“I want Greenland. I want Venezuela.”

Whether it is a literal island, a neighbor’s oil, a distant water source, or the very autonomy of other human beings, the cry of the powerful remains the same across the centuries. We live in a world where we always seem to want more than we need. We have given it many names—colonialism, manifest destiny, national interest, economic security—but beneath the polished vocabulary of statecraft lies a very old and very simple sin: Greed.

Greed is the act of coveting what belongs to another. It is the restless energy that looks across a border or a fence and decides that “what is mine is not enough.” This human desire to possess what is not ours has existed since the beginning. It is why the Ten Commandments explicitly warn us: “Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife; and you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Deuteronomy 5:21).

The rich and the powerful will always find a way to justify their hunger. They will wrap it in theology, dress it in economic necessity, or mask it behind financial projections. This is not a problem unique to one president or one nation. We see it in the halls of power in Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and New Delhi. The list goes on, but the story is always the same: the strong devouring the weak.

I am reminded of the story of King David and Naboth’s vineyard, or even more poignantly, the parable told to David by the Prophet Nathan after the King had taken what did not belong to him. Nathan spoke of a rich man with many flocks who took the single, beloved ewe lamb of a poor neighbor just to feed a traveler. When David grew angry at the injustice, Nathan leveled the finger of truth: “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7).

Wars do not start for the well-being of others. Let no one fool us. When a nation is invaded, or a smaller people group is absorbed, it is not an act of charity; it is an act of theft. From the Old Testament stories of capturing tribal lands to the conquests of Alexander and Caesar, to the Popes and Kings of the Middle Ages who carved up the world in God’s name—it is all a fraud. We either stand with the fraudster or we stand with the Truth.

Why are we so greedy? Why are we not satisfied with the abundance within us—the unique, God-given soul that no one can ever steal? We are truly rich only when we care for those who need love. Material possessions are not transformational; they cannot change the rhythm of a heart.

The Bible is clear on the cruelty of this path: “He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich—both come only to poverty” (Proverbs 22:16).

In the Middle Ages, the poet Dante Alighieri envisioned the greedy in the Divine Comedy, forced to push heavy weights against one another, forever trapped by the very things they sought to possess. St. Thomas Aquinas warned us that greed is a “sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of things temporal.”

I wonder, what if we stopped looking at “Greenland” and started looking at the person beside us? What if we realized that when we take what is not ours, we lose the only thing that actually matters—our own integrity?

I pray that we find the courage to be satisfied. I pray we find the strength to protect the “ewe lambs” of our neighbors. In the end, we take nothing with us but the love we gave away.

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