"Greed Is Good"

Here we live a pretty comfortable middle-class suburban existence.   We live, we work, we go home, we do those things we need to do to keep our homes and families together.   Our life-styles aren’t exuberant – mostly.   We all have our special “interests”, those hobbies that take our time and money… but provide us with hours and hours of enjoyment… which is what middle class suburban life really is all about.    Some people I knew were (and may still be) Civil Re-enactors.   That hobby isn’t cheap, let me tell you!    I knew another guy who had a collection of bolt-action rifles from before and during the two world wars.   He must have had around 25 rifles.    Then there are others that like motorcycles… and that can add up too.   My grandmother loved Hummel figurines; pre-war (WWII), post-war, etc.   I’ve ended up inheriting I think a couple dozen early trademark figurines.   She loved her collection – one of her prized possessions.    These little figurines represented a life of collecting for her.  

It seems we all have something (or more than one “something”) we like… and we want to own more of it.    But in the midst of all this, we all also have a lot of normal “stuff” we collect.   In my family, we love to read.   So we have a house full of books.   Shelves and shelves of books.     Once in a while we get the urge to purge, and we get rid of some of the books.    All that seems to do is make space for more books to replace the ones that we’ve gotten rid of.    Plus, both my wife and I have many years of higher education – books we’ve collected over the first 12 years of basic education, then follow-on undergraduate schools, followed by the graduate education… lots of books.  And we didn’t even keep them all!    

And every middle class suburban home is not complete unless it’s filled with stuff!     I don’t necessarily mean filled to the top.   But when was that last time you saw a suburban home sparsely filled?    Okay… I did, recently.    I knew a guy who was planning to move – he and his family were preparing their home for sale; new flooring, new kitchen cabinets, new fireplace, etc.   I went in to help out with a few things, and I was struck by how few possessions they had.   The living room was empty… the dining room was empty.   Now, maybe they emptied out their house because they were already planning to move, but still, it looked unusually to have a suburban home almost emptied of furniture.   And I have to say, it seemed like there was so much room there – and not just room in the physical sense but room in the psychological sense.  I wasn’t surrounded by “stuff” there.   

    

But that made me think again about how much stuff we mostly all have.   I would imagine a pretty sizable minority of the stuff we have has probably outlived its usefulness, but still occupies space in our homes.  Oh, and what precious space it is!  

And I believe Jesus said something about having “stuff”.    There’s the story in Luke 12 where some guy yells out from the crowd for Jesus to tell the guys brother to share their fathers estate with him.   Jesus says in return;  “Beware!  Guard against every kind of greed.   Life is not measured by how much you own.”   Then he tells the story of the man who had so much he ran out of room to put things.   So he tore down his barn and storage place, build new, bigger, ones, and stored all his stuff once again.   Then he relaxed, pleased with himself.   But then in the story, Jesus says God then calls this man a fool and tells him he will die that very night… – then who will get everything you have worked for?   Then Jesus ends this story by saying a person is a fool to store up earthly treasure while neglecting to build a relationship with God.     

Where does greed fit in?   Well, we all know we’re (the average suburbanite) not greedy.   Or at least if we are greedy, we’re not really “that” greedy.    I suppose a little isn’t too bad after all.   Veggie Tales has a story about this:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P3RUHzj2cI  and part two –  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR1dfl-dcZU.      

The back of last Sunday’s bulletin referenced a book called Material World: A Global Family Portrait, where “photographers traveled to 30 different countries where they asked average families to lay all their belongings outside in front of their houses.  In some countries this took almost no space.  In North America, however, the average family’s goods filled an entire cul-de-sac.”   I saw that book back in the 90’s.  It’s like a National Geographic picture book.  It was amazing to see all the different families with their belongings out front.   From Mongolian herders outside their yerts, all the way through India, Indonesia, Japan, Europe, Suburban dwellers, all the way to the US.  And this American middle-class suburban family has all their stuff outside their home.   I don’t think you could pay me enough to get me to take all my things out of my house just so someone can take a picture of what I have, and then have to put it all back in again.   Not happening!   

Then the writer of the back of the bulletin writes what God is telling us through Jesus in the story.   Beware of all kinds of greed.   One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.   “Notice how careful (Jesus) is to say ‘all kinds of greed’, lest any of us try to close our ears to his admonition.   We might be greedy for investments, greedy for possession, greedy for a big house, greedy to purchase experiences, greedy to purchase our hobbies or add to our collections.   All of us are told to take care.”  

  The author probably lives here in the US.   The writer says God is warning us against greed.  The author, you, me, we all live in a country whose preferred economic system is based on greed; it’s a credit/debt system centered around interest.

Economies in our system HAVE to grow.   It’s not that growth would be a nice thing, or that growth would be helpful… it’s that it MUST happen!  If our economic engine slows down, or stops.. the economic machinery lurches and sputters… then it just stops.   It’s like a shark… it HAS to keep moving.   If it stops… it dies.   We here in the US (and Europe, and Japan… and now China…) have been lurching and sputtering for about 5 years now.   The Federal Reserve bank (which is neither “Federal” nor a “reserve”) and the government have been doing all they can to get the economy going again.     

How?

Mostly though economic stimulus techniques – like lowering interest rates, and buying up a whole lot (and I mean a WHOLE lot) of US Treasury bonds and mortgaged –backed securities (to the tune of just a little over $1 Trillion per year – that’s around $3 Billion per day – that’s around $2 Million per minute that’s being artificially inserted into our economy) so we can end up with more money to spend mostly on things we desire, want and/or like... if we have the extra money!    And there’s the problem.  

The fictionalized character – Gordon Gecko – from the Wall Street movies made famous a certain phrase… Greed is Good!   If it weren’t for greed, you wouldn’t be living the life you have.  You wouldn’t have the comforts and stuff you have.    Greed generates jobs.  Imagine a person has invented a certain widget – they patent that widget – and market that widget… and people buy that widget.   And the more that people buy it, the more the inventor wants to expand their business to sell more.  So the person hires more people.  

Now expand that to a whole economy… imagine it’s a whole bunch of people inventing a whole array of things!    And there’s the whole supply system involved.   The businesses need raw materials, they need transportation, they need infrastructure, they need communications.   They help create and maintain many, many jobs!   Now, we don’t need all these things – we want them.   We desire them.   They make life easier, more comfortable.   And in the process, we’re helping the economy grow… which is what it has to do.   See… greed is good.

Is this what Jesus was talking about?   “Guard against every kind of greed”.   Now Jesus didn’t live in our economy, nor did he live in an economy like ours.  But the truth is if we don’t have at least some level of greed, we don’t have our economy – it’s that simple.        

Or is he talking about too much greed? 

The big (Too Big To Fail) banks are making record profits.  Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America… 2012 was a banner year for them.   BoA made almost $5 Trillion last year.   JPMorgan Chase made almost $6 trillion.   And their executives made bonuses in the millions!        Corporations, by law, must make money for their stock holders.    Is this too much greed?         But we’re not like them!    

If I remember right, the movie “7 Years in Tibet” was based on a true story of a pair of German (or Austrian) men who travelled around together sometime in the first half, to the middle of the 20^th century.    For whatever reason, they end up in Tibet.   Now, Tibet was a much simpler pace than where the two of them came from.   It was based on subsistence living focused on “need” not “want”.    Both men fall for the same Tibetan woman.    Brad Pitt’s character is flashy, showy, the life of the party.   He’s more attractive, and he likes money and things.    The other guy was pretty much the opposite of this.   Well the woman falls for the second guy and Brad Pitts character doesn’t understand this.   She explains to him that he (the second guy) is a lot like her and her people than Brad Pitts character is.   The second guy understands her and her people better and they are a better match.  

In 1995 I bought a pick-up truck from a guy – saw his ad in the paper.    I went over to his place to see the truck and then went to do the paperwork.   He was a lawyer – had some money and a big house to show for it.   He found out I was going to seminary, so he told me about his brother.  His brother had just taken his final vows as a Benedictine Monk; he had to renounce all his worldly possessions and his desire for “stuff”.   Then he told me he just couldn’t understand this!  This didn’t make any sense to him at all! 

Greed is good!   For individuals, and economies based on credit/debt centered around interest (like ours)… greed is not only good… it pretty much is the only motivator that keeps things afloat.

And yet the St. Francis’s and the Mother Teresa’s of the world seem to have more moral authority than the Gordon Gecko’s and the Jaime Dimon’s.   There’s something about the idealism and the simplicity of not having to worry about stuff!        There’s something about the idealism and the simplicity of being free from the need to be up at zero dark thirty on Black Friday to get more stuff for less money – and sometimes have to actually fight for it!    There’s something about the idealism and the simplicity of being free from the desire to be the first in line to get the next generation I-phone… for $700.

From the back of the bulletin:  “Jesus hopes to direct us to a different kind of abundance, one that isn’t stored in barns or banks.  We wants us, instead, to ‘rich toward God’ (v21).  The abundance we should seek is an abundant life in the Spirit, and abundance of love and community.  This abundance cannot be ‘laid up for many years’ like the rich man’s grains and goods (v.19).   It exists precisely in its use.  The more we love, the richer we are in love.  The more we pray, the richer our communion with God.  The more we share what we have, the more we find to share.  The riches Jesus hopes for us won’t fill a cul-de-sac, but they will fill our hearts.”  

We love and we pray and we have community… and we are generous.   The author shares what they think Jesus is saying.    The author doesn’t say, “Don’t live in this economy”!   or “Don’t have as much stuff”.         “You can own stuff, but don’t let the stuff own you”, maybe?       Maybe the author is saying: Focus more on God than on your stuff… and you’ll grow more in the secrets of Love and Prayer and Community and generosity. 

For sure all of this is an uphill struggle…   when the whole economic system we live in is designed to appeal to our sense of greed, desire and want.   And they’re good at it!    You better believe they’re very sophisticated when it comes to consumer psychology!     They know you better than you know yourself in some ways.   Not only do they know what you buy, but when you buy it… and more importantly… why you buy, and what it’ll take to get you to buy!   

Wait, I know…  let’s do both… let’s live in this economy, but let’s not be so wrapped up in consumer goods, and things, and products.       Let’s have Mother Teresa and St. Francis on one hand – talking about a simpler way of living, about focusing on God’s ways and a lifestyle around balance and simplicity, with prayer and listening for the Spirit.   And on the other hand we have the machinery and money and a whole economic system with a focus on growth and expansion and want.  

Now, tell me… which voice do you think you’re going to hear most?   Which voice do you think will be the loudest?  

I know, it IS a struggle for all of us – this trying to find a balance between a God-centered living and a culture and an economy that encourages a self-centered life!        

I live in this environment just like you do – just like the author of the writing on the back of the bulletin.

I live with stuff all around me too – just like you do.

I live around noise – not just the TV and radio, and traffic, but the psychological noise… of stress, and pressure

I’m aware prices are going up!  

I’m also aware that if we want to live in this economic system – as much as it can give us… there is a price to pay!

We live in a world full of things!   More things than our grandparents and great grandparents could even have dreamed of!

But I also know that anxiety levels are up, depression levels are up, stress levels are up, anti-depressant prescriptions are up

But I also know that part of our souls desire is peace; and simplicity; and simpler living; and a centered life; and living around community.

I also know we want deeper joy than we can imagine.

What’s the Gospel message today?   I usually listen for the words of Grace in the process of preparing a sermon.   I usually ask: “What’s God trying to tell us here?”… then I try and say it! – Something I’m hopeful about!   And I AM hopeful!  

Today’s Gospel message isn’t going to come from me!   I won’t speak it!   I won’t say it!

It’s going to come from you!

What do you hear in the story from the Gospel?    Anything about Joy?   Or Peace?   Or Community?   Or Generosity?

If you don’t hear it today, keep listening… it’s there.   I promise!