Generation Upon Generation

1987, Michael Douglas portrayed Gordan Gekko in the movie Wallstreet. Gekko speaks at a Teldar Paper stockholders' meeting. Teldar just lost 110 million dollars. Addressing the board and the stockholders, he makes an important distinction: the people running the company have no stock in the company, less than 3%.  Turning to the crowd of stockholders he says, we own the company. They work for us as opposed to leaders of old like the Carnegies and Mellons who owned what they managed. His inference: if you have a stake in the game, you play to win. And the win goes to the greedy. 

You may recall the first line of his speech listen a bit more.

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed -- for lack of a better word -- is good.

Greed is right.

Greed works.

Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind.

And greed -- you mark my words -- will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

"Greed, in all of its forms." Quite a speech. I remember it.  Nearly forty years later, I can still see him saying, "Greed is right."

              So many icons come to mind when I think of greed.  Robber Barons, Rockefeller an obvious image. Rich as Rockefeller says a lot.  Elon Musk will soon be the first trillionaire.  I can't really imagine a billion, but a trillion, no? 

              There is consensus: greed, no matter what Gordon Gekko says, is not good.  It's dangerous.  When I think of greed the specter of insatiable desire, never enough, what comes to mind in the excess, in the thirst for power, what I see is destruction.  Dr. Seuss put this into one my favorite stories, Yertl the Turtle who was king of the pond in Salamasond.  A morality tale, how greed consumes the greedy while oppressing others. 

              We know greed is not good, Yertl the Turtle will ultimately sink into the mud, and yet, we should also admit we are a bit curious.  What does all that greed get you? Before it destroys your soul and leads to gnashing of teeth and hell, what does greed offer?

              Remember the television show, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous?  The show aired for more than a decade and was filled with private jets, mansions, helicopters, hot tubs, and lots of yachts, very expensive yachts.  There was also a never-ending supply of bad taste.  The show aired in the mid-eighties so not the best moment of fashion.  The absence of style was a main theme, but the hook of the show was the desire to see, to peek, to answer the question: what does all that greed get you?

              A similar show, but less well known, was America's Castles.  Vanderbilt mansions in Newport, Boldt Castle on the St. Lawrence, and the Biltmore and on and on.  Big houses designed to imitate the grand chateaux of Europe.  In every episode, the narrator could not help but remind the viewer, this massive home, this home of fifty bedrooms and two ballrooms, this home was only open for the summer.  America's castles were summer houses, for the season.  Louis Mumford defined this as conspicuous consumption.  Mark Twain called such homes and their owners the gilded age—not meant as a compliment.

              If you look back over history, there are many morality tales, warnings about greed.  Like the fascinating story of King Midas given the power to turn things into gold.  Which was great until he turned his daughter into gold.  In all these morality tales, there is a warning about desire, or the inability to be satisfied.  Somehow the more you have the less satisfaction you experience.  The preacher of Ecclesiastes suffers this lack of satisfaction, the eye never tires of seeing, the ear is never full of hearing.

              Another take on greed is the tale of the miser.  The one who amasses wealth but has no friends, no joy.  The Christmas Carol, Charles Dicken's great story of Ebeneezer Scrooge is a miser tale.  Like our reading today, life is demanded of Ebeneezer; he is forced to look back over his days, take stock.  He was rich, but was not happy; he had money, but he lacked spiritual wealth: joy, peace, compassion.  Lots of money but he lived in spiritual poverty.

              Dickens takes our little parable of the wealthy farmer and fills in the blanks.  His Christmas Carol has a lot of parallels with our reading.  There is a moment of judgment brought to the farmer, God calls him a fool.  His life is demanded of him.  Not a good sign. Then whoever they are, they were coming to get him.  Dickens has all these elements and then fills in the blanks of our parable.  What you can't see in the parable, you can see in Scrooge where he turned aside from what is good and his life became selfish and cruel and miserly. 

              Perhaps Dickens' take is right or close or plausible. This could be a parable about being a miser.  Yet, what is odd in the parable of the rich farmer is how mundane he is.  This is not Rockefeller or Scrooge, Midas or a Wallstreet insider.  What doesn't fit in the classic images of greed is how mundane is the example of Jesus.  When Jesus warns of greed, he didn't say, there was a king or there was a wealthy tax collector or a thief.  When Jesus warns of greed, his example is not very fantastic; it is quite common.

              Consider what the farmer did in the parable. Don't read anything into this.  A farmer enjoys success.  He toiled and now has enough produce so he could retire.  He builds bigger barns and says, now I can rest and eat and drink.  Isn't that the American Dream?  You work hard.  You enjoy a modest amount of success.  You save up and then you retire to enjoy life. 

              When Jesus warns of greed, he is not using a fantastic example.  He is using the mundane.  This is brilliant.  We want to peek into the lives of the rich and famous because we are not.  The Ponzi scheme reaping millions, billions at the expense of others, the robber barons who built enormous companies and paid workers terrible wages, these obvious images of greed are powerful, but they are not us.  This is comforting.  I am so far from a Vanderbilt that I have no fear of being consumed by greed.  But then, Jesus suggests the opposite.  The farmer, his example of greed, could easily be us.

              Jesus' example is so far from what is expected, we should ask, is the farmer really a clear example of greed?  When my father retired, he did so on the same day with a friend, co-worker, Bill.  They shared a retirement party.  Shared the cake and the shake.  My father lived for twenty more years.  Ten good, ten with some health issues.  But twenty years of retirement, not bad.  Bill went home after the retirement party had a heart attack and died. That was bad. I would never think of Bill and say, obvious greed.

              The story of the farmer is so close to what Bill experienced.  Work, save, work some more, finally retire, and then die the next day.  Terrible.  Awful.  Jesus says this is greed? 

              We could read some miserliness or some hoarding into the parable, building of bigger barns; we could infer from the declaration, you fool, that the farmer was blind to what is good in life, treasures of heaven. God knew his heart and was not nice to the farmer.  But don't you find the parable a bit unfair? Maybe there is no American Dream anymore, but I have heard this desire, this hope (work, save, work some more, retire) I have heard this from many people.  Never did I feel compelled to warn them of greed because they had a 401k.

              The farmer is mundane, not fantastic.  I believe the mundane is the key to the parable.  I do because the mundane part of me wants to stop and complain.  Hey, this wasn't fair. We could read this parable as the fragility of life, the capriciousness of our days.  Be mindful your days are numbered.  True, but not true enough.  It's not true enough because it doesn't account for the mundane.  The days of the extremely rich are numbered too.  Why pick on this farmer? He's no titan of industry, greedy landowner grinding his workers to death.  He is just a farmer who had a good crop.

              The mundane is the key because this is how Jesus lets the warning of greed reach everyone.  You don't have to be rich and famous to be ruined by greed.  You can just be working hard, trying to save, hoping to retire someday and even though you are not doing anything wrong, you missed what is great in life.  You were working hard to gain, but you lost what is beautiful, satisfying.

              The risk of greed in the parable is not an insatiable desire for more or miserliness, the risk of greed is found in the request of the brother who asks Jesus to divide his inheritance.  He wants Jesus to make things fair, to give everyone their fair share, to divvy up the spoil.  This too is common.  That things would be fair is a common desire.  The farmer’s death doesn't seem fair.  Maybe a warning?  The gold watch, the cake and the shake, greed?  What happened to Bill who died the day after he retired . . .  unfair.  Right? 

              In this question, though, the power of the parable can reach us.  The treasures of heaven are not our fair share.  The treasures of heaven are not what you save up for to enjoy later in life.  The treasures of heaven are not kept in a bigger barn.  They are not found in a barn at all.  The treasures of heaven are what you give away, not what you get or earn; the treasures of heaven are what you share, not your fair share.

              I would never suggest fairness is folly or weakness.  I don't believe that.  It is good to be fair to all concerned.  What I do believe is that generosity, one of the greatest treasures of heaven, generosity of spirit, where we give away our life expecting nothing in return, generosity of spirit where you love without seeking to control or possess, where you speak the truth while demanding no loyalty in return, this kind of generosity is what we all can live.  But to live this we must overcome the power of expectation, of control, of demand, all of which are the ways greed ruins us.

              The danger of greed is clouded in the extremes of the rich and famous.  The excess hides, covers the real danger.  People who have so much more than they could ever need intrigues those looking for just enough.  To live our life for enough, to get enough, to keep enough, to feel safe with enough savings.  Nothing wrong with this, but this is not the kingdom of God.  Whether we have enough or not, Jesus calls us to give without expectation of return, to be kind without seeking to possess or control others.  To control, to possess, to own, to determine our future, these are the common risks of greed, what the farmer was too blind to see.

              Greed isn't good.  Be generous, not greedy.

              When you look to make a will, offer an inheritance,  please remember the church.  Makes a difference.  Yet the most important inheritance you can pass on is generosity of spirit.  You can give this to children, so the treasures of heaven are shared by all for generation upon generation, not just for the season.  Amen.