Faith
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2 Parables as a reflection that greed is not good.
The BIBLE: Luke 12:13-21
13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
"The Pardoner’s Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales is a dark, ironic fable about three reckless friends who set out to hunt down Death. Blinded by greed after discovering a hoard of gold, they all end up murdering one another, perfectly illustrating the Pardoner's favorite theme: Radix malorum est cupiditas (Greed is the root of all evil).
The Quest for Death
The story begins in Flanders with three unruly, drunken young men spending their time drinking, gambling, and swearing. One day, they hear a funeral bell ring and learn that a friend has been killed by an invisible thief known as Death. Enraged, the three men swear an oath to stick together as brothers and hunt down this entity called Death to exact their revenge.
The Oak Tree and the Gold
Along their journey, they encounter a very old, feeble man who tells them that he is wandering the earth waiting to die, but Death will not take his life. When the rowdy youths disrespectfully demand to know where Death is, the old man points them toward a winding path leading to a grove and a particular oak tree.
Upon reaching the tree, the young men find no sign of the Grim Reaper. Instead, they discover an enormous, gleaming pile of gold florins.
The Betrayal and Demise
Instantly, the men forget their quest to hunt down Death. They decide the gold must be moved to one of their houses under the cover of night so they aren't caught stealing it. To celebrate and plan their next move, they draw straws, and the youngest is chosen to go into town to buy food and wine.
While he is gone, the remaining two men conspire to murder him when he returns so they can split the treasure only between the two of them. Meanwhile, the youngest man goes to town, also consumed by greed and the desire to keep the gold for himself. He buys three bottles of wine and secretly laces two of them with a powerful, lethal poison.
When the youngest returns to the oak tree, his friends ambush and kill him. To celebrate their supposed victory, they sit down and drink the poisoned wine he brought back. Shortly after, all three men die horrible deaths, leaving the gold unclaimed.
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