The final commandment(s) read(s): “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” I cannot tell you the amount of times that I have coveted my neighbor’s donkey. All joking aside, we get the point; we are not to desire anything that is not rightfully ours. We, the people of God, who have been set apart to be God’s representatives on this good earth, are not to be driven by our desires. Rather, our lives are shaped by God alone and all God desires. Rather than our lives revolving around what we do not have, we are thankful to God for what we do have, and we shape our life to revolve around God.
Do you remember that pastor a few weeks ago who made national news because he got mad that his congregation did not buy him an expensive designer watch as a gift? It is not really a gift if you are demanding it, is it? Even though this man was set apart to be a man after God’s heart, we can embarrassingly see that he was a man whose heart was after a designer watch.
You shall not covet. Rather, you shall trust in the Lord and trust that the Lord will provide.
Whenever I think of coveting, I think of Joey. Joey was the absolute opposite picture of one who covets. I am not certain that Joey ever coveted in his entire life. Joey was born with Down’s syndrome, but what abilities he lacked because of his disability was made up by his absolute joy in life. Whenever he was in the room while another person was opening presents, he squealed with excitement to see what gift the person got. Not once did he ever express, “I wish I had that” as other children do. Nor, did he ever try to take a gift or play with a gift someone else received. Rather, he was nothing but enthusiastic that the person got whatever gift they were given. “You are really going to like that!” he would say to you as he put his arm on your shoulder and watched you examine your prize.
Joey did not covet. It never crossed his mind to be envious of another person’s things. He was just happy that you were happy. Let me say that again: he was just happy that you were happy.
I used to look at him at such times and feel bad for him. I felt bad because he seemed to be lacking something intrinsic to who we are as people. His inability to be envious (his inability to covet as the rest of us all do) sort of made me feel bad for him, as if he were a little less human and less than who he should be. I was wrong.
In fact, it is coveting that makes us a little less than who we were created to be. It is our desire and craving for what someone else has that makes us less human…less than who we were created to be.
Remember the story of Adam and Eve? Remember how they were in this lush garden in the middle of Eden and how they had their every need met by God? They were created to live with God and to trust God for all their needs. And, they did. The Lord provided everything that they could possibly need. All the Lord had made was theirs. In this vast garden of plenty there was only one rule, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (NRSV, Genesis 2:17). There was one simple rule that they had to follow in order to be the people that God created them to be.
Apparently, one rule was too much. You know how the story goes: the serpent pointed the woman in the direction of the tree from which she should not eat. After the woman protested briefly, the Bible says that the woman, “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise” (NRSV, Genesis 3:6).
Guess what the Hebrew word for “desired” is right here? You guessed it; it is “covet.” The Bible is trying to teach us that it is coveting that sent us down this path away from being who we were created to be. It is coveting that sent us out of the garden, away from the Lord. It is coveting that separates us from the Holy One. It is desiring something else, and not trusting in the Lord, that puts us in the state we are in this world.
This is so true. Is it not coveting resources that are not rightfully ours that causes the destruction of the rainforests…the lungs of our earth? We are suffering from this coveting.
Is it not coveting other people’s power and privilege that causes the corrosive lies and deceptions within our politics? Our nation suffers from this coveting.
Is it not coveting what others have that focuses our attention on nice phones and designer handbags and ever bigger and nicer homes rather than focusing our attention on our neighbors…those people who God put right in front of us to love and help? Our relationships suffer from this coveting.
It is not coveting that leads us to focus on gaining more and more, and protecting all that we have rather than focusing on the richness of God and focusing on everyone for whom God cares?
Jesus emphatically teaches, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
“One’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” One’s life does not consist of pouring all attention into our desires. One’s life does not consist of coveting. “You shall not covet.”
It is not coincidence that coveting is the last commandment. The opposite of coveting is trusting the Lord, which is the first commandment. This is a commandment sandwich. Not coveting is the bottom piece of bread and the commandment to have no other gods is the top piece of bread, and the whole sandwich is about trusting and following the Lord.
Trusting
that God will provide for us is refusing to covet. It is good and healthy to thank the Lord
whenever the Lord provides. After-all, God
is good and faithful.
So why does that trust in the Lord break down into coveting? What is this desire to gain and accumulate and build up barns all about? What is at the heart of it all?
The story of Adam and Eve tells the tale. The woman, and the man who was standing right beside her, coveted the knowledge that only God had so that they could be in control. It is about control. They did not trust that God had their back.
This same story continues as their son Cain worries because his offering to God is not found to be as acceptable as his brother Abel’s. Cain wonders, “Is God’s holding out on me? Does God love me? Will God provide for me?” He does not trust God, so he takes matters tragically into his own hands.
Again and again the Israelites fail to trust that God will provide as they gather extra manna in the desert, though told not to; and ask for a golden calf to be their god just as God was providing them the gift of the law; and ask for a king and a temple when God was right with them the entire time, hovering above them in the cloud and the fire. Again and again we fail to trust God.
And, again and again, God proves to be trustworthy. God does not kill Adam and Eve when they eat from the tree, even though God promised they would die that very day. God shows mercy. God is trustworthy.
And, God does not destroy Cain after Cain murders his brother, but protects him against harm from others. God shows mercy. God is trustworthy.
And, God does not obliterate the chosen people as they rebel over and over again throughout Israel’s history. There is always a remnant left. God’s people are never completely destroyed. God shows mercy. God is trustworthy.
Our desire to seek control, and our desire to seek to gain more and more rather than seeking the Lord, also does not mean our utter destruction by the hand of the Lord. God shows mercy. God is trustworthy.
On the cross, Jesus dies so that we can be shown mercy. He dies so that our sins…our coveting…will die with him. Jesus shows us mercy, so that we can have a new life…the life that God meant us to live in the first place…a life in step with him.
Joey lived that life. And no, I am not saying that Joey was perfect. I am not one of those people who will unfairly idolize someone with a disability. Joey would stare at you and then scream in your face making your ears bleed. There was nothing holy about that. But, one thing that Joey did not do was covet. Instead, he was always joyous and thankful for anything that brought someone else joy. There was no hint of envy. With an exuberant joy, he celebrated with those who celebrate, and for that I do lift him up. In that way he was in step with the Lord. Joey lived a life of selfless gratitude, and would have certainly joined the Psalmist in singing the praises of the one who gives us all good things; the one in whom we can trust; our most Holy Lord.
“Praise the Lord!” the Psalmist sings. “Praise the Lord, O my soul! I will praise the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God all my life long” (NRSV, Psalm 146:1-2).
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