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LAST BUT NOT EASIEST #1
COVETING DONKEYS AND DVDs
We had a little story just surface in the L.A. Times
not long before we came here into the studio. An obituary – and quite
a big writeup over the fact that Oseola McCarty had passed away at the
age of 91.
What was remarkable about her? Not much, considering that she'd lived
her entire LIFE washing people's clothes. That's right. Oseola was, to
put it simply, a "washerwoman" . . . and she did it for 75 years.
In three-quarters of a century, she did nothing but wash clothes, and
somehow managed to tuck away in the bank something like $250,000 just
from laundering and ironing.
But now the interesting thing. Miss Oseola McCarty, who never got married
and never learned to drive a car, ended up giving away, out of that lifetime
of savings, $150,000, to a scholarship fund for black students at the
University of Southern Mississippi. She'd always wanted to get an education
herself, to become a nurse, but she'd quit after the sixth grade to support
her mother, her grandma, and a dependant aunt. But now she gave this huge
sum of money, earned a dollar at a time, so that other people could receive
the education she never had. So far, nine students have gotten the scholarships
and three young people have their university degrees today because of
that $150,000 endowment given by a woman who starched people's collars
and folded their underwear for a living.
Well, friend, when it comes to the Tenth Commandment in the Word of God
– "Thou shalt not covet" – I think this little story is a more
eloquent statement of obedience than we could come up with in 75 years
of sermons. This amazing woman wasn't just contented with the money she
had – she gave nearly all of it away.
Have you ever really gotten excited about the Tenth Commandment in your
own life? I think most of us have pretty much stopped at number nine –
the one about lying – and figured that if we could keep from dishonoring
our parents, killing (or hating), committing adultery, stealing, and lying,
we're to the end of the line. We've arrived. "Coveting" the
things our neighbors have isn't something we focus very much on. Not to
say we don't DO it . . . we just don't focus on it.
But you know, friend, all this week and next as we study here together,
I'd like to suggest that the Ten Commandments almost BEGIN right here.
At number ten. This may be a starting place, not an ending. In fact, it's
possible that the entire war between God and Satan, the beginning of this
whole mess we call sin had its birthing with the idea of coveting. More
about that later . . . but let's begin our discussion time right there
in Exodus chapter 20, and this "(quote) throwaway" verse. The
so-called "easy" commandment. Here's Exodus 20:17, the Tenth
Commandment:
"You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your
neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or
anything that belongs to your neighbor."
That has a decidedly "Palestinian desert" ring to it, doesn't
it? It may be a while since you looked with jealous eyes at your neighbor's
donkey. I suppose the Year 2000 version of the Bible probably reads like
this:
"Mister, you shall not covet, or want, or
be jealous about your neighbor's house, or the beautiful wife he's got.
Or the new Lexus he received as a company car. Or the big-screen HDTV
entertainment center he has, his DVD player, his Dolby theater, built-in
surround-sound, 20-speaker system, his pool or his Jacuzzi. Or his ski
vacations, his first-class plane tickets, the private school his kids
attend in their Beemers and SUVs. And you shall not covet his stock market
successes, the three-for-one Internet stock splits he's always telling
you about, the early retirement he's planning."
Does that ring with a bit more relevance? And if you
don't happen to be tuning in today from Beverly Hills – if you're hearing
this by shortwave maybe in the poorest country of the world – you might
still be struggling with the fact that your neighbor's got three cows
and you've only got two.
There's an absolutely superb book out that we've really appreciated here
at the office. It's entitled The Ten Challenges, by a psychologist, Dr.
Leonard Felder, who explores the Commandments of God from a rich variety
of faith backgrounds, and illustrates them with amazing stories right
from his practice.
"Have you ever wished you could have the
face, the figure, the good health, or the physical stamina of someone
else?" he writes. "Have you ever desired to have as nice a home,
a family, or social get-togethers as one of your neighbors, friends, or
relatives? Have you ever looked at someone else's financial security,
successful creative project, or well-behaved children and felt a twinge
of envy?"
Well, friend, THAT is coveting.
"A severe craving for the possessions OR life circumstances of others"
is the definition another writer gives to it.
Now, listen to these five quick "snapshots"
or patient profiles, and remember that these come from right off Dr. Felder's
couch. These are verbatim.
"I usually felt pretty good about my appearance
until my spouse began flirting with someone at work who's a stunner, and
then suddenly I started noticing everything that's less than perfect about
my looks."
Here's #2: "I always thought I was smart enough to make it in the
world until I got to graduate school and found myself jealous of how much
these people knew and what superior training they had."
And a third patient confession: "I never thought much about keeping
up with the Joneses until my younger sister bought a house much bigger
than ours and I started to notice little things I don't like about where
we live."
Does this one ring a bell? "I usually don't feel jealous of people
except when I'm listening to other parents brag about their kids and I
begin to feel uncomfortable about my two kids, especially how unmotivated
and stubborn they are."
And one more: "I know it's not a good idea to compare one's life
to other people's lives, because it's only an illusion that other people
are happier. But sometimes when my creative projects are stuck or when
I feel stressed about money, I can't help wondering if other people have
it a lot easier than I do."
Those are hard, aren't they? A couple of these hit
ME in the stomach as I just now read them to you. And it's ironic that
even a keen thinker like Dr. Felder himself, a man who knows how to sort
through mental processes, how to root out crippling psychological impairment,
went through this very thing in his OWN life. He writes how he and his
wife, Linda, tried for eight years to have a baby. They both were carriers
of a rare genetic disorder called Tay-Sachs disease, and that silent killer
caused two unborn infants to die. Then they thought they had an adoption
all lined up; they flew to Iowa, they waited, they supported the teen
mother, they got their hopes up sky-high. Then at the last minute the
birth mother simply couldn't go through with it. They flew home empty-handed.
And Dr. Felder writes this in his own handwriting about his own life:
"A few weeks later I attended a Thanksgiving
dinner at which several cousins and other relatives were playing happily
with their kids, including an adorable infant and three energetic toddlers.
More than ever before in my life, I felt an enormous pang of jealousy
and resentment. I finally understood what single people feel like when
they're invited to a Noah's Ark-like wedding reception of mostly couples.
I began to realize what makes jilted lovers so furious and out of control."
So this issue of covetousness is all around us. It's
real. It hurts like nothing else sometimes. And I don't care how much
stuff you DO have . . . there's always somebody else out there with more.
Unless you have THE prettiest wife in the universe, somebody else on this
planet has got a prettier one: one who's better dressed, firmer, funnier,
friendlier, more sexually stimulating. Unless you're Bill Gates, somebody
else walking this world has got more money than you've got. It was Andrew
Carnegie, who admittedly was a pauper compared to Mr. Microsoft, who once
admitted: "How much money is enough? Just a little bit more."
Well, would you agree with me that, for sure, we can take this Tenth Commandment
out of the "easy" or "automatic" category? This one
is real, isn't it? It's right there in our face – or, to be more accurate,
in our HEARTS. And it's in our hearts where the really hard battles all
happen.
The good news is this: the Bible is filled with promises on this very
point. The gospel is a powerful antidote to the sin of covetousness. We
can learn to have an identity that's based on what Jesus did for us, not
on what WE have – OR our neighbors. A New Testament man named Paul had
to pick up this truth the hard way himself. He admits it in one of his
greatest letters: Philippians chapter four:
"I have LEARNED," he writes, "to
be CONTENT whatever the circumstances."
I guess COVET and CONTENT are two of the universe's
great antonyms – meaning opposites. In fact, they almost ARE in separate
universes. How can we move from one to the other? Be sure to stay with
us for the adventure.
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