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Mr. Howell –
Greed
Luke 12:13-21
In the book The Day America Told The Truth, James Patterson and Peter
Kim asked the question “what are you willing to do for $100,000,000?”
I think we have all asked that question in one form or another sometime
in our lives. What am I willing to do to get ahead, what am I willing to
sacrifice to make it in this world. But tonight I wanted to share with
you the answers of people who were totally honest because they were
totally anonymous.
For 100,000,000 would you…
Abandon your entire family? 25% of those polled would.
Abandon your church? 25% would.
Would you become a prostitute for a week? 23% would.
Would you give up your American citizenships 16% would.
Would you leave your spouse? 16% would.
Would you withhold testimony and let a murderer go free? 10% would.
Would you kill a stranger? 7% would.
Would you put your children up for adoption? 3% would.
Now I don’t know how accurate those statistics are and I am not sure
what part of the country they polled, Bible Belt, Midwest, Northeast?
But if those statistics even remotely reflect reality, we need some
teaching about the fifth deadly sin; greed.
If you're keeping track, we're up to Thurston Howell III. And if you
have no idea what I just said, in our first lesson in this series on the
seven deadly sins, I said that you could remember the sins if you could
remember the characters from Gilligan's Island. The professor = pride,
Mary Anne = envy, Mrs. Howell = Anger, Gilligan = sloth, Mr. Howell =
greed, Skipper = gluttony, And of course, Ginger. Lust.
For our text tonight I want you to look with me in Luke 12:13-21 (Read
text).
There was an attitude that was pretty common in Jesus' day, that if you
had wealth it was because God has smiled upon you and made it possible
for you to accumulate lots of stuff, or at least the money to buy lots
of stuff. The crowd here in our text was probably fairly represented by
that train of thought.
Now I think that part of that comes from good theological thinking. We
recognize that whatever gifts or talents we have come from God. If we
use those gifts responsibly, often we are rewarded in the here and now
with significantly more gifts. It would be prideful and ungrateful to
claim credit for that success. So we humbly credit God with our fiscal
success.
But there is another side of the coin that we have to look at here.
Jesus says in Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters, for either he
will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one
and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
And then there is the little matter of what the Apostle Paul wrote in 1
Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some
people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced
themselves with many grief’s.
Now while I don’t believe that the Apostle Paul or Jesus were condemning
wealth per se. They were discussing our attitudes towards money and the
wrong attitudes that people often have about it. But regardless, money
is a very powerful thing, and can be a very dangerous thing, so it would
at least be something we'd call a dubious blessing.
So why do you think that God would bless us with something that could
potentially distract us from His service and worship, especially knowing
what he knows about us?
And in Matthew 19:24 Jesus did say “Again I tell you, it is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter
the kingdom of God."
So why would he give us something that makes it harder to make it?
Well let me start by saying that I don't have the answers to those
questions, but I think it's at least worth thinking about. Maybe, just
maybe money isn't how God blesses at all.
I know lots of people who are very godly, very humble, very spiritual.
Much more godly, humble and spiritual than many others, but who have not
been the beneficiaries of God's financial benevolence. So sometimes God
blesses people with an absence of wealth.
But then I also know some very godly, very humble, very spiritual people
who have been blessed with an abundance. And sometimes I believe that
God Blesses people with an abundance of wealth.
Ok now that we have gotten past those somewhat undeveloped ponderings, I
need to tell you that greed actually has little to do with the amount of
money we have or do not have. You'll find the greedy among the very
poor. They have very little, but what they have they clutch like a
lifeline, like the few dollars in their pockets or the tiny sum in their
bank accounts is what will secure life and save their souls. And on the
other side you'll find the greedy among the super rich just as easily.
Remember Leona Helmsley? She owned a string of hotels, the Empire State
Building, and was a billionaire. Yet, in September 1989 was convicted of
33 counts of tax evasion, for which she spent time in prison. According
to Time magazine, she emerged as a penny-pinching tyrant who tried to
stiff just about everybody. No amount of money was too small to fight
over. After the sudden death of her only son at age 40 in 1982, she sued
and won the lion's share of his estate, $149,000, leaving his four
children with $432 each and his widow with $2,171. What a sweet lady, I
bet she didn’t get many grandparents day cards.
So greed isn't isolated to one income bracket, and it isn't limited to
one age group either. So often we have allowed stories like A Christmas
Carol to skew our thinking that a greedy person is an old miser, like
Scrooge, who locks his doors and shuts his blinds and then pours out a
bag of gold coins on his table, fondling and counting them into the wee
hours. But there are greedy children who hide their favorite toys when
friends come over or who play with them in plain site, but refuse to
share.
So tonight if you don't have much stuff, don't assume that you are safe
and that this sermon is for someone else.
And if you have an abundance don't think for one minute that your are
safe and vaccinated from the sin of greed.
Whether you are old enough to remember the Atlanta Crackers or young
enough to know who Eminem is, you are a candidate for the fifth deadly
sin.
Right now some of you are going, "I didn't know there was a cracker
company in Atlanta. Do they make Ritz or saltines, or those wonderful
Chick in a biscuits?"
And some of you are going, "M & M's? I like the ones with the peanuts;
they melt in your mouth, not in your hands."
The Atlanta Crackers were a baseball team and Eminem, which starts with
an E, is a million-selling, thoroughly offensive rapper. That’s your
history lesson now back to the 5th deadly sin.
What exactly is greed? A few weeks ago we talked about envy. Envy and
greed are often confused and while there are some similarities, there
are also glaring differences.
Envy has more to do with an attitude toward the possessions of a
particular person. Remember we said it’s not enough to have something
but I want for me to have it an you not to have it.
Greed is more basic, more fundamental. It has to do with an attitude
toward possessions in general. It is the attitude that walks to the Ford
Lot and says I would like a F150, 250, and 350 in every color.
The story we read from Luke is a good place to begin. In chapter 12,
Jesus is teaching the crowds. Then right in the middle of His teaching,
this voice in the crowd calls out, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide
the inheritance with me."
I believe that this man’s request will teach us a few things.
First, he recognizes that Jesus is a teacher.
And not just any teacher. The man invests Jesus with some authority.
"Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."
He thinks his brother will listen to Jesus. So he knows Jesus is an
authoritative teacher, but the only thing he really wants from him is
access to money. He interrupts the son of God for the purpose of getting
rich.
Second, the man and his brother are in the middle of a terrible dispute.
Thankfully I'm not a lawyer, but I've heard them talk about how nasty
inheritance issues can be. That's one of the reasons we appoint people
to execute wills. Families that were once loving and loyal can turn into
the human equivalent of a pack of wolves snarling at and biting each
other over the remains of a dead carcass.
This guy is about to lose the love of his brother, but all he can think
about is money.
Third, his parents have just died.
That's why there is an inheritance to be disputed. But he isn't coming
to Jesus to find comfort for his grief. He isn't coming to Jesus to find
out where they will spend eternity. He is interrupting Jesus' teaching
so he can get his hands on what they left behind.
Greed is the sin of putting money or the things money can buy on a
higher level than our relationships to others and to God. Others become
either a means to or a barrier to accumulating wealth. God becomes a
heavenly broker. Or he and his nagging teaching about wealth stand in
the way of getting what we want.
But it's more than just wrong attitudes about people and God. The man in
the story believed that wealth was the answer to all his questions. He
wasn't interested in Jesus' teaching. He wasn't interested in
reconciling with his brother.
He was focused on gaining access to the one thing he thought would solve
all his problems. That inheritance.
Paul has something to say about making money your security blanket. Look
with me in l Timothy 6:17-19. (read text).
Leo Tolstoy once wrote a story about a successful peasant farmer who was
not satisfied with his lot. He wanted more of everything. 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, blood
streaming from his mouth. 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?
How much money? How much fame? How much attention? Success? Pleasure?
Possessions? You can ask the question a lot of different ways.
The truth is, anything can become fuel for greed. And greed is present
whenever we make anything more important to us than our relationships
with others and especially when we make anything more important to us
than our relationship with God.
You see the issue that the 5th deadly sin raises is not how much money
you have got but how much you love the money that you have got. When we
put money or anything in front of God in our lives it is a deadly thing
indeed.
Now I said that this is the sin of Thurston Howell the Third, and why it
may be very obvious why this sin is tied to him I though we might need a
little refresher.
Of all the castaways Thurston Howell was the richest, and he constantly
used that money to buy people to do his will on the island, which was
weird because they didn’t have anywhere to spend it.
In Mr. Howells way of thinking as long as he had the money he could buy
anything he wanted, even the other castaways. So his greed doesn’t come
from the fact that he had money but that he loved that money more that
the other castaways on the island.
He used that money to gain himself friends, power, extra votes, longer
time with the radio, anything he wanted. You see in his way of thinking,
it wasn’t enough to have the same as everyone else he wanted MORE.
More attention, more pleasure, and more possessions than anyone else. He
sold his soul for more on that Island and unfortunately we are too quick
to do the very same.
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