Avoiding Greed by Becoming Rich in God

So, for those of you that are not aware, I was away last week to attend the Annual Chapter of the Order of Lutheran Franciscans.

The Lutheran Franciscans were founded in 2011 and is the only recognized religious order in the ELCA.

I have been involved with the Order for about 5 years, and I was attracted to them because their foundations are service to the poor, care for creation, interreligious dialog, and rebuilding the church.

All four of these topics are important to me and are integral to my call to ministry.

This past Monday, I took vows of Obedience, Chastity, and Poverty as a novice in the Order.

I now begin a 5-year program of study and discernment, after which, I can become a Life-Professed member of the Order.

So, a few points of clarification:

First, this does not change my call to ministry at Emanuel.

My participation in the Order is a separate, although related, call to service that is integral to my spiritual development.

Second, as a novice, I can use the title of Brother.

I will use it in certain circumstances, when it seems appropriate.

All my Franciscan siblings will refer to me as Brother Scott.

You can call me Pastor Scott, Brother Scott, or Scott, whichever is most comfortable for you.

I will answer to any of them.

Third, the habit of novices in the Order is a Tau cross.

You will notice that I wear it every day.

I also have the brown robe that most people associate with Franciscans.

I will only wear it at OLF functions, like Annual Chapter, and for certain events that are related to my vows.

For most of you, you will likely only see it for the Blessing of the Animals service that we will have in October that also commemorates St. Francis.

Now, I share all this because I thought some of you might be curious.

I am certainly happy to talk at length about the Order and my formation experience as a novice, if anyone is interested.

I may even take an Adult Forum session to explain the foundations and vows in greater detail.

But, for the purposes of today, I thought we might take a look at the readings through the lens of the Franciscan vow of poverty.

Greed is the central message of all three lessons today.

We live in a consumer society.

We are culturally conditioned to want things.

The media we are continually exposed to is inundated with advertising whose sole purpose is to sell us things.

With the advent of social media, there are now algorithms—little computer programs—that track what we look at and even listen in on our conversations to predict the things that will interest us.

Products are designed with built-in obsolescence so, rather than repairing things, we have to replace them.

All these commercial tactics—advertising, algorithms, and obsolescence—are crafted to make us WANT things.

We are actively being programmed, not to be grateful and good stewards of what we have.

We are actively being programmed to be envious of “new and improved”.

We are being conditioned to believe that what we have is never enough.

That, my friends, is greed.

One of God’s greatest gifts to us is creation.

We were not given creation to do whatever we want with it.

We were given creation as stewards—to protect and care for it.

But what have we done?

We have depleted natural resources.

We have upset the natural balance of things and created a climate crisis.

We have driven entire species of animals to extinction.

Our consumer culture creates such massive amounts of trash that we have run out of places to put it.

So, we dump it in the ocean.

Did you know that the great Pacific garbage patch is more than twice the size of Texas?

That, my friends, is greed.

Jesus said, “Avoid greed in all its forms.”

It’s an interesting phrase, isn’t it?

Because we typically look at greed as being all about money and possessions.

But Jesus is talking about greed very expansively.

So, what are the forms of greed?

Ungratefulness.

Attachment to material things.

Consumerism.

Coveting other people’s possessions.

Abusing creation.

The “isms” and phobias that plague our society—racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia—are born out of fear.

And that fear has its roots in greed.

We fear that someone that we perceive to be different from us will take something that is ours.

We fear that rights gained by another group of people will diminish our own rights.

But the perception that any of our human siblings are not like us is delusion.

Because the fact that we all possess the divine image of God trumps any differences we may have.

The counterpoint to greed what Jesus called being “rich in God”.

What does that mean?

I believe “being rich in God” starts with gratitude—gratitude for all that we have.

Because all that we have is a gift from God—given to us to steward.

Stewardship is a church word that isn’t always understood.

A steward does not own.

A steward takes care of.

When we are grateful for what we have—when we see our possessions as gifts from God, given to us to take care of—we are less likely to covet the things that we don’t.

When we are grateful for God’s many blessings, we learn to trust in God.

We trust that God will provide all that we need.

That doesn’t mean we get to sit back and rely on manna from heaven.

Today’s Psalm warns about those who “trust only in their money” because “their prosperity cannot keep them from death”.

We put our trust in God, because “God so loved the world as to give the Only Begotten One, that whoever believes may not die, but have eternal life.

God sent the Only Begotten into the world not to condemn the world, but that through the Only Begotten the world might be saved.”

We trust in God because of the covenant we have with God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—the covenant that promises us eternal life.

God became incarnate in Jesus because God wanted a closer relationship with us.

A relationship that was only possible by becoming human and living among us.

In Colossians, we read, “put on a new self, one that grows in knowledge as it is formed anew in the image of its Creator.

And in that image, there is no Greek or Hebrew; no Jew or Gentile; no barbarian or Scythian; no slave or citizen.

There is only Christ, who is all in all.”

That is what it means to be in relationship with God:

To be re-formed and re-created in the divine image of God.

To recognize that divinity in all our human siblings.

And to recognize that that divinity is more defining of who we are than any of the categories that we’ve invented for each other.

That is the foundation of loving one another.

We are all children of God—each and every one of us—possessing the divine image of God.

When we see that—when we acknowledge it—how could we not love one another?

Jesus tells us that we should “avoid greed in all its forms”?

That is the lesson that we need to bring home with us today.

So, how do we “avoid greed in all its forms”?

We do it by living simply and avoiding attachment to material things.

We describe people that we like and admire as someone who “would give you the shirt off their back”.

I haven’t known many people for whom that was actually true, but I’ve known a few.

People who have little and are still grateful.

People who have little and still find ways to share what they have.

People who give, not out of their abundance, but out of their scarcity.

People like the widow in the gospels of Mark and Luke, who gave the last two coins in her possession.

Jesus also said we need to be “rich in God”.

We are “rich in God” when we are grateful—understanding that everything we have is a gift from God.

And we are given those gifts to steward—not to own, but to care for.

We are “rich in God” when we trust in God—in our covenant with God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

When we trust that our wealth is not in material things, but in the love of God—the love of God for us and our love for God.

And we are “rich in God” when we are in relationship with God.

When we show our love for God through prayer and worship.

When we show our love for God by loving for our human siblings—when we recognize the divine image of God that we share with each and every one of them.

Franciscans avoid greed in all its forms by taking a vow of poverty.

Because St. Francis said, “For poverty is that heavenly virtue by which all earthy and transitory things are trodden under foot, and by which every obstacle is removed from the soul so that it may freely enter into union with the eternal Lord God. It is also the virtue which makes the soul, while still here on earth, converse with the angels in Heaven.”

I pray that we each learn to follow the example of Francis.

That we are liberated from greed in all its forms.

That every obstacle is removed from our relationship with God.

And that our souls are freed to converse with the angels in heaven.

May this meditation on God’s word keep our hearts and minds on Christ Jesus. Amen.