During these last three weeks of annual leave I spent some time doing something I haven’t done for a few years – sorted out some of my stamp collection.   That brought home to me a fact that most stamp collectors today know: that it’s impossible to keep up with production.

In the year that I first started collecting postage stamps, Australia’s postal department issued just six (6...!) new stamps.   In the catalogue for 2009 I counted 109 new stamps issued in that year.   But that’s not the end of the story.   Variations for that year amounted to almost 600 (variations are things such as blocks of stamps, gutter pairs, strips, presentation cards etc.).   It would have cost me more than $5000 if I bought all 2009 variations in mint condition.   That’s not a hobby anymore – that’s big business.

Why the huge change?   Part of the answer no doubt is that emails have replaced letters, so that far less stamps are being used for snail mail than, say, twenty years ago.   So Australia Post is directing its attention to stamp collectors worldwide.   To put it crudely, it’s all about revenue raising.

As I reflected on that it made me think about the role that greed plays in our present day economy.   In the 1987 movie, Wall Street, the fictional character, Gordon Gekko, gives a lecture on the theme that greed is good.   Many today would argue that it is greed that keeps the wheels of the economy turning.   Greed drives the machinery of our materialistic culture.

The problem is that greed catches up with us and in the end becomes self-defeating.   I’d like to think that in some small way I am conducting my own protest against greed.   Like many other stamp collectors I’ve decided not pursue collecting stamps beyond a certain date.   Why should I support Australia Post’s greed?

But the problem with greed is not just that it is self-defeating, it is actually sin.   And it’s a sin that isn’t limited to postage stamp production or to Wall Street.   Greed affects all of us – sometimes in very subtle ways.   Do we really need that new IPhone?   Can we really justify those additional charges we’re levying in our business dealings?

Jesus listed greed as one of the sinful things that come out of the human heart (Mk.7:22) and Paul speaks of greed as one of the marks of those who worship the creature rather than the Creator (Rom.1:2).   That’s why he also refers to greed as idolatry (Col.3:5) – because ultimately it’s putting wealth and possession before God.   For this reason we as Christians ought to guard ourselves that there is “not even a hint of greed” in our lives (Eph.5:3).

None of us is going to find that easy.   We live in a culture where we have an advertising industry that aims to capitalise on our inbuilt greed.   It’s only when we know our lives to be lived within the parameters of God’s providential care that we are able to enjoy contentment.   Material things (even postage stamps!) – are a blessing of God’s common grace but when greed drives us then we are in danger of engaging in the idolatry that Scripture warns against.

John Westendorp