Greed which is Idolatry
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
The contemporary poet, Michael O’Siadhail, has published a new collection of his extended poems that range over the threat of Covid, the environmental crisis, the force of technology, and the dangers in unbridled capitalism. His rendering in each case is forceful, direct, and most accessible. His book, Desire, probes our misguided desires that constitute a threat to destroy human possibility. As I read and pondered his compelling words, I noticed that the theme of “greed” recurs in his poetry; he sees that misguided desire, most often powered by coercive advertising, has greatly skewed our life in the world. Thus he writes:
Beyond our avarice, our greed’s stillbirth,
What’s worth desiring now for all we’re worth? (p. 2).
In light of thousands now bereft,
What desire will shape a world we’re left? (p. 5).
In our shell we had time to think
Why such constant busyness and greed? (p. 28).
Tragedy of that one apple’s fall,
Our first garden’s greed to know it all. (p. 56).
Lulling us with ease till they succeed,
Waiting our incensed protesters who
Under laws too old can’t curb their greed. (p. 67)
And who knows where such avarice will lead.
Will we learn to curb outrageous greed? (p. 85)
Most remarkably O’Siadhail finds greed to be at the bottom of every social crisis we face. His compelling words have set me to thinking about the power of greed among us that is endlessly fed by aggressive advertising and keeps devising new needs for us that can only be solved by more acquisition. New products that we really must have!
Greed of course plays a major role in biblical testimony in:
-The quite primitive narrative of Joshua and Achan. It turns out that his covetousness for silver and a “beautiful mantle” brought disaster on his people (Joshua 7:20-21). In that ancient context Achan’s violation of community interest required that he be executed for his destructive greed. He lost his life for his community-destroying greed.
-A matching narrative in the New Testament, also on the primitive side, features Ananias and Sapphira, members of the early church community (Acts 5:1-13). The couple sold property and withheld proceeds from their church community. They refused to lay their proceeds “at the feet of the apostles,” a direct contradiction to the report in 4:35 wherein all property was “held in common” (4:32). The accusatory question posed to the couple by Peter caused the sudden death of Ananias. We are not told whether he died from shock or form a smitten conscience, or whether the Holy Spirit struck him down.
When Peter likewise confronted Sapphira, she likewise “immediately died” (v. 10). Their deaths are without commentary, but they are enough to terrify the church community. Unlike the narrative of Achan, here the community did not suffer from affront; it is enough that the church was fearful when any of its members violated its practice of generosity in the face of greed. We note well that resources withheld from the community constitutes the quintessence of greed. Peter voices rejection and condemnation when resources are kept for private advantage.
Apart from these quite primitive stories of communities under threat, perhaps the most important rendering of “greed as idolatry” is the oracle of Micah 2:1-2:
Alas for those who devise wickedness and evil deeds on their beds!
When the morning dawns, they perform it,
because it is in their power.
They covet fields, and seize them;
houses, and take them away;
they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance.
The operational verbs are “covet, seize, take away, oppress,” all acts of predatory violence. The poet offers the classic case of the big ones eating the little ones, exactly according to the warning of I Samuel 8:11-17) with its repeated accent on “take.” Micah is paralleled by the oracle of Isaiah who condemns the endless acquisition of farmland at the expense of vulnerable peasant farmers:
Ah, you who join house to house,
who add field to field,
until there is no room for anyone one but you,
and you are left to live alone in the midst of the land (Isaiah 5:8)!
Micah follows his indictment in verse 3 with a mighty “therefore” of displacement and destruction as such usurped property is seized by foreign invaders. Likewise Isaiah anticipates the failure of expanded agriculture as crops fail and so houses deserted. It is a prophetic insistence that “greed” from the top down will surely bring disaster on an economy over which “the Lord of Hosts” has a final say.
A plausible New Testament counterpoint to the prophetic oracle is the parable in Luke 12:11-20. The parable is framed by a narrative in which brothers dispute the family inheritance of land. In his response to the request of verse 23 Jesus tells the story. Jesus reckons that the man with the request is a predator whose hunger for more land insatiable. Thus the parable presents a rich farmer whose crops prospered, who was eager have more storage for more surplus. (The building of more storage space is surely reminiscent of Pharaoh’s need for more granaries (Exodus 1:11). In Micah’s oracle judgment on coveting is by a foreign invader. In the parable the judgment more directly from God, as it can be only in parable. God’s verdict is that the man is a “fool”; he is a “fool” because he fails to reckon with the intention of the creator for the wellbeing of the entire community. The man was rich toward himself in his limitless greed.
It is no wonder that the Decalogue ends with a prohibition against coveting (Exodus 20:17). I recall two distorted renderings of this commandment. First, it has often been argued that this commandment, unlike the other nine, concerns only an “attitude,” i. e., envy. That of course is wrong, as “coveting” includes both attitude and action, both lure and seizure. Second the commandment has been taken as warning to the “have-nots” not to envy what the “haves” possess in abundance. But clearly in scripture the shoe is on the other foot. It is rather a curb against the rich and powerful who act as predators of the vulnerable and defenseless. Jesus’ confrontation with the man who had “many possessions” bears attention in this context (Mark 10:17-22). In the Matthew parallel, he is reckoned to be young (Matthew 19:22). In the Lucan parallel, he is said to be very rich (Luke 18:323). Perhaps he is reckoned by Jesus to be covetous, even in his Torah obedience. But Jesus articulates the radical alternative to “being rich”: “go, sell, give to the poor” (Mark 10:21). He aims at some redress of deep economic disparity all around him.
Thus “generosity” included in Paul’s inventory of the fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22): we may read the negative catalog of Colossians 3:5 (including “greed as idolatry”) as a counterpoint to the positive catalog of Galatians 5:22-23 (including “generosity”). Paul sees that the “old self” is indeed greedy, whereas the “new self,” now baptized, is summoned and tilted toward generosity. No doubt this word pair of “generosity-greed” fully voices the contrast between a self preoccupied with self-securing and self-sufficiency and a self emancipated by grace in a life for others. And if we push this word-pair “upstairs,” we see that generosity is grounded in the abundance of God, whereas greed is rooted in the ideology of scarcity propagated by the rulers of this age. Thus the either/or of generosity/greed is grounded in loyalty to either the God of abundance, the creator, or the gods of scarcity who generate fear, anxiety, and divisiveness. The choice always to be made does indeed concern the management of our money. But beneath that it concerns our vision of how the world is governed. Thus Achan is able to confess, “I am the one who sinned against the Lord God of Israel” (Joshua 7:20). Achan understood, albeit belatedly, that his covetous action violated the God of generosity. And Peter, in his rebuke to Ananias, can query:
Why has Satan filled you your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3)?
In both narratives there is a recognition that acts of greed raise the issue of God. It is for that reason that greed is idolatry, active embrace of an alternative governance.
Thus the community faithful to the God of the gospel is a community that is committed to deep generosity. But the background claim must be magnified; that background claim concerns the bottomless, limitless abundance of the creator God that makes our generosity an appropriate response. Nowhere in my awareness is that abundance of God more extravagantly voiced than in the great doxology of Psalm 145 in which God’s abundance is affirmed in this way:
The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food in due season.
You open your hand,
satisfying the desire of every living thing (vv. 15-16).
The accent is on “all” and “every living thing.” These two verses, moreover, are surrounded in the Psalm by a multiplicity of the use of “all” that expresses God’s limitless reach of providential care for all creatures.
It is the good work of the church to assert and accent the abundance of God. More than that, it is the good work of the church to show that this claim of abundance deeply contradicts the alternative claim of scarcity that yields fear and therefore an urge for self-sufficiency in order to provide for the self its needs, it wants, and its endless desires. This economic commitment to scarcity is mightily reinforced by media advertising products for the endless needs, wants, looks, and wellbeing of the consumer self, without notice of or reference to the community.
Thus as the church proclaims, in word and act, the abundance of God, so it urges disciplines generosity. The ancient practice of tithing is a recurring reminder that we at are best renters or lessees of the goodness of God who holds the whole world in God’s good hands. It is indeed the case that “all that we have is thine alone” (I Chronicles 29:124). From that claim we may well be taught and nurtured in generosity:
-Such generosity of course includes essential support for the life and ministries of the church community;
-Such generosity includes outreach beyond the walls of the church, often expressed as care for the poor and needy via soup kitchens;
-Such generosity, beyond such immediately needed relief, includes deeper investment in the community, with the establishment of affordable housing and readily accessible health care;
-Such generosity pertains to the public domain concerning taxation in order to make provision (housing, healthcare, education) for those without resources, work that can only be done through public finance. That in turn calls for the regulation concentrated wealth and for a realignment of public expenditure in the interest of viable, sustainable community.
Indeed there is no sphere of our life in which the abundance of God and the responsive generosity of the faithful does not call for a reordering of our priorities. That, perforce, includes disengagement from the ideology of the consumer economy and its endless production of new needs and fresh appetites. Most elemental for such a claim is the sturdy recognition that the way of the gospel is in profound contradiction to the conventional ways of our society. Something like this contradiction is voiced in Jesus’ articulation of the two “ways,” one wide and easy, the other narrow and hard (Matthew 7:13-14). It is no wonder that most of us, most of the time, choose the wide, easy path. We make that choice when recognize the ideology of scarcity that governs our society is a lie which cannot keep its promises to us.
Imagine that when the Christian congregation assembles, it meets as gathering of the generous, of those who know that a life of generous giving is “a more excellent way,” one filled with joy, gratitude, and wellbeing. We may well be engaged by Paul’s question to the congregation in Corinth:
For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift (I Corinthians 4:7)?
The second question can only be answered, “Nothing.” We have nothing that we have not been given. And to his third question, the answer is that we boast “as if it were not a gift” because we have been seduced by the ideology of self-sufficiency that propels our society. Paul knows better. And we know better! We know that we are on the receiving end of the self-giving abundance of God. That awareness evokes, in our life together, responsive generosity. And we do with great joyous self-giving. Paul’s bid to the Corinthian congregation goes like this:
Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver (II Corinthians 9:7).
And then Paul adds:
You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God (II Corinthians 9:11-12).
Talk about counter-cultural! That is us at our best, unrestrained by the false world articulated all around us, one made in the image of the parsimonious gods. We know better!
In his meditation on our environmental crisis, O’Siadhail has these good words:
Others see a crisis as rebirth,
Yes, we must survive—
Yet beyond duress how best to thrive?
Will the richer half come to agree
Who first fouled the nest first cleans?
Dare we think of global equity,
Weathering the threat becomes a means
To re-dream our earth? (p. 37).
It is good work to re-dream; and then to act!
Walter Brueggemann
Walter Brueggemann is one of the most influential Bible interpreters of our time. He is the author of over one hundred books and numerous scholarly articles.
