Exodus 20:17
One thing I really enjoy is being a part of an active clergy association. When I moved to Middlebury, Vermont in 2011, I was really excited to learn that they had a great clergy group that met every month, and I went to the first meeting eager to meet my new colleagues in ministry. Almost every church in town had a member of their staff present. We all sat down around a table at the host church, with our coffee and donuts, and almost everyone pulled out their smartphones and put them down next to their plates. Except for me. I didn’t have a smartphone. I had a flip phone. And I was embarrassed to put it out on the table. I wanted a smartphone. And seeing all of those smartphones out there on that table, I REALLY wanted a smartphone! I coveted those smartphones.
Well, this went on for several months. The clergy would gather around the table with coffee and goodies, and everyone but me would put their smartphones on the table, and we would have our meeting. And the longer it went on, the more I coveted those smartphones. I just had to have one. But they seemed too expensive for me to be able to afford one.
I traveled to South Carolina for Thanksgiving that year to visit a friend, and we went out to the mall on Saturday to hit the sales. We were walking from one store to another when I saw a Verizon kiosk in the middle of the walkway. I was a Verizon customer. They were offering free smartphones if you signed up for the service for 2 years. And the offer was good for existing customers. Well, I couldn’t sign up fast enough! In a matter of minutes, I had a working smartphone in my pocket – one that I had no idea how to use yet – and I felt like a million bucks! I couldn’t wait till the next clergy meeting when I could put my smartphone out on the table along with everyone else’s!
It is hard not to break the 10th commandment in a culture like ours. Simply stated, coveting is wanting something that we do not have, especially if it belongs to someone else. The first recorded incident of the sin of coveting took place with Adam and Eve, and their desire for the forbidden fruit. God had given them every other tree to eat from except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But there is something about being told that we cannot have something that makes us want it even more. Adam and Eve were told they could not have that fruit, and all of a sudden that was all they wanted. And the serpent pushed them along by helping them to rationalize their decision to take the fruit by convincing them that it was their right to have what they should not have. And finally they took the fruit and ate it.
In America, we have plenty of encouragement to break the 10th commandment. Adam Hamilton writes in his book, Words of Life, “We live in an economic system that relies on fueling our desire for more to increase consumer spending. Those who manufacture, sell, or provide goods and services must constantly create new or improved products in order to persuade you to buy. It’s not hard. Our hearts are so easily drawn to covet … [T]housands of companies, and tens of thousands of very smart people, work constantly to convince you that what you have is not enough … Producers of goods and services must create discontent with what we have, thus fueling our desire for more.” He goes on to say, “Wanting things and shopping for them are not necessarily signs of covetousness. But when my passion for consuming consumes me – my time, my emotional and spiritual energy, or money that I should have spent on something else, when it becomes an obsession or desire for something that I’m not meant to have – it can cross the line into covetousness or greed.”
Coveting what belongs to others is so much a part of our nature that it can be seen even in children. John Killinger records an instance where a teacher in Great Britain did an experiment. He gave each of ten children in a classroom a different toy, and then left them alone for fifteen minutes. He observed them from a hidden location. Killinger writes, “Within sixty seconds, two of the children were pulling at others’ toys, while a third child greedily collected the toys those two had laid aside. At the end of the quarter hour, three children were in possession of two toys each; three had none; two had different toys from the ones with which they had begun; and two were huddled in corners, clutching the toys they had been given and warily eyeing the other children.”
On the surface, it may seem like coveting is all about wanting more stuff, having more possessions. But the thing is, some people never get enough stuff. We acquire more and more and more, until our homes can’t hold it all and we have to rent storage units. Adam Hamilton reports that the construction of storage facilities in this country has increased by five times in recent years. J. Ellsworth Kalas, in The Ten Commandments from the Backside, points out that “covetousness is not cured by getting. It has nothing – or virtually nothing – to do with what we have, or with what we need … [C]ovetousness is a state of mind, not a state of the economy. As long as our hearts are covetous, we will want what the other person has, no matter how much we have or how little he or she has.”
Covetousness is not only about wanting or taking what is someone else’s. Coveting can cause us to break other commandments too, because it is a spiritual matter as much as a physical one. Hamilton writes, “Coveting can be a form of idolatry. It can lead us to misuse God’s name or work on the Sabbath or dishonor our parents. It is sometimes behind the violence we do to one another and is, by definition, central to adultery and stealing.”
How do we know when our desire has become sinful? How can we tell if we are breaking the 10th commandment? Adam Hamilton gives us four signs to look for. First, when we desire something to the point that we would act immorally to take it from someone else. If you would actually steal something from someone in order to have it for yourself, then you are breaking two commandments. You’ve broken the commandment against coveting, and you’ve broken the commandment against stealing.
Second, when we crave and become obsessed with having something we’re not meant to have, something that will hurt us or others, or something God has said we’re not to have. For example, if you become obsessed with someone else’s spouse, then you have crossed the line into coveting.
Third, when the object we desire becomes a false god or idol. Perhaps you have known someone that practically worships a car. They want that car and would do almost anything to have that car. They look at pictures of it. They go to the car lot and look at it in person. They dream about driving it. It’s like all they think about is that car. Kalas says that what has happened is that the person has put something else into first place and put God into second place. He writes, “When we covet, we think some object or person or position will bring us happiness. That’s far too great a burden to put on any person or thing. Only God can fill the God-shaped void. Having allowed God to fill the ultimate place in our lives, we can accept money, lands, clothing, honors, and people for what they are: worthy secondary factors in life.”
And fourth, when we’ve overspent, put ourselves in debt in order to have what we crave, or when our spending keeps us from taking care of our family or serving God. One of my friends had a daughter in school at Auburn University a number of years ago. She couldn’t understand why Stephanie kept running out of money. And then she got her credit card bill in the mail and found that Stephanie had run up charges to her spending limit. She tried to talk to Stephanie on the phone about it, but got nowhere. So she finally drove from SC to Alabama and met her daughter in her room. There she found something like 500 Beanie Babies piled up. Stephanie had become obsessed with these things and gone on a buying spree.
So how can we address our temptation to covet? What are some alternatives? Adam Hamilton suggests three. First, we can practice gratitude. When we spend our time being grateful for what we have, we don’t have room to think about what we don’t have. He suggests keeping a gratitude journal and writing two or three things each day that you are grateful for. He writes, “The more I give thanks for what I have, the less I want what I don’t have.” Sheryl Crow said much the same thing in a line from her song, Soak Up the Sun: “It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.”
Second, we can practice generosity. When we are giving to others, it doesn’t allow us to focus on what we want for ourselves. We can focus on the needs of others, instead of our own wants and desires. I love to hear about kids who have birthday parties and instead of having friends bring them presents, they ask for donations to a charity. They have learned this generosity from their parents, of course, and it is a lesson that they will continue to practice all their lives. People who are generous tend to be among some of the happiest people I know, because they get such joy from making a difference in someone else’s life.
And third, we can practice love, love for God and love for each other. It is impossible to love our neighbor and also crave what is theirs and want to take it away from them. In fact, Kalas points out that if we love our neighbor as ourselves, then we find joy in their having good things. He writes, “When I rejoice in my neighbor’s having, I become wonderfully, almost unimaginably rich. When I covet, my life is so small and petty, but when I rejoice with my neighbor, my life has no boundaries. I feel better about myself, because I’m so much more likable when I’m not envious. I feel better about God, be-cause I’m seeing more of God’s goodness when I get out of my own small world. I feel better about life, because I see its blessings more clearly; I see what I have, instead of what I haven’t. All of this leads to a spirit of contentment … the richest persons are not those who have the most, but those who are happiest with what they have.”
Adam Hamilton writes about a man named John Betar and his wife, Ann. When John died in the fall of 2018, he and Ann had been married for nearly 86 years; John was 107 years old and Ann was 103. As they grew older, they were interviewed many times and they were often asked what it took to stay married for so long. They would respond, “Live within your means and be content.” That’s pretty good advice for life in general, as well as for staying married for a long time. Live within your means and be content. Be happy with what you have. If you can do that, you will avoid breaking the tenth commandment.
