Greed by another name: ‘Prosperity’

It appears Christians have not been able to disentangle themselves from the craze ‘to make it at all cost’ that has engulfed our nation. Shouldn’t you, preachers, be stressing moderation in all things, rather than emphasising prosperity?

God, as depicted in the Bible, is well into abundance and desires the prosperity of His people—but is well out against covetousness (the immoderate desire for wealth; the greedy longing to have more).

In Luke 12, a man interrupted Jesus’ sermon to try to get Him to arbitrate for him and his siblings the sharing of their late father’s estate. The question provided an opportunity for Jesus to teach on the measure of life. Hear Him: “Be careful and guard against all kinds of greed. Life is not measured by how much one owns”¹

Money, or what it can buy, is a poor unit of measurement of life. It can be gone in a flash, as if it had grown wings and flown away like an eagle². The story of Jesse Livermore—the greatest bear in Wall Street – illustrates.

He first became famous after the Panic of 1907, when he short-sold the market as it crashed. After the crash and its aftermath, he was worth US$3 million. He proceeded to lose 90% of that on a blown cotton trade from 1908-1912 that left him US$1 million in debt and he was declared bankruptcy. He went on to regain his fortune and repay his creditors during the World War I bull market and its resultant downtrend. In 1929, he noticed market conditions like that of the 1907 market and when just about everyone in the markets lost money in the Wall Street crash of that year, Livermore was worth US$100 million after his short-selling profits.

Through unknown mechanisms, he yet again lost much of this within five years. Thus in 1934, the again bankrupt Livermore was automatically suspended as a member of the Chicago Board of Trade. Six years later, Livermore committed suicide. A suicide note addressed to his wife read, “My dear Nina: Can’t help it. Things have been bad with me. I am tired of fighting. Can’t carry on any longer. This is the only way out. I am unworthy of your love. I am a failure. I am truly sorry, but this is the only way out for me. Love Laurie”.

Money is too ephemeral to be used as a ruler for something that’s eternal—life—in nature.

How then should life be measured, in years?

Time is measured in years, months, hours and minutes and life is a passage through time. But it is what we do in this passage of time with our life that counts. Jesus tells of a fellow, whom he later calls a fool, to show how not to regard life³ — “A rich man had a fertile farm that produced fine crops. He said to himself, ‘What should I do? I don’t have room for all my crops.’ Then he said, ‘I know! I’ll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I’ll have room enough to store all my wheat and other goods. And I’ll sit back and say to myself, “My friend, you have enough stored away for years to come. Now take it easy! Eat, drink, and be merry!”’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! You will die this very night. Then who will get everything you worked for?’ “Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.”

Evidently, God does not measure life by the car we drive, the clothes we wear or the size of our investment portfolio. Neither does He use the number of self-sponsored awards we accumulate. His primary unit of measuring life is PURPOSE, which constituents are the condition of our heart and the quality of our service to mankind. Amaziah, an Israelite king, is portrayed in the Scripture as someone who “did what was right in the sight of the Lord, [but] not with a true heart”⁴. In an address to a money-obsessed bunch, Jesus declares: “You are masters at making yourselves look good in front of others, but God knows what’s behind the appearance. What society sees and calls monumental, God sees through and calls monstrous”⁵

A further glimpse of how God measures life can be seen by the manner David’s life – the greatest king of Israel – is summarised in the New Testament: David served God’s purposes in his own time, and then he died⁶.

If you want to know how well you are doing in life, at least from God’s view, the starting point is to figure out His purpose for your life.

Listen to Jesus in the final phase of his life on earth⁷: “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do”. At a similar point in his own life, Paul declared: “the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race: I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day”⁸.

It is such a perspective of life that protects us from being regarded as fools in God’s sight.

How should Christians resist the temptation to join the bandwagon of helping themselves to ‘easy money’ in a culture that promotes and worships money?

to be continued…

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First published on 13 September 2009 in my Making Sense of Life column in The Nation on Sunday, a Nigerian newspaper.