Due to a computer glitch, the last half of this sermon is missing. This sermon was preached by Rev. Dan Harper at First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. As usual, the sermon below is a reading text. The actual sermon as preached contained ad libs, interjections, and other improvisation. Sermon copyright (c) 2007 Daniel Harper.
Readings
The first reading this morning comes from Robert Graves’s two volume Greek Myths.
“Midas, son of the Great Goddess of Ida, by a satyr whose name is not remembered, was a pleasure-loving King of Macedonian Bromium, where he ruled over the Brigians and planted his celebrated rose gardens. In his infancy, a procession of ants was observed carrying grains of wheat up the side of his cradle and placing them between his lips as he slept — a prodigy which the soothsayers read as an omen of the great wealth that would accrue to him….
“One day, the debauched old satyr Silenus, Dionysus’s former pedagogue, happened to straggle from the main body of the riotous Dionysian army as it marched out of Thrace into Boeotia, and was found sleeping off his drunken fit in [Midas’s] rose gardens. The gardeners bound him with garlands of flowers and led his before Midas, to whom he told wonderful tales of an immense continent lying beyond the Ocean stream — altogether separate from the conjoined mass of Europe, Asia, or Africa — where splendid cities abound, peopled by gigantic, happy, and long-lived inhabitants, and enjoying a remarkable legal system. A great expedition — at least ten million strong — once set out [from] thence across the Ocean in ships to visit the Hyperboreans; but on learning that theirs was the best land that the old world had to offer, retired in disgust…. Midas, enchanted by Silenus’s fictions, entertained him for five days and nights, and then ordered a guide to escort him [back] to Dionysus’s headquarters.
“Dionysus, who had been anxious on Silenus’s account, sent to ask how Midas wished to be rewarded. He replied without hesitation: ‘Pray grant that all I touch be turned into gold.’ However, not only stones, flowers, and the furnishing of his house turned to gold but, when he sat down to table, so did the food he ate and the water he drank. Midas soon begged to be released from his wish, because he was fast dying of hunger and thirst; whereupon Dionysus, highly entertained, told him to visit the source of the river Pactolus, near Mount Tmolus, and there wash himself. He obeyed, and was at once freed from the golden touch, but the sand of the river Pactolus are bright with gold to this day….”
[pp. 281-282]
The second reading is from the ancient Hebrew book known as Proverbs, chapter 8, verses 1-12.
“Does not wisdom call,
and does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights, beside the way,
at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
‘To you, O people, I call,
and my cry is to all that live.
O simple ones, learn prudence;
acquire intelligence, you who lack it.
Hear, for I will speak noble things,
and from my lips will come what is right;
for my mouth will utter truth;
wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
All the words of my mouth are righteous;
there is nothing twisted or crooked in them.
They are all straight to one who understands
and right to those who find knowledge.
Take my instruction instead of silver,
and knowledge rather than choice gold;
for wisdom is better than jewels,
and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.
I, wisdom, live with prudence,
and I attain knowledge and discretion.’ ”
Sermon
This is the second in a series of occasional sermons on the so-called seven deadly sins. I have to preface this sermon by saying that I most certainly do not accept the traditional understandings of sin nor do I accept the notion of original sin; that, as a Universalist, I cannot accept that an allegedly loving God would condemn anyone to hell for an eternity; and that therefore I do not accept the category of “deadly sins” which were, in traditional Christian theology, sins so horrible that to engage in them would be to risk eternal damnation. Yet having said that, the traditional listing of so-called seven deadly sins — lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath, and pride — remains a pretty good catalog of bad behavior and egregious human error.
And on this, the biggest shopping weekend of the year, what better sin to talk about than the sin of greed? I always stay out of the shopping malls and stores on the days following Thanksgiving, but it’s not because I’m especially virtuous, it’s just that I am not fond of crowds. And what crowds turn out to go shopping on the days after Thanksgiving! You know those vast expanses of asphalt that surround malls, the ginormous parking lots that never ever seem full? On the Friday after Thanksgiving, those ginormous parking lots get so full that people wind up cruising around in their cars, unable to find a parking place; those huge parking lots are designed for the shopping excesses of one day a year.
Greed is such a fun activity to indulge in; what could be more fun than looking at all the enticing and wonderful objects available for us to purchase — video games and large-screen televisions and the latest Martha Stewart kitchen gadgets and those robotic vacuum cleaners that vacuum the house all by themselves and the latest digital cameras,, and hundreds of other fun gadgets and toys and objects — for greed is really more about the wanting and the desiring, than it is about the possessing. I’m especially fond of greed because I don’t necessarily have to own all those wonderful things — if I owned them, where would I put them all? how would I find the time to play with them all — because although greed requires that you accumulate lots of objects, the essence of greed (or so it seems to me) lies in always wanting more than you have now. Greed is a hunger deep inside our guts, a hunger that can never be satisfied.
The story of King Midas is the classic story of greed. Good old King Midas begins as a fairly ordinary king in Macedonia. Midas enjoyed the many pleasurable things that kings may enjoy; as one example we are told that he devoted a good deal of time and energy and money to cultivating roses, to the point where his rose gardens became celebrated far and wide.
As we heard in the first reading today, a drunken satyr named Silenus was one of the throng of followers of the god Dionysus. It should be noted that a satyr is a mythical being that is half-human and half-goat. Now Dionysus was the god of wine, and so his followers were not strangers to drinking and even to drunkenness; but it appears that Silenus was more prone to drunkenness than most of the others, for one day he got excessively drunk, and collapsed in King Midas’s rose gardens.
The next day, King Midas’s gardeners found old Silenus asleep under a rose bush. They didn’t want to anger whomever this satyr might owe allegiance to, but at the same time the sight of this drunken reprobate, half-human and half-goat, lying asleep in the garden alarmed them enough so that they symbolically tied Silenus up with garlands of flowers, and only then led him to King Midas. Silenus then proceeded to entertain King Midas with outrageous and delightful stories; Midas felt that the stories were enchanting, rather than excessively untruthful. In any case, at last Midas sent Silenus back to the god Dionysus.
Thus far, the story of King Midas is a story filled with excess — excessive drinking, excessively untruthful stories t old as entertainment, excessive attention to rose cultivation. Such excesses alone do not result in greed. But King Midas’s next action is greedy. For when the god Dionysus asks Midas what reward his would like for taking care of Silenus, Midas answers: Pray grant that all I touch be turned into gold.”
This request may safely be characterized as greed! Firstly, it is self-evident that Midas has no need for addit6ional gold: not only is he a king, but he appears to lead a comfortable, even lavish lifestyle. Secondly, even if Midas were to ask for gold, he could have asked for something more reasonable, such as: “Pray grant that I find four large bags filled with gold in my bed, beside me, when I awaken tomorrow”; but instead, Midas asks fro something that he hopes will bring him an unlimited supply of gold.
Thus Midas’s wish can only be characterized as greed, because he does not need more gold to begin with, and he certainly does not need an unlimited quantity of gold. No wonder the god Dionysus was so amused when Midas began to realize all the implications of his very unwise wish. When it turns out that even food and drink are turned to gold by Midas’s touch, suddenly Midas finds himself in the same position as people who are so poor that don’t have enough to eat, and so slowly starve to death; the irony being that Midas has plenty of money, money which is no essentially useless to him. And so Midas has to appeal to the god Dionysus, in order that he will not starve to death in the midst of plenty.