Westwood Presbyterian Church

November 15th, 2009

197 Browning  Boulevard, Winnipeg, Manitoba  R3K 0L1

REV. PETER BUSH's SERMONS

10th Commandment - Do Not Covet (Deut. 5: 1-21; Mark 10: 17-22)

     We come this morning to the end of our series in the Ten Commandments. The Commandments are commonly thought of has having two tables – commandments that relate to our relationship with God (commonly meaning the first four commandments) and the second table connecting to our relationship with our neighbour – that is other human beings (meaning the last six). And while that is a nice neat understanding of the ten – the two tables are deeply inter-connected – and nowhere is that more obvious than with the last “Thou shalt not covet.”

     Personally I find this one of the most difficult of the commands because I am aware of how easy it is to become someone who covets what others have. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and this command invites us to have some really tough conversations with ourselves. But I hope that by the end of the sermon we will have also found grace.

 

     On one level the command appears to relate solely to our relationship with our neighbour. So it is worth asking, “what does it mean to covet something that is my neighbour’s?” If I look at my neighbour’s car – and say to myself “I wish I had a car like that”; if I look at my neighbour’s kitchen appliances and say to myself “I wish my kitchen had all the things this one does” – that is okay as long as it stays as appreciation for what they have, and saying to ourselves – “it would be nice to have these things.”

     The danger comes when my wish – my “wouldn’t it be nice” – turns into a want; and then my want becomes a need. There are two stages here – when the wish of “wouldn’t it be nice” starts to turn to “I want”, jealousy begins to raise its ugly head. Jealousy of what the other person has. What they have that we want may be things (car, kitchen appliances); it may be personality traits (an outgoing personality, a great sense of humour); it maybe relationships (a good marriage, a caring family) – we can be jealous of a variety of things that someone else has.

     Jealousy, we are told, is a powerful emotion that leads people to do terrible things. If one watches enough crime shows on TV, jealousy is a common motivator for criminal action. But God would have us stop the jealousy process much earlier than stealing, much earlier than murder. For jealousy – coveting – does damage much earlier than that. If my “wouldn’t it be nice” has turned to “I want” then every time I meet the person in question my connection with them is strained. They remind me of what I do not have – they are a reminder of what I want. And so the connection becomes tense – I find it increasingly difficult to be in whole and healthy relationship with them. With these kinds of tensions in play it is hard to wish the best for them – it is hard to pray for them – it is hard to rejoice in the blessings that God has given to them. The command to not covet moves us from dealing with the actions of killing or stealing – to dealing with the attitudes that lead to killing and stealing.

     The command invites us into healthy relationships with people who are in very different circumstances than ourselves. For in this life we will meet people who appear to have lives that are fuller, richer, more wonderful than our own – and we are invited to be in relationship with them. We hear much about tearing down the gender walls – so that men and women are treated equally in a wide variety of situations; we hear the same about ethnicity as we learn to affirm that all people regardless of their race or ethnicity are of equal value and equally deserving of respect. Strikingly our society is strangely silent about the tensions that come because of the economic divisions in our world, our country, our community. We have not yet begun to fully explore the subtle ways in which economic barriers continue to exist. We, as people who call ourselves Christians, are invited by this command to find ways to live as one community – even though the community is made up of men and women, of people of various ethnic backgrounds, and of those who are well-off and those who find making ends meet a struggle.

 

     If the move to “I want” has the potential to damage my relationship with the one who has what I want – the move from “I want” to “I need” damages me. We are clever enough as people to not use “I need” language – and so we subtly shift to something like “If only I had that car my life would be fulfilled” – which is really saying the same thing. Life is not worth living without that thing – my life is lesser – my life is diminished because I do not have that thing. And quickly our lives become driven by getting that thing – it dominates who we are and what we are about.

     This is where “keeping up with the Joneses” comes from. If they have it, I must have it, if I don’t get it then I am lesser. And so our lives become a rat race of gathering the pile of things that will make us happy. But each time we think the pile is now complete – we hear of something else that has come along that we now feel obligated to acquire. This endless chasing we discover in fact makes us unhappy, for it never ends. And this process diminishes us, human beings made in the image of God, to being mere consumers.

     Now all the economists out there are saying “Wait, there is a problem with that kind of argument – if everyone stopped chasing after things – if everyone stopped buying the latest and the newest the economy would collapse.” And now we are to the heart of one of the deepest truths of our time – we have a new god in town – a god called the economy. The god called the economy tells us that bigger is better, that more is good, that in fact greed is good. God – the Triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – says “there is such a thing as enough – there is contentment – there is an end to striving for ever more.”

     A tangent -- Now I want to be clear here – God – the Triune God – does not believe that poverty is good, or that people who are poor should not strive to get out of poverty. No, a reading through the Bible makes clear that God wants all people to have enough. So God’s challenge is to the rich, the well-off, those with much of this world’s resources – it is time to down-size to what is enough so that all might have enough. For there is enough in this world for everyone to have enough. The issue is not with God’s provision – the issue is with how human beings have distributed the enough that God has given.

 

     But I want to get back to what happens to us when we move to thinking that our lives will only be fulfilled if we have the things on our list. And our list may not be just things like cars and kitchen appliances – the list may be – “If my kids were like the kids the next door neighbour has, my life would be better” “If I were only a better salesperson I would rise more rapidly in my job and life would be better.” And as we do that we less grateful, less thankful, less able to recognize the good we have received. As I am constantly seeing what I don’t have, seeing what is not mine, I am unable to see the good that has come to me, the blessings that have been given to me. I am unable to recognize that there is good that has been poured into my life that is uniquely mine.

     When I want to have what someone else has, when I want the abilities that someone else has, when I start to say that my life would be better if I had that – was that – then I stop seeing that God has made me for who I am with blessings and abilities that I am invited to use. When I want to be someone else, or live the life that someone else has, then I stop living the life that God has given me. My calling is not to live someone else’s life – my calling is to live my life. I am invited to trust that I have been given what I need – the enough – for the life I have been called to.  

 

     The passage we read about the rich person who came to Jesus and asked “What do I need to do to inherit eternal life” points out that at the heart of coveting is a distrust of God. The man trusted money more than he trusted God – that is at the heart of the test Jesus put before him. The man had no trouble honouring parents or keeping Sabbath or telling the truth – those he had done. His problem was having no other gods but God – he had turned his money into a god, into something that he trusted would get him through. Jesus cut to the heart of the matter and asked – “Which do you trust more – God or money? Do you trust God to provide you with what you need even if you give all your money away?” And sadly the man recognized that he could not do that.

     At the heart of coveting is this question – “Which do you trust more to bring you happiness and fulfillment – God or the thing you think will bring you happiness?” 

 

     And now we are getting back to where this whole series started – we are back to the first commandment which begins – “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” We have been called by God, gifted by God, given resources and abilities, and God invites us to use those things that we have been uniquely given to be His people in the contexts in which we find ourselves. God says to us – “My grace is sufficient for you.” This grace has been poured into our lives – we have been blessed by God – we have enough.

     And here is our most powerful weapon against coveting – a joyful recognition of the grace we have received. As the old hymn said, “Count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise what the Lord has done.” Our response to coveting is gratitude. Gratitude to the One who made us – knitting us together, forming us, giving us life and breath – gratitude to the One who saves us – redeeming us from the power of sin and death and hell – gratitude to the One who gifts us – giving us abilities and talents to use for His glory and honour. Gratitude – thankfulness – these are our response – these are our weapons in the fight to live lives that celebrate the enough that God has given.

 

     Thanks be to God for His grace poured into our lives. Thanks be to God that He has given us more than enough for which to be thankful.