The Commandment You Can't Keep

The Commandment You Can’t Keep

The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

Collect of the Day: O God, who declarest thine almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity; Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Homily Text: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s (Exodus 20:17,  BCP, p.87).

When I was a boy our favorite Commandment to recite was the 10th – because we got to say the word “ass. Another thing I recall is the definition of coveting we learned: “Coveting is wanting something some else has enough to take it.” I figured I was OK with the 10th. I might want another guy’s baseball glove, but I wouldn’t away it from him.

If I had known better the meaning of the Commandment I wouldn’t have been so confident about not breaking it.

1.Commandment

“Thou shalt not covet” takes us to the realm of needs and desires. Is all desire wrong? Buddhism offers to get followers beyond the experience of desire so they are indifferent to needs. But need and desire aren’t evil. God made us creatures with needs and desires. Jesus, dying on the cross, expressed need, when he said, “I thirst.” We all get hungry and the desire for food leads not only to the preservation of life but also its enjoyment.

But real needs and good desires can be twisted. Because of our sinfulness, good desires can be perverted so we desire wrong things, or fulfill desires in sinful ways. Desires can take control of us, become our reason for living, and become the god we worship, trust, and serve.

The commandment says, “You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.”  There is no escaping the reach of the commandment – “anything that is your neighbor’s -  looks, age, health, money, job, children, vacations – anything that is your neighbor’s. Covetousness is being unhappy with what God has given you. It’s when you see what he has given another person and wish you had it, even if it meant the other person lost it.

2.Example

Let’s look for insight into covetousness by looking at some Biblical examples:

• Achan teaches us that coveting can create a desire so strong we are willing to risk destruction. When Joshua led the people across Jordan River, the first city they conquered was Jericho. The LORD told the people to take nothing. Everything in the city was devoted to the LORD either for destruction or dedication:

…keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it.  But all silver and gold, and every vessel of bronze and iron, are holy to the Lord; they shall go into the treasury of the Lord.”  (Joshua 6:18,19).

Jericho fell. Next, they attacked Ai. It was so small Israel believed 3000 men could take it. But Israel was defeated. The army turned and ran and 36 soldiers were killed.

Joshua asked the LORD, “Did you bring us to this land to destroy us?” The LORD rebuked Joshua: “Get up off your face. The problem is that someone took from Jericho things devoted to destruction. Because of that Israel is devoted to destruction until this sin is dealt with. Tomorrow I will show you who is guilty. The next day they cast lots until a man named Achan was singled out. Achan confessed:

“Truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did:  when I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar, and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”

Coveting led to destruction. It risked Israel’s destruction. It ended in the destruction of Achan and all his family.

• David teaches us that coveting can quickly become so strong that we become compulsive and impulsive. We must have it and have it now.

Late one afternoon, David was walking on the roof of his palace. He looked down and saw a beautiful woman taking a bath. He lingered to look. He must find out who she was. His servants told him her name was Bathsheba, and she was married to a soldier named Uriah. David sent for her. They committed adultery. Later she sent word that she was pregnant. David had to hide his sin, so he sent word to the army to send Uriah home on leave. But Uriah was a principled soldier. He refused to sleep with his wife, while his fellow soldiers were risking their lives. So, David took the next step. He sent Uriah back to the army carrying his own death warrant. David’s ordered his general to arrange for Uriah to be killed in battle. Coveting another man’s wife led to adultery and adultery to murder. The child conceived died, and from then on there was intrigue and conflict in David’s family.

James describes the process:

… each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when It is fully grown brings forth death (1:13-15).

• Ahab teaches us that coveting makes us indifferent to others and to justice.

Right next to Ahab’s palace in Jezreel there was a vineyard owned by a man named Naboth. Ahab asked Naboth to let him have the vineyard for a vegetable garden. Ahab would give Naboth a better vineyard or to pay him for it, whichever Naboth wanted. Naboth knew the Lord had commanded each family to keep its land and pass it down to future generations. Naboth refused.

Ahab was thwarted. He pouted. At home, he went to be bed, turned his face to the wall and refused to eat. His wife Jezebel asked him what was wrong. He told her. This was no problem for Jezebel. She said, “Aren’t you the king? Cheer up. I’ll get you that vineyard.” Jezebel sent a letter with the king’s seal to the elders of the city. She told them to have a banquet with Naboth as the honoree, but to have some unprincipled stand up and accuse Naboth of cursing both God and the king. Naboth was immediately condemned and executed by stoning.

The prophet Micah describes what Ahab and those like him do:

They covet fields and seize them,
     and houses, and take them away;
they oppress a man and his house,
    a man and his inheritance. (2:2)

Ahab coveted a vineyard so much that he and his wife arranged for men to bear false witness against their neighbor which led to judicial murder. Ahab cared noting for the rights or life of Naboth.

• The rich fool teaches us that covetousness focuses us on this life so much we give no attention to the life to come.

A man asked Jesus to tell his brother to divide the inheritance with him. Jesus took the occasion to issue a warning:

Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions (Luke 12:16)

Then Jesus told a story. A rich man’s land produced so plentifully that he had a problem. He thought to himself:

What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’  And he said, I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.  And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry (Luke 12:17-19).

But God had a different plan. He said:

Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? (Luke 12:20)

Jesus drove home the point:

So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Covetousness focuses our thoughts, purposes, and lives on money and things, perhaps thinking that when we have enough and have lived our lived we will pay attention to God and our souls. Usually that day never comes.

The 10th Commandment is the commandment we cannot keep. That seems to have been St. Paul’s experience:

For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness (Romans 7:7,8).

There was a time when Paul was satisfied with himself regarding his keeping the law and having a righteousness that God approved. But then he thought more deeply about the 10th, and he realized coveting does not have to do with what you do in your external life but what goes on in your heart.

Paul discovered what Jesus had taught:

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. (Mark 7:21,22).

We might get away with saying: “I don’t worship idols. I have never murdered anyone, or robbed a bank, or committed the act of adultery.” But then the 10th Commandment focuses on our hearts, and we cannot honestly say, “I don’t covet.” The 10th Commandment convinces us that we cannot save ourselves by keeping the Law. We need a Savior, Jesus Christ the righteous, who never coveted and then offered his life as the sacrifice for our coveting. Here at this Table he offers us his sacrificed body and shed blood for our salvation.