Greed

"Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."   Luke 12: 15

Kathryn Cook

Let us not split hairs about greed. We are all wealthy by the world's standards. Greed is a different animal. It is an attitude.   

Jesus is speaking of the pernicious infection of greed upon the human soul. Its vorcious appetite can never be satisfied because greed is insatiable. The Roman poet Horace said, “He who is greedy is always in want.”  Greed is never quenched; never satisfied. It consumes our energy and blocks goodness and mercy from entering our hearts.

Jesus offers us the vaccine that inoculates against this infection. It is none other than the two Great Commandments: to love God and to love our neighbor.  As we live in the shelter of those two commandments, greed can never enter in.
   

     

"The highest wealth is the absence of greed."  – Seneca                                                                                   

"There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed."      – Ghandi                                

"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction."  – Erich Fromm