By REV. LUNA DINGAYAN
www.nordis.net

“Watch out and guard yourselves from every kind of greed, because your true life is not made up of the things you own no matter how rich you may be.” — Luke 12:15

Save the Tree Movement

I was walking down Session Road, the main thoroughfare of Baguio City, during the annual Flower Festival when my attention was caught by a group of young people who were strategically positioned along the road, requesting passers-by to sign a petition to be sent to Malacañang, asking the President of the Republic to intervene and put a stop to the plan of SM Baguio, the biggest mall in town, to cut or earth-ball at least 182 fully-grown pine and alnus trees and give way to the construction of a seven-storey parking space.

Lack of parking space is one of the biggest problems in the city. Thus, putting up parking spaces is understandably a very lucrative business. As a matter of fact, SM Baguio is already earning a lot from its present parking spaces. No wonder this biggest chain of megamalls owned by one of our country’s billionaires would like to expand their parking business even more.

Trees are very important to maintain the ecological balance in the City of Pines. But this concern apparently becomes secondary when big corporations talk about the huge profits they could generate by enforcing their own brand of economic development. However, local people who are experiencing the ill-effects of vanishing trees in the city will not take this issue sitting down. Hence, they started the so-called Save the Tree Movement. To date the Save the Tree Movement protesters are able to gather at least 6,000 signatures.

Occupy the Wall Street Movement

What is happening in Baguio City is just a microcosm of a bigger issue that is burning like wild fire throughout the world. People in the concrete jungles of this whole inhabited earth are now opening their eyes to the evils of corporate greed. For while big corporations worldwide are raking a lot of profits, many ordinary people are losing their jobs, and are finding difficulty to make both ends meet and place food on the table.

Thus, starting from the financial center of the world in New York City where the World Trade Center used to stand, a movement called Occupy the Wall Street is now spreading in the key cities of the world. There may be some specific issues people are demanding and protesting against, but in the final analysis it all boils down to the issue of corporate greed.

Theological and Moral Issue

Corporate greed is not only an economic and political issue; it is also in a deeper sense a theological and moral issue. It is a theological issue because it deals with the question as to whom we put our ultimate trust and loyalty: God or money? It is also a moral issue in the sense that it deals with the question as to what we value most: human beings or material things? The evils of corporate greed lie in the fact that it trusts ultimately the god of money and values most material things over human beings.

What makes it worse is the fact that big corporations have made greed institutional and impersonal. The greedy can now hide behind these impersonal corporations and thus are shielded from personally seeing, hearing, and feeling the devastating effects of corporate greed to ordinary people which might prick and disturb their human conscience.

But the basic question we should ask ourselves would be: How do we deal with this human problem of corporate greed? In response to this question, let me share with you some insights drawn from the Scriptures.

Parable of the Rich Fool

Luke 12:13-21 may help us understand how we should deal with corporate greed. It’s a story of a man who was having a dispute with his brother over the inheritance of his father’s estate. The Jewish Law would provide two-thirds to the older son and one third to the younger son. But apparently, the man in our text felt he was not getting his rightful share. So, he appealed to Jesus for help in getting his share. It was a common practice at that time for Rabbis to settle legal disputes like this one in our Biblical text.

However, Jesus did not respond directly to the request of the man. Rather Jesus saw a different dimension of the problem. He saw what was at the root of the conflict between these two brothers, and that was no other than the human problem of greed. And so, Jesus said to the people who were listening to him, “Watch out and guard yourselves from every kind of greed; because your true life is not made up of the things you own, no matter how rich you may be”(vs. 15).

Then, Jesus told them a parable popularly known today as the Parable of the Rich Fool. It was a story of a rich man who had a land that yielded a good harvest. Then, he began to think to himself, “I don’t have a place to keep all my crops. What can I do? This is what I will do,” he told himself. “I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, where I will store the grains and all my other goods. Then, I will say to myself, Lucky man! You have all the good things you need for many years. Take life easy, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself!”

But God said to him, “You fool! This very night you will have to give up your life; then who will get all these things you have kept for yourself?” And Jesus concluded saying: “This is how it is with those who file up riches for themselves, but not rich in God’s sight”.

Now, what does this Biblical witness got to do with our task of dealing with the human problem of corporate greed? What is strikingly significant in this Biblical text is the fact that this story resonates very much with the stories of peoples and nations in our own time. Greed is very much a problem today as it was in Jesus’ time. As a matter of fact, it is a problem of peoples and nations throughout the ages. Hence, our Biblical text could provide us some insights on how to deal with the problem of greed in our own time.

Guarding ourselves from every form of greed

First of all, our Biblical text is saying that we must be watchful and guard ourselves from every form of greed. Verse 15 says, “Watch out and guard yourselves from every kind of greed”. We live today in a world where greed reigns supreme in the hearts and minds of peoples, of corporations and of nations. The aforementioned Biblical story shows us how conflict between two brothers was deeply rooted in greed. The writer of James echoed the same observation during his time when he said: “Where do all the fights and the quarrels among you come from? They come from your desires for pleasure, which are constantly fighting within you. You want thing, but you can not have them, so you quarrel and fight” (James 4:1-2a).

The manifestations of greed are even more tragic when we come to the corporate and structural as well as global context. History tells us that the two world wars in the 20th Century actually started as trade wars. They started as quarrels or conflicts among powerful nations on how to divide the material resources of this world among themselves.

Wars are concrete manifestations of greed among nations. Today’s globalization process is a similar attempt of rich and powerful nations, like the Group of Eight led by the United States, to integrate and dominate the economies of the whole world into one economic order. The big corporations worldwide are the main instruments and beneficiaries of globalization. At the heart of globalization is the problem of greed.

Genuine Life is to give and to share

Moreover, our Biblical text is also saying to us that we must realize that genuine life is not consisted in what we have but in what we share, not in what we get but in what we give. Verse 15 says, “Your true life is not made up of the things you own, no matter how rich you may be.”

Apparently, the man in our Biblical story possessed values that are contrary to what Jesus had been teaching. His material inheritance is more important than his harmonious relationship with his own brother. This is not a new phenomenon for us. For even today, brothers and sisters and relatives may even kill each other due to conflict over material inheritance. This is amplified even more in the story of the Rich Man in the parable of Jesus. Nothing is more important in the mind of the Rich Man than to become richer and richer. It never occurred in his mind that there may be people out there starving to death while he is enjoying his riches.

This is the kind of value that big corporations are trying to promote in our world today. It is a value of self-centeredness and greed that puts a price tag to everything. The danger of this is the tendency to worship money as god. For the ultimate concern of big corporations is the accumulation of more and more material wealth at the expense of peoples’ lives. The ultimate result is the concentration of enormous wealth in the hands of a few and the impoverishment of the majority of people throughout the world. This is the evil of capitalism that was already pointed out by Karl Marx and other Sociologists long time ago.

Money or material possession is a false god. It is a false god, because it provides us false security in life. Perhaps, this is the reason why God said to the Rich Man in the parable, “You Fool!” Many of us think that if only we would have all the riches in this world, then we would be secured. But perhaps, the most insecure people in this world are not the people who have no money; rather they are those who have lots of money, especially if such enormous wealth has been obtained by corruption or unjust means. They have to build walls around their mansions and hire security guards to ensure their own safety. But, of course, they can not hide away from a guilty and disturb conscience.

Doing Justice

Finally, our Biblical text is also saying to us that we must do justice. Verse 21 says, “This is how it is with those who pile up riches for themselves, but are not rich in God’s sight”. To be rich in God’s sight is to do justice. Doing justice is the opposite of filing up riches for our selves.

The rich man in the parable of Jesus received God’s judgment, not simply because he wanted to file up riches, but that he desired to do so for himself alone. To be rich is not evil per se. As a matter of fact, God in Christ Jesus wants us to have life and have it more abundantly (cf. John 10:10). But it becomes evil and unjust when it is done without regard for others, or worst of all, at the expense of others. When the rich man in the parable desired to become richer even more, he saw no one else but himself.

And this is also what makes corporate greed evil and unjust. The big corporations could see only themselves in their desire to become richer even more. They could not see the face of men, women and children in poor countries throughout the world whose lives and future are being sacrificed in the altar of corporate greed. It is when greed reigns supreme that injustice abounds.

But the good news is that the God we believe in is a God of justice. Justice is the virtue by which we endeavor to give what is due to each other. It requires a fair distribution of wealth, of income, and opportunities in society. It calls for a relationship in which the human dignity of everyone is recognized and respected. Justice is a virtue that we have to acquire. And this would mean that we have to struggle against the contrary values of selfishness and greed.

In summary, to deal with corporate greed is to be watchful and to guard ourselves from every kind of greed. It is to realize that genuine life is not consisted in what we have but in what we share, not in what we get but in what we give. And ultimately, it is to do justice. # nordis.net