The Enemies of Gratitude, Part 4: Greed

Matthew22:15-22

In the film Wall Street, the character Gordon Gecko announces in front of a meeting of corporate stockholders, “Greed is good.” It is a very provocative, shocking thing to say. But it turns out to be something that many people do believe.

People will work hard out of self-interest. One of the joys in life for many of us is to have extra money to use however we want – to treat ourselves to something special. And one of the things we hate is to feel like most, or all, of our paycheck goes to someone else – taxes, mortgage, utility bills. We want a bigger piece for ourselves. Some will say that desire to have a bigger piece for ourselves will motivate us to work harder, work smarter. That may be true for some. Others might just feel resentment.

The Jews of Jesus’ time seemed to feel resentment about too much of their paycheck going to someone else – namely, the Roman Empire. They were heavily taxed and mightily oppressed. The system employed tax collectors who worked out of a profit motive – they collected as much as they could squeeze out of people, because the more they could get, the more they could keep in their own pockets. Greed inspired many tax collectors to take advantage of their fellow Jews. It is not surprising that they were resented by their own community. This included many of Jesus’ followers, who knew firsthand the suffering people endured at the hands of greedy tax collectors in the employ of a greedy empire.

But for some of the Jews, it wasn’t just a matter of paying too much. They resented that they had to pay anything at all to this idolatrous Roman government. The emperor was god and all things belonged to him. The coin Jesus held up for an object lesson not only had a picture of the emperor’s face but also would have had an inscription to the emperor’s divinity. Whereas our coins say “In God We Trust,” the coins of Rome said essentially, “The Emperor is your God, trust him or not.” The Pharisees were certainly offended. They were, like the people who go crazy every December railing against folks who fail to wish them a Merry Christmas, indignant at the fact that not everyone believes the same way they do.

Now, the Herodians in this story – those Jews who are apparently in league with Herod (no doubt, out of greed) – also have an interest in this issue. This group would include the tax collectors and any other Jews who are employed by the empire. The whole sordid system is working for them, so they strongly support the payment of taxes to the emperor.

Everyone standing around Jesus at this moment has an interest in the question. Everyone is waiting to hear what he will say. Is it lawful, according to the Law of Moses, to pay these taxes to the emperor or is it not?

He says, “Whose face is on the coin?” It is, of course, the emperor’s face. Once that is established he says, “Give to the emperor what is the emperor’s.” His picture is on it, so it must be his. Give it to him. And, of course, it naturally follows, give to God what belongs to God.

I’ve always thought his answer to this question is one of his most brilliant moments. It dumbfounded his listeners that day. It dumbfounds us today. Because, when we try to break it down, we can’t quite figure it out.

If all the money belongs to the empire, what is left for us? and what exactly belongs to God?

Does this mean that God is not interested in money? That would certainly have an impact on our pledging and offering, wouldn’t it?

It has been suggested that since the Bible commands a tithe from Israel, 10 percent of all their livestock and crops, this means that 10 percent belongs to God. But that seems a paltry amount, especially in light of Psalm 24, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it; the world and all who live in it.”

But, if everything belongs to God, then how can any of it belong to the emperor? And, most important of all, what is left for us?

This seems to be an impossible problem to solve. It will remain an impossible problem for us, as long as we continue to see life as a zero-sum game, where anything that goes to God, or the emperor, means less for us.

It will remain an impossible problem as long as we believe that giving to you means taking away from me. It will remain an impossible problem as long as we are succumbing to the problem of greed.

Even if we don’t agree with Gordon Gecko that greed is good, we still need to face the truth that it exists. We need to acknowledge that we all struggle with the sin of greed. Known as one of the seven deadly sins, greed has been a human weakness throughout our time on earth. And it is, like so many sins, a matter of something good or innocent taking a deadly turn.

It is not wrong to take care of yourself, clearly. But when taking care of yourself turns into the belief that anything that is good for me is good, period, we have entered the realm of greed.

Another film that helps us think about the problem of greed is the old Capra film, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. Longfellow Deeds is a man who lives a simple life in rural Vermont, when he learns he has inherited a fortune from a distant relative. His first reaction is to say he doesn’t need it; he already has enough. But he is convinced that, like it or not, he is responsible for managing this fortune now, so, Mr. Deeds goes to New York. The money men who surround him in New York quickly decide that Mr. Deeds is hopelessly naïve and will be easy for them to manipulate – which is exactly what they want to do, manipulate his fortune away from him.

The mere proximity of wealth seems to make most men and women greedy for it. The men and women Deeds encounters in New York are blinded by their greed, losing touch with any ethical underpinnings they might have once had. Somehow, the character of Deeds is immune to it. He decides he wants to give his new fortune to the struggling farmers back in Vermont, giving them a hand up. He almost gets committed to a psychiatric hospital for it. His notion that he has enough – enough – seems positively lunatic to others.

In Wall Street, Gordon Gecko is asked by his young protégé, “When will it be enough? How much is enough for you?” Gecko’s answer is that there is no enough. It’s not a question of enough, it’s a question of winning or losing.

And so, in this scene from the gospel, where Jesus is surrounded by Pharisees, Herodians, and Jewish taxpayers, let us consider it from the perspective of winners and losers. The Pharisees and the Herodians want to make Jesus the loser; they want him gone because his very existence takes away from their authority or wealth. The followers of Jesus who hope to see him overthrow the empire want to see Jesus win, thereby making the empire lose. Those who have no more of an interest than that they are tired of paying taxes want to see the empire lose so they can win a little more of their wealth. But Jesus doesn’t play that game.

He will take up the matter of greedy tax collection when he talks with Zacchaeus, but for the moment he will simply remind his listeners that the game of zero-sum is not the way God’s economy runs. In God’s economy, the more you give the more you will have, the less you give the less you will have.

Everything in this world belongs to God. Everything. All that we have is a gift from God. And while it is ours to use, we are to live every day mindful of how we can best serve God. If our first thought is to how we can best serve ourselves, we are missing the mark.

Everything in this world belongs to God. You and I are the stewards of all this wealth. Therefore, every decision about how we use these wonderful resources must be made from the perspective of how well it serves God and all of God’s creation. It won’t ever be a matter of mindlessly following a rule of thumb because God doesn’t want us to ever stop thinking about how much we have received, and how much we can give.

God gives to us out of God’s grace and generosity, asking us to do the same for the sake of this wonderful world God made. And for this we can truly be grateful.

The Enemies of Gratitude, Part 3: Entitlement

Matthew22:1-14       

Recently I was I a small gathering listening to someone complain about people who can’t seem to make commitments. He said, “This is what they do. You say to them ‘I’m having a party a week from next Tuesday, and I’d like you to come. And they say, ‘Well, I don’t know – I’ll have to see if I can make it.’ And you think to yourself, ‘What’s up with that? why don’t they check their calendar and, if a week from next Tuesday is free, say they’ll be there?’ and we all said, yeah, why don’t they do that?

“Well, I’ll tell you what it is,” he went on. “They don’t have anything on their calendar for a week from next Tuesday. Nothing They just want to keep their options open, in case something better comes up. They just want to be available for a better offer.”

I nodded and nodded. Believe me, I know. Six years of planning weekly events for college students, I learned that pretty quickly. Some students, you knew, would definitely be there. They would have this event on their calendars and they would be there. Others would definitely be there 1) if they had not already made plans, or 2) if something better didn’t come up during the week between the invitation and the actual event, or 3) if while they were walking to the event they didn’t happen to get distracted by a more appealing invitation, in which case they would turn around and go the other way. We have so many options; we seem to always suspect that there is something better out there just beyond the horizon, that we should be holding out for.

While this might be true, I still have a hard time understanding why these people in Jesus’ story would refuse to come to the king’s wedding banquet. Because, do they really think they’re going to get a better invitation than that?

It’s a somewhat puzzling story, not to mention a disturbing story. I have heard it said that in Matthew’s gospel you never want to be called “friend.” Anytime someone is called “friend, it’s like a warning of bad things to come. As in this parable, where the one who is called “friend” is thrown into the outer darkness where there is, predictably, weeping and gnashing of teeth.

It is just one of many disturbing things about this parable. The violence seems out of proportion to the story. So it becomes important to remember two things: first, that parables are never meant to be taken literally, and 2) we need some historical context to put it in.

The most disturbing and confusing features of this parable can only be understood if we realize that the gospel was written by a people who had a long history with God, which we know from the Old Testament scriptures; a history full of ups and downs, ins and outs, times of exile and war, all of which were seen as being guided by the hand of God. What’s more, at the time this was written, Matthew’s audience, the church, lived in animosity between themselves and the leaders and people of Israel, from whom they had not long ago separated. The story we hear in this passage reflects the fears, resentments, and terrors they had known.

The historical context helps, but even with all that I am still left with this biggest question: I wonder why they refused to go to the banquet.

Why would the people refuse to come to the royal banquet, the best invitation they will ever get in their entire lives? Nothing better than this is going to be popping up. This is it.

Clearly, they are not honored to be included on the guest list, and I can only imagine why that is so. Perhaps they are not aware of just how gracious this invitation is. Perhaps they receive the invitation and they see that it is a black-tie event. And they say, what a nuisance. I’d have to get my tuxedo cleaned. Is it really worth the bother?

Perhaps they know that this king has a reputation for inviting some pretty sketchy people. They know that he is inclined to send his servants out to the highways and byways to scatter invitations among the not-so-elite crowd; people who smell bad and don’t know which fork to use. They think, heavens – do I really want to spend an evening with those people?

Perhaps they think that they would like to go to the king’s banquet sometime, but they are just not ready now. They don’t feel like it right now. They would like to have a rain check. They think, can’t we do this little banquet thing at a time that is more convenient for me?

Perhaps they want to set the time and the terms, because they feel they are entitled to have it their way. Perhaps they don’t appreciate the profound grace that has just been offered them. We have what we might call a problem of entitlement here.

This is an interesting word – entitlement. it carries a lot of baggage for many of us. When we first began discussing it at the roundtable this week, we treaded careful around it because everyone has opinions about entitlements – mostly about other people’s entitlements. The word has become a catchword in our society for what is also known as welfare. When we think of entitlements we think of Medicaid, food stamps, disability. But entitlement programs also include, of course, Social Security, Medicare, and federal and military retirement plans. Entitlement programs are simply programs that provide some financial benefit to those who are eligible for them, and those who are eligible have a legal right to them. Essentially, all entitlement programs are designed to ensure that people get what they need.

But in a more general sense, entitlement simply means that to which you are entitled. To feel entitled is to believe you have something coming to you.

It becomes a problem if we start to believe that we are, somehow, entitled to more than others; if we start to believe that, for some reason, we are more entitled. A sense of entitlement can make us incapable of gratitude. Because what is there to feel grateful for, if it is a matter of getting merely what you deserve?

And the truth of the matter is that, when it comes to God’s grace, none of us are entitled. Not one of us is more deserving than anyone else when it comes to God’s gracious invitation to life.

Years ago, I worked as a Director of Christian Education in a congregation in Pennsylvania. And it came time to start a confirmation class, which meant all kinds of things that needed to be done. It meant sitting down with the pastor and the teachers and setting the dates, outlining the curriculum, and laying out the rules. It meant going through the rolls to see who all might be participating in the confirmation class, and making phone calls to all these families.

There were always some families who had practically dropped out of the church, but not quite. Some kids who hadn’t been to Sunday school in years, whose parents rarely came to church. But these parents, although they had practically dropped out themselves, for reasons of their own, wanted their children to be confirmed. This was why requirements had to be made clear, terms had to be negotiated. For families who rarely participated, we needed to make sure it was clear that full participation was expected.

I remember one family who fell in this category. I actually had never met the girl because it had been so long since she or her mother had been at church. There had been a time when this woman was very active in the congregation – chairing committees, and such as that. But I suppose things had changed in her life. When she was contacted, however, she was clear: yes, she did want her daughter to be confirmed.

An orientation session was held with the kids and their parents. This mother and daughter did not make it to the session, but we talked by phone later and yes, she did still want to participate.

Classes began. And this girl did not show up at the first class. So I called her mother again to try to find out if they really wanted to do this. And if they did, how could I help. The phone conversation was not easy. The mother was not happy about having any requirements pressed upon her and, I suspect, her daughter didn’t really want to participate because, after all, she did not know these other kids; she did not really know this congregation and probably didn’t know why it was important for her to go.

As I tried to pry something out of the woman – either a commitment or a withdrawal – I could hear the resentment over the phone line, especially when she finally said to me, “You know, I was running things in this church long before you folks ever showed up.”

The invitation to the royal banquet is sent out, but those who receive it are unimpressed. Later a summons is sent, but the invitees coolly ignore it. Perhaps they did not know what they were being invited to, who was inviting them.

While confirmation class is not the king’s banquet, it is one path meant to show us the way. We have all been invited to the banquet, and what do we do to prepare ourselves for it? Do we even prepare ourselves for it?

If you feel entitled to your place at the table, you might not be the slightest bit motivated to prepare yourself for it.

But not one of us is entitled to it. Not one of us has earned a place at God’s table, and none of us is any more worthy than another. All of us are sorely in need of the grace God offers us when the invitation is extended. It doesn’t matter if you were on the A-list or the D-list, if you came from the banquet-going class or from the highways and byways, pulled in from the streets.

You are not entitled to a place at the table. Nonetheless, you have been offered one. And for this we might be grateful.

 Photo credit: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=566557