6 Sermon Illustrations on Avarice

6 illustrations

Avarice in Christian preaching highlights the destructive, insatiable greed that blinds believers to true spiritual riches and generosity (1 Timothy 6:10). Illustrations often contrast the endless grasping for wealth with the sufficiency found in faith, using pictures of selfishness, regret, and the folly of hoarding earthly treasures over heavenly ones (Luke 12:15).

Avarice, Legend of the Choice of

Two disciples regret selling possessions after St. John shows riches can be reclaimed.

A very pretty apologue relating to St. John is sometimes included in a series of subjects from his life. Two young men, who had sold all their possessions to follow him, afterwards repented. He, perceiving their thoughts, sent them to gather pebbles and fagots, and, on their return, changed these into money and ingots of gold, saying to them, "Take back your riches, and enjoy them on earth, as you regret having exchanged them for heaven!" This story is represented on one of the windows of the Cathedral at Bourges. The two young men stand before St. John, with a heap of gold on one side, and a heap of stones and fagots on the other. Mrs. Jameson.

Avarice, Selfishness of

Covetousness leads to constant grasping without giving, unlike the balanced universe.

Had covetous men, as the fable goes of Briareus, each of them one hundred hands, they would all of them be employed in grasping and gathering, and hardly one of them in giving or laying out, but all in receiving, and none in restoring,—a thing in itself so monstrous, that nothing in nature besides is like it, except it be death and the grave, the only things I know which are always carrying off the spoils of the world, and never making restitution. For otherwise, all the parts of the universe, as they borrow of one another, so they will pay what they borrow, and that by so just and well balanced an equality, that their payments always keep pace with their receipts.

— J. Dryden

Mammon, Insatiable

Avarice is insatiable, no amount of wealth can satisfy its craving.

Could you change all the pebbles on the beach into minted money, or conjure into bank-notes all the leaves of the forest; nay, could you transmute the solid earth into a single lump of gold, and drop it into the gaping mouth of avarice, — it would only be a crumb of transient comfort, a cordial-drop, enabling it to cry a little louder, "Give, give!" Dr. J. Hamilton.

The Jewish Mother

A mother's focus on a small loss reveals human greed despite receiving great kindness.

One of the nights when Mrs. Siddons first performed at Drury Lane, a Jew boy, in his eagerness to get the first row in the shilling gallery, fell over into the pit, and was dangerously hurt. The manager of the theatre ordered the lad to be conveyed to a lodging, where he was attended by their own physician; but, notwithstanding all their attention, he died, and was decently buried, at the expense of the theatre. The mother came to the play-house to thank the managers, and they gave her his clothes and five guineas, for which she returned a courtesy, but, with some hesitation, added that they had forgotten to return her the shilling which Abraham had paid for coming in!

The Miser In The Well

A miser's greed nearly causes his death when a laborer demands excessive payment for help.

An old bachelor, possessed of a fortune of $50,000, meeting a friend one day began to harangue him very learnedly upon the detestable sin of avarice, and gave the following instance of it: "About three years ago," said he, "by a very odd accident I fell into a well, and was absolutely within a very few minutes of perishing before I could prevail upon an unconscious dog of a laborer, who happened to be within hearing of my cries, to help me out for a shilling. The fellow was so rapacious as to insist upon having twenty-five cents, for above a quarter of an hour, and I verily believe he would not have abated me a single farthing if he had not seen me at the last gasp; and I determined rather to die than submit to his extortion!"

A Little More

True riches are never enough for the greedy, who always desire a little more.

"When I was a lad," says one, "an old gentleman took some trouble to teach me some little knowledge of the world. With this view I remember he once asked me when a man was rich enough? I replied, when he has a thousand pounds. He said, No.—Two thousand? No.—Ten thousand? No.—Twenty thousand? No.—A hundred thousand? which I thought would settle the business; but he still continuing to say No, I gave it up, and confessed I could not tell, but begged he would inform me. He gravely said, When he has a little more than he has, and that is never! If he acquires one thousand, he wishes to have two thousand; then five, then ten, then twenty, then fifty; from that his riches would amount to a hundred thousand, and so on till he had grasped the whole world; after which he would look about him, like Alexander, for other worlds to possess."