A Concord Pastor Comments: On building barns and filling closets...

Photo by Tom Fritsch

H/T to Joseph Komonchak via Deacon Greg for this quote from St. Basil the Great

Were you not naked when you came out of the womb? Will you not be naked when you return to the earth?

Where did the things you now possess come from?

If you say they just appeared spontaneously, then you are an atheist because you do not acknowledge the Creator and show no gratitude towards the one who gave them to you.

But if you say they are from God, tell us the reason why you received them.

Or is it that God is unjust because he unequally divides among us the things of this life?

Why are you rich while that other man is poor? Is it not perhaps so that you might receive wages for kindheartedness and faithful stewardship and so that he may be honored with great prizes because of his endurance?

When you hoard all these things in the insatiable bosom of greed, do you suppose that you do nothing wrong in cheating so many people?

Who is a greedy man? Someone who is not content with what is sufficient. Who is a cheater? Someone who takes what belongs to others. And are you not a greedy man, are you not a cheater, when you take the things you received for the sake of stewardship and make them your own?

Anyone who takes a man who is clothed and renders him naked would be termed a robber; but does someone who fails to clothe the naked when he is able to do so deserve any other appellation?

The bread you are holding back belongs to the hungry; the coat you keep in your closet belongs to the naked; the shoes moldering in your closet belong to the shoeless; the silver you hide in a safe place belongs to the needy. Thus, the more there are whom you could help, the more there are whom you are wronging.

- St. Basil's Homily on the saying of the Gospel According to Luke, “I will pull down my barns and build bigger ones,” and on greed), §7 (PG 31, 276B – 277A)