Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of
Trinity Sermons. This week we are continuing
our series on the S -word, where we are diving
into the seven deadly sins and their impacts
on our lives today. Today we're going to be learning
about greed, something that we all struggle with
in many ways that maybe we don't even recognize.
We value security, we plan for the future, and
we keep striving for more. And while that's not
all bad, greed keeps us trapped in cycles of
wanting that ultimately hurt us and everyone
around us. Today's reading is from the Gospel
of Luke, chapter 12, verses 13 to 21. Someone
in the crowd said to him, Teacher, tell my brother
to divide the inheritance with me. Jesus replied,
Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between
you? Then he said to them, Watch out, be on your
guard against all kinds of greed. Life does not
consist in an abundance of possessions. And he
told them this parable. The ground of a certain
rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought
to himself, What shall I do? I have no place
to store my crops. Then he said, This is what
I'll do. I'll tear down my barns and build bigger
ones, and there I will store my surplus grain.
And I'll say to myself, You have plenty of grain
laid up for many years. Take life easy. Eat,
drink, and be merry. But God said to him, You
fool. This very night your life will be demanded
from you. Then who will get what you have prepared
for yourself? This is how it will be with whoever
stores up things for themselves but is not rich
toward God. The gospel of Christ. Hey, I want
you to take a look at this. This image here.
Behold, cast your eyes upon this. This is Apophis.
Apophis is named after the Egyptian god of chaos,
which doesn't sound too promising. Apophis is
an asteroid about the size of three hockey arenas.
And in the year 2029, it is going to have a really
close call with... planet Earth. It was just
a few weeks ago, we were being told that there
was a 3 .7 % chance that Apophis was going to
strike Earth. And then NASA changed their mind.
And they said, actually, no, no, it's going to
miss Earth completely. And then they've kind
of put a little asterisk besides that. And they
said, well, it could still hit Earth if it got
nudged by another asteroid. Cue the nervous laughter.
Ha ha ha, that won't happen. That won't happen,
right? Because if it hit us, it would be devastating
this thing is going to come so close it's going
to pass beneath some of our satellites for sure
right but if it hit us it would be disastrous
it would be like a thousand megatons of tnt going
off all at once 20 times the size of the largest
nuclear device that's ever been detonated on
earth the impact would actually have ripples
the first thing if it were to hit water of course
it would create tsunami that would devastate
coastlines if it were to hit land And the blast
radius would be hundreds of kilometers, could
flatten entire cities just like that. And then,
of course, there's the dust cloud that would
be ejected into the air. That would affect everything
from climate to crop production. And then, of
course, we have to add the whole economic consequence
of it. The economy would surely crash as well.
But don't worry. NASA's got their eye on it.
They're monitoring Apophis very, very closely.
What we should be worrying about and what we
should be looking at is the asteroid that we
can't see. The one that we're not. And that's
right. There is something else out there, a danger
much harder to spot. In fact, it's not out there
at all. It's in here. It's in our lives. It's
in our hearts and our habits. And we call it
greed. We've been working through this teaching
series now throughout Lent called The S Word,
looking at the seven deadly sins. We started
by looking at pride, and then we looked at envy,
and then last week we looked at sloth, and today
we come to greed. This is going to be a real
tough one for us, actually, because the thing
about greed is you just don't see it. Like Apophis,
I dare you, go out and look into the night sky.
Look up there. You will not see it. You won't
see it. It just blends into the sky. It's shrouded
in darkness. Is that a star or is that Apophis?
I don't know. But it's there. And it's deadly.
And it's coming for us. And greed, too, is really,
really hard to see. We don't see it. We don't
see it when we look at our world. I don't see
it when I look in my own life. But it's there.
And here's why we don't see it. By the way, I've
given you some notes today to follow along because
there's lots of important stuff I want to share
with you about greed. But here's the first reason
why we don't see greed. And that is because we
have rationalized it. Greed, we say, is what
makes the world go round. Greed is good. Greed
works. Our capitalist consumer culture depends
on greed to function. It drives innovation. Greed
fuels the economy. It rewards ambition. We need
greed. You need greed for your own security,
for your own success. For the system to work
the way that we have set it up, we need greed.
Greed is the spur of industry. It's how the world
works. That's why we don't see it. We rationalize
it. But secondly, we also normalize greed. We
say, oh, greed, I think it's just the way things
are, right? I mean, it's like the wallpaper.
It's like the stars in the sky. It's just in
the background of everything we do. right and
we don't recognize we just say oh it's saving
up i'm just buying more i'm just growing my wealth
that's not greed no no no no that's just good
financial planning right it's it's common sense
this is just what everyone does no greed is not
a sin it's just it's just my lifestyle choice
right and then the third reason we cannot see
greed is because it's commercialized this is
the strategy of modern advertising create some
discontentment in you, and then sell you the
solution. Greed in this way is completely manufactured.
Advertisers spend billions of dollars telling
you you need this, you gotta have this, this
will make you happy, you deserve the upgrade.
And commercialism, it's funny, it doesn't just
say you need to buy this, it says you gotta build
your identity around this. We don't go shopping
just to... Because we need something. We go shopping
in order to feel something. That is commercialism
at work. It's just everywhere. You don't even
see it anymore. But the fourth way that we kind
of... greed is invisible to us is that we have
baptized it. Greed is not just something that
exists out there. It also exists right in here,
right in the church, right? It's the preacher
who says, right, God wants you to be rich or
wealth is God's blessing or the more you give,
the more you're gonna get. This is some kind
of spiritual investment plan, right? Greed can
be baptized by religion. I've came across this
Will Willimon quote. It said, greed is no longer
a sin, it's a strategy. It's preached from the
pulpit. Yikes! I'm the guy who usually stands
here and preaches from the pulpit. So what does
this mean? It actually kind of scares me. Is
he talking about people who preach some kind
of prosperity gospel? Or perhaps he's talking
about the fact that sometimes we don't even want
to touch this topic with a 10 -foot pole, and
so we avoid it at the risk of offending people.
Well, guys, Guys, today we're going to talk about
it at the risk of offending people. Because when
you stare up at the night sky, you will not see
Apophis. It's hidden. And you look around our
world and look inside yourself, you will not
see greed because we rationalized it, normalized
it, commercialized it, and baptized it. The man
in Jesus' parable today, he didn't see greed.
He didn't look greedy. Look at this guy. He's
not stealing, right? He's not cheating. He's
just building some bigger barns, right? This
looks like good financial common sense, don't
you think? Economic wisdom, right? We don't see
greed. Jesus does. Jesus says, watch out. Watch
out. When do you say watch out to someone? You
say watch out when you see something that they
don't. They're about to step into traffic. Watch
out. They're about to step over a cliff. Watch
out. Right? Some sins we can see. Greed is not
one of those sins. Jesus says, watch out. You
don't see it. I see it. But you don't. Like Apophis.
just because you can't see it doesn't mean it
won't kill you. And when greed breaks in to the
atmosphere of our lives and makes impact in our
hearts, there are ripples of devastation. The
first... ripple of impact is personal unhappiness.
It totally sounds strange, but research shows
that greedy people, while they may have more
income, they are no more satisfied. In fact,
they have lower life satisfaction. And that's
because greed always wants a little bit more.
A little bit more money, a little bit more house,
a little bit more in my closet, right? One more
upgrade, one more step. Greed works this way.
You get the raise. You buy the upgrade, you get
the new toy, you enjoy it for a bit, but then
something happens. The goalposts shift. Now it's
a little further. You got to get one more thing
to get to that point. And then you get that.
And then the goalposts shift again. See, greed
is not satisfied by getting. It is only satisfied
by getting more and more. Look at the man in
our story. Look, when his barns were full, did
he say, oh, I've had a really successful year.
I achieved my goal. No, he said, I better build
bigger barns. And I'll tell you what, once those
barns are full, he won't say, I'm satisfied now.
No, he'll say, I better build bigger barns to
hold on to more and more wealth. Greed will not
let you be happy with what you have, only with
having more. You know, I remember when we moved
into one of our first houses, it was this old
house, I want to say 75, maybe 100 years old.
And I remember looking at the closets. And the
closets were like tiny. There were these little
compartments. They were like two feet deep. Like
one of my shoes like fit the depth of that closet.
And I think one of those closets held just my
sweaters. And I was like thinking, what did people,
where did people 75 years ago keep all their
clothes? And then it dawned on me. 75 years ago,
people didn't have as many clothes, right? They
had a couple of dresses, not 25. They had a couple
of pairs of pants, not 14. Today, though, we
don't ask, you know, when is enough? We just
build bigger barns, bigger closets, walk -in
closets, walk -in closets with, you know, walk
-in closets within them, right? You know, Jim
Carrey said that I think everybody should get
rich and famous so that they know that it is
not the answer. right? Freddie Mercury once said,
you can have everything in the world and still
be the loneliest man, and that is the most bitter
type of loneliness. Or how about the Roman poet,
Horace, who, you know, was around Jesus' time.
He said, the one who is greedy is always in want.
That is the first point of impact, my friends.
Personal unhappiness is where it starts, but
then it ripples out from there, ripples out.
The second ripple that greed has isn't just personal,
it's planetary. There's an environmental crisis
that comes with greed. Put simply, here's how
it works. Greed fuels overconsumption, which
drives environmental degradation. If greed is
never satisfied, then the earth can never rest.
Our need to possess more, faster, cheaper, inevitably
leads to the depletion of the world's resources.
Life will become unsustainable at some point
because of greed. So there is this connection.
You don't see it. you never see it between sheen
and tmu and you know the next iphone uh and there's
a connection between that and the rainforest
and coal reserves and species extinction and
global warming and sea levels it is actually
an open question how long our planet can survive
our greed You know, Gus Speth said, you know,
I used to think the top environmental problems
were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and
climate change. I thought that within 30 years
of good science, we could address these problems.
I was wrong. The top environmental problems are
selfishness, greed, and apathy. And to deal with
those, we need a spiritual transformation. So
that is the second ripple. It's an economic crisis.
But another ripple comes, and even more destructive
than this. It doesn't just hit our happiness.
It doesn't just hit our environment, but it hits
the poor. Greed keeps whole populations in poverty.
Global supply chains rely on things like sweatshops
and unjust wages and exploitation. Why? To satisfy
greed. Man, oh man, prophets like Amos, they
railed against this. They sell the innocent for
silver and the needy for a pair of sandals. They
trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust
of the ground and they deny justice to the oppressed.
When we have too much, others have too little.
Look, the rich guy in our reading today, he is
not thinking about others. Just look at the language.
He thought to himself, what shall I do? I have
no place to store my crops. And I'll say to myself,
you have plenty. Thomas Aquinas said that greed
is actually a sin that is directed at one's neighbor.
You can't have so many riches without another
person lacking them. So greed turns us inward
and we ignore our responsibility to others. Now
the final and most dangerous ripple from the
impact of greed is spiritual emptiness. This
is the deepest devastation of all because greed
becomes our God. Something that takes the place
of the one true God. You see, God is meant to
be our hope. He's meant to be our comfort. And
he's meant to be our protection. But greed sneaks
in and says, hey, I can do those things for you.
Come on, right? I can give you hope. I can give
you comfort. I can give you protection. You don't
need God. You just need this and this and this
and this. You see, wealth and possessions become
our God. The rich guy in Luke 12, He turned,
not to God, but to money for his security and
his future. He says, I've got plenty laid up
for many years. I can take it easy now. I've
looked after myself. I've got enough stuff. We
say, that guy's a great financial planner. God
says, he's a fool. He put his faith in barns,
not in God. His barns are his God. So yeah, greed.
You may not see it coming, but when it hits,
It's going to be an extinction -level event in
your life, in this world, right? Justice will
be extinct. Your happiness will be extinct. Faith
will be extinct. And even this world probably
won't survive it. So, are you feeling depressed
yet? How are you feeling, right? You probably
feel like Jesus' disciples. I'm reminded of the
time that Jesus once told his disciples, he says,
it's harder for someone who is rich to enter
in the kingdom of heaven. It's actually easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for someone who's rich to enter the kingdom
of God. And his disciples, like us this morning,
probably said, oh my gosh, then who can be saved?
So depressing. But listen, with a twinkle in
his eye, Jesus looked at him and said, you know
what? Yeah, it's kind of impossible for a man.
But with God, all things are possible. We can
deflect the asteroid of greed. We can, in fact,
destroy the asteroid of greed. Let me tell you
about DART. NASA's... Double asteroid redirection
test. This is amazing. In 2021, NASA launched
a rocket at a very small asteroid called Dimorphos.
And they wanted to see whether that rocket could
actually change the trajectory of a smaller asteroid.
A year later, DART collided, as it was supposed
to, with Dimorphos. Boom! And... Success, actually.
The trajectory of that little asteroid changed.
And they even blew some of it to pieces. In fact,
in 2029, we're going to have a meteor shower
because of some of the debris from the DART project,
right? Well, guess what? There is good news for
the problem of greed. If we act soon enough,
we can deflect it. We can destroy it. And we
can avoid the devastation that comes with it.
And all it takes is for us. to launch a new way
of thinking and all our lives will be saved.
So what is this new perspective? What is this
new way of thinking? It is simply this. You got
to start thinking this way, that everything we
have is not owned, but loaned. Everything you
have is not owned by you. It's loaned to you.
Everything, your money, your house, Your job,
your car, your time, your body, your opportunities,
it's all on loan. What do you mean? Well, first
of all... It's loaned to you from God. You know,
scripture tells us over and over again that we
don't truly own anything. Every good gift is
from above. Psalm 24 says, the earth is the Lord's
and everything that's in it. Why don't we just
say that together? Because that is one of the
most powerful statements I came across this week.
Let's say this. The earth is the Lord's and everything
in it. God has just loaned us this stuff for
a while, and one day we're going to have to give
it all back to the true giver. When we become
followers of Jesus, we actually acknowledge something.
Nothing we possess is really ours. You know,
that's why Jesus says crazy things like this.
He says, any one of you who doesn't give up everything
he has can't be my disciple. We say, well, what
is Jesus saying? Jesus saying I have to be poor
and live on the street? No. He's just saying
you got to open your hands and you have got to
acknowledge that none of it is yours. God is
the owner of everything you have. That's the
shift. That's the rocket, right? But we say,
oh my gosh, Rob, I earned it, right? It's mine.
I worked for this. I sacrificed for this. Yeah,
you worked hard. But to say it's mine because
I earned it fundamentally ignores countless variables
that were outside of your control. The health
you didn't create, the doors you didn't open,
the economy that you didn't engineer to get your
wealth, the breath in your lungs that you didn't
generate, the place you were born, the family
you were born into, right? Your opportunities,
the strength, the skill, that door that was open
at just the right time. Did you have anything
to do with that? No. Your paycheck, your business,
your savings. You didn't create any of those
things out of nothing. They're not yours. They're
not mine. God warns us not to say, oh, my power
and my strength has produced this wealth for
me. He says, instead, instead, remember the Lord
your God, for it is he who gives you the ability
to produce wealth. You're not a self -made person.
Neither am I. You may have filled the barns.
But God gave you the seed and the soil and the
sunlight and the seasons. Everything we have
is loaned from God. That's a big rocket. But
not only is everything we have loaned from God,
but it is borrowed from God. You see, Christians
have always insisted that wealth and resources
are to be used for the common good. So you see,
your wealth wasn't just loaned to you to bless
you. It was loaned to you to bless others too.
Meaning, get this, the extra that you have is
probably meant for someone else. Basil the Great,
who was this bishop in the 4th century, he actually
called accumulation theft. Theft, who am I stealing
from? He says, It's the hungry one's bread that
you're hoarding. It's the naked one's cloak that
you're retaining. It's the needy one's money
that you withhold. Let me put it in modern language,
right? The money for the expensive coffee that
you purchased this morning, you borrowed that
from the child who's going to school this week
without breakfast, right? The winter coat, the
new winter coat you have in your closet beside
the four other ones that you don't wear, that
was borrowed. From the homeless person that you
passed on your way to work. The money that you've
saved for retirement, some of that was borrowed
from the sweatshop worker who made your hiking
boots that you've only worn two times. Greed
isn't about what I keep. It's about what I keep
from others. What we borrow from others. And
I know, oh God, well what if I don't have enough?
What if I need it later? What if I run out? Greed
often hides behind these fears. It's rooted in
fear, greed. There might not be enough. But the
Bible says God will supply your needs. Not all
your wants, but God will supply your needs in
Christ Jesus. You know, Jen Hatmaker, she wrote
this book called Seven. It's an interesting little
book. And what she did is she decluttered her
closet, like I need to do, pairing down everything
to seven items. And she said, I'm just going
to wear these seven items for a month. Why? To
change my perspective. And then she wrote, she
said, I used to look at my closet and think,
what if I need this someday? Now I try to ask,
what if someone else needs it today? This is
the shift, people. This is the shift. This is
the thinking that we must launch in order to
divert the asteroid of greed. Everything we have
is loaned from God. Everything we have is borrowed
from others. You start thinking that way, and
the trajectory of the asteroid of greed will
change. Now once we've made that shift, Not just
to deflect greed, we can actually destroy it.
And so in closing, let me just share with you
four other very practical rockets that you can
fire at greed to eliminate its power in your
life. You ready? Here they go. First racket,
first rocket. What a racket. Track your spending,
right? Your budget is a theological document.
It shows what you believe about security and
about God and joy and all that stuff. You see,
greed loves to stay in the shadows. But when
you bring it out into the light, bring your budget
out into light, record what you spend your money
on when you spend it. Record what you save your
money for when you keep it, right? Do that for
a month, right? Because to destroy greed, we
got to pay attention, right? And you actually
might be shocked what you discover. That's the
first rocket. Just track your spending. Here's
the second rocket. Avoid temptation. Right? Don't
go to the mall if you don't need to go to the
mall. Right? Don't go into any environment that
makes you feel discontent and greedy. You know,
maybe you got to unsubscribe from those marketing
emails. Maybe you got to unfollow that influencer
who is always trying to sell the latest thing
to you. Right? Greed is fueled by comparison.
So cut it off. Cut it out. Starve it. And just
avoid those temptations. The third rocket, this
is going to sound like a strange one, but practice
Sabbath. Sabbath is a crucial antidote to greed,
and here's why. Because every week, Sabbath reminds
you that the purpose of your life is not to consume,
it's not to earn, it's not to accumulate. On
Sabbath, what we do is we disconnect from the
whole consumer system, and we rest in God. Oh
my gosh, greed hates Sabbath. Greed wants to
keep you accumulating, keep you acquiring. Sabbath
says, no, no, no, I'm not going to do that. My
worth and my security come from God, not stuff.
And the fourth rocket, I'm going to say this
is the big one, so I'm just going to say it.
Tithe. Tithe intentionally. This is perhaps the
oldest advice that we have on record about how
to handle money. Tithing. is when you decide
ahead of time to give away one -tenth of your
income to those in need, to the church. What
better way to remind you that everything belongs
to God than to habitually give him back that
first portion? Tithing says, God, you gave me
100%. God, you're going to let me keep. 90%,
but God, the very least I can do is offer back
to you that 10 % that was yours in the first
place, right? If we spend on ourselves first
and then give away what we have left over, then
we're still in the mindset that it's ours to
do with as we please, but giving it away, right?
It loosens our attachment to the stuff and increases
our attachment to God. And if you're tithing
now, you know what I'm talking about. You know
that there is nothing, like tithing, to reorder
your loves, to reorient your heart, to liberate
your soul from the grip of greed. The only antidote
to greed is generosity. And you can't think your
way into generosity. You have to give your way
into generosity. So friends, that asteroid is
real. But so is the solution. Greed may be invisible,
but Jesus saw it, named it, and warned us to
watch out. So don't just go home tonight and
stare into the night sky. Let's do something.
Let's shift our perspective from ownership to
stewardship, from mind to God's, from self to
others. And if we do those things, we will not
only divert, But we will destroy the power of
greed in our lives and in our world. Thanks be
to God. Amen. Thank you for listening to this
week's episode of Trinity Sermons. This sermon
was recorded at Trinity Church Streetsville on
March 30, 2025.