Some of these do not amount to deadly sin but they still hinder our friendship with Christ and lessen our love of others. We can have varying degrees of inordinate desire for material things. Paul advises (Col 3:2): “ Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.” The rich man was doing the opposite of what St. We don’t get to heaven by talking only to ourselves and not caring about others. Jesus explains that the rich man is a fool because God may demand his life that very night and he will not have stored up anything that amounts to “riches” in God’s sight. There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, ‘Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry?’” He cares only about himself, with no regard for God or others. No longer believing in prayer and no longer interested in others, the rich man talks only to himself with constant use of the pronouns “I” and “my.” “ He asked himself, ‘What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?’ And he said, ‘This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.

In the “Parable of the rich fool,” notice how the foolish man’s vocabulary reveals how his excessive appetite for wealth has shriveled his soul. Instead of helping the man to get rid of his brother and to grab more property because of an immoderate love of possessing, Jesus tells him a parable to jar him into seeing how foolish is his blind chase after material things. He has set his heart on “storing up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God.” Jesus refuses to cater to his folly. He operates under the illusion that things will make him happy. Property is more important for this man than persons. He says, “ Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” He is at odds with his brother over material things, and he wants Jesus to help him sever all fraternal ties. For example, in Luke 12:13-21, a man comes to Jesus with his priorities upside down. Greed is one of those deadly sins that Jesus repeatedly warns us about. The Tenth Commandment has close links also with the Seventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not steal” but it focuses on excessive inner attitudes and inordinate desires for things rather than on the act of stealing itself. Now, let us consider the need to not covet what belongs to others. In our previous article, we considered the Ninth Commandment’s call not to covet our neighbor’s wife and the accompanying call to live a chaste life. The Tenth Commandment, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods,” requires us to avoid an unhealthy desire for material goods.

Covet Thy Neighbor by L.A. Witt