Second  in a Lenten Mid-Week Series on "The Seven Deadly Sins"  

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Read Luke 12:16-21

The Gospel truth is this: The things that we can grasp can never make us rich in the kingdom of God, and conversely, the things that make us rich in the kingdom of God can never be grasped.

Remember the story of the man who came to Jesus and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life? (Luke 18) Jesus responded by asking him if he had obeyed the commandments. And the man assured him that he had saying, "I have kept all these since my youth," which was no unremarkable thing; quite astounding! And there's no reason to believe he was being anything but totally truthful.

Jesus responded to him saying, "There's just one more thing. Sell all you have, distribute it to the poor, and come follow me -- you will have treasure in heaven." And, if you remember, when the man heard that, Luke tells us "he became sad; for he was very rich."

The more we have the more we want! The more we have the more we grasp! We keep grasping, spending ourselves--our time and energy and resources--for money, for toys, for gadgets, for things. Have you ever seen the bumper sticker "He who dies with the most toys wins." We laugh at it, but we know that is a summery statement of the wisdom of our culture; and it's wisdom that, to a greater of lesser degree, we all buy into. I think I know exactly what Jesus would say to such worldly wisdom. He would say and will I quote him, "You fool, this very night your life is being demanded of you! And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?"

There was a good article in Monday's Denver Post, in Section E, entitled "What's Important?"  The theme of the article was on how it seems that the more Americans consume and spend, the less satisfied we seem to be. Only 5% of those who earn more than $50,000/year say they are satisfied and have reached the American Dream. Even though we gobble up the world's resources at an alarming rate, a rate 2 times greater than our closest rival, Europe, our life expectancy rates, and even our literacy rates are about the same as those living in the Indian State of Kerala where average per capita income is $400, as apposed to $20,000 per capita in the United States!

A new term has been coined, "Affluenza." It's a term that reflects that something is terribly wrong; that American affluence has led to a kind of sickness of the soul that literally affects every aspect of individual and corporate life.

I was at 7-Eleven the other day and the man ahead of me in the check-out line spent $2.99. He presented the clerk with a credit card. The clerk ran the card, and after a few moments the clerk informed the man that his card had been "rejected!" No problem, the man fished another card out of his wallet. The clerk ran the second card, and after a few moments, same thing, card "rejected." Again, no problem! The man produced a third card - same result - "rejected." About this time I was ready to offer to pay the man's bill, when he produce yet another credit card, a fourth try. No three and you're out for this guy! The fourth time the card was approved! I have no idea what the problem was, and I won't presume to judge, but it got me to thinking about how a little rectangular piece of plastic has enabled us a culture to instantly gratify our passions. No waiting! No planning, and budgeting, and working and saving! If you can mange to obtain this magic piece of plastic, your dreams, your desires, your passions can become and instant reality!

The simplest definition of the deadly sin of avarice is "excessive desire, selfishness out of control." You need not be rich at all! You need not have much at all, yet you can be controlled and consumed by the sin of avarice, because avarice is an inner attitude about outward things. Avarice is about hoarding things that we don't really need, refusing to share. Avarice is about desiring what other people have and you don't. Avarice is about flaunting what you have before others in such a way as to make them feel less. Avarice is never being satisfied, it's always wanting more, seeking more, needing more; questing, longing, yearning for more! Avarice is deadly because it always will eventually dehumanize and trivialize others.

Fyodor Dostoevsky in his book The Brothers Karamasov tells a story called the Parable of the Onion. It's a convicting story of the destructiveness of avarice, selfishness out of control. He writes:

Once upon a time there was a peasant woman and a very wicked woman she was. And she died and she did not leave a single good deed behind. The devils caught her and threw her into the lake of fire. Her guardian angel stood and wondered what good deed of hers he could remember to tell God; "She once pulled up an onion in her garden," said the angel, "and gave it to a beggar woman." And God answered, "You take that onion, hold it out to her in the lake, and let her take hold and be pulled out. And if you can pull her out of the lake, let her come to Paradise, but if the onion breaks, then the woman must stay where she is." Well the angel ran to the woman and held out the onion to her: "Come," said the angel, "Catch hold and I'll pull you out." And he began to cautiously pull her out. He had almost pulled her right out, when the other sinners in the lake, seeing how she was being drawn out, began catching hold of her legs so as to be pulled out with her. But she began kicking them. "I'm to be pulled out, not you. It's my onion, not yours," she said. As soon as she said that, the onion broke, and the woman fell back into the lake of fire.

There are basically two views of the world. The first view lives by the motto, "What you see is what you get." It's a secular, materialistic image of the world, and it centers on the reality of self. Persons with this perspective say, "I am the ultimate reality. There is nothing else out there. The world is indifferent to me. The world doesn't care about me. I am the ultimate reality. So, let's eat drink and be merry and store up our treasure for that's all there is!"

The second view lives by the motto: "What you cannot at first see, is the greater reality." This view says something is out there, no, someONE is out there. This view says that we're not accidents of biology, but we are creatures of loving God whose care and concern and will has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ. This view trusts that God is the ultimate reality, that God does care in an eternal way, and the person of this view lives their life in relationship to that eternal reality.

I think the way avarice probably influences most of us and creeps and sneaks into our lives is around the issue, "How much is enough?" At what point to luxuries become necessities. A couple of years ago I remember looking in my closet and I counted about 30 long sleeve shirts and 10 sweaters in there. How much is enough? I took an inventory. I had worn about 6 of the shirts and 3 of the sweaters! How much is enough? I was ashamed! Avarice ambushed me! How much is enough? At what point do I begin an inner dialog of fooling myself into thinking that certain luxuries are necessities.

On a bigger scale, I heard that Bill Gates of Microsoft could afford to take every human being on this planet to McDonald's for a Big Mac Meal, every human being on the planet earth, and still have 26 billion dollars left over. How much is enough?

We live in a strange kind of culture: a culture of twisted, distorted, up-side down values. We live in a culture where a family of four might spend more going to one professional athletic event than they give to the church or any other charity in the course of a year! They might not bat an eye on the expense of the game, but might protest vigorously if the church were to ask for the same amount.

Avarice out-of-control will go to any dehumanizing length to grasp for more, and more, and more, and more! Avarice has no conscience! No morals! No redeeming values!

I've been a fan of Star Trek for many years. If you are a Trekker you know all about The Borg. They are part humanoid and part machine. Their mission is to take over the galaxy and absorb all other races into themselves, transforming them into Borg. They are unrelenting in their mission and cold-hearted in their tactics. When they approach another race of beings they announce they are going to assimilate them and they postscript it by saying "Resistance is futile."

To me The Borg are a parody of avarice. Avarice is unrelenting in it's mission and it's inevitable result is to turn the heart cold towards others. That's why the early church fathers and mothers named it as a deadly sin.

They knew that its latent power lays within all of us. They had the conviction that Christians are to be people who take seriously the deadly sin of avarice; and not excuse it; or rationalize it; or explain it away; or trivialize it - but see for what it is and how it wishes to control our lives!

I started this by saying that "the things that we grasp can never make us rich in the kingdom of God; and conversely, the things that make us rich in the Kingdom of God can never be grasped."

God gives us an incredible gift in Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ is not someone to be grasped and clutched and hoarded and garnered and stockpiled. The very nature of Jesus Christ is to give himself away. Remember what he said to the man who had followed the commandments, "Sell all you have, give it away -- and come follow me!"

You see, you can't follow Jesus with one open hand, and also be grasping tightly to your stuff with the other. You can't do it. The tension will tear you apart! Something will have to give in to the other or you'll explode!

Jesus is calling us and inviting us to trust him; trust him that the way of avarice, even if it's ever so subtly expressed in our lives, is not the way to being filled; is not the way to peace; is not the way to joy and purpose. But rather is found in his way; taking up our cross and following; loosening our grasp, working to use our resources to minister to others and build up the kingdom of God. It is perhaps the most gigantic shift in thinking and radical change of attitude that a human being can ever make, but yet it's a shift that leads to nowhere less than to the Kingdom of God - which is to say leads to a way of living your life that the world will never understand; but along the way you will experience the filling of God which is like nothing that the world can ever give.