By Reverend Laurie DeMott

This certainly begs the question -- "how do you define greed?" Two out of three Americans said that greed is wrong and sinful but whatever greed is, it's not wanting a lot of money because that's OK. I suspect that for those people, greed is defined as "someone else wanting a lot of money."

This study reveals our conflicted feelings about money. On the one hand, we point to greed as a corrupting influence on society. We are aghast at the news stories of excessive parties thrown by corporate billionaires. We have seen that an unrelenting drive to acquire wealth can lead to a selfish disregard for the needs of one's employees and the average stockholder. On the other hand, we all dream of winning the lottery.

"I'll take my chances with being corrupted," we think, "if I could just have a little more money to pay the bills." But of course, experience shows us that those who do manage to increase their income rarely use it to pay off their debts and live a simple life but instead often use it to buy bigger houses, or sleeker cars, which in turn cost more to maintain and leaves them thinking that if they only had a little more money, then they'd truly be happy. The poor want to be middle class, the middle class want to be upper class, the upper class want to be millionaires, and the millionaires want to be billionaires. We are caught in a vicious cycle of acquistion and desire, driven by a relentless society that begs us to consume and constantly reminds us that you cannot possibly be happy if you are not wearing the right clothes, using the latest technology, and drinking the right brand of soft drink. And so we accumulate and upgrade, always hoping that the next purchase will give us the peace that we are seeking ... but that isn't greed, is it? Or is it?

What is greed?

Is greed a desire for money or just for more money than you need, but if so, who determines the difference between need and greed?

Is the acquisition of money always sinful or are some people more prone to falling prey to being corrupted by wealth than others? You know, "I would be a good millionaire, but you would be a bad one.".

Can you be rich and still be Christian?

And is money the only object of greed?

Many of these questions arise when we read about the call of the disciple Matthew. We are told very little about Matthew; in fact, the gospel gives us only one detail -- but it is an earth shaking detail for the first century reader, at least. Matthew, the gospel says, is a tax collector. In the first century, tax collectors were even more reviled than they are today. They not only took away the hard-earned money of the people but it was almost necessary for tax collectors to cheat if they were going to be able to make a decent living. Consequently, it was assumed that tax collectors were also thieves. The tax collector was as notorius a figure in the first century mind as Hedge Fund manager has become in ours. If there was anyone in the first century world most likely to be painted with the scarlet letter of greed, it was the tax collector. So, for Jesus to consort with a tax collector was pretty disgusting to the poplw; for him to invite the man to be a disciple was unthinkable... especially because there is no evidence that when Jesus asked Matthew to follow him, he also asked him to give up his job. No one would have questioned the presence of a "reformed" embezzler amoung Jesus' twelve. They'd have been happey to hear that the man had renounced his evil ways, given all of his fancy suits to the Salvation Army, and become a sandal wearing tofu eating disciple. But we have no evidence that Matthew did this because the gospel says nothing about it. Jesus' concern in the story of Matthew's call seems to be less with Matthew's income than what his profession has done to his relationships with others. We see this most clearly in Luke's version of the story, in which the tax collector's call immediately results in his organizing a dinner for many of the other tax collectors so that they too can meet Jesus and hear the good news. The tax collector goes from being an isolated socially despised individual without Jesus to a man reaching out to the broader community and sitting in fellowship at a table with Jesus.

I believe that the story of Matthew's call is less about Matthew's bank balance than it is about healing the damage that Matthew's desire to acquire has done to his relationships.

For Jesus, greed can not be defined by counting cars or measuring your income. Greed is defined as anything in which your relationships are harmed because of your desire to acquire.

In a survey that asked people what they would be willing to do in exchange for two million dollars, twenty-five percent of the respondants said they would be willing to abandon their families. Twenty three percent said they would become prostitutes for a week. Sixteen percent said that they would leave a spouse in exchange for two million dollars, and three percent would put their kids up for adoption.

Of course, there are some days that parents might put their kids up for adoption for a lot less than two million dollars, but leaving out the responses of weary parents, the survey uncovers the dangerous effects of greed. The desire to acquire breaks down trust, strains bonds between people, and blinds us to others in our self-absorbed need.

When we being to think of greed as the harm we do to our relationships because of our desire to acquire, we may be startled to realize how much more prevalent greed is in our own lives than we suspected, because that desire to acquire is not restricted to money. We can desire status and power. We can be greedy for the admiration of others. We can be greedy for control. And when we foster these greeds in our lives, the results are often just as devastating. A father who is greedy for control over his children can become so domineering that his children will finally break off all relationship with him as soon as they are old enough to leave home. Parents who "desire to acquire" success for their children can get so absorbed with filling their children's resumes with activities that the family becomes just ships passing in the night. They never sit down to dinner together or take the time to talk. Their children may get into the finest colleges but at what cost to their relationships with their own family? And how many times have we seen the desire to acquire status among our colleagues result in people who are insufferably arrogant or petty, who tally every slight and every regard with the careful precision of an accountant? The desire to acquire, whether it is wealth, or control, or even respect, ruins our relationships with others and isolates us in our own self-absorbed need.

Jesus invited Matthew to give up his relentless desire to acquire and in so doing reconciled Matthew to fellowship with Christ and with others. Whether he continued as a tax collector or not was an irrelevant issue; what was important was whether he would be driven by a desire to acquire or by Christ.

I recently read an article about Craig Newmark, the founder of the popular website Craig's List. Craig's List is a sort of internet bulletin board where people can post for free notices of things they'd like to sell, or buy, or exchange. When Craig Newmark founded Craig's List, he did it as a service to others, and although advertizing revenue from the site will produce about 200 million dollars in 2009, Newmark says that there is "nothing that he would care to do with that much money should it ever come into his hands," but even if it did, he has realized that nobody can stop him from giving away his money if he makes too much of it. After all, he adds, "I have a parking space, a humming bird feeder, a small house, and a shower with great water pressure. What more could I want?"

What more could we want... really?

Do we really want children who get into Harvard or do we want children who love us and remember their childhoods as safe and happy ones?

Do we want to work 80 hours a week so that we can afford to drive a Hummer or do we want to have marriages that fulfill us and nurture our spirits?

Do we want to spend our days driven by remembered slights and the acquisition of compliments or do we want to rest our weary souls in the assurance of being welcomed into the company of the one who matters most of all?

That was the question that Jesus put to Matthew.

And he got up from his tax table and he followed.