You shall not covet your neighbor's house.
What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not scheme to get our neighbor's inheritance or house, or get it in a way which only appears right, but help and be of service to him in keeping it.
Click through to hear more about this commandment!
Two words come to the fore as we try to discover what this commandment holds for us. We need to know what "covet" means and why "house" is its object.
At a basic level "covet" means "desire" or "to want". But the word is tinged towards the negative, not just simple wanting but desire freighted with jealousy and the urge to possess.
This can be tricky because it's not bad to want things nor is all jealousy inappropriate. Some desire, even some jealousy, comes from appreciation. For instance when I see a wonderful piece of art I often wish I could see it more, maybe even have it hanging in my house. I also get a little wistful that I don't have the ability to create such things. That wistfulness makes more more appreciative of the artist who does. I might say, "I wish I could do that" but what I really mean is, "Your gifts are amazing and have affected me deeply." Want, or even jealousy, which evidences genuine appreciation of something outside of yourself is not coveting. In an odd way these desires bring good into the world, at least in the sense of more reverence and praise for those things and people outside of you.
Coveting reveals an inverse impulse to that kind of desire and praise. Coveting doesn't focus on the beauty of something outside yourself as much as the lack of something inside. Coveting starts with the premise, "I am empty. What I have is inadequate. I am inadequate without this thing I see. Therefore I must have it." Astute Biblical scholars among us will note that this sounds an awful lot like what Adam and Eve said when looking at the forbidden fruit in the garden. The extension of this impulse is not praise but envy...envy which often results in a tearing down instead of a building up. "Why does he get such nice things? What has he done to deserve them? I'm better than he, more deserving than he. I've been treated unfairly. Those things should be mine." We mentally assail people who have what we want, knocking them down so that the theoretical taking of their goods seems more justified. Having started with emptiness and pain, this envy gives birth to more as it progresses.
Most of us know the difference between appreciation and coveting, I think. The best barometer is what you feel inside you. Are you experiencing that mingled sadness and joy which always accompanies the profoundly beautiful experiences of our lives (think seeing the Sistine Chapel, for instance) or are you feeling a little sick, bitter, resentful? The former means you've just seen something wonderful and had appropriate desire for it. The latter means you're ready to tear it down if it can't be yours.
Having covered coveting, we also need to talk about the "house" part of the commandment. This certainly refers to a person's home. As soon as humans learned to put roofs over their heads to stave off the weather house and property became an indelible part of our identity. For many folks in Biblical times it was all they had. They'd work on someone else's land. Their possessions were so crude that nobody would desire them. Who wants an ugly clay bowl and a wooden fork to eat with? That house represented their entire physical property, the only thing they could touch and call "theirs" that would never run away from them or die.
House and property also comprise a great deal of our wealth today. For most of us they're by far the biggest single purchase of our lives. But our physical wealth goes far beyond this. We have cars, televisions, living room rugs, silverware and china, fancy curtains, knick-knack collections, workshops stuffed with tools. These would also come under the umbrella of "house" for purposes of this commandment. Any physical thing can become an object of desire. It just depends which way your desires point! It's fine to appreciate the beauty of a neighbor's fine glass collection or diamond ring. It's wrong to feel such a lack inside that we aren't complete unless we have that same ring or better. It's even worse to wish (or plot) ill for that neighbor in resentment or to try and deprive them of their possessions.
The remedies to the perilous, covetous state of mind are two. Both of them are worthy of daily practice.
1. Don't be empty!
The root of coveting is a perceived lack. People who are full tend to covet less. Realize that Christ died for you, that God loved you enough to save you, that he gave everything for you. That makes you special no matter how many material possessions you have or don't have. Count your blessings and the ways in which God's beauty shows in your life. Find reasons to be content today! Then hold on to those reasons and don't let the world--even an unjust world--take them away from you or make you forget them.
In addition, when you do find those resentful, covetous feelings rising inside you, stop for a second. Realize that this has little or nothing to do with external objects. Those are just things...atoms and molecules arranged in a certain way. They can't make you feel good or bad. They just exist. This is about you and how you feel inside. Something is wrong. There's an emptiness inside that can't be filled with material goods. This feeling is a warning sign of emptiness. Instead of asking why they have that thing and why you don't, ask why you need that thing they have so much in order to feel OK about yourself and your life. It might be time to find out what that's all about before you waste time, energy, and friendships being jealous over things that won't make you feel better or fill what's missing and/or hurting inside.
2. Don't define yourself or your status in life by material things. Don't define other people's worth that way either.
Material things are wonderful gifts to the extent that they bring happiness, love, and good relationships into the world. Their meaning is lost--indeed, they become millstones around our necks--when we use them to define our identity. Our true identity lies with Christ. We are children of God. This remains true whether we have zero dollars or a billion. If we don't live by that affirmation we are lost. No amount of hiding behind fancy trinkets can disguise that.
It's fine to have things. It's even better to share them and use them to create community. Avoid the trap of purchasing things to make your feel better about yourself and your life. Avoid the trap of showing off your goods or property as if they made you better than others. Avoid the trap of judging people by outside appearances. I've visited houses where yards are kept immaculately with precise lawns accented by pretty flowers. I've visited houses were almost all the yard space was functional, growing vegetables and the like. I've visited houses where the yard was overgrown or strewn with children's toys. All of those houses were equally wonderful, just in different ways. I've been in big houses and small trailers, places with astonishing living rooms and others that looked like a mad scientist's warehouse, eaten at antique wooden tables and sat on a kitchen stool in front of the only square foot of counter space not covered by something. Who cares? All were filled with lovely people and I had a great time in each. Sometimes I have more fun riding in a broken down beater than I would in the fanciest new pickup on the market.
Keeping up with the Joneses is the silliest pursuit I can think of outside of actually being the Joneses in the first place. What you have in life or how it looks is far less important than what you do with it. Let the Joneses be the Joneses. We should worry about being the best Smiths and Fredricksons and Horsterbeebers we can be...getting whatever material things best express our joy and not worrying about the rest. For some that would be a snowmobile, for others a nice lamp, for others jewelry, for others a slick computer. For some a just nice meal would do. Whatever it is, enjoy it to the fullest. Rejoice when you get to experience your neighbor's material joys as well without having to possess them yourself to make the experience valid. When you see someone who doesn't have the resources to afford many enjoyable things, help them out as you can...maybe even giving up some of your own in the process.
Nothing lasts forever. We have to hold to material things lightly and value them accordingly. They're not the answer to everything. They're simply another of the many expressions of love we've been given. Love is the only thing that really endures. Keep that in mind and you'll have a better idea how to use and share your own possessions and feel less of the urge to covet your neighbor's.
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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