Greed

We hear the Lord, our Teacher, warn us through Luke 12 to, "Take care! Be on guard against all kinds of greed..."

We are presented with the story of a man who was richly blessed with an abundant crop, so much so that he had no room to store it. It creates a problem for him as we hear him ask, "What am I to do?"

We hear the same question being asked by one who does not know where his next meal is coming from, or the person who is overburdened with huge medical bills crying out what am I to do to pay for this.

St Basil says, "Who would not pity a man so oppressed? His land yields him no profit but only sighs...; he laments in the same way as the poor do. What am I to do? How can I find food and clothing?..."

The man fails to recognize who has given him the gifts he received and fails to realize that he will lose this abundance upon his death which could be the very next second. Death is an important key to discover the true sense of life. It makes all things relative, because it shows what perishes and that which remains. Anyone who only seeks to have and forgets to be, loses everything at the hour of death.

I've seen people get so consumed with greed and not giving away whatever they have in surplus that they fall under the category of the following quote from Oscar Wilde, “There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.”  

Let us not forget that we are the servants of the good God,  stewards on behalf of our fellow servants.