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GOD vs. Greed
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concerned about wealth ? [ rather than sex ] More importantly, you will realize that many of the debates that rage among many religious people are a tremendous waste of time and resources. There is more than enough really important and very unambiguous teaching in the Bible that we ought to attend to instead. There's nothing difficult about knowing what was paramount in Christ's mind, because he spelled it all out for us. in response to five crucial questions:
What was the purpose of Christ's life ? 
{Luke 4:18}
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted and to announce that the blind shall see, that captives shall be released and the downtrodden shall be freed ( i.e. liberated ) from their oppressors." |
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Did Jesus accomplish his mission during the next three years of his life? Of course not. But did Jesus ever plan to do all of this alone, and in his own lifetime? Or did Jesus' vision include a multitude of followers, who over the centuries and in every nation in the world would share that vision and work towards its realization in His Name? If Christ's followers would pay close attention to what Jesus explicitly identified as the most important parts of his own teaching, they would recognize that Jesus expects them to share in his mission to preach Good News to the poor; . . . to heal the brokenhearted and to announce that the blind shall see, that captives shall be released and the downtrodden shall be liberated from their oppressors." There is no need to wonder about what is most important in Christ's teaching, because he was asked about that very matter, and answered as follows ( reiterated in Mark 12, 28–31, Luke 10, 25–28 (below), and John 13, 34–35 ) : CRUCIAL QUESTION # 2 : Which is the most important command in the laws of Moses? "This is the first and greatest commandment: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.' The second most important is similar: 'Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.' All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets stem from these two laws and are fulfilled if you obey them. Keep only these and you will find that you are obeying all the others." And so, to illustrate whom we must love, i.e. whom we should consider our neighbors, he gave us the deceptively simple "parable of the good Samaritan" :
CRUCIAL QUESTION # 3 : What must one do to live forever in heaven? Christ's first Answer to Crucial Question # 3 : In Luke's Gospel, Jesus may be answering the same question posed to him above, but the wording is a little different here, and the so-called "Parable of the Good Samaritan" becomes Jesus' way of spelling out whom he wants us to consider our neighbors, i.e. not those who live closest to us or who are most closely related to us, but those who are most in need of our help.
"Teacher, what does a man need to do
to live forever in heaven?" Jesus replied,
"What does Moses' law say about it?"
"It says," he replied, " that you
must love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your strength,
and with all your mind. And you must
love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself.
" "Right!", Jesus told him.
"Do this and you shall live!"But, wanting to justify himself, the man asked, "Which neighbors must I love?" And Jesus replied with an illustration: "A Jew going on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho was attacked by bandits. They stripped him of his clothes and money, and beat him up and left him lying half dead beside the road. By chance a priest came along; and when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by. A temple–assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but then went on. But a despised Samaritan (a non-believer) came along, and when he saw him, he felt deep pity. Kneeling beside him the Samaritan soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his donkey and walked along beside him till they came to an inn, where he nursed him through the night. The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins and told him to take care of the man. "If his bill runs higher than that," he said, " I'll pay the difference the next time I am here." "Now which of these three," Jesus asked, " would you say was a neighbor to the bandit's victim?" The man replied, "The one who showed him some pity." Then Jesus said, "Yes, now go and do the same." For centuries, while millions – if not billions – of people have been systematically victimized, not by bandits, but by highly respected companies and "entrepreneurs", whole churches have been virtually oblivious to those crimes and still are. And they have not just crossed over to the other side of the street, but have often moved their church buildings to other communities, so as not to even see the troubles of troubled communities. Are crimes against innocent victims any less tragic because they are happening all day, every day, on a massive scale, and if they are only seen through the eyes of reporters and/or television cameras?  How far from that vision of liberating love and activism have the clergy moved! How many of them now have become more and more like the upper class people to whom they like to minister, living more and more like them, and moving further and further away from those whom Jesus came to liberate. Indeed, instead of fighting with the poor against their oppressors, they have often turned religion into an "opiate of the people", i.e. something to keep the disadvantaged from feeling their pain badly enough to rebel against their oppressors. Christians can easily dismiss Karl Marx's indictment as the rantings of an enemy. But no atheistic critic has had harsher things to say about the failures of religious leaders than has Jesus himself: "On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not preach in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?" Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.' "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell–and great was its fall !" Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes did". . . Christ's Second Answer to Crucial Question # 3 :
And in
Jesus even made the point that his teaching applied to his own immediate family, in CRUCIAL QUESTION # 4 : What does God expect of us every day? 
Then I, the King, shall say to those at my right, "Come,
blessed of my Father, into the Kingdom prepared for you
from the founding of the world. For I was hungry
and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me water;
I was a stranger and you invited me into your homes;
naked and you clothed me; sick and in prison, and you
visited me."Then these righteous ones will reply, " Sir, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you anything to drink? Or a stranger, and help you? Or naked, and clothe you? When did we ever see you sick or in prison, and visit you?" And I, the King, will tell them, "When you did it to these my brothers you were doing it to me!" Then I will turn to those on my left and say, "Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his demons. For I was hungry and you wouldn't feed me; thirsty, and you wouldn't give me anything to drink; a stranger, and you refused me hospitality; naked and you wouldn't clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn't visit me." Then they will reply, "Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?" And I will answer, "When you refused to help the least of these my brothers, you were refusing to help me." And they shall go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous into everlasting life."
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What is the "price" that God requires that we pay for eternal life? All kinds of Christians think they know Jesus' teaching. But how many think of the necessity of loving one's neighbors more than one's possessions, as the centerpiece of that teaching?
When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, "Then who can be saved?" The love of money is so great that it is difficult to find preachers, in prosperous white communities at least, who preach anything like what Jesus preached about money and/or wealth. As the world has become more and more developed, millions upon millions of people are becoming more and more miserable, while a handful of others keep getting more and more obscenely wealthy. *1 Is the negligence of the clergy any less reprehensible when, instead of a single clergyman ignoring the suffering of a single victim, whole churches ignore the suffering of vast segments of human kind? Try reading the parable of the "Good Samaritan" as "the parable of church leaders who miss the boat," and see what a difference it makes, especially if you view it with a world perspective. Clergymen are meant to play an important role in the promotion of religion. But, in the words of Jesus, "From those to whom much has been given, much will be required." (Luke 12:48) As a clergyman myself, I am afraid than many of us are guilty of something far more serious than not stopping to help individual victims of injustice. We are guilty of having twisted the teaching of the Bible, so as to enable others or even ourselves to hoard monstrously outlandish portions of this world's bounty on the one hand, and power on the other, and in the process, to ignore and forget the millions of our brothers and sisters , who are suffering untold misery, neglect, abuse and oppression at the hands of others. And in doing so, we are not only disobeying the second Great Commandment (to love our neighbor), but thereby proving that loving and pleasing God (the first Great Commandment) is not as important to us as accumulating wealth. We dedicate a whole web page to the need for preachers to preach about what was most important to Jesus as opposed to all kinds of other nonsense that they obsess about. |
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Among other things, the parable below shows
dramatically how difficult it is for the wealthy to even
hear the Bible's teaching regarding wealth.
(And the "wealthy" in our day includes not only the
"super-rich", but the "upper middle-class", who in our
day enjoy many more luxuries and possessions than
even kings, queens and emperors never even
dreamed of enjoying).
The rich man also died and was buried, and his soul went into hell. There, in torment, he saw Lazarus in the far distance with Abraham. 'Father Abraham,' he shouted, 'have some pity! Send Lazarus over here if only to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in these flames.' But Abraham said to him, 'Son, remember that during your life-time you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted and you are in anguish. And besides, there is a great chasm separating us, and anyone wanting to come to you from here is stopped at its edge; and no one over there can cross to us.' Then the rich man said, ' O Father Abraham, then please send him to my father's home – for I have five brothers – to warn them about this place of torment lest they come here when they die.' But Abraham said, 'The Scriptures have warned them again and again. Your brothers can read them any time they want to.' The rich man replied, 'No, Father Abraham, they won't bother to read them. But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will turn from their sins.' But Abraham said, 'If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen even though someone rises from the dead.' To believe today's "televangelists", following Christ and being saved is "a piece of cake". All it takes to be "christened" (i.e. be considered a Christian) is a preacher and a little water, and maybe a short trip to an altar (or stage). Where do these preachers and churches get these ideas? Certainly not from Jesus, who laid down far more demanding requirements for those who would achieve eternal life by following his teaching :
Jesus told him that he must begin by obeying the ten commandments. But, then he stressed . . . 'If you want to be perfect, go and sell everything you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.' But when the young man heard this, he went away sadly, for he was very rich." . . . Then Jesus comes to the important point of this parable: "It is almost impossible for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. I say it again – it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God!" For Jesus, as for many other great prophets of the Bible, the pursuit of riches on the one hand, and of salvation on the other, are so incompatible that a choice must be made of one or the other. And the more riches one possesses the harder it is to choose salvation, which requires the repudiation of those riches.
Many Christian clergy have sold their souls for far less than Pat Robertson's millions and have embraced and taught the Gospel according to Robertson and Vanderbreggan, which tells people they are saved just the way they are, no matter how much misery their oppressed and/or impoverished neighbors are suffering across the seas, or across the tracks, if not across the street, while they enjoy "God's blessings". If God is responsible for the "blessings" of the well-to-do, then he must also be responsible for the "curse" of vast numbers of the poor and the oppressed.
So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." "Yes, every man is a fool who gets rich on earth but not in heaven. Sell what you have and give to those in need. This will fatten your purses in heaven! And the purses of heaven have no rips or holes in them. Your treasures there will never disappear; no thief can steal them; no moth can destroy them. Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be." 
Wealth is clearly a serious challenge for Christians. Yet although some passages make it seem like all wealth is evil, the great majority of passages make it clear that what is evil is the imbalance in the distribution of the world's wealth , and how it got that way. After all, God created everything in the world, and he "saw that it was good". And after putting people on this earth,
When Jesus described his purpose in life in the words of
Luke 4:18, (above), we believe he was describing
the role of his followers as well. And yet, the
message that many Christian clergy and churches seem
to have gotten from the instruction at the end of
Christ's great sermon on the good Samaritan, "Go and do
likewise", is that they should follow the example of the
of the priest and the Levite in this parable.
While churches have been giving token food
baskets at Thanksgiving and Christmas, it has often
been "infidels" and secular organizations that
have been truly serious about rescuing the hungry,
the imprisoned, the naked, the homeless,
the uninsured, the addicted, the embattled,
the refugee, the immigrant, and on and on and on.
" We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us–and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God's love abide in anyone who has the world's goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth."
The wonderful vision of love, justice and compassion that Christ lived and died for was perhaps best summarized in "If there is an urgent and clear need, so urgent and clear that it is evident that an immediate response must be made on the basis of what is available . . . then a person may legitimately supply his need from the property of someone else, whether openly or secretly. Strictly speaking, such a case is not theft or robbery." St. Thomas Aquinas |
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