All Kinds of Greed

A Reflection for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost August 3, 2025 St. Luke’s/ St. Anne’s Roper, and Grace, Plymouth Thomas E Wilson, Guest Presider Hosea 11:1-11 Psalm 107:1-9, 43 Colossians 3:1-11 Luke 12:13-21 All Kinds of Greed The Gospel lesson for today has Jesus warn; “"Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.” Jesus is in a situation where he is asked to make a ruling on the division of property. Jesus is a Pharisee. Pharisees were respected people who studied and immersed themselves in scripture and tradition and could be counted upon to share their knowledge to help people out to make good legal decisions based on the teachings of law and scripture. In this case, Jesus is trusted to make a decision about how the money of a family is to be split with the heirs. According to a passage in Deuteronomy, the oldest son usually gets a double portion of inheritance because younger sons would have deprived the oldest from his full share of love. It is a simple legal thing to do, but Jesus makes it more difficult. He says that the problem is not about money, but about the sin of greed. He was expected to make a decision about money, but Jesus makes a decision about the younger man’s heart. Jesus shines a light on the sin of greed. It is one of the many reasons that people wanted to kill Jesus; the people wanted legal decisions, but Jesus always wants to go deeper, deeper into our hearts. Jesus looks at the man and sees that the man has a passion, not for justice, but for money. It is passion that holds him in love with that money. It is that passion that makes him love the money and hate those who might be rivals for the money. Shakespeare has Hamlet speak of being “passion’s slave” when he speaks about his friend Horatio, “Give me a man who is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him in my heart’s core, aye, in my heart of hearts as I do thee.” When I was a kid and I would get home from the 5th and 6th grades in the afternoon, I was supposed to do my homework when I got home. Sometimes I would sneak some time off and watch the tube. I remember one show called “The Millionaire”. The premise of the show was that a fabulously wealthy person would give strangers each a Million Dollars to see what they would do and how their life would change. Most of the shows tended to show that money tended to change people, and not always for the best. After months of watching that show, I learned the message for us folk watching the show was we needed to live real life not fantasies. As I started to look at the kinds of Greed, “the passions in my heart” that could tempt me to be held in my life. The Gospel lesson tells a story about greed for money. I have been a Priest for a little over 40 years. I took a pay cut to come to the Outer Banks, because I felt called to do ministry there. All things come to an end, and I had to retire from being a Rector of any church when I reached age 72. Financially my Social Security and my Church Pension fund together is very comfortable. I also have a small TIAA - CREF retirement from the time I taught in a college before I went to Seminary in 1981. We sold the big beautiful house we had as the Rectory and made enough to pay off the mortgage and buy the Condo in which we moved into. There is no mortgage, but there are some taxes and fees. I have some investments. I fill in at some different churches like today. There is always food in the house. I have more than enough to live on. If I had a whole much more money, I am not sure what I would spend it on. Since my wife died 107 weeks ago, I have become one of those people who finds difficulty in working up lots of excitement to take trips and sight seeing alone. It is not fun to travel alone. I used to weigh more than I do now, because I really enjoyed making dinner and eating with my wife and having a couple of Martinis in the evening. I still have a whole bunch of liquor in the cabinet, but I have a low heart rate and any alcohol I imbibe tends to lower my heart rate even more and if I don’t pay attention, I will end up on the floor and from there to the Emergency Room, three miles down the road. So, the greedy sins of gluttony and drunkenness no longer have much appeal for me. When I was a teenager, “Liciviousness” was one of my most popular sins, but now that I am older, I am ruined for that. Everytime I look at a woman, I am reminded that the woman I loved and lived with since 1989; who for the last two years is no longer physically with me. She is still in my heart, and I am not taking interest in any other woman, because I understand it would still feel like adultery. I am 78 years old and do not want to find myself, by definition, in the category of being a dirty old man. I am not in the market to impress people, but my soul needs to be around people who love and forgive each other. I was not with you last month because I was filling in for the priest at St. Andrew’s in Nags Head. The Priest there, Nathan, was the Priest who came and did Pastoral Care with my wife as she was dying. He helped me through a really difficult time and I knew covering for him for a time of his Sabbatical for him to grow deeper with his family in faith was a way to thank him for his help to me and my wife. The reason I show up at churches is not because I really enjoy prancing around altars and “making with a message” in sermons; but I need to focus on something other than myself and to be useful for a community to be aware of the presence of God. And not just for the community, but for myself as well, for as Jesus tells us that when two or three are gathered in his name; He, Jesus, is here. My hope is that you are here, not to earn God’s Brownie points for showing up on Sunday worship, but you come to be part of a community that makes God’s love known in the larger community you live, and love, in. Thank you for being here with me and making me feel welcome.