This is not a true story, but a story that has some truth.

Terry worked at a company with Pat. Pat had a higher position with better pay and more authority, and Terry wanted that job. So Terry started sabotaging Pat: undoing some of Pat’s work, telling lies about Pat, anything to make Pat look bad. Eventually, Pat was fired and Terry got the job.

Do the ends justify the means?

Let’s go to God in prayer.

God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.

Amen.

Last week we considered the question of whether there is enough. This kind of enough is “enough to go around.”

But today we’re considering how much is enough for each of us.

I think we can agree that there are some minimums. We need clean air to breathe, and we need it all the time. We need clean water to drink – the commonly suggested amount is eight glasses per day. We need healthy food – somewhere between 1600 and 3000 calories depending on the person. We need clothing. We need shelter from heat, cold, wind, precipitation, and dangerous animals.

But how much land do we each need? How many homes? How much power?

Today’s reading is about King David. Yes, this is the same David who slew Goliath with a sling and a rock, the same David who was the ancestor of Jesus.

David had many wives and concubines, but saw a woman bathing and decided he had to have her as well. So he had her brought to him. And he had her husband sent to a war zone so that he would die in battle.

He had many wives, but he didn’t have THAT wife. What he had, in his estimation, was not enough.

The Hebrew scriptures may seem old and irrelevant, but as Hillel the Elder said, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to another. That is the whole of the law. The rest is its explanation. Go and study.”

And here is a story where Nathan, a prophet and advisor to David, comes to David with a story of a rich man taking a lamb from a poor man. David finds the behavior hateful. And Nathan shows that the behavior David abhors is the behavior of David himself!

There is another story from the Hebrew scriptures along the same lines:

In 1 Kings chapter 17, King Ahab wants to plant a vegetable garden in a plot of land owned by a man named Naboth. This was land passed down by Naboth’s ancestors, and he did not want to part with it.

This sent the King into a depression, and his wife Jezebel hatched a plot to get the land. She arranged to have two people give false testimony about Naboth, and to have him stoned to death. And the King took the land.

The prophet Elijah brought the truth to King Ahab, and he repented.

Again, a wealthy person, a king, desired what a much less prosperous person had, and it cost the life of the person with less power.

Yes, it is wrong to steal. Yes, it us wrong to cause the death of a person, or even their career, to get something we want. But even before we get to that point there are opportunities for us to change course.

Do I have enough?

Does this other person have enough?

When we see something someone else has – whether it is a partner, property, or even position – and desire to take it from them, we ought to examine whether we already have enough, and whether we are about to deprive someone else of having enough.

We can think of this in terms of the resources we use, especially when those resources are in short supply.

Is my water use depriving another person of the water they need?

Is my pollution of the air affecting the health of others?

My challenge to all of us this week is to consider the difference between what we need and what we want.

May we all have enough.

Amen.

* Scripture quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue