Gimme more! A look at Greed
Editor’s note: This is the second in the seven-part series, “Seven for the Season,” a look at the Seven Deadly Sins.
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Everything you do becomes magnified when you are writing about the Seven Deadly Sins.
Or so it seems.
During my research about Greed, I questioned everything I did. I stopped at Starbucks for a caramel spice cider and wondered If I was being a glutton, since I certainly didn’t need that! A first early-bird shopping trip on Black Friday (my teens had money, I didn’t) had me questioning a lot of my gift-giving plans for the holiday.
Anyway, a chat with the Rev. Robin Meyers helped put it all in perspective. Meyers, pastor of Mayflower Congregational Church, wrote a book in 2004 called “The Virture in the Vice: Finding Seven Lively Virtues in the Seven Deadly Sins.”
We spoke about Greed, the sin that is this week’s focus, but Meyers said if you think about it, all of the Seven Deadly Sins are about excess — too much of this or too much of that.
“They are all about appetites run amok, this whole tendency that we have to do things to excess,” said Meyers.
“They are primarily the sins of the appetite and we can find a reflection of American society in each one of them.”
That comment provided the perfect segueway for a discussion on Greed.
Meyers said he thinks Greed is the sin that is killing America.
“Enough is never enough,” he said.
That greedy mentality leaves out the less fortunate — to everyone’s disadvantage.
“When wanting becomes obsessive, it becomes ‘all about me. I don’t care who else is starving. I want as much as I can’,” Meyers said.
He said greed spells disaster for our world “because it’s not possible for everyone to have more without someone having less.”
Meyers offered up an interesting assertion from a book by Martin Buber. Buber divided relationships into two categories: “I-Thou” relationships that reflect our covenant relationships with God and family and “I-It” relationships that reflect our relationships with items and objects.
According to Buber, humans can become confused about the two different kinds of relationships.
“They try to have soulful relationships with inanimate objects,” Meyers said, referring to materialism.
“There’s a confusion between holy relationships which are ‘I-Thou’ and those that are not, which are ‘I-It’.”
Meyers said money is often at the heart of Greed. People want more and more of it.
“People hunger after things that confer status … like it’s a religion,” he said. “But don’t expect the sacred from the profane.”
In his book, the Oklahoma City minister offers a virtue opposite Greed.
Instead of wallowing in the ‘wanting more and more’ state of Greed, he encourages people to aspire to the virtue of “wanting wisely.”
“There are some things that you can want and you can want them wisely,” Meyers said.
In other words, perhaps you want a pair of shoes and coat because you need a pair of shoes or a new coat because your others are worn out. That’s “wanting wisely.” Perhaps you want to give money to someone in need. That’s “wanting wisely.”
Meyers said Jesus himself gives us lessons on greed. Meyers said Jesus preached against stinginess.
People need to know that if they have more — more money, more food, etc. — “You’re supposed to do something good with it.”
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