Where We Are Loved Exodus 20: 17 July 13, 2014 This Sunday is the last of four weeks with the Ten Commandments. Actually, I ve spent four weeks with three commandments, as promised, today I ll be focused on the 10th commandment with its focus on coveting. What I ve discovered in studying the Ten Commandments is that they are not an antiquated list to learn as a child and forget, instead they are helpful. They are surprising. They offer a bold challenge to the world as we know it, and they will lead us toward wholeness. Scholars suggest that the 10th commandment, do not covet, is the highpoint of the second half or tablet of ten commandments, those that focus on our relationships with one another, rather than on our relationship with God. Number 10 is the grand finale, if you will. The 10th commandment has both a political and a personal. We ll talk about the personal in a moment, but first we need to hear what this command is saying about how society should be. The Tenth Commandment should be heard as, you shall not covet your neighbor s house (period). Some translations write it that way, our translation at least has a semicolon after house. In other words, you shall not covet your neighbor s property, and here comes a list of the neighbor s property that you shall not covet. You shall not covet your neighbor s wife. In the Ancient Near East, as much as it might make us shudder, a man s wife was his property. You shall not covet your neighbor s male or female slaves, or ox, or donkey. Slaves and working livestock represent the human and animal power that allow you to get field work done
and make a profit. They are extremely valuable. The tenth command is trying to curb inappropriate desire, but this command has a particular focus. The focus of the 10th command is not sexual, the focus is economic. Don t covet, meaning, don t take, your neighbors ability to provide a livelihood, to make a living. Scholar Walter Brueggemann says that the command s primary concern is land and the development of large estates at the expense of vulnerable neighbors. The land was supposed to be a resource that was widely distributed, it was God s gift. But in Ancient Israel, if you needed to borrow money for this year s crop, you borrowed money from your wealthy neighbor, and if you couldn t pay your debt, then the wealthy neighbor took your house: your slaves and livestock, your land, and your family and you, into servitude. In ancient Israel, as the monarchy developed, just as in Ancient Egypt, those who had the power and wealth to take, did. And wealth flowed upward from the peasant, to a few wealthy landowners, to the king. But here s this command, the grand finale of the Ten Commandments, don t desire and don t acquire what your neighbor needs. Don t participate in this unjust system. Be content with what you have. This is a command to those who have the power to take. It is a command that defends the vulnerable. Again we see that the Bible is concerned about the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. This is not peripheral concern. This isn t coming from the book of Habbakkuk tucked in the back of the Hebrew Scriptures, this is a headline from the Ten Commandments, the center of the tradition, pushing back against the concentration of wealth. Efforts to curb the concentration of wealth meet resistance. This was true, and it is true. The response to the 10th commandment in Ancient Israel wasn t, ok. If the 10th commandment had been followed, the prophets wouldn t have shown up to scold the king, saying, You are not following the ten commandments. You are taking what people need. And
today we re recognizing that in virtually all areas of society, virtually everywhere in the world, wealth is being funneled to those who already have a lot of it. In 1980 an average a corporate CEO earned 42 times the amount of an average worker. Now, a CEO earns 295 times the wage of a typical worker. Efforts to address this problem are often met with a response that turns the intention of the Tenth Commandment around. The response will be, Aren t you just jealous of your wealthy neighbor? Why are you trying to take what your wealthy neighbor has and has earned? One reason this response is so effective is because it touches on the human condition. No matter how much or how little money we have, it is hard not to be attracted to the lifestyle of those who have more than us, whether that person is our next door neighbor or someone we see on TV. But our ancestors of faith tell us repeatedly that they have heard God speaking and saying that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few destroys community, it destroys communities, it s the foundation for injustice. This command is not only political. It also speaks to the human condition. We all wrestle with greed, with acquisitiveness and misdirected desire. We can t pretend we don t. So what might help us be more content with what we have and ultimately, who we are? Last week I mentioned that Sara and I have been watching the television show Mad Men the last few months. It s important for you to know that we ve finished season three and that s all, be careful what you say. Mad Men is a show set in the 1960 s in a Madison Avenue advertising agency. The whole show is about coveting. Coveting of neighbor s wives is happening all the time, but the advertising agency is constantly asking, What do people want? What do people desire? And how do we motivate acquisitiveness by showing people that this product will give them what they desire? Most of the time the conversations are purely practical, but sometimes the conversations on the show move deeper, to a spiritual level.
There s one scene in particular that moves into this spiritual territory. I wish I could show it to you, but I ll explain it instead. The company Kodak is wanting an ad for their new slide projector that has a wheel, like the slide projectors we re familiar with. What s new is the wheel, but they know that focusing on the wheel as a new technology isn t going to sell. Don Draper, the creative director and star of the show, makes a presentation to the Kodak reps. The back story is that Don s currently in a fight with his wife, to put it mildly. The Kodak reps ask Don, So, have you figured out a way to work the wheel into it? We know it s hard because the wheels aren t really seen as exciting technology, even though they are the original. Don responds, Well, technology is a glittering lure, but there s the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on the level beyond flash, if they have a sentimental bond with the product. My first job, I was in house at a fur company with this old pro copywriter, a Greek named Teddy. And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is new. Create an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion. He also talked about a deeper bond with the product: nostalgia. It s delicate, but potent. Then Don starts the slideshow, happy photos of him playing with his children, kissing his wife, and the photos move backwards in time and all the while he s talking. Teddy told me that in Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound. It s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn t a space ship. It s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It s not called the Wheel. It s called the Carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around and back home again...to a place where we know we are loved. And he ends with photos of
him and his wife holding their first child, then a photo of their wedding day, and then the ad for the Kodak Carousel slide projector. This is a very good pitch because it is true, to a point. We all have our wounds, and many of them, most of them, have their root in not feeling loved, or accepted. We long to be a child again, meaning, feeling free. Feeling free because we are certain that there are loving arms that are a step away, certain that the love will never disappear, certain that the source of that love will always be happy to see us because we are important. We long for that assurance and freedom. The ad pitch gets that right. Where the ad for the Kodak Carousel slide projector steps beyond what it can deliver, is when it implies and promises that the new device will heal the wound. We are misled when we are told and when we believe that new things will heal our wounds. This new thing will make me feel better. I will be truly happy and satisfied when I have Things don t heal our wounds. Love heals our wounds. And Christianity promises love. Christianity tells the story of a God who loves the world so much that God will never give up on it. Our failures as human beings are splashed all over the headlines today, but God will not abandon us. Our own personal failures are all too clear to us, but God will not turn away from us. God will always be with us pulling us towards healing: as a world and in our individual lives. We proclaim that no matter what has happened in our lives, no matter what we carry, God loves us unconditionally. As we surrender to this, we begin to love and accept ourselves, our beautiful, and messy, and imperfect selves. It is this love that is our home. It is this love that gives us great freedom. It is this love that allows us to love others more fully, more completely, healing wounds. Acquiring the world will not heal the wounds of our shattered hearts, but Sacred love can piece us back together. Thanks be to God. Amen.