7UP: Greed

Text: Psalm 106:1-6
Theme: “7UP: Greed” (6th in a series)
17th Sunday after Pentecost
October 9, 2011
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

IN THE NAME OF JESUS

1 Praise the LORD.[a]
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
his love endures forever.
2 Who can proclaim the mighty acts of the LORD
or fully declare his praise?
3 Blessed are those who act justly,
who always do what is right.
4 Remember me, LORD, when you show favor to your people,
come to my aid when you save them,
5 that I may enjoy the prosperity of your chosen ones,
that I may share in the joy of your nation
and join your inheritance in giving praise.
6 We have sinned, even as our ancestors did;
we have done wrong and acted wickedly.

The name of our series is 7UP: A Refreshing Look at the Seven Deadly Sins, and today we focus on greed. Greed, according to dictionary.com, is defined as “an excessive or rapacious desire for wealth or possessions.” Long ago, John D. Rockefeller, a famously wealthy American, was asked when he was most content. His reply didn’t skip a beat; he said: “When I have more money than I have right now.” His thoughts are certainly in keeping with fictional character Gordon Gekko, portrayed by Michael Douglas, who gave us that memorable line from the 1987 motion picture Wall Street: “Greed is good.” Here’s the full text: “The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed – for lack of a better word – is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms – greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge – has marked the upward surge of mankind.”

King Solomon, writing in the Old Testament book of Proverbs, would have taken issue with Gekko’s comment. In Proverbs 15:27 we read: “A greedy man brings trouble to his family.”

At any rate, life can imitate art, and it certainly can imitate the Proverb I just read. Some years ago, authors Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind co-authored a book titled The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron. Enron, that massive corporation based in Houston, Texas, eventually fell apart like a house of cards. When all was said and done, many of Enron’s employees lost their jobs, benefits, and retirement portfolios in one big swoop. At the heart of the problem were mergers, acquisitions, and shoddy accounting principles. Enron would buy a company and then list the projected profit – say, over a ten year period – as actual profit for the current year. With the help of their accounting firm, Arthur Anderson (which also came tumbling down in the aftermath), these mark-to-market accounting procedures went on over and over again. It helped to inflate – indeed, overinflate – the stock price. But the profits were no more realized than fly. The whole greedy scheme ended in disaster. Indeed, the book begins with one of the chief financial officers of Enron driving off in the middle of the night just down the road from his home in a wealthy neighborhood. And there he took his own life.

More recently, think of stockbroker and investor Bernie Madoff who is now serving a one hundred fifty year prison term. In March of 2009, he plead guilty to eleven federal felonies involving the largest ponzi scheme in history. He defrauded investors, according to government estimates, of over eighteen billion dollars. Some time after his imprisonment, Madoff’s son took his own life.

Solomon says: “A greedy man brings trouble to his family.” I would say so. But still, there’s that tantalizing rationale of greed that Gordon Gekko proffered: “Greed is good…Greed is the essence of the evolutionary spirit…Greed…marks the upward surge of mankind.”
The comment was uttered in the context of a business seminar that featured Gekko, the Wall Street entrepreneur that everyone loved to hate. He spoke to a packed house.

Jesus Christ Himself was no stranger to large crowds. Some hated Him. Others loved Him. All were fascinated with him and hung on His every word. One day, in the context of a large crowd, He was interrupted – perhaps even heckled – by someone. The person said, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Back then, as a general rule, the greatest share of the inheritance – when a parent died – went to the eldest sibling. Maybe this was a younger sibling who had yet to be paid; maybe he wanted more than his allotted share. We don’t know. What we do know is that Jesus was quick with His reply and read the heckler’s intentions like a cheap dime store novel. He said: “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then He said to the entire crowd: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” So I guess we have to bid farewell to that old saw: “He who dies with the most toys wins.”

As if to illustrate the point, our Lord went on to tell a little story:
The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, “What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.” Then he said, “This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’” But God said to him, “You fool!” This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself.” This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.

When it comes to riches and wealth, we tend to think quantitatively. We even use accounting principles! In other words, how many millions or billions of dollars does this person, group, or business have at hand to spend as they want? Jesus Christ, however, looked at riches and wealth not quantitatively, but directionally. In other words, what direction is the wealth going? Is it going to the self – as in new barns for the bumper crop? Or is it going to God? Stated differently, is it understood as a gift from God to be used for God’s purposes?

Probing deeper, Jesus is saying that there’s more to wealth than large amounts of dollars and cents. There are spiritual riches as well. You can be rich towards God and not have a whole lot of money. Similarly, you could be poor toward God and have tons of it.

Where does that put us? Recently, Andy Rooney stepped down from having the last word on TV’s 60 Minutes. He would conclude each week’s show with witty observations covering a range of topics. I’ll never forget one comment he made during the course of the years. He said: “It’s not that I want to be rich. I just don’t want to be poor. I want to stay even.”

I suspect that most folks, publicly, are a-okay with that sentiment. It keeps them at a comfortable spiritual distance from the pains of both poverty and wealth.
But maybe there’s more to this matter than just staying even.

The late Dr. Oswald Hoffmann, a great spokesman for Christ and a huge influence on me, once told the story of a young girl who came home after spending some time with a friend after school. The youngster told her mom that her friend had so many nice things. She had a room full of toys and a closet full of the latest clothes. She had a new bike. The family had a swimming pool. They had a huge house with a playground. They had a home on a lake that they went to every weekend.
The little girl looked at her own surroundings, meager in comparison, and was rather sad. Picking up on this, her mother said: “Why don’t you make two lists. On one list, write down all the things your friend has that you don’t have. On the other list, write down all the things that you have that your friend doesn’t have.” The daughter took her mother up on that. She wrote down all the things her friend had that she didn’t have. Once that was done, she listed everything she had that her friend did not have. She listed things such as this: “We do things together…we go on picnics together…we laugh with one another…we love each other.” After she was done writing, the mother said: “Compare the two lists.” It didn’t take long to see the difference. In one family, as Dr. Hoffmann described it, there was a lot of fluff but little stuff. In her own family, the daughter discovered, there wasn’t a great deal of fluff, but there was a lot of stuff, real stuff that makes for real life.

Where are we at this morning? Are we after the fluff or the stuff? Are we zealous to accumulate things that we one day will have to part with, or are we zealous for life, real life? Jesus says: “I have come that people might have life – and that they might have that life to the full!”

Jesus Christ was zealous alright, but it wasn’t for money or possessions. That was not His interest. Rather, His interest was – and is! – in you and me. And the interest was not in passing. The Gospel is not a spiritual ponzi scheme. Instead, the Gospel is this: Jesus Christ invested His life in you and me. He offered His entire being on Calvary’s cross for all those sins of ours – including the greedy ones. In His resurrection from the grave on Easter Sunday, He ushered in the new Kingdom that is not ruled by wealth but rather by righteousness. The forgiveness of our sins is a sure thing. All of of life – even the parts of it that we yearn for and work for – is a gift. We are now driven not by scheming or greed but rather by the Spirit of Jesus Christ who endlessly dishes out those spiritual riches of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Life is not about climbing a totem pole and, by hook or by crook, leaving others in the dust. Life is about living with God and God’s people.

Today’s Psalm captures it so well:

Remember me, LORD, when you show favor to your people,
come to my aid when you save them,
that I may enjoy the prosperity of your chosen ones,
that I may share in the joy of your nation
and join your inheritance in giving praise.

Amen.