So Solomon says, "'Bring me a sword. Divide the living boy in two; then give half to the one, and half to the other.' But the woman whose son was alive said to the king- because her compassion for her son burned within her-'Please, my lord, give her the living boy; certainly do not kill him!' The other said, 'It shall be neither mine nor yours; divide it.' Then the king responded, 'Give the first woman the living boy; do not kill him. She is his mother.'" Hence the phrase "as wise as Solomon."

And so it is with this traditional identification of the "Teacher" of Ecclesiastes with wise King Solomon that we are to read the first lesson this morning. And there we learn that this king, though blessed with every conceivable gift-wisdom, houses, vineyards, forests, slaves, herds and flocks, gives himself up completely and utterly to despair, for he says: "I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me-and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish?"

In other words, old Sol realized "you can't take it with you." Not a happy thought, to be sure, but why does it eat away at him so?

It looks to me like Solomon forgot about the two women who quarreled over possession of the child. For there we meet a woman so greedy she is willing to have an infant hewn in half by a sword, and a woman so compassionate that she is willing to give up her only begotten son in order to save his life.

And so we have a lesson in contrasts: King Solomon in the story of the two women imparts an important lesson about greed. But the teacher and king of Ecclesiastes forgets that people and things are not there simply to fulfill his own needs and desires, however legitimate they may be. This king is so obsessed with the fact that those houses and vineyards are his houses and vineyards, those forests and slaves are his forests and slaves, those herds and flocks are his herds and flocks-indeed, that his toil and wisdom are his toil and wisdom-that he loses sight of the fact that all these things are not possessions, but gifts. And as long as he is concerned only with what these gifts do for him, he will not be happy.

"So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God," Jesus says. That one woman in compassion for her child was rich toward God. But the king and teacher of Ecclesiastes, and the rich man of Jesus' parable, are not.

As Jesus also says, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."

But what exactly does one's life consist in? What is lacking in our attitude toward our own abundance? A clue may be found, I believe, by asking: What is lacking in the king's attitude toward all he has? What is lacking in the rich man's attitude when he says to himself, "relax, eat, drink, be merry"?

Both the king of Ecclesiastes and the rich man of Jesus' parable are concerned with themselves alone. Their attitude consists solely in what their possessions can do for them, and there is no consideration of what these things mean in the larger context of their communities or in their relationship with God. This attitude is, as Paul says in this morning's reading from Colossians, a form of idolatry, that is, valuing something so much that all our priorities are put out of order. Thus, our perspective on life and on the relationships that should be the most meaningful to us becomes morbidly distorted.

Indeed, Paul doesn't pull any punches when he exhorts us to "put to death…greed (which is idolatry)." In equating greed with idolatry, he points out how easy it is for us to be distracted from the living God to dead things. The greedy woman would rather have half a dead baby than let another have a whole live one. If that's not greed, I don't know what is.

So, too, the king and the rich man are so concerned with their possessions that instead of possessing their possessions, their possessions end up possessing them! What the king and the rich man lack in their attitude toward what they possess is summed up in one simple word: gratitude. Without gratitude, we are greedy. Without gratitude, we cannot be generous.

The opposite of greed is generosity. And generosity comes from a thankful heart. If we give begrudgingly, or out of guilt, I can guarantee that one thing we won't feel is generous. For most of us, generosity and gratitude are learned rather than inborn. Anne reminded me of this just the other day when she showed me a journal her mother kept of entertaining pronouncements that Anne would make as a child. In one entry, Anne, at a mere two years and four months old, is clutching the change her parents have provided to put in the offering plate. Anne says, "I not give any more to Jesus because I need keep it myself." I thought the same thing just last fall, around pledge card time!

After reading what two year-old Anne wrote, I reminded the now thirty-two year old Anne that a lot had changed in her attitude toward stewardship over the past three decades. On our second date (our first was the Manor Dance two years ago), we went out to dinner, and after dinner we had a long talk in the car about the theology of stewardship. Pretty romantic stuff, that. Believe it or not, she was the one who brought it up; Anne was talking about the differences she saw between her own attitude toward stewardship and that conveyed by her parish's approach to their pledge drive that year. In the course of that conversation, I learned that she pledged not only at her own parish in Baltimore, but also at her parent's parish (where we will be married) and at her childhood parish in New York City! She went on to talk about stewardship in terms not just of dollars-and-cents, but of giving one's whole life to God, of generosity of time and talent as well as treasure. She set my heart a-flutter with such talk, and I remember thinking in that moment, "I could marry this woman."

Good stewardship changes lives. It can even net you a life partner. But the truth is, from childhood to adulthood, we have to practice the virtues of generosity and gratitude constantly. We have to be intentional about being grateful and then giving from that place of gratitude. It is only through grounding our generosity in gratitude that we become more like Christ in his own self-giving generosity, and empowered by grace to show that generosity to others-and occasionally, when we need it most, to ourselves.

At least, that's the way it's supposed to work. Unfortunately, it's still possible to come to church every week (or every other week), and then go home and despair over all the toil and chasing after wind that the teacher and king of Ecclesiastes describes. So what is it that makes the crucial difference?

Again, Paul, who never lacks for answers, points the way; he writes to the Colossians: "Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful…With gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

That last bit of Colossians chapter three, by the way, is one of the lessons appointed for use in the marriage service in the prayer book. Guess which lesson Anne and I chose for our epistle reading on September 4th? In this epistle, Paul reveals some of the most wonderful-and practical-secrets to living a life of gratitude and generosity, a life that enriches the poor woman and gives meaning to the rich man, a life that consists not "in the abundance of possessions," but in the abundance of gratitude that moves us to share our abundance with others.

Gratitude and generosity: these are the things that put greed to death and give life to the soul. These are the things that turn us from the idolatry of dead materialism to the worship of the living God. These are the things a strong marriage, a strong church, a strong society is made of; let these things, gratitude and generosity, be our guides, so that, whether we are clothed tomorrow in rags or the latest designer fashions, we will always be clothed first in love.