22 February 2026

Contrary Virtue: Generosity (vs. Greed)

Deuteronomy 15:7-11

Both our Old and New Testaments devote a good bit of time to moral instruction – guidance on how to live with others and how to grow toward the image of God that we were made to be. But that moral instruction is not always given in the most helpful ways. In the Torah, the law-books of the Old Testament, the laws are often quite specific – even most of the Ten Commandments are laws against specific actions (don’t murder, don’t steal, and so on) – and the problem with precise moral laws is that they allow people to dance around them. “I didn’t actually lie; I just didn’t say everything. He may have misunderstood me, but I didn’t sin.”) On the other hand, some of the moral instruction in the New Testament can be too broad. Paul says in Romans, for instance, “Love one another, and you have already obeyed the law.” Yeah … I see what he’s doing there, and he’s not wrong. If we did all love each other perfectly, there would be no need for any rules at all. But until then, some of us might need a few more guidelines. 

Fortunately, Early Church and medieval theologians found a way to hit the sweet spot between too specific and too vague. I’m talking about the list that we usually call the “Seven Deadly Sins.” These are: greed. gluttony, lust, wrath, sloth, envy, and pride. See how these go beyond specific actions to deal with motivations or habitual behaviors. But also note that they provide more clarity than just “Y’all be kind and loving, now.” This list is not in scripture in this form. That comes from later tradition. But tradition is worth listening to. At any rate, for our sermons this Lent – a season when we often focus on how to grow in faith and deed – I’m going to be starting with these Seven Deadlies. 

With a couple of adaptations, mind you. First, there are only five Sundays in Lent. So, I’ve combined two of them into one week, and I’m skipping one entirely. (The one I’m leaving out is “sloth.” Laziness. I could have found a way to include it, but it just seemed like too much work.) The other adaptation that I’m making is that I don’t want to spend Lent being negative, talking about things not to do. Instead, I asked myself for each Deadly, “What is the opposite of this sin?” That is, what is the positive thing that we could do that would cancel it out, that would fill the space that this sin otherwise might take in our lives? What are the habits of mind and action that prevent these sins from taking root? St. Augustine famously argued that evil has no existence itself but rather is the absence of good. I’m not sure that works entirely, but it does seem to me to be valid in terms of practical moral development. We only have so much time and attention to give anything: so the more time and attention we give to what is good, the less we have for other stuff. The more we do the opposite of a sin, the less room that sin has. Thus I have called this sermon series, “Contrary Virtue.”

Let me illustrate what I mean, starting with the sin of greed. Now, I can’t imagine that I need to define “greed” to an American congregation. We are surrounded by it. Some would say that greed is the foundation of our entire economic system – capitalism. I think that may be going too far, myself – I see more value in capitalism than that – but at the very least you have to admit that a market-based economy provides fertile ground for greed to flourish. The so-called “American Dream” is defined entirely in terms of stuff we want to get. The quintessential American myth is the “rags-to-riches” story of someone who started out with nothing and became fabulously wealthy through grit and hard work. Or, in fact, through any means. How doesn’t matter so much now. The stock market, the lottery, cryptocurrency, sports betting, and the new prediction markets all present themselves as ways to get rich without hard work. As a culture, we honor wealth however it is acquired, and that value shows up all around us. I read the other day that since his re-election, President Trump has amassed one-point-four billion dollars, mostly through Trump coin, his cryptocurrency. Pretty good haul for a year and a half of public service, but what do we expect? This is what we value as a culture. 

So, what is the opposite of greed? And what does the Bible say about it? We read from Deuteronomy 15, verses 7-11. 

7If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your needy neighbor. 8You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. 9Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is near’, and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt. 10Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. 11Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’

I need to give you a little background. Ancient Israel was originally set up to be a stark contrast to the nations around it. All the other nations had hereditary kings with absolute power, but Israel began as a confederacy of independent tribes held together by their family connections and shared faith. They were ruled not by autocrats, but by laws administered by priests, judges, and village elders. And those laws themselves were designed to prevent the rise of a hereditary ruling class. For instance, family land was sacred. Every fifty years, all land that had changed ownership in that time reverted to its original owner. That would effectively prevent a wealthy landowning class from taking over. Moreover, it was against the law to charge interest on loans, and every seven years all debts were cancelled. Yeah, there wasn’t much point in opening a bank in ancient Israel. You can see how this system would work against income inequality. But you can also see how this might make people reluctant to lend money to anyone, right? If you can’t charge interest and the debts were going to be cancelled in a few years anyway, your money’s safer in your mattress. That’s where this scripture comes in: 

Do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is near’, and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt. Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so.

Again, what is the opposite of greed? Generosity. It is opening your hand and lending money freely. And that’s worth noting. The text doesn’t call for charity but for lending – expecting the receiver to take responsibility for paying it back. But, having said that, the text also clearly says, “But even if you don’t think you’ll ever see your money back … lend anyway.” The reason we are told to give is not in order to see any return; the reason we are to give is because someone else is in need. Generosity is willingly sharing what you have and do not need with those who need and do not have.

One of the defining characteristics of all the Seven Deadlies is that they can become obsessions, and this is certainly true of greed. It can take over your life. In fact, it will. Greed is desperately wanting what you do not have. The not-having-it is the essential point; in greed, you want a thing largely because you don’t have it. So even if you get the thing that you wanted, that doesn’t make greed go away, because now that you have it, it’s no longer desirable. Greed doesn’t care about how much you already have; only about what you don’t have yet. This is why people like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who already have more money than they could ever spend, continue grasping for more. Maybe my own spaceship! Maybe my own government! (That one turned out not to be very fun, after all.) How about a colony on Mars! Musk is very interested in Mars. Greed is, by definition, insatiable.

But greed cannot share the same room with generosity. Once we begin to see the needs of those around us and to care about them, once we begin to recognize that we could use our resources to make someone else’s life better, that flips the table. It starts us down a different path. You see, generosity, like greed, feeds on itself. The more we give to others, the easier that giving becomes, and the more we want to do it. Greed is like a bacterium, which will grow if it is not stopped; generosity is like penicillin, which also will grow if permitted. And there isn’t room in a soul for both of them to grow at the same time.

So here’s a challenge for this Lenten season: find a way to feed your generosity. Give something that you would not have otherwise given. Choose some way to give intentionally in a new way. Now, I think by union rules, I’m required to mention that one of the ways to be generous is to give to the church. So there. I said it. You’re witnesses. But now let me go on to say that that’s not the generosity that Deuteronomy is talking about in our scripture. This generosity isn’t giving to support an institution; this generosity is seeing another person’s need and giving what will help. In other passages, Deuteronomy encourages giving to support the religious establishment, so I’m not discouraging that. In fact, I’m going to give you an opportunity to do that in a minute. Still, the kind of generosity that takes root in the soul and prevents the growth of greed is the generosity focused on someone else’s need. 

For instance … since we started Friends at the Lake, I’ve had some form of this conversation several times: “My mother had dementia. I wish there had been something like this for her. Here’s a check. Use it to pay for someone else.” That’s the opposite of greed. There are some people in this congregation who periodically check in with me, asking, “How are you doing on gas cards in the office?” If I say I’m getting low, I’ll show up at church a few days later and find a stack of $25 gas cards in my mailbox to give to people who show up at church looking for help. That’s the opposite of greed. A few times I’ve served as an intermediary. Someone will come to me and say, “I know that so-and-so is struggling financially right now. Will you give them this envelope of cash and not tell them who it’s from?” That’s the opposite of greed. This Lenten season, find some way to stretch that muscle, to feed that kind of generosity.