The recent sermon delivered by Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde at the US presidential inauguration has created quite a stir. With repose and precision, she preached the good news of justice for the poor and oppressed. Directly addressing President Trump, she pleaded for mercy and shared the teachings of Jesus.
Some of her critics suggest she corrupted the gospel with modern leftist ideology. However, she stands in a long line of courageous bishops who have spoken truth to power in difficult times. In this essay, I draw insight from another courageous sermon delivered by one of the church’s most beloved bishops, Basil the Great.
In his sermon, I Will Tear Down My Barns, Basil says that owning more than you need is the same as stealing from the poor. It’s not important who earned what. It does not matter what rights we have under the law. Those are selfish reasons to keep money stored away. If we are to live as Christ taught, we must love our neighbour as much as we love ourselves.
God did not create the bounty of the earth so that a select few may gather it all for themselves and neglect the needs of everyone else. Basil had the following to say in response to those who claimed they have a right to keep their wealth.
“‘But whom do I treat unjustly,’ you say, ‘by keeping what is my own?’ Tell me, what is your own? What did you bring into this life? From where did you receive it? It is as if someone were to take the first seat in the theater, then bar everyone else from attending, so that one person alone enjoys what is offered for the benefit of all in common – this is what the rich do. They seize common goods before others have the opportunity, then claim them as their own by right of preemption. For if we all took only what was necessary to satisfy our own needs, giving the rest to those who lack, no one would be rich, no one would be poor, and no one would be in need.” (Trans by Schroeder)
There is, admittedly, a grey area in all of this which is difficult to discern. There are extreme examples of wealth that are easy to point out. No one needs a yacht. No one needs a second home. No one needs a Lamborghini. But what about simple pleasures? Are we committing a sin if we own a television? Are we keeping too much if we go out for dinner at a restaurant? Does God really want us to deny every pleasure?
These grey areas will always exist no matter how much money we have, so we must navigate them with care and concern. We could always have less and give more, even to the point of being naked on the street, but we should not allow this grey area to become an excuse. Every situation requires us to exercise both prudence and justice. If you buy a bottle of wine from time to time instead of only drinking tap water, this does not make you an evil person.
This is why Basil so wisely said that no one should be rich, no one should be poor, and no one should be in need. If we did not have billionaires there would be no poverty, for the few who are rich are the reason for the many who are poor. Basil’s ancient homily is summed up beautifully in a common contemporary saying, “live simply so that others may simply live.”
Some things in the Christian life are good but not required of us, like fasting and contemplation, but refusing to be rich in a world full of poverty is not optional if we wish to call ourselves disciples of Jesus. The New Testament speaks against wealth over and over again yet it is, perhaps, the most commonly ignored truth the Bible teaches. Here are some verses if you feel like looking them up: James 5:1-6; Luke 6:24; Matthew 19:24; Luke 6:20; 1 John 3:17-18; Luke 12:32-34; Luke 4:16-21
It is our moral and spiritual responsibility not to entangle ourselves in the battle for riches. We also have a responsibility to turn the tables of the money lenders who are desecrating the temple of God. In the same sermon Basil said,
“The treasuries of injustice well deserve to be torn down. With your own hands, raze these misbegotten structures. Destroy the granaries from which no one has ever gone away satisfied. Demolish every storehouse of greed, pull down the roofs, tear away the walls, expose the moldering grain to the sunlight, lead forth from prison the fettered wealth, vanquish the gloomy vaults of Mammon.”
Not only does greed destroy others but it also destroys the one in whom it resides. For this reason, excessive wealth is a double evil. It is evil because of the harm it does to others and because of the way it corrupts the soul of the one who loves it.
While it is the actual accumulation of wealth that hurts others, the inner condition of greed hurts us and blinds our inner eyes. The soul infected by greed sees everything in terms of money. Even time is reduced to an hourly rate. Our homes are valued according to what we could sell them for. The legacy we leave for our children is usually described in terms of fiscal assets.
Many people will say it is the love of money that is the real problem, and we can therefore follow Christ and have wealth so long as we do not love it. But those who do not love wealth do not have wealth. If you love your neighbour more than your bank account, you will quickly give away your buried treasure in order to meet their needs. Those who do not love money do not hold onto it – therefore those who have accumulated storehouses of wealth are the very same as those who love money.
Once our basic needs are met, with an allowance for simple pleasures, the more we accumulate the less satisfied we become. While we deny the poor what rightly belongs to them in the first place, we torture ourselves with the pressures of maintaining our assets. The more we have, the more we fear to lose. This is the lunacy of wealth – we harm not only others but also ourselves. Greed infects our souls and prevents us from seeing the truth. It keeps us from pursuing God because we feel like we don’t have time – after all time is money.
Greed will often lie to us. It will make us think that we only need a little more in order to have enough. There is a natural end to our desire to eat, we get full and have to stop, but there is no end to greed. The more one accumulates the more one desires. The richer we become the poorer we feel.
It is quite common for wealthy people to feel like they are barely getting by. They still worry about being able to pay their bills. They still worry about what they will wear and the condition of their house. The cruel irony in accumulating wealth is that it does not take away the concerns of life but rather amplifies them.
There is no real good to be found in riches, except in the act of giving them away. Jesus, who wishes what is best for us and for others, wisely explained that we cannot serve two masters, we cannot worship both God and money. Therefore, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.
Since being rich is not good for us and it is not good for others, why do we cling to it with such tenacity? We are like a sick person who refuses to take the medicine that will save us because it tastes bad. As Basil put it,
“If a physician promised to cure some bodily defect, arising either from birth or as a result of illness, you would not lose heart. But when the Great Physician of souls and bodies, seeing your deficiency in this vital area, wishes to make you whole, you do not accept the joyful news, but rather turn sad and gloomy.”
Do not be sad and gloomy about this. It is the gospel, it is good news. We can be healed from this blindness. We can be cured of this disease. We can be freed from the prison of materialism and greed. And when we are one day healed, we will see the light, we will get up and walk, we will dance in the freedom of simplicity and rejoice in the fact that our neighbours no longer suffer at our hands.
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