One of my favorite Christmas tales is a ghost story: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. This story has reportedly been adapted for the theater, musicals, and screen more than any other of his works. I remember watching it first as a black & white film, likely the 1938 or 1951 production. Then came later versions including Michael Caine in the 1992 The Muppet Christmas Carol, Bill Murray in the 1998 Scrooged, and Jim Carrey in the 2009 Disney version. Ebenezer Scrooge is the greedy central character of the story. He wants nothing to do with Christmas.
“Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure?”
“I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.”
“Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.”
Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” again; and followed it up with “Humbug.”
His dislike of Christmas becomes clear from how he treats his family, his employees, and his fellow businessmen. In a scene revealed by the ghost of Christmas past, we learn how the true passion of a young Scrooge became apparent to his fiancée, Belle, as she released him from the engagement with these parting words: “I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you.” Greed, the love of money, was the vice that would consume him. Unless he could experience a change of heart, the ghost of Christmas future revealed that he would die a lonely death.
Merriam-Webster defines greed as “a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed.” While gluttony is also an excessive desire for more, it focuses on consuming something to excess, such as overeating. By contrast, the excess of greed is not in consuming but in possessing. The goal of greed is not devouring, but hoarding.
In some ways, money is a technology -- a tool that humans have developed to represent material wealth, providing a compact form that can easily be exchanged. Technology often amplifies one ability while attenuating another. Money is a concentrated, efficient representation of wealth. It amplifies the instrumental and attenuates the intrinsic value of the things it represents. Thus, money easily becomes the object of our greed.
Wealth and material possessions are some of the most often mentioned topics in the Bible. Searching biblegateway.com yields quite a few references to the subject:
A common theme connects many of these passages: the manner in which one handles wealth is a measurement of one’s character and true loyalties. Proper handling of money can be a sign of diligence and hard work: “whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow.” (Proverbs 13:11) Proper handling of money demonstrates our service as God’s steward: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.” (Matthew 25:21) Improper handling of money can lead to destitution if we squander it.
However, a common misreading of these passages leads to a prosperity gospel, where believers are always blessed with wealth. This is a misreading in several ways. Poverty is not necessarily a sign of sin, and wealth is not necessarily a sign of righteousness. Furthermore, when God blesses righteousness with wealth, this blessing can easily become our undoing. Wealth promises happiness but does not deliver. The moral of the Dickens story is that money doesn't buy happiness. Scrooge’s all-consuming greed siphons happiness completely out of his life. The apparent joy he gets from his wealth is a kind of obsessive pleasure that borders on the pathological. It is a hunger that will never be filled: “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.” (Ecclesiastes 5:10)
Money is not Scrooge’s problem. Love of money is his sin. Like many of the other deadly sins, a good thing becomes sin when it displaces God from the throne of our lives. “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” (Matthew 6:24) Greed makes an idol out of our wealth. Once money becomes an ultimate desire, then the love of money becomes “a root of all kinds of evil.” (1 Timothy 6:10) If money is our highest priority, if it has become the god we worship, then we will no longer limit ourselves to God-honoring gain. We will be tempted towards unjust gain by corruption, blackmail, fraud, embezzlement, stealing, or any other means necessary.
Greed also manifests itself as frugality to the point of penny-pinching. A business owner underpaying her employees or a couple going out for a meal and skimping on the tip might rationalize that they are being good stewards when they are simply being greedy. “You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence.” (James 5:3-5)
Wealth enables other deadly sins. We can bankroll lust to satisfy our carnal desires. We can bankroll sloth that enables play without work -- particularly if wealth is unmerited or unearned. We can bankroll gluttony that enables us to gorge on expensive food. We can bankroll pride by creating a flattering facade of ourselves that others respect and admire.
Money and Technology
Money, like technology, provides power and a false sense of security. Thinking about these similarities can help us learn to be wary of these dangers in each.
Money, like technology, has instrumental value. Both provide a powerful means to an end, giving us control over our environment and even over other humans. Adam and Eve committed the first sin by eating the forbidden fruit to gain knowledge, out of envy of God’s omniscience. Likewise, we sin by pursuing money and technology to gain power, out of envy of God’s omnipotence. The problem with power is not only idolatry. Armed with technology, we become more powerful, amplifying our abilities for good or for ill. Power leads to pride, and pride leads to a fall. Power corrupts when placed in the hands of fallen humans, amplifying the stain of sin so that it balloons out of control. Ironically, our desire for control -- to make the world our slave -- is ultimately subverted so that we become a slave to sin.
Perhaps my desire for power is not quite so bad. I’m not trying to become God, I simply want a little safety and security. Money, like technology, gives the appearance of a solid foundation -- but it is a false sense of security. “Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: Wisdom preserves those who have it.” (Ecclesiastes 7:12) The problem with relying on money or technology is that I too easily place my ultimate trust in earthly things, rather than in my heavenly creator. Greed fosters misplaced trust. In 2 Samuel 24, King David commands Joab to take a census of the fighting men of Israel. Joab resists, asking “May the Lord your God multiply the troops a hundred times over, and may the eyes of my lord the king see it. But why does my lord the king want to do such a thing?” Yet, David overrules him and they take the census. Later, David is “conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and he said to the Lord, ‘I have sinned greatly in what I have done.’” It was sinful because David was putting his confidence in man, rather than God. By checking the size of his army, he was determining his strength based on human numbers, not on divine providence. Scripture repeatedly warns against trusting in human rather than divine strength: “woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the Lord.” (Isaiah 31:1) Scripture also gives comfort that we need not trust in money, we can rely solely on God: “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5)
Wealth and technology are not only similar, but they also feed off from each other. Wealth feeds and amplifies technological envy and pride. The technologies of long-distance communication going back over a century -- telegraph, phone, radio, television, Internet -- have enabled us to learn of the economic plight of much of the world. However, this detailed knowledge of global poverty doesn’t seem to diminish greed. Instead, greedy people use technology to show off, purchasing expensive technologies for the sole purpose of displaying wealth. Even while we strive for attention from those down the economic ladder, we envy those wealthier than ourselves. Following social media stars, we envy what they have. This is not accidental. Profit-driven communication technology takes advantage of our propensity toward greed by showing us those wealthier than ourselves and making us wish to desire and accumulate the tokens of wealth we see on programs and social media postings. Many of the worst ills of technology have been driven, not by a malicious engineer intent on causing harm, but by a culture of greed that placed profit over people when evaluating the design.
.jpg/1024px-Bitcoin_(33540791008).jpg "Bitcoin image: Tim Reckmann from Hamm, Deutschland, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons")
Technology feeds and amplifies the pursuit and hoarding of wealth. Technology holds the allure of a new alchemy to turn lead into gold, though today we dream of turning silicon-based computer gadgets into wealth. The fintech of cyber-currency like Bitcoin or subreddits focused on stock trading are recent examples, but financial technologies go much further back. We could consider credit cards and even interest fees on debt to be a kind of technology, enabling one to live beyond one’s means, at least temporarily. Scripture warns against debt in part because it creates an unhealthy power relationship between lender and debtor
Technology empowers the user. When this amplifying power is employed to generate wealth, it can twist the technology so that it is designed and tuned for profit, while detrimental to the safety of people or the environmental care of creation. For example, manufacturing robots designed to replace employees may increase the profit of the company, but at what cost to human workers?
Money and technology are easily intertwined in ways that become the sin of greed. Neither is intrinsically evil, but together they are dangerous. For a few that are most vulnerable to this allure, the only cure might be to forsake wealth and technology completely, like a repentant alcoholic resolving to abstain thenceforth from liquor. For the rest, an attitude of gratitude can be a healthy compensator. The thankfulness of counting one’s blessings leads to contentment and satisfaction, counterbalancing the greedy desire for more. Once we become grateful, we begin feeling a desire to give rather than take.
Giving Neutralizes Greed
The greedy heart of Ebenezer Scrooge had become stone cold and only the supernatural visits of Christmas spirits could warm it. Humans are prone to sin and only by the grace of God can our hearts be turned from greed. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26) By God’s grace, greed can become giving.
Giving our best keeps greed at bay. We are supposed to select from the best we have when we give to the Lord. “Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops” (Proverbs 3:9) Most of us are not farmers selecting our offerings from crops or cattle, but the principle still applies. My church holds a food drive during our Thanksgiving service. While preparing our food offering in the morning before heading to church, my family was sometimes tempted to fill a grocery bag from our pantry closet with unwanted foods. Usually, at least one of us -- sometimes one of the kids -- would turn our thinking around and find some of the “good stuff” so that we were sharing our first fruits. Similarly, we might clean out our clothes closet and bring unwanted items to the local charity second-hand store. We might even consider it good stewardship. However, if we help a local family in need only with our cast-offs, we have not given from our first fruits.
Giving in proportion to means can tamp down greed. Many readers of this blog have well-paying technical careers. Others readers are students living on rather meager funds. Regardless of your rung on the economic ladder, God expects you to give. However, that giving is in proportion to your means. This expectation is spelled out in the Old Testament: “‘Anyone who cannot afford a lamb is to bring two doves or two young pigeons to the Lord.” (Leviticus 5:7) It is also illustrated in the New Testament, such as when Jesus observes the wealthy and the widow as they make offerings to the temple treasury: “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.” (Mark 12:41-44)
Giving cheerfully keeps greed at bay. “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” (2 Corinthians 9:7) Our attitude about giving is a litmus test for greed. If we are stingy with our giving, greed is likely the cause. Greed can lure us into looking for ways to rationalize a small gift. Greed asks whether the tithe is before or after taxes. Greed values the tax deduction of a charitable gift more than it values the charity.
Technology can make it easy to give, with giving websites, automatic donations, and mobile payment options. Technology can help track finances, compute tithes, and schedule reminders to give regularly. Nevertheless, technology cannot change the heart. Only God changes greedy hearts of stone to giving hearts of flesh.
This article is part of a series on Technology & the Seven Deadly Sins
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