Lent 2- Envy and Greed
Today we are continuing our series on the Seven Deadly Sins- the seven major diseases of the soul and the virtues that cure them. Today we are dealing with two of the Seven Sins- Envy and Greed. These two can seem somewhat related, and they are sometimes confused, so it might be helpful if we define them alongside each other.
Envy is the pain or sadness we feel when someone possesses some object, quality, or status that we don’t possess. It is the sorrow we feel at someone else’s good fortune. Related to this, we will also feel a kind of pleasure when we see something bad happen to the person we envy. … Envy doesn’t necessarily want the thing, they just don’t want the other person to have it. It is inherently comparative and comes with a sense of rivalry. It brings feelings of resentment, bitterness, and hostility towards the person who is the object of envy.
Envy is different than admiration. I can admire a saint and be drawn deeper into relationship with God in a desire to experience what they have experienced. Admiration can motivate me to be better than I am. The Catholic theologian Peter Kreeft says,
"Aspiration looks up and says, 'I aspire to be up there too.' ...Envy, on the other hand, looks up and says, 'I want you to be below me.' Envy is essentially competitive."
How envy works is this: there is a ‘good’ that someone has. I am upset that that ‘good’ is not mine because (in my mind) it elevates them above me. I then begin to hate them for possessing this ‘good’. This leads me to desire their downfall. I want that person to fall on their face in the mud. I am pleased to see the suffering of the person who has that ‘good’ that I don’t have.
Envy is focused on the other person. It leaves us wondering why they have what they have rather than us. Them having what they have feels like an attack on our self-worth. We might feel envious of someone because they received a better grade than us, or they make more money than us, or they have a relationship with someone who is interesting or beautiful, or they have some sort of social standing or position we don’t have. They are beautiful, or have a nice car, a new tech gadget, a vacation, a new house, or they have musical talent, ... (fill in the blank).... And we can't stand the person because they have been blessed with that good. That’s envy.…
Greed (avarice) is an excessive desire for material wealth and possessions. It’s sometimes thought of as connected to idolatry as it desires material wealth above God (Col 3:5). For example, when we set money up as a god- we place our hope, trust, and security in it. We believe it will save us from the troubles of life. … Greed is love for wealth that goes beyond providing for one’s life and family. It is focused on amassing wealth and not sharing it. … Greed manifests in many ways. It can look like theft, deceit, or exploitation in the attempt to gain wealth. It can look like a workaholic, a gambler, or a miser. … One can be greedy and own little, or greedy and own a lot, but the state of the heart is the same. Greed leads us to the pursuit and protection of wealth.
Greed can be related to envy because for us to envy someone we have to value what they have. For example, if we have an intense love for money, it is more likely that we will be envious of a person who has more money than us. We can only envy people who possess something we highly value, or we see what they have as elevating them above us in some way. …
The main difference is that greed has to do with a desire for the thing that is valued. … Envy values the self-worth or status that comes with having the thing, and we compare the person’s status with our own status believing they are on a higher level than us, and that causes us pain. … So, greed is focused on the self- my wanting wealth for myself. Envy is focused on someone else, who we see as elevated above us in some way.
We see envy throughout the Scriptures. We see envy in the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis (Gen 4). We see envy in Joseph’s brothers who sold him into slavery (Gen 37). King Saul becomes envious of David as a successful warrior (1 Sam 18).
We see an example of Envy in our Old Testament reading- two mothers are standing before King Solomon and are arguing over a baby. The envious mother is happy just for the other woman to be childless as well, and so she accepts the king’s proposal to cut the living child in two. She doesn’t want the child. She doesn’t like that the other woman has a status as a mother that she doesn’t have.
In envy there is a twisting of our sense of fairness. Something inside us can't stand that someone has something we don't have. It's not fair. Envy hates the idea that we are living in a world where people have more money than us, and are more talented than us, or are in a happier relationship than us. Envy hates that some people can conceive and have children, and we can't. Envy hates that someone can travel to exotic places, and we can’t. Envy hates that some of us have to grow up without both our parents in our lives, while others do. Some of us deal with tragedy and trauma, and others don't seem to. … And envy hates them for it. To feel envious is to feel inferior.
Envy is essentially a selfish state of mind. Rather than rejoicing at the blessings of those around us, we feel contempt for them. … Contrary to Envy, God calls us to rejoice when something good has happened to our neighbor (Rom 12:15). Peter Keeft points out that, we are to
"'rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep'.... [but] envy weeps at those who rejoice and rejoices at those who weep."
Envy denies that God is sovereign to distribute good gifts to whoever He likes. Envy causes us to be ungrateful for what we have been given, and focuses our attention on what has been denied us and given to another.
There is an old Jewish story about two men, one is envious and the other is greedy. They both stand before a king. The king says he will give to the other twice what the person asks. … The greedy man doesn’t want to go first because he wants to ask for everything (which can’t be doubled). … The Envious man thinks, but he can’t stand the thought of the other man having twice the amount, so he finally turns to the king and says, “pluck out one of my eyes.” This is the difference between envy and greed.
We see many examples of greed in the Bible. King Ahab acts like a spoiled child when Naboth doesn’t want to sell him his vineyard (1 Kings 21). … There are times when a member of Israel takes forbidden plunder as a part of a conquest (Joshua 7). The prophet Elisha’s servant (Gehazi) succumbs to greed when he chases down Naaman asking for gifts, after the prophet Elisha refuses to accept the gifts for healing his leprosy (2 Kings 5). Greed motivates Judas to steal from the common purse (Jn 12-13). Greed causes Ananias and Sapphira to lie about their giving (Acts 5).
In our Gospel reading Jesus tells a story about a man who focuses completely on his wealth and builds bigger barns to hold all his possessions, but who then suddenly dies and can take none of it with him.
We live in a consumerist world where there are forces that encourage us towards greed. We are surrounded by advertising that is continuously trying to convince us that we are in need of more. … The system we live in encourages us to be the man in Jesus’ parable. He accumulates so much that he needs to tear down his barns and build bigger barns to hold all his wealth. He wouldn’t need to do that if it was just numbers in a bank’s computer. … And like that man, we accumulate so that we can say to ourselves in retirement,
There is an old Jewish story about two men, one is envious and the other is greedy. They both stand before a king. The king says he will give to the other twice what the person asks. … The greedy man doesn’t want to go first because he wants to ask for everything (which can’t be doubled). … The Envious man thinks, but he can’t stand the thought of the other man having twice the amount, so he finally turns to the king and says, “pluck out one of my eyes.” This is the difference between envy and greed.
We see many examples of greed in the Bible. King Ahab acts like a spoiled child when Naboth doesn’t want to sell him his vineyard (1 Kings 21). … There are times when a member of Israel takes forbidden plunder as a part of a conquest (Joshua 7). The prophet Elisha’s servant (Gehazi) succumbs to greed when he chases down Naaman asking for gifts, after the prophet Elisha refuses to accept the gifts for healing his leprosy (2 Kings 5). Greed motivates Judas to steal from the common purse (Jn 12-13). Greed causes Ananias and Sapphira to lie about their giving (Acts 5).
In our Gospel reading Jesus tells a story about a man who focuses completely on his wealth and builds bigger barns to hold all his possessions, but who then suddenly dies and can take none of it with him.
We live in a consumerist world where there are forces that encourage us towards greed. We are surrounded by advertising that is continuously trying to convince us that we are in need of more. … The system we live in encourages us to be the man in Jesus’ parable. He accumulates so much that he needs to tear down his barns and build bigger barns to hold all his wealth. He wouldn’t need to do that if it was just numbers in a bank’s computer. … And like that man, we accumulate so that we can say to ourselves in retirement,
“you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”
We are told to be this person, but in the parable, God says to the man,
'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." (12:20-21).Anyone who loves Jesus and has any savings in the bank is a bit bothered by that parable. … We have attached to wealth notions such as security, power, success, and happiness. And there is some truth in that, though it is a partial truth. We have become convinced that all we need to make our life better is more money. You don’t have to be rich to be consumed by the desire for wealth. Anyone who places their ultimate trust in wealth- rich or poor- has fallen prey to greed.
It is an especially deep trap because it is insatiable. There is always ‘more’ to have. I read that John D. Rockefeller, who was once the wealthiest man in the world, once expressed to a reporter that he was not really happy or satisfied. When the reporter asked how much money it would take to make him happy, Rockefeller replied,
“Just a little bit more”.[1]
The ability of wealth to satisfy all our desires is limited. Like Rockefeller, we will eventually reach the limits of our wealth to give us security, happiness, success, and power.
If the diseases are envy and greed, then the virtues that cure them are kindness and generosity. … Kindness cures envy, and generosity cures greed. To some degree these treatments overlap. Both diseases are helped by a strengthened faith In God as the provider of our needs and the belief that God is ultimately where we find worth and treasure.
To cure greed it will help to contemplate the impermanence of material things and even our own lives. There will be an end for us, just as the man who built new barns died before he could enjoy what he had saved up, so we will someday die, and we will not be able to take what we own with us. … This will help us to detach from our wealth and instead use it to practice generosity and simplicity. If we can live more simply, content with less, then we can use our wealth as something that has been entrusted to us by God. God can bless people through our use of our wealth. … Practicing generosity will help cure us of greed. It is by acting this way that Jesus says we will be building treasure in heaven, rather than on earth.
Looking at envy now, kindness is the cure for envy. To help open the door to make kindness possible, it can be helpful to first contemplate the irrational nature of envy. Envy makes assumptions about the ability of something like wealth or a particular social status to make a person happy. … Envy also tends to diminish the blessings we have in our own lives. Envy causes us to compare ourselves with those who have something we don’t, but we often possess many things that others don’t. … When addressing envy within us it is important for us to remind ourselves that God is sovereign- God has things under control. And through prayer and meditation, we learn to trust God’s distribution of the goods we value.
This can help open the door to practice kindness towards the person we are envious of. We can pray for them. We can learn to shift the focus off ourselves and learn to celebrate the blessings others have- to “rejoice with those who rejoice”.
We can remind ourselves that God loves us, not because of any good that we possess, but simply because we are His creatures- we are His children. Who we are in God’s eyes matters more. If we can learn to believe that God truly does love us, then we can trust Him to care for us. Then, we can learn to be content with what God has given us.
The best example of God's love poured out is Christ on the cross in his willingness to suffer for the benefit of others. He becomes our example. When we grow in Christ-likeness and learn to love as he loved, then we will be able to suffer in love for others as well. When we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of others, our soul will be free of envy and greed. AMEN
If the diseases are envy and greed, then the virtues that cure them are kindness and generosity. … Kindness cures envy, and generosity cures greed. To some degree these treatments overlap. Both diseases are helped by a strengthened faith In God as the provider of our needs and the belief that God is ultimately where we find worth and treasure.
To cure greed it will help to contemplate the impermanence of material things and even our own lives. There will be an end for us, just as the man who built new barns died before he could enjoy what he had saved up, so we will someday die, and we will not be able to take what we own with us. … This will help us to detach from our wealth and instead use it to practice generosity and simplicity. If we can live more simply, content with less, then we can use our wealth as something that has been entrusted to us by God. God can bless people through our use of our wealth. … Practicing generosity will help cure us of greed. It is by acting this way that Jesus says we will be building treasure in heaven, rather than on earth.
Looking at envy now, kindness is the cure for envy. To help open the door to make kindness possible, it can be helpful to first contemplate the irrational nature of envy. Envy makes assumptions about the ability of something like wealth or a particular social status to make a person happy. … Envy also tends to diminish the blessings we have in our own lives. Envy causes us to compare ourselves with those who have something we don’t, but we often possess many things that others don’t. … When addressing envy within us it is important for us to remind ourselves that God is sovereign- God has things under control. And through prayer and meditation, we learn to trust God’s distribution of the goods we value.
This can help open the door to practice kindness towards the person we are envious of. We can pray for them. We can learn to shift the focus off ourselves and learn to celebrate the blessings others have- to “rejoice with those who rejoice”.
We can remind ourselves that God loves us, not because of any good that we possess, but simply because we are His creatures- we are His children. Who we are in God’s eyes matters more. If we can learn to believe that God truly does love us, then we can trust Him to care for us. Then, we can learn to be content with what God has given us.
The best example of God's love poured out is Christ on the cross in his willingness to suffer for the benefit of others. He becomes our example. When we grow in Christ-likeness and learn to love as he loved, then we will be able to suffer in love for others as well. When we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of others, our soul will be free of envy and greed. AMEN
[1] Good and beautiful life, James Bryan Smith, p. 157
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