Sermon for October 7th, 2023

Matthew 22:34-40

34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ 37He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 38This is the greatest and first commandment. 39And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 40On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

Exodus 20:2-17

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 3 you shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me 6 but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it. 12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 13 “You shall not murder. 14 “You shall not commit adultery. 15 “You shall not steal. 16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Ten Laws, One Love: You Shall Not Covet

A rich man and a poor man are neighbors. The rich man has a large mansion, several expensive cars, the finest clothes, and every gadget or power tool a man could possibly want. But his poor neighbor has one thing that the rich man does not have. Every day, the poor neighbor comes out to his front porch (which is very humble) sits down on his humble chair, and takes out a magic lamp. He rubs the lamp, and a genie appears, asking "How can I serve you today, Master?" And every day, the poor neighbor says the same thing: "I'll have a cup of tea, thank you very much." And the genie pours him a cup of tea.

Well, the rich neighbor watches this routine for some time, and eventually he tries to buy the lamp from the poor neighbor. He offers a thousand dollars, then $100,000, then an even million--all to no avail. The poor neighbor refuses to sell the lamp, and every day, he appears content merely to ask the magical genie for his cup of tea. The rich neighbor becomes desperate, and finally offers to trade the poor neighbor everything he owns--house, cars, gadgets, bank accounts and all--in exchange for everything his neighbor owns, including the magic lamp. After all, he tells himself, he can just wish it all back again. The poor neighbor thinks about it for a minute, and finally agrees.

The next morning, the formerly-rich neighbor is sitting on the porch of his new, very humble house. With great anticipation, he takes out the lamp, rubs it, and the genie appears, asking "How can I serve you today, Master?" The man takes out his list, and among other things wishes for a house ten times larger than his previous one, twice as many cars, a much, much larger bank account, and at least 50 more things he'd been thinking of all night long. When he finally comes to the end of his list, the genie pauses awkwardly and then says... "I'm sorry, Master, I can only do tea or coffee. But would you like some decaf?"

You shall not covet your neighbor's possessions. This is the tenth and final commandment, and so today is also the conclusion of our fall sermon series on the ten commandments. Just to review, as we've worked our way through each of the commandments, we have seen that:

• The Ten Commandments are not, and were never intended to be a legal code. There are plenty of laws in the Bible and elsewhere in the ancient world, but these ten principles are not among them. The ten commandments (or in the original Hebrew language the "ten words") are intended to be a covenant, a treaty, a commitment between God and his people, and most importantly, a gift.
• The Ten Commandments are not a disconnected list of do's and don'ts. All of them are about putting first things first in our lives, so that everything else fall into the right place.
• The theme that ties all of the commandments together is Love: Love for God, Love for each other, and Love for ourselves (in that order).

The tenth commandment--you shall not covet your neighbors possessions--is like all the others in those respects... but it's also unique.

To covet, according to just about any English dictionary, is to desire something...but it's not just any kind of desire: It's a strong desire for something that belongs to someone else. It's desire at the crossroads of "I want that" and "I'm actively plotting how I can take that away from you."

This is precisely what makes the 10th commandment different than all the others: So far, all of the commandments have been about outwardly visible actions. Worshiping, resting, killing, stealing, adultery, careless speech. Here, with "you shall not covet," we move from the outside to the inside. This commandment is about the intentions of your heart, not the actions of your hands. If the ten commandments actually WERE intended to be a law code, this one would be completely unenforceable. What goes on in your heart and head is entirely between you and God.

But that doesn't mean there are no consequences for coveting your neighbor's stuff. The book of Proverbs teaches that whatever you think in your heart--that's what you ultimately become. If your heart is filled with envy, always looking over the fence at what your neighbor has, always comparing it with what you don't have, then you will eventually become a very unhappy, unfulfilled person. Because there's always another fence to look over, there's always someone who has more than you.

Most of us like to think that we're different--if we just had that one thing, if we just made this amount of money, we'd really be happy. John D. Rockefeller Sr. was America's first billionaire. He was once asked by a reporter "How much money does it take to satisfy a person?" His answer: "Always a little more!"

A lifetime of coveting starts very young, and I think it usually begins with bad (though well-intentioned) parenting. We all want good things for our children. We all want our children to be happy. But when your child is in a room filled with toys, and sees another child playing with that one toy (probably a toy they had NO interest in before), something kicks in. "I want that one! The one she has!" That's coveting. It's normal. It doesn't mean your child is evil, it means your child is a human being. But it's also a very important learning opportunity...

Sometimes, in a situation like this, a well-intentioned parent will say, "your friend" (or your brother, or sister) "is playing with that toy right now. Let's wait patiently, and when it's your turn you can play with it." That sounds great on the surface, but all you're doing is teaching your child to covet patiently.

Or maybe the well-intentioned parent will find a similar toy and say, "let's play with this one instead. This one is better than that one. Don't you like this one more? It's your favorite color! It's bigger!" And now you are teaching your child to covet bigger, better, and MORE things than what their friend or sibling has.

If you're a well-intentioned parent and you've tried these strategies--covet patiently, covet more, or covet something else--you probably already know that they don't really work, either. The reason your child wants that toy so badly is precisely BECAUSE another child is showing interest in it. In fact, if you were a negligent parent, and you just allowed your child to aggressively TAKE the toy from his friend, chances are he'd play with it for a few minutes until his friend found another toy...and then he'd immediately start coveting that one.

By the way, grownups do the exact same thing...and yes, it still looks childish when we do it.

But the learning opportunity here, for children as well as adults, is not to focus on the THING, the toy that is not yours, but the other person. If your child is old enough to have a conversation, you can talk about how it feels when someone takes something away from YOU. How do you think it would it make your friend feel? Children, like adults, are pretty selfish by nature--children are just more honest and open about it. But they are also capable, from a pretty young age, of empathy.

The other learning opportunity (and this one is really hard for parents) is to actually let your children have the experience of not always getting what they want. Yes, there may be a meltdown. But it won't last forever, and if you keep delaying that meltdown, it's gonna look at lot worse at age 35.

Learning not to covet means learning at an early age that when you don't get your friend's toy...life goes on. It's not the end of the world. And when we solve our children's problems too quickly--giving them the toy, replacing one toy with another, distracting them with something else--we rob them of the opportunity to grow, to learn, to self-soothe, and to build the habit of being content with what they have.

Learning to be content with what we have--being content with what God has given us--is, incidentally, the opposite of coveting, and also the answer to our coveting problem. It doesn't mean we can't have nice things (for ourselves or our children), it doesn't mean we shouldn't work hard to provide for our families. It means that we do our part, and we trust God to do his part--and we trust that whatever God gives us will be enough (regardless of what God gives to our neighbor).

I want to end today by teaching you my favorite Hebrew word. It's דַּיֵּנוּ (dayenu) and it means "enough for us." In Jewish culture, this word, this concept comes with a song that is sung at passover. The words go something like this:

If God had only brought us out of Egypt and nothing else...dayenu.  It would have been enough for us.
But he split open the sea for us, too.  
If God had only split open the sea for us and nothing else...dayenu.  It would have been enough for us.
But he fed us manna in the wilderness, too.
If God had only fed us manna in the wilderness and nothing else...dayenu.  It would have been enough for us.
But he gave us the Torah (the ten commandments), too.
If God had only given us the Torah and nothing else...dayenu.  It would have been enough for us.
But he brought us into the promised land, too.

The song actually goes on for quite awhile after that, each verse ending with "dayenu. It would have been enough for us." The idea, I think, is that if you actually start to count your blessings, listing them one by one, and giving thanks to God for each one, you'll find peace and happiness a lot more easily than by counting your neighbor's blessings.

In fact, I think you can restructure and reformulate all ten commandments in this way--as blessings, as gifts, as...enough.

1. The Lord is my God. Dayenu. His love is enough for me.
2. The Lord my God is one. Dayenu. One lord is enough for me, and I have no need for false idols.
3. His name is Yahweh. Dayenu. His name is sufficient, and I need not call on any other name.
4. The sabbath day is set apart for me. Dayenu. It is enough, and in it I will find sufficient rest.
5. My parents brought me into this world. Dayenu. If that was all they had ever done, it would have been enough.
6. Each day God gives me life. Dayenu. It is enough, and I will value the life he gives to others.
7. My spouse is a gift from God. Dayenu. She (or he) is enough, and I have need of no other.
8. God has been generous to me. Dayenu. I have enough to to share with my neighbor and not steal.
9. My neighbor is a gift from God. Dayenu. He is enough, and I will not lie about him or throw him under the bus.
10. God's love for me is infinite. Dayenu. That alone is enough to satisfy all my desires.

People of First Presbyterian Church, may God's love, God's commandments, God's gifts, God's provision in your life always and forever be enough. Dayenu.