Take Care to Guard Against All Greed, Luke 12:15

Part of my daily prayer practice is to use a prayer book called Magnificat. It has morning and evening prayer sections for each day of the month. Using this resource, I get to spend at least 15 minutes in concentrated prayer and reflection twice each day. Each prayer time includes the text of a sacred hymn, some short quotes from scripture, a short meditation on one of the quotes, and a longer reading from either the Old or the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles, the Letters, or Revelation. Each morning prayer also uses the Canticle of Zechariah (Lk. 1: 68-79). And each evening prayer includes the Canticle of Mary (Lk. 1: 46-55). Each also offers intercessory prayers, which you are free to add to for your personal needs, and each prayer session ends with the Lord’s Prayer. This daily practice of prayer keeps me aware of my deepening relationship with God and challenges me twice a day to reflect on how I am choosing to live my own life, and to see whether I am living in accord with God’s wisdom, or not. It helps me to see where I need to improve.

One of the recent evening prayers included this quote from Luke’s Gospel: “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions (Lk. 12:15). It was followed by this reflection: “Greed is like a cancer that infects our attitude toward our possessions and ultimately runs through all aspects of our life. Wealth and financial security are good in themselves if we have a proper attitude toward them. We can ask ourselves: what is my attitude toward my possessions? Do I use them to help those in need?” It always amazes me how the scriptures are so deeply engaged in the reality of our daily lives, how challenging, and how instructive they are. I am often even more amazed at how far from living in accord with the wisdom of God we are, or I am.

This latter fact is not new. For example, look at these passages from Psalm 49: “Hear this, all you peoples! Give ear, all who inhabit the world, You of lowly birth or high estate, rich and poor together, my mouth shall offer words of wisdom, my heart shall offer insights…Why should I fear…those who trust in their wealth and boast of their abundant riches? For no man can buy his own ransom, or pay a price to God for his life. The ransom of his soul is beyond him. He cannot buy life without end, nor avoid coming to the grave…Do not fear when a man becomes rich, when the wealth of his house grows great. At his death, he will not take along anything…” Have we not always known that this is true? And yet, is it not true that the pursuit of riches is the primary driver in our days? Aren’t the rich and powerful often lifted up as icons, even as a kind of hero? Doesn’t the green monster of jealousy sometimes rise up within us to have what they have? It seems true to say that greed, that is, the love of money, is a major form of idolatry in our times.

Again, in Luke’s Gospel, we see the story of Zacchaeus, the tax collector, who is very wealthy. We see that, because of his short stature, he climbs a sycamore tree to be able to see Jesus. Jesus says to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house” (Lk 19:5). Does Jesus do this because he wants to enjoy the company and the hospitality of a very rich man and all that it would entail? Or, is it because Jesus recognizes Zacchaeus’ desperate desire to change the direction of his life? We see that the latter must be true as Zacchaeus says, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over” (v. 8). These are the words of a man who has seen the error of his ways and has had a conversion experience through his faith in Jesus. His world is turned upside down, inside out. He has, in an act of faith, pierced through the veil of worldly wisdom and seen the greater wisdom of God. And he is filled with a joy so profound that it cannot be held within. He begins to let go of the things of the world and to desire the only wealth worthy of pursuing, that is, the grace, forgiveness, and selflessness of Jesus.

The English poet William Wordsworth wrote: “The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers…” It is true that greed, the love of money, wastes the powers that God gave us to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” Greed is completely self-focused, both in the pursuit of wealth and in the denial of any personal guilt concerning its part in causing the poverty of others. Its total self-concern causes one to be blind to the suffering of the poor, and, worst of all, to deny any responsibility to help alleviate their suffering.

Greed is closely related to the lust for power, that is, the kind of power that protects and promotes all of the demands of greed. It is in defiance of the Gospel message that commands our communal responsibilities toward one another. That is what Zecchaeus realized and what he turned away from in the presence of the love of Jesus. In this, I, too, am challenged to reflect on my attitude toward money and my possessions. Am I using my money and my possessions properly, in accord with the Gospel, or am I bending to the allure of the god of greed? Am I moved to jealousy at what others have and I do not? In other words, do those kinds of thoughts drown out the Word of God within me?

Let us pray to be set free from all striving after superfluous wealth and that we may learn the wisdom of being content with what we have. Give us also the grace to let go of any miserliness in us that prevents us from seeing and helping those in need. “In every way I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak, and keep in mind the words of Jesus who himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive’” (Acts 20:35). Amen.