Our Epistle
lesson raises two basic issues:
First, is greed a good or a bad basis
for our individual lives
and for our society?
Second, what is the true nature and
destiny of humankind?
James
takes the Christian view. He is against greed.
“Where there is envy and selfish ambition,” James says,
“there is disorder and wickedness of every kind . . . .
Those conflicts and
disputes among you,
where do they come
from?
Do they not come
from your cravings
that are at war within
you?”
This
was not breaking news.
Jesus
said,
“Be on
your guard against all kinds of greed.” Luke 12: 15
I
n the 6th
Century B.C., Lau Tzu said,
“There
is no greater calamity . . . ,
no greater curse than greed.”
Buddha
said, “There is no fire like greed . . . ,
no sickness like hunger of the heart.”
A
thousand years before Jesus, the Vedic Scriptures said,
“Greed is the root cause of all sin.”
It’s core
Christianity and common wisdom
of the world religions.
Greed
has been listed as one of 7 soul-killing sins
since St. Evagrius Ponticus in the 4th Century.
But
that all changed in the 19th Century,
when an agnostic English philosopher
named Herbert Spencer invented Social Darwinism.
Spencer
misconstrued Darwin’s biology into a radical theory
of survival of the fittest
–
meaning human nature has been defined
by a cut throat
struggle for survival
and we continue to
progress
through that same dog eat dog contest.
Actually,
Darwin didn’t say that.
To the
contrary he said that we live in groups.
We
survive – or not – in groups.
So our well-being
depends on how well the group functions.
Good
teams win. Bad teams lose.
Darwin
said survival depends on teamwork and cooperation.
He
said, “The best measure of a man’s worth is his friendships.”
Today’s
real biologists like Mary Beth Saffo agree.
But
nobody reads them except other scientists.
The
popular books are by another group called sociobiologists.
They
are still unscientifically stuck in Herbert Spencer’s dogma
that we evolve, we become better,
through cutthroat
competition.
Even if
we don’t read their books, we are indoctrinated
in their pseudoscientific faith
through pop culture, though novels
by Ayn Rand and the t v show
Survivor.
I once
knew a head of the medical records department
of a hospital who ordered her staff to
watch Survivor
because that was how she was
going
to run her
department.
Kill or
be kill, betray before you are betrayed,
was her deliberate, explicit personnel
policy
for a medical
records department.
George
Mason University economist Walter Williams,
writes in his atheist blog,
“It’s human greed that gets
the most wonderful
things done. . . .
Unfortunately,”
says Williams,
“many people are
naïve enough to believe compassion and concern are superior
human motivations.
So they fall prey to charlatans.”
Those
would be charlatans
like Lao Tzu, Buddha, Jesus, and Charles Darwin.
Sociobiologists
E. O. Wilson and Robert Wright
claim that human nature is innately
selfish and greedy.
That
turns out to be just wrong as a matter of science,
since biologists have identified
human genes and hormones
that make decent, caring behavior
natural.
But let
not facts interfere with a faith that sanctions
whatever is worst in us.
Greed,
Wilson and Wright contend, is better than natural.
It is a
good thing because
selfishness and greed promote progress.
As for
Christian virtues, Wright actually says this –
“Wherever brotherly love is practiced
society falls apart.”//
He offers
no evidence, examples, or proof
of that sweeping claim.
But when
I read this statement,
so many things suddenly became clear.
At last
I understood the chaos and terrorism in Syria.
It is an
outbreak of brotherly love.
Northern
Sudan did not commit rape, murder, and genocide
in Southern Sudan because they wanted the oil.
It was
brotherly love.
Greed
did not cause the wheeling and dealing
that wrecked American banks in 2007.
After
deregulation,
the bankers just ran amok with
brotherly love.
Here in
Nevada, I wonder.
When
children are bought and sold on our streets,
our addiction rates top the charts,
we lead the nation in divorce
but rank 49th in high school
graduations,
is it the contagion of
Christian spirituality
making society fall apart
-- or might the
Bible have something to teach us?
“Where
there is envy and selfish ambition,” James says,
“there is disorder and wickedness of every kind . . . .”
Maybe
atheist economist Walter Williams is right.
Maybe
the most wonderful things in his life
are the results of his own greed.
But
when I consider the most wonderful things in my life
--the love of my wife and children,
the support of my
friends,
the consolations of
prayer –
none of
my most wonderful things came from greed.
They came
from grace – the merciful grace of God
mediated to me by caring, compassionate
people.
How
about you?
What
are your most wonderful things
and where did they come from?
A
single mom in our diocese once told me how she had
tucked her daughter in bed
then had go back to kiss her goodnight one more time.
She banged
her head on the bunk bed
and her daughter ran to the kitchen to
get her an ice bag.
Where
does that fit in in the theory
that we are innately and naturally selfish?
If
grace and kindness are so obviously the source
of the most wonderful things for us
individually and as families,
how is that when we think of ourselves
as a neighborhood, a state, or
a nation,
avarice becomes the fount of
every blessing?
Everything
turns on who we believe we are
and who we want to become.
Social Darwinist
theory claims we are the selfish product
of a ruthless power struggle,
and that our highest aspiration is to
stand,
hands dripping with blood,
atop a mound of corpses of the brothers
and sisters
we have conquered.
The
Bible says we are created in God’s image
–
that the love which created the cosmos
is imprinted in our
hearts.
And our
destiny is to be like Jesus.
Williams,
Wright, and Wilson can fight their way to the top
if they like.
But I
want to be like Jesus.
How
about you?
In your
heart, who do you believe you?
Who do
you want to be?
