Beware of Covetousness: A Mediation on Luke 12 for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness:

for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

And he spake a parable unto them, saying,

The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:

And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do,

because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?

And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater;

and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.

And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods

laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee:

then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

 

Covetousness is a particularly dangerous evil, not only because it functions like idolatry in that the affections of man become fixated on creatures rather than the Creator, but because it distorts the mind into believing that temporal things outlast or have higher value than eternal things.  The life within man is eternal, and is accountable to the Eternal God from whom and to whom all things belong.  Jesus’ parable in Luke 13 makes the strong point that a soul whose focus is on the accumulation of temporal things without faithful service toward God, is a soul destined for calamity—a stripping away of everything that they thought had value, and the revelation that their poverty in eternal things was damnable.  Solomon made a similar observation in his writings when he noted that all the labors of man, when weighed in terms of material production are vanities without eternal consequence, and St. Paul would write much later to the Colossians that we must put our minds on things above, where Christ is, so that we might mortify the fleshly and temporal things which draw us away from God.  Covetousness is a disease of mind and soul, blinding the eyes, deafening the ears, and dulling the hearts of those who embrace it against the truth of their own existence.

 

Though not unique to our time, covetousness is rife in modernity.  Who among us has not thought to lay up treasure for future enjoyment?  Entire cottage industries have sprung up to facilitate ease in retirement, where a person might work many years to make as much material wealth as possible, place it in the right investment vehicles, and then perhaps like the fabled Dread Pirate Roberts, live out the remainder of their life like a king in Patagonia.  Advertisements abound for this investing house over that, for this methodology over another, for one billionaire’s book over someone else’s.  And like so many sins, the predators and purveyors of these schemes tend to enrich themselves on the greed of their clients, making investment fund managers and financial services titans some of the wealthiest in the history of the world.  All the while, we sell one house to build or buy another one bigger, to accumulate more sophisticated vehicles, toys, clothes, and vacation resort packages.  We add to our wine cabinets ever more exotic selections, and ensure our bars have increasingly expensive liquors.  We genetically engineer frivolous pets, then spend fortunes on them, funding for them veterinarian health care more extravagant than that available to over half the world’s human population.  All the while, we look forward to that day when we might sigh contentedly, Soul, thou hast much goods

laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

 

Of course, there’s no evil in material things by themselves.  A $100,000 truck is no more or less evil than a $200,000 sports car, or a $5M private jet.  Boats or recreational vehicles or vacation homes or five-star resorts are not evil in themselves, and neither are retirement accounts, mutual funds, or annuities.  The material world around us was made good, and the material things we assemble into various products or services are not in themselves evil, because we cannot undo the good work of our Creator.  Our hearts, on the other hand, being fallen and corrupt, tend to focus on material things in evil ways, where our own moral agency leads us to do evil with the materials we have at hand.  Our covetousness cannot change wood or stone or carbon fiber into anything morally different than the fundamental laws of physics they were composed from, as we can neither create nor destroy matter and energy.  What we can do is change ourselves by pursuing in disordered passion the elements of the creation, to disregard and disdain the Creator who formed both it and us.  It is our covetousness that causes us to see our transient financial pursuits as more important than the Eternal Word of the Living God, the eternal souls which surround us as our neighbors, and even the eternal destiny toward which we and all people inexorably press.  It is not the material world which is evil, but our own minds which are not conformed to the Mind of Christ, that reveal our evil in the way we use it.

 

Yet it is Christ who comes to rescue us from such calamitous evil.  As the Word of God Incarnate, Jesus comes to us that we might have the idols of our fallen minds dethroned, and our eyes opened to the true value of eternal things over the temporal.  It is Jesus who passed through His own created world without disordered passions for the material things around Him, and used those material things to teach His disciples enduring truth.  Knowing that life and ease in this world is nothing compared to fellowship with the One in whom all things consist, He guided all people toward a life which death could not overcome.  Even as evil mobs, political and religious leaders, and traitors within His own disciples conspired to murder Him through treachery and deceit, He went to His Cross willingly and lovingly that He might lay down His life for the world.  In so doing, our Lord became the sacrifice for our sins of covetousness, that His grace might abound to twisted and fallen creatures like us.  And in His rising, He became for us the life we could not gain for ourselves, the riches we could not gather, and the reunion with our Maker we could not earn.  Jesus not only taught us the path of life, warning us of the deadly consequences of putting our faith and hope in material things, but became for us the path of life, that every covetous person who would repent and put their faith in Him, might find grace and eternal life rather than condemnation.

 

It is Christ, the Logos of the Father, who comes to us by the power of His Holy Spirit, to transform our hearts and lift our minds toward Him, that we might live in Him by grace through faith here and now, and forever more.  Hear the Word of Christ call to your mind and soul that they may be daily harmonized with the Mind of Christ.  In that grace and truth, mortify the disordered passions which arise in you that would draw you away from the One who loves and saves you, that your mind and body may be conformed to Christ the Eternal Word.  Rise up each day in the Word of the Lord by faith, and rest each night in the grace which comes through faith and repentance in Him, until that Last Day when the evils which deceive us are forever imprisoned far from us, and our transformation which is begun in this world shall be complete in the world to come.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.