Unitarian Universalist Meeting of
“Return of the ‘Deadly Sins’ - Avarice”
Rev. Kathy Duhon
The ‘Deadly Sins’ – they’re back! After a few months off from this sermon series, we have returned to wallow in the muck of this ancient understanding of what it is that can mess us up. No, they aren’t really ‘deadly’ – they won’t kill you, (well, not usually), and they certainly aren’t what most people think of as sin – something that you do wrong. However they do fit the traditional definition of sin, “missing the mark”, which is what Unitarian Universalists talk about whenever we discuss sin. Now, that might surprise you, but I have heard many such sin-filled conversations, although I guess it’s mostly among UU ministers. We talk about sin a lot. The Hebrew word for sin means “missing the mark”, which works for UUs, since you don’t have to have a particular faith to understand this, and it is not too harsh or fiery.
Back to the ‘deadly sins’ – there are seven of them. We began this series back in January, but I’ve taken a few months off. The seven are named differently, but they are: 1) Pride, 2) Envy, 3)Anger, (all of which we’ve talked about) then 4) Covetousness or Greed or Avarice – today’s topic, 5) Sloth or Acedia or Sadness, 6) Lust – we’ll likely be talking about lust in church on Oct. 22nd, if you want to mark your calendars, and
7) Gluttony – well, I’ve saved that one for November, just before Thanksgiving.
As we have noticed before, each of
the so-called deadly sins has a good, positive side – we certainly wouldn’t
want to be without pride, for example. Phyllis
Tickle recently wrote, "Without the fascinating seven, we human beings
would never rest or eat or procreate or build or aspire. We would also,
however, never sedate ourselves with drugs or gorge or suffer an epidemic of
AIDS; nor, for that matter, would we murder, steal, or lie." Phyllis Tickle lectured a few years ago for
the New York Public Library series on the Deadly Sins, and with six other scholars,
produced a series of small books on the subject.
In the UU World magazine a couple of years back, Dan Cryer wrote, “Why bother discussing the Seven Deadly Sins?” He answered himself, “The simplest answer is because they’re there, because they’ve dominated Western ethical thought for centuries.”
The
ethical issue is that the excessive expression of any of the so-called deadly
sins is harmful to us, keeps us from being in right relationship.
Today we are talking about avarice,
and we hardly know what this word means anymore. The dictionary definition is “excessive or
insatiable desire for wealth or gain.”
Sometimes this deadly sin is named covetousness or greed, words that are
more familiar. When it is described as
covetousness, it reminds us that the desire for wealth or gain necessarily
means that we want to get something from other people. Greed as a concept is more common, and
reminds us that wanting more is not just about material things – we can be
greedy with our time, for example.
I have to admit that at first I wondered if there was anything useful I could say to you about avarice – at first glance, it seemed totally to “miss the mark” for this community. After all, the opposite of greed, covetousness and avarice must be generosity, sharing freely, and the satisfaction of compassionate giving, all of which is abundantly present in our lives together in this congregation.
Indeed, what does avarice have to say to our society today? The old images don’t fit so well – Scrooge, King Midas, the giant at the top of Jack’s beanstalk – powerful, nasty, old guys who surround themselves with money that they don’t even use. I don’t know anyone like that, do you?
Doesn’t it seem hard to be greedy, to engage in avarice, when you have everything you need, and then some, enough to be generous toward others? Maybe avarice just doesn’t apply here, in our world of abundance.
After all, we are not usually grasping to have something more because we already have so much, and we fully expect to continue to have what we have. All of us have a sense of entitlement – the good life is here and we should have it, along with our loved ones, right?
We need to look at avarice in a new way. The old images of miserliness do not describe the way that we miss the mark with avarice. In the global village, those who want and take more than their share, which is all of us in this society, are missing the mark.
In the last couple of weeks, I have been taking advantage of the beating hot sun to hang the laundry to dry. This saves electricity, which both saves money, and decreases the levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, therefore helping to reduce global warming. Also, hanging the clothes gives one time to pause. I reflect on why, after all, I am using so much electricity and other energy so needlessly, mindlessly, when it is damaging our world, and when, if others in need could use just a little bit of the energy that I do, their lives would have a great deal less suffering. In my desire to live the good life, the easy life, I am not in right relationship with the world. I am missing the mark when it comes to lapping up all this easy-living gain, this developed world wealth – we all are.
Recently,
Ron was going to give me a ride to a meeting and he asked, “do you have a
helmet?”, implying that I should hop onto his new
motorcycle with him. Ron’s motorcycle allows
him to tootle around town with much more gas
efficiency – (it’s not about looking cool or anything) – and he was offering
me, jokingly of course, a chance to ride with him, joining him against the
avarice we engage in with our over-consumption of oil. (Maybe he would have phrased it differently.) We all have our part to do, but that
is not my part. Sometimes I walk. I recently rode the bicycle with Jon to
I don’t want you to think that avarice, greed, today is only expressed in terms of the over-consumption of energy, however. Avarice, re-imagined, means all the excess in our lives which we desire without even realizing it – for we live in a time when we have become terribly accustomed to excess. We can’t imagine what it would be like to wish someone “enough”, as the father at the airport did in our reading – that would feel miserly, instead of being the mark of good living that it is.
I hope that we all take some time to reflect on the excess in our own lives and what part we can do for ourselves, and for our world, to live more simply, that others may simply live with enough. May we decrease our desire for excessive gain and wealth to a level where we appreciate what is enough, “forego desire and find…ecstasy in the moment”, and may our generosity and compassion for each other and the world be renewed and transformed. Amen.