Jesus warned, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions" (Luke 12:15). He also taught that "it is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35).
These nine stories about greed and generosity, retold in our own words, include myths, folk tales and fiction about what greed does to us, and true stories of people who chose to hold their money loosely. Each ends with a takeaway for sermons or reflection.
Stories in this collection:
- The Golden Touch: The Story of King Midas
- "My Precious": Sméagol and the Ring
- How Spider Got a Skinny Waist
- "Why Would I Give It to You?"
- The Corporate Flag
- A Billionaire's Warning About Markets
- John Wesley: Gain All You Can, Save All You Can, Give All You Can
- The Businessman Who Gave His Company Away
- "He Will"
The Golden Touch: The Story of King Midas
We sometimes say that a successful businessperson has "the Midas touch". The phrase comes from an ancient myth, best known from the Roman poet Ovid, and the full story is worth hearing.
Midas was a wealthy king of Phrygia, in what is now Turkey. One day Silenus, the elderly companion and tutor of Dionysus, the god of wine (whom the Romans called Bacchus), wandered off and was found asleep in the king's rose gardens. Midas recognised him, treated him as an honoured guest and then returned him safely to the god.
Dionysus was so grateful that he offered Midas any reward he wanted. Midas did not hesitate. He asked that everything he touched might turn to gold. The god, it is said, warned him to think carefully, but Midas insisted, and the wish was granted.
At first it was wonderful. Midas touched a twig and it became gold. He touched a stone, a brick, a table, a door, and each turned to shining metal in his hands. He ran through his palace, delighted with his new power.
Then he sat down to eat. His servants laid out a magnificent feast, but the moment the bread touched his fingers, it became gold. The grapes became gold. The wine turned to liquid gold on his lips. In later retellings, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's, his beloved daughter ran to embrace him and was turned into a golden statue.
Hungry, thirsty and horrified, Midas begged the god to take back his gift. Dionysus told him to wash in the river Pactolus. When he did, the power flowed out of him into the water, and the ancient Greeks said that is why gold was found in the sands of that river. Midas went home a wiser man.
Takeaway: Wealth cannot meet our deepest needs. A life in which everything turns to money can leave us starving for what really matters: love, relationships and God.
Source: Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 11; Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Golden Touch" (1852).
"My Precious": Sméagol and the Ring
In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, one of the most memorable characters is Sméagol, later called Gollum. He belonged to a small, river-dwelling people closely related to hobbits.
One day his friend Déagol found a golden ring at the bottom of a river. Sméagol wanted it so badly that he killed his friend to take it. The Ring made its wearer invisible and greatly lengthened his life, but it also had a terrible, hidden power. Its owner became obsessed with it, consumed by fear that someone would take it away.
Over time Sméagol withdrew from everyone. He went to live in caves deep under the mountains, cradling the Ring and calling it "my precious". His greed for it changed both his body and his spirit. He became thin, pale and slimy, mean, suspicious and vindictive. The thing he loved most became his ruin.
Takeaway: Whatever we cling to most tightly can end up owning us. Greed slowly reshapes us into its own image, but Christ frees us to hold everything loosely.
Source: J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (1954–55).
How Spider Got a Skinny Waist
A folk tale from Africa.
Long ago, when animals could talk, Spider looked very different from the spiders we know today. Now a spider has a large head and a large body joined by a tiny waist. But in those days Spider had no waist at all. He was big and round all over. This is the story of how he got his waist.
One day Spider was walking through the forest when Rabbit came hopping down the path. Where was Rabbit off to in such a hurry? To the wedding feast in Upstream Town, said Rabbit. Everyone was invited, and it was going to be the feast to end all feasts.
Spider decided he would go too. But just as he set off, he met Fox heading the other way. Fox was going to an anniversary celebration in Downstream Town. Everyone was invited there as well, and it too was going to be the feast to end all feasts.
Spider was beside himself with joy. Two feasts! He would rush to Upstream Town and eat his fill, then race down to Downstream Town and gobble up all the delicacies there too. Off he went, already dreaming of roast meats, sweet fruits and honey cakes.
But before he had gone far, a terrible thought struck him. What if Downstream Town served its feast first? Then he would miss all the best food there. But if he went to Downstream Town first and Upstream Town started earlier, he would miss that feast instead. His joy turned to worry. What was he to do? He could not bear to miss out on either.
Then he had what seemed a brilliant idea. He hurried home and found two very long ropes. He tied one end of each rope around his middle and gave the other ends to his two children. His daughter was to take one rope to Downstream Town, and his son the other to Upstream Town. Whoever's feast began first was to tug on the rope, and Spider would hurry there.
Unfortunately, both feasts began at exactly the same moment. Each child pulled on their rope at the same time. When nothing happened, they pulled harder and harder. At last, realising something was wrong, they rushed back and found their father lying on the ground, squeezed almost in two and gasping for breath. They untied him, but from that day on Spider has had a skinny little waist between his big head and his big body.
Takeaway: Greed wants everything, and fears missing out on anything. In the end it can pull us apart. "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have" (Hebrews 13:5).
Source: African folk tale, as retold in William J. Bennett (ed.), The Moral Compass (1995).
"Why Would I Give It to You?"
A traditional joke.
A very successful businessman was approached by a charity asking for a large donation to an urgent appeal. He listened politely to their case, then replied that he understood why they had come to him. Yes, he had a lot of money, and theirs was a worthy cause. But were they aware of the many calls on his money?
Did they know, he asked, that his elderly mother needed round-the-clock nursing care? No, they did not. Did they know his sister was struggling to raise eight children on her own? No, they did not. Did they know that one of his sons was in a drug rehabilitation clinic and another was doing voluntary work overseas? No, they did not.
"Well," said the businessman, "if I don't give any of them a cent, what makes you think I'll give anything to you?"
Takeaway: Greed often hides behind good-sounding excuses. Generosity begins at home, but it does not end there. "Whoever has two shirts should share with the one who has none" (Luke 3:11).
Source: Traditional joke; author unknown.
The Corporate Flag
On 4 July 2001, American Independence Day, some homes in the United States flew an unusual version of the Stars and Stripes. In the top corner, where the white stars normally sit on a blue background, the stars had been replaced by the logos of big corporations: sports brands, fast-food chains, soft-drink makers and entertainment companies.
It was not a marketing campaign. It was a protest organised by the Canadian anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters. The group argued that America had lost its independence to giant global corporations, and that the direction of the nation and the world was being set not in the interests of people but in the interests of profit.
Takeaway: Whatever we think of the protest, it raises a question for Christians: who really rules our lives? Jesus said, "You cannot serve both God and money" (Matthew 6:24).
Source: Adbusters' Corporate America Flag campaign (2001).
A Billionaire's Warning About Markets
George Soros became one of the most successful investors in history. His Quantum Fund, launched in 1969, produced extraordinary returns for its investors over the following three decades.
His early life was very different. Soros was born into a Jewish family in Budapest in 1930. When the Nazis occupied Hungary in 1944, his father obtained false identity papers so that George could pose as the godson of a Christian official, and the family survived by hiding in a series of homes.
For part of the war they moved between the attics and hidden cellars of a number of different homes, never knowing who might betray them. After the war the teenage Soros emigrated to England, where he scraped a living from odd jobs. Working as a waiter in a smart London restaurant, he was reportedly grateful to eat the leftover desserts. Eventually he won a place at the London School of Economics, and the rest is financial history. He went on to build a vast fortune, and he has given billions of dollars to foundations promoting what he calls open societies around the world. His politics and philanthropy have made him a controversial figure, admired by some and fiercely criticised by others.
In a 1998 essay in The Atlantic Monthly, Soros expressed concern about what an unrestrained global economy was doing to society. Markets, he argued, tend to reduce everything, including people and nature, to commodities. His conclusion was striking for one of the world's most successful financiers: "We can have a market economy but we cannot have a market society."
Takeaway: Money is a useful servant but a terrible master. A society, or a life, in which everything has a price will lose sight of what has real value.
Source: George Soros, "Toward a Global Open Society", The Atlantic Monthly, January 1998.
John Wesley: Gain All You Can, Save All You Can, Give All You Can
Many people today spend everything they earn, and then some. The eighteenth-century evangelist John Wesley showed another way.
Wesley came from humble beginnings, but his books and preaching eventually brought him a large income, reported to have reached around £1,400 a year, a very substantial sum at the time. He did not simply give a tenth of it away. Instead he disciplined himself to live on about £30 a year and gave away nearly all the rest.
In his famous sermon "The Use of Money", preached on Luke 16:9, Wesley called money an excellent gift of God. In the hands of God's children, he said, it can be food for the hungry, drink for the thirsty and clothing for the naked. It can give shelter to the traveller and the stranger, support the widow and the orphan, defend the oppressed and bring health to the sick and comfort to those in pain. It can be eyes to the blind and feet to the lame.
Because money can do so much good, he argued, it is of the highest importance that all who fear God should learn how to use this valuable talent, so that it achieves those glorious ends to the fullest degree. He summed up his teaching in three simple rules: gain all you can, by honest work that harms no one; save all you can, by refusing waste and luxury; and give all you can.
Wesley practised what he preached. He once remarked that if he left behind more than ten pounds when he died, people would be entitled to say that he had lived and died a thief and a robber.
Takeaway: Wesley did not despise money; he put it to work for God's kingdom. The question is not how much we earn but how much we keep for ourselves.
Source: John Wesley, Sermon 50, "The Use of Money"; Christian History newsletter, 30 November 2001.
The Businessman Who Gave His Company Away
As a university student, Alan Barnhart studied the teaching of Jesus and was struck by how often Jesus called his followers to generosity and warned them about the dangers of wealth. He made up his mind that if he ever succeeded in business, he would not let financial success become spiritual failure.
In 1986 he and his brother Eric took over their family's small business in Memphis, Barnhart Crane and Rigging. They agreed to cap their own salaries at a level that would let their families live a modest middle-class life, and to give away much of whatever the company earned beyond that.
In their first year they gave away about $50,000. As the business grew, so did their giving, eventually reaching millions of dollars a year, much of it to ministries in the developing world. By the mid-2010s they had given away close to $100 million.
In 2007 they went further. They transferred 99 per cent of the ownership of the company, by then worth around $250 million, into a charitable trust with the National Christian Foundation, so that its profits would continue to fund ministry long after they were gone.
Barnhart says he has no regrets. He, his wife and their children have visited many of the projects they support and seen lives changed. Giving, he says, is fun.
Takeaway: Generosity often starts with a simple decision about how much is enough. Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:21).
Source: Alan Barnhart, "Profit with a Purpose"; Philanthropy Roundtable, "Giving It All".
"He Will"
A traditional joke.
The phone rang in the pastor's study. The caller said he was from the tax office and wondered whether the pastor could help with an enquiry.
The pastor felt a knot in his stomach. Why would the tax office be calling him? Nervously he said he would do his best.
Did he know a man named Bruce Parker? Yes, said the pastor, Bruce was a member of his congregation. And had Mr Parker donated ten thousand dollars to the church building fund? A smile spread across the pastor's face. "He will."
Takeaway: A good laugh, with a serious point: generosity is easier to claim than to practise. "God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Corinthians 9:7), and an honest one.
Source: Traditional joke; author unknown.
Final thoughts
A golden king, a ring called "precious", a spider pulled in two, a reluctant donor, a protest flag, a billionaire's warning, a preacher who lived on £30 a year, a businessman who gave his company away and a pastor with a sense of humour. Greed shrinks us; generosity sets us free.
What would it look like for you to decide how much is enough?
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These stories are retold in our own words for teaching and reflection. Sources are credited under each story.
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