The tyranny of things

After I posted last night I re-read one of my favourite Wendell Berry poems, and realised how applicable it was to the issue of greed and the church.

We Who Prayed and Wept
We who prayed and wept
from liberty and Kings
and the yoke of liberty
accept the tyranny of things
we do not need.
In plenitude too free,
we have become adept
beneath the yoke of greed.

Those who will not learn
in plenty to keep their place
must learn it by their need
when they have had their way
and the field spurn their seed.
We have failed Thy grace.
Lord, I flinch and pray,
send Thy necessity.
From A Part (1980)