St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, February 14, 2010

To Covet and to Crave – Rev. David Mundy

Deuteronomy 5:6-21 Luke 12:22-34

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Do you remember the boombox? Back in the mid nineteen-eighties a lot of young people, mostly guys, wandered around with something that looked like a small coffin with dials on their shoulders. These boomboxes, or ghetto blasters as they were sometimes called, were billed as portable stereos, but they look ridiculous compared to what we consider portable today.

A couple of months ago I joined the rest of my family when I purchased an Ipod, which as you probably know is the latest version of carrying your music around with you. I finally “took the plunge” and one of my daughters wanted to know which Ipod I had purchased. My answer was that it was the one on sale, but she wanted more information than that. It turns out that I have the Nano, and when she eventually saw it she was disgusted. She had purchased the same one a short time before me, except that it wasn’t the same one. The one I have will take photographs and even works as a video camera. Her “older” version doesn’t do this. Who knew? I just wanted music. Mine also has an FM tuner, which is not a feature on my other daughter’s Ipod. Again, who knew?

I’m very pleased that my Ipod has up-to-date stuff, although I’m not sure why. Have I actually taken a picture or video with mine? Nope. In fact I don’t know how. I confess I am so pathetic I get the three women in my life to download my music for me. Did I generously offer to trade mine with my daughter so she has those features? No way! If I did that then mine wouldn’t be the cool one with features that I don’t really need or want.

If you are saying to yourself that this is silly, I resemble that remark! Hey, this is the North American way! Now, the shift from the boombox to the Ipod, was major, but the shift from one Ipod to another is subtle. You can’t tell by looking at it how different it is. That doesn’t really matter though. I managed to lure my daughter into engaging in one of the deadly sins –envy – and breaking the tenth commandment “you shall not covet.”

This is the last Sunday in our series on the Ten Commandments, during which we have addressed six of the ten, and I wonder if we have saved the best for last.

I will say now that I have really appreciated hearing from you during these weeks because you have offered many interesting anecdotes and observations about the commandments. A lawyer in our congregation, who works with those seeking refugee status on the grounds of religious persecution in their home countries, mentioned that they will ask applicants about the Ten Commandments to see if they have a clue about the bible. Someone else shared that during her childhood in the Netherlands an elder would lead the congregation in repeating the commandments every week.

Some of you sent me jokes and cartoons and shared resources you had squirrelled away on the commandments. The best part has been your wisdom, including some really tough questions from a sixteen-year-old in the congregation who followed the series closely. Now that we’re at the end of the series he may stop!

This final commandment says “You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, You shall not crave your neighbour’s house, or his field, or his male or female slaves, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour’s.” Lest you be confused friends, when it says “ass” it is referring to someone’s donkey. As far as I know the only person in our congregation who owns a donkey is our Farmer Jim, and Cricket is a high-mileage donkey which probably wouldn’t interest you, even if you want one. We may not covet Jim’s donkey, but we might covet his mode of transportation, or someone else’s car. How about a Lamborghini sports car? I bought my car used from Fred Flintstone – that’s how old it is – but why not dream big?

It’s interesting, don’t you think, that this commandment moves from the very specific to the general. It probably lists those relationships and conveniences and tools and property which would have been most important in ancient times. They couldn’t have begun to imagine how much more varied and complicated our lives are than theirs. In the Jewish Publication Society it uses the words “covet” and “crave” so to help you out, here are definitions of those words:

covet

1. To feel blameworthy or immoderate desire for that which is another's.

2. To wish for longingly

crave

1. To have an intense desire for.

2. To need urgently; require.

3. To beg earnestly for; implore.

The commandment covers not just wanting other people’s stuff, it is about hungering for relationships we can’t or shouldn’t have, and for what we now call a “lifestyle.” The only lifestyle in the ancient world was staying alive but now we have the luxury of creating an image that others can see. And the goal, really, is to have other people coveting and craving our lifestyle rather than us coveting theirs.

I am supposed to covet your experiences, your Caribbean cruise – oh, how nice for you – or your trip to, say, Cuba. So if I go into debt to get that experience, I can justify it by saying that I deserve to have what you have.

We are encouraged to covet the shape and style of beautiful people. Do you notice that we are now inundated with television pitches for weight loss and fitness – it is never-ending! Someone mentioned that when she was a child she used to giggle secretly when she heard that we weren’t supposed to covet someone else’s ass – it sounded naughty to a kid. Well, we are now encouraged to long for buns of steel, and perfect abs, and toned arms.

I love the infomercials showing perfectly sculpted people grinning away while they work out. I go to the gym regularly and if everyone was smiling like that it would scare me. But of course that is part of the fantasy world of advertising. Everything sparkles and shines more, and saves more time, and makes life better in a commercial – that’s what they are for.

Even the things we buy can be to the image we want to create, not necessarily because we are going to use them. Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente wrote a funny piece on the new kitchens her well-heeled circle of friends were having installed in their homes. The kitchens actually cost as much as their first houses did, and they have state-of-the-art appliances and granite counter tops and the best of everything. The trouble is, Wente says, that most of them don’t cook all that much – they are too busy to cook! It is more the concept of having the perfect kitchen rather than actually cooking in it. So they all sit in one another’s kitchens and admire everything.

Now you might wonder if a little coveting is actually harmless compared to a lot of the other commandments. After all, it keeps the economy ticking along and producing good and services is necessary for our prosperity, right? To a certain extent the things we purchase are an expression of our tastes and personality. We dress in a certain way because it does make a statement about who we are. Some of you know that my undergraduate degree was in art history and I appreciate why we often place a high value on objects of aesthetic value.

And honestly, many of the items we purchase are really clever and convenient – an MP3 player really is much better than a boombox and a computer is much better than a typewriter. Come on, is it really that bad to want them?

The problem of course is that we don’t seem to know when enough is enough. We have closets and basements and garages full of stuff that comes under the category of “it seemed like a good idea at the time.” And make no mistake, hungering after other people’s tools and toys, and experiences, and perhaps their spouses, shapes our souls. We can take on a lifestyle of dissatisfaction, of discontent, that invades every aspect of our lives. We will never have enough, or look good enough in the culture we live in.

We could describe coveting as a hunger that may be met for a moment but is ultimately “empty calories. We become shaped as Getters or Cravers rather than Givers. But if what Jesus says is true, our real hunger is for God. Often Jesus speaks of the hunger and thirst we have which will only be satisfied when we are in a deep and meaningful relationship with God. Jesus calls us to sustained, practical simplicity in our lives and a commitment to generosity rather than discontent. I have been enjoying Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the bible called The Message because it offers just enough of a twist, the turns of phrase that are different enough to make us sit up and notice. In Peterson’s “take” on Luke 12 Jesus says to his disciples and says to us:

What I'm trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how God works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don't be afraid of missing out. You're my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself.

Luke 12:29-32

One of the reasons we come together from week to week is to turn our hearts and minds toward the God of extravagant and gracious love so that our souls will be saved from greed and false gods. It’s fitting that the first commandments we addressed were no false gods and no idols and we have concluded with the instruction not to covet and not to crave.

It’s essential that as Christians we continue lead the way in a country which is increasingly secular and materialistic, but has a good heart, when it is challenged. Don’t you find it encouraging that Canadians have responded with such amazing generosity to the terrible circumstances in Haiti. Where did that money come from – more than 100 million dollars? It came from regular people, like us, millions of us, deciding that we could put aside what we thought were the priorities of our lives to share what we have with those who needed it more.

Imagine what our community, our country, our planet would be if we lived this way all the time, not just as a reaction to a crisis. It is God’s way and the way of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We made our own bulletin this morning because it is Valentine’s Day, and you see the heart in the centre with Jesus’ words, the last phrase in our gospel reading today beneath it: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”