Long ago, when my husband and I were young parents, our daughter became a source of God’s teaching to us. Now I don’t mean she was without fault, obedient beyond compare or holy in some special way. She was human after all. But she had a way of dealing with her own world that made us take notice.

As an only child, Melanie found the outside world, and particularly her first school experiences quite shocking. In kindergarten she came home with her eyes wide, exclaiming, "Mom, the kids don’t do what the teacher says." It was a moment of disillusionment for her and for us. Part of me wanted to yank her out of school and protect her from bad influences. Part of me wanted to talk to the teacher about disobedience. I did neither, of course. It was the real world, in which she would have to live.

The academic part of school was never a concern for her, but the social experience plagued her. One day when she was about eight, she came home from school quite perplexed. It seemed that Jimmy Wimmer, the boy who sat behind her, had been kicking her desk, repeatedly. During our discussion, I was shocked to discover that this had been going on for several weeks! The gift of patience had turned into a handicap. Asking him to stop did not work; ignoring him did not stop him; and getting mad at him did not make a dent. This day she asked for some solutions.

She was afraid to ask the teacher; afraid that his repercussions would be worse than the kicking of her desk. We talked about options but none seemed to suit her. The next day, she came in beaming. She announced, "I think I know what to do with Jimmy. I’m going to give him "the treatment" she declared. "What is ‘the treatment’?" I asked her. She said simply, "Well, Mom, the treatment is being real nice to him, until he catches it."

Now here was a faith statement of gigantic proportions. Not as vividly put as "heaping hot coals on the other’s head", but the same message. Don’t get even; don’t get back, God will take care of that. Just be nice to the other person anyway. Wanting to protect her from further hurt, I wanted to tell her this might not work. But at the same time I remembered this passage. "Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good; "for in this way you will heap burning coals upon their heads." How could she know this? We had not read this passage to her, yet somehow I believe, the God who resides in each of us, is coaching us nonetheless.

Overcoming evil is no easy task. It pervades our workplace; it seeps into our hearts when we have been wronged; it lurks behind people of respect; it interrupts our friendships and invades our families. Evil is a dangerous thing, as it often hidden under the guise of something good.

We all have the capability to do evil. It is contagious, frightening, and destructive. The Good News is that we have help, from it enslaving us. We have a protective shield found in our faith, that wells up inside of us when we are about to be trapped by evil. It is this faith that taps us on the shoulder and asks, "What do you think you are doing?" It is our faith that wakes us up at night, knowing that what we have done or are about to do, is wrong. It is also our faith that reels us in from the rationalizations that convince us it is all right.

During this season of giving and getting, when the catalogs fill up our recycle bins, when the ads on TV tell us we can’t live another day without the item being advertised, our culture of consumption rings not for others, but for us. Advertising doesn’t meet needs; it creates them. It aids us in making the leap from need to greed.

Research proves oddly enough, that it is not those living in poverty that are the most vulnerable to greed; but rather the wealthy, people like all of us who have income and belongings, who are the most susceptible. The danger being the more we have the more we want. The shift from need to greed can lead us into deceit, lying, cheating and worse.

Greed is insidious. It can slip into our lives quite unnoticed, especially if we surround ourselves with like sorts. Recently Dennis Koslasky was featured on a 20/20 TV program about greed. He had started out like the rest of us, educated, becoming successful in his business, but then began successfully taking money from the company. A few things led to big ticket items, and eventually he found himself financing world-wide spending sprees of "must have" items. Ironically, he was discovered not for stealing company funds, but for not paying the tax on the items he purchased. He believed that the government got too much already. Dennis in now in prison for life, for his unchecked greed.

A corporate example featured Wal-Mart, pointing to the greed of a company that pays $8.23 hour, where the profits take precedence over the people’s benefits. Management has defended their actions by stating that employment overrides fairness for their employees.

20/20 also offered the reverse of greed, with stories of people choosing to live on less. One person had given away her $3 million inheritance saying she already had what she needed and other people don’t. She couldn’t live with having a second home when others don’t have their first. The interviewer was incredulous as she asked, "But you see pretty things. Don’t you wish you had some of them?" "Sure I like them," she replied, "but I don’t need them."

A third story highlighted a man who donated 60% of his income with the goal of contributing $1million in his lifetime. He does this by living in a small apartment and driving a used car. Both of these knew the truth that giving can protect us from greed; protect us from the truth that the more we have the more we want. It takes enormous moral stamina to be able to say, yes, we can afford it, but we are not buying it, because it does little to contribute to the basic goodness of our lives.

Finally, the program featured the country Buthan, near Nepal, where one can escape from greed. It is a country that knows they cannot buy happiness; in fact one of their leaders called it gross national happiness, instead of gross national product. "We do not have a consumer culture," he said. "We believe that happiness is being content with what we have. We know that happiness comes from within, rather than from things."

I have been thinking lately about the havoc greed can create in our lives. William Willimon, a Methodist Bishop, pastor, and author writes of this in his book, Sinning Like A Christian. He takes a new look at the seven deadly sins, with greed right up there on top. In a capitalist society we are encouraged to not only want more, but to want it better and faster. You and I live in a culture that has everything we could ever think of wanting with easy accessibility. What we don’t have always, is knowing when we have enough. Our shut-off valve is malfunctioning. Our desires for more and more can lead us down the slippery slope of greed before we realize it.

We can find ourselves in conversations with friends on how to acquire more money, more tax breaks, more money making schemes, even money making clubs, that may be dishonest or even illegal. Desire produces greed, and greed can lead to immoral or illegal activity. Greed can lead to risking our jobs, our investments, our marriages, even our God. And that is a pretty high price for things.

Greed has the power to turn love into lust, leisure into sloth, hunger into gluttony, honor into pride, righteous indignation into anger, and admiration into envy. Greed can lead us into all the 7 deadly sins at once!

So how do we let this happen? I think there are some signs. First our conscience alerts us. "This is not right is it?" it queries. In an effort to squash that voice, we then outline the rationalizations for our behavior. Something like: "Everyone does it." Or, "I deserve this; I have worked hard to get where I am." Or, "I know people who are doing a lot worse than this." Or we focus on corporate greed, like Enron, institutional greed, or unjust economic distribution, keeping the focus of us, at any cost. Whatever it is, it quiets the conscience…… temporarily. The next stage might be to gather some friends to do what we are doing; after all there is security in numbers. Finally, we may hire a tax lawyer or consultant, who can find enough loop holes to assure us this is all legal.

But I would suggest, not all legal behavior is moral. There are many ways we can sell our souls and separate ourselves from God, and this has the highest price tag of all. We may leave the church, drop our friends of faith, separate ourselves from all that is good and holy, for only in this way can we justify the greed that engulfs us.

Paul reminds us in this passage to hate what is evil. Have nothing to do with it. Flee from all that can destroy you. If you find yourself in a position of greed or sin of any kind, surround yourself with the armor of the faithful, and get out. Paul even goes on to say, don’t isolate or seek revenge on the sinner; let God take care of that; but to the one among you who is deep in sin, reach out, offer hospitality, do what is right, help the other stand up. Give them "the treatment". Don’t be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good.

You see, each of us has the potential to be stuck deep in sin where we can see no way out. And everyone of us has the ability to do good, and even to help the one who has fallen so deeply.

This is a message of hope; hope in this Advent season of the Christ child coming again, entering our hearts anew, cleansing our souls, providing answers, opening doors, showing the way out of our mess, that we cannot see. Jesus says, what is impossible for us to change, is possible with God.

Frederick Buechner, well known theologian, defines grace as something that is given, not acquired. It is a gift, and like other gifts, the only way we can have it, is to reach out and take it. Life is full of terrible and beautiful things; but in all that happens, God never abandons us. God wants the very best for us. We can get out of messes; we can choose a better path; we will be protected when we do. Grace is a gift from God.

There is a "Dennis the Menace" cartoon I like about grace. As you know, Dennis is indeed a menace to his next-door neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, and yet Mrs. Wilson continues to be kind and gracious. This particular cartoon shows Dennis and his little friend Joey leaving Mrs. Wilson's house, their hands full of cookies.

Joey says, "I wonder what we did to deserve this."

Dennis’s answer is right on target: "Look, Joey, Mrs. Wilson gives us cookies not because we're nice, but because she's nice."

That’s what it’s like to be loved by God; and so we are.
Amen