was not much over six feet long and three feet wide. The title of Tolstoy's story was: How Much Land Does a Man Need? i And the main character answered the question, rather ironically. Too often in life, we confuse our need with greed. Greed is defined as the selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed. ii And this confusion of need and greed is one of the points of Jesus parable that we read. In fact, it seems to me that Tolstoy s story is essentially a re-telling of Jesus parable. So today, as we continue our series on Old School Wisdom, learning from the Proverbs, we re looking at greed. And out of today s Scripture passages there are three negative consequences I want us to highlight for us, and then a solution to greed. But before we get to those things, there are a couple of background things that we need to articulate/recognize about greed.
2 First, greed is elusive, because it is always easy to find someone else who seems to be greedier than we are. We can always find someone who makes more money than we do, who lives in a bigger and fancier home than we do, who drives a nicer car than we do, who gives less time, shares less of their talents. In terms of money, unless you re Bill Gates, every person in America can point out someone else who is wealthier than we are, who seems to embody greed more profoundly. Secondly, we live in such a consumerist society here in America, that we are completely desensitized to greed. We are constantly bombarded by ads and messages telling us that we need the latest this, the greatest that, and more, more, more of everything. Think about this: 20 years ago, how many of us knew that we needed the internet, a cell phone, a laptop computer, 100 channels of television, and a daily $4 cup of coffee? Probably none of us. And yet now many people believe that they would die on the spot without those things. Now, it s not that those things are inherently evil or wrong. In fact, some of them are simply a part of living where we do. I have a smart phone that does all kinds of amazing things it would probably be smarter with someone else operating it but it is still really useful I have a laptop computer that is indispensible to me in our American culture. They both help me do my job here in Kirkland, WA, where those things are common and they re a part of our world. But the point is that we live in a culture of bigger, better, faster, and more. And quite frankly, most of the world isn t at that same place. They just want clean water or a roof over their heads. And so we re desensitized to greed because we live in a culture that s shaped by it, which makes it difficult for us to comprehend the subject. But that s what we re going to attempt to do this morning, anyway. Ok, now, onto the three consequences of greed that these passages illustrate. The first is that: Greed impacts our spiritual condition and our walk with God. We see this most clearly in Proverbs 28:25, A greedy person stirs up dissension, but he who trusts in the Lord will prosper. Greed and trusting
3 in the Lord are diametrically opposed to one another. We cannot trust God and be greedy at the same time. God will meet our needs but when we go beyond that is when we slip into greed. That is one of the points that Jesus makes in his parable, and which Jesus sums up with this statement, This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God. Greed impacts our relationship with God, and impacts our spiritual life. Paul puts it quite starkly in Colossians 3, when he writes, Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry (Colossians 3:5). Greed is a sin, and a serious spiritual sickness that we re called to put to death along with other sin in our lives. In the Old Testament, in 1 Samuel 15, we read about King Saul leading the Israelite army against in a battle against the Amalekites. And the word from God was that they were not to keep any plunder for themselves no gold, no sheep, no cattle, nothing. None of it was to be brought back with them after the war. But Saul and the army did not do that. They won the battle, and then took back all kinds of stuff with them. Why? Because they were greedy. And that greed led them astray from God, and it grieved God. Rather than trusting God to meet their needs, they gave into their greed, and it came between them and God. So greed impacts us spiritually. The second thing about greed which we see here is that: Greed has macroscale (large scale) social implications of strife and contention. Again, looking at Proverbs 28:25, it says, A greedy person stirs up dissension. The Hebrew word that is translated as dissension is Mahdohn. And it means strife or contention. Greed separates people. It causes strife and contention, pitting people against one another. It divides country from country and people group from people group. Given that greed separates us from God, as we saw in the first point, then this second point that it causes contention between people should really be no surprise. According to a United Nations Report from 2007: 40% of the world s population accounts for 5% of global income. The richest 20% of the
4 world s population accounts for 75% of the world s income. iii We can see the outcomes of this in access to food, clean water, education, medical care, and so forth. There is a huge disparity which causes dissension, strife, and contention between people. This leads to fights, wars, political maneuvering, and all kinds of negativity at the macro level. So there is a divide, and a dissension, between the world we live in here and the world that someone lives in in many parts of Africa, Asia, South America and even many parts of our own country and that divide is getting bigger and bigger. And much of that boils down to greed wanting more stuff than what is really needed. Now, this problem is bigger than any one person it s a cultural phenomena, and so it might seem as though there s not much we can do about it. But there is, and that brings us to the last consequence of greed, which is Greed has micro-scale implications of dissension and separation: it separates one person from another. We see this in Proverbs 23:6-8, where someone appears generous, but really they are stingy and greedy, and that breaks the relationship. The Proverb says, Do not eat the food of a stingy person for he is the kind of person who is always thinking about the cost You will vomit up what little you have eaten and will have wasted your compliments. Greed does not foster good relationships between people on an individual basis; rather it drives people apart. And so, while the macrolevel consequences of greed might be more than we can even begin to comprehend, we can still impact that by taking care of the personal relationship implications. Just four hours after I wrote the sermon and that paragraph on Thursday, I was at home with my family. My girls were excited to be spending some time this weekend with one of their friends from Chehalis. The girl is Hailey s age, and is primarily her friend, but all three of them get along very well. But on Thursday, my two girls were fighting over who was going to get to sit next to this friend in the car, because all three of them couldn t fit their car seats on the same row of seating in our car. Two could sit in back, and then
5 one in the middle row of our minivan. And who got to sit in back with their friend turned into this huge argument. My girls didn t want to share their friend with one another. So I told them that we d have to strap their friend to the roof of the car instead. Of course, that didn t help any at all. But this greed over a friend drove a huge wedge between my two girls. I think we can even see the truth of this personal separation because of greed right here if we ll all engage in a little experiment. Let s all pretend for a moment that none of us are greedy. I know, that might be hard for some of us, especially as we think about who s sitting next to us, right? But just for a moment Let s just say that it s only other people, who aren t here, who are greedy. So think about someone like that maybe a situation you ve been in where someone was acting very greedily. Now let me ask you: Is that the kind of person you want to be around? Does anyone here like to be around greedy people? No one s hand is up. And even if a few of you would like to put your hand up, but you re too shy to raise it clearly the majority don t want to. So: Greedy people are not people that are enjoyable to be around. Greed pushes people apart from one another. So if we want to live wisely, let s make sure that we are not being greedy. Because otherwise, no one is going to want to be around us. So there are three negative consequences about greed: It breaks our relationship with God, it breaks relationship between people groups and nations, and it breaks relationships on a personal level. So what s the antidote to greed? Proverbs 11 gives it to us. And we need this, because it s one thing to know how not to live but what we also need to know how to live. So Proverbs 11:25 says, A generous person will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed (Proverbs 11:25). And if we were to translate this more literally, it would read, (same slide as the one before) A generous person will prosper; he who drenches/saturates others will himself be respected/inspire reverence.
6 This is not just refreshing others casually, like a little misting spray on a hot day it is a complete saturation a drenching of someone else with what they need. It s someone asking for a glass of water and you turn on the fire hose in a nice way, of course. And the result is that the person who is generous in this way will be admired, respected, and inspire reverence. And notice that this also takes greed beyond just the realm of money and material goods. Greed can express itself in relationships like my daughters experience in how we use our time and our talents and all kinds of different ways. But it doesn t matter: Being generous with whatever it is we have will always improve our relationships, whereas greed will push us apart from one another and from God. Isn t what this Proverb describes a lot better than the broken relationships and dissension of the other Proverbs? Isn t that the kind of people God calls us to be, rather than the person of Jesus parable who horded everything for himself? You know, if you re experiencing brokenness in a relationship in your marriage, with a son or daughter, co-worker, whatever it may be: Try being generous toward them for a month; try saturating them with what they are needing and see if the relationship doesn t change. See if that relationship doesn t prosper. See if there isn t a sense of reverence and a new-found level of respect in the relationship. The story is told of a woman who went to a counselor saying that she wanted to divorce her husband. After talking about it for a while, they hatched a plan that for the next month or so, she would love on him in every possible way, be generous and kind and so forth, and then at the end of the month, drop the bomb that she was divorcing him. It would make it that much more painful for her husband, and she loved the idea. More than a month later, the counselor hadn t heard from the woman. He finally called her and asked if she was ready to go through with the divorce. Divorce?!? she said. I don t want to divorce him I found out I really do love him! It s amazing how a little generosity can transform a relationship.
7 And you see, the thing is, is that God himself has done this for us and modeled this for us. He is utterly and completely generous toward us, saturating us with what we need. And so we don t have to do this on our own. By his grace, Jesus Christ has shown us how to live with generosity. Jesus had no greed whatsoever in his ministry, his life, his death, or his resurrection. He emptied himself and gave completely of himself He was completely, 100% generous, and he meets all of our needs. There is no need for us to live in greed, because God is always generous. God always heaps his love and his grace upon us, saturating us. And when we receive that and acknowledge that, it leads to a relationship of respect and inspires reverence toward God. So let s allow our greed to go to the cross and stay in the tomb, and instead live with generosity toward others. Maybe there s someone in your life you could be more generous toward a relationship that has some dissension and could use some refreshing. Maybe as a church we can be more generous to the community around us. All I know, based on these Proverbs as well as my own experience in life which confirms the truth of these verses, is that if we re greedy if we try to hoard too much like the guy in Tolstoy s story or Jesus parable if we re like that, we re going to repel people, and repel God. No one will want to be around any of us. That s no way to be. So instead, let s live with generosity. And as we do that individually and collectively, we ll grow closer to each other, we will grow closer to our neighbors and the other people outside the walls of this church, we will inspire reverence for God, and we ourselves, will grow closer to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let s pray Amen. i Bits & Pieces, November, 1991, as found at sermonillustrations.com. Another good summary is at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/how_much_land_does_a_man_need%3f. ii http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/greed iii http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr_20072008_en_complete.pdf