The Ten Commandments as Grace and Law
Exodus 20:17; Micah 2:1-2; Matthew 6:25-34
Since September 2nd we have been on a journey exploring the Ten Commandments. From my conversations with you, my mail and my email, I know that some of you have at least been thinking about the commandments. Several of you gave me copies of an ad for a wall hanging under the title, “Country Commandments,” with these as the ten: “There is only one God, No False Gods, No Cuss’n, Gather on Sunday, Mind your Ma and Pa, No Kill’n, Cheatin’ is forbidden, Ya’ll Don’t Steal, No white lies or gossip’n, and No hankerin’ for others stuff.”
One of you gave me a cartoon in which a child says to the Sunday School teacher, “My Mom says the Ten Commandments are ‘settle down, stop that, wash your hands, be quiet, go to sleep, eat your vegetables, drink your milk, sit up straight, pick up your room and listen to your mother and father.”
Today, we have come to the Tenth Commandment -- "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." (Exodus 20:17) According to the dictionary, the word "to covet" means "to desire eagerly, especially something that belongs to someone else." There was an expression common when I was growing up in Texas that seems to have the sense of what it means to covet: "I wish I had [something that belongs to you], and that you had a wart on your nose." That expression was probably limited to West Texas.
We need to be clear: there is nothing wrong with the act of "coveting" itself. The term is used in a positive sense in the expression, "I covet your prayers," which means, "I eagerly desire your prayers." So what does this commandment actually prohibit? One of the most respected Biblical scholars in the world, Walter Brueggemann, on whom we have depended at several points in this series, says that the text knows that humans are driven by desire and that the commandment itself does not regard desire in and of itself as good or bad. Whether the desire is good or bad depends on its object and how “eager” is our desire for it. The prohibition in this commandment, says Brueggemann, is the neighbor’s "house," which in a patriarchal society included the wife, slaves, and working animals. The commandment expects that within the community of faith ”the drive of desire will be displaced by the honoring of the neighbor, by the sharing of goods, and by the acceptance of one’s goods as adequate.”[1] This commandment is not focused on general envy but on a kind of acquisitiveness that disrupts the lives of others.
When the prophet Micah interprets this commandment, he focuses on its implications for “the development of large estates at the expense of vulnerable neighbors.”[2] Read again his words: "Alas for those who devise wickedness and evil deeds on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in their power. They covet fields, and seize them; houses, and take them away; they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance." (Micah 2:1-2) Just as Jesus' comments on the commandment on adultery -- "whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart" -- were addressed to men who had the power to take women for their pleasure without regard to their wishes, so the tenth commandment seems especially addressed to the "eager desires" of those who have it within their power to take vulnerable people's property.
So then, for example, what does this commandment say about "hostile takeovers" in the corporate world? There may be no other point where the Ten Commandments are more in tension with the operative values of our society than with this tenth commandment. We live in a consumer society where consumption is based not on need but on the need to consume. The purpose of advertising is less to inform about products than to generate "eager desire" for new products, whether we need them or not. While few of us do not want the newest products -- whether food, cars or computers -- we know that they come at a high price, not just to us but also to the rest of the world. While citizens of the United States make up only 6% of the world’s population, we consume 25% of the world’s energy. While, of the nations of the world, we have some of the most stringent laws to protect the environment, our rate of production and consumption make us the largest producers of waste and garbage in the world. There is a popular assumption in our society that we should be able to have these products, no matter the consequences to other people or the environment. Or, as James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communications at Rutgers University, has put it, "If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people.".
This ideology – and it is an “ideology” -- has its own history in our society. Other societies have their own ideologies. At this point I am not interested in comparison but simply to understand how we got the one we have and its implications for us today. In 1776, the year the Thirteen Colonies declared independence from Great Britain, a Scottish economist and philosopher published a book that became the classic statement advocating free market economics. Adam Smith (1723-1790) in his book, The Wealth of Nations, argued that market forces should be allowed to operate without interference. Smith said that the well being of all would be best served as everyone pursued their own self-interests. The market forces were guided, he said, by an "invisible hand." Smith's "invisible hand" was not a theistic notion, but simply a mechanism of the market. Smith's conclusion was that each person should pursue their own self-interest, regardless of how those interests affected others, because in the end the well being of all would be best served.
That the well-being of all was best served by everybody pursuing their own self-interests without restraint proved to be wishful thinking. Another rationale was added to justify the unrestrained pursuit of one's self-interest. In the nineteenth century Adam Smith's ideas were merged with those of the "Social Darwinists." "Social Darwinism" held that society evolved on Charles Darwin's biological model -- an inference, by the way, not at all shared by Darwin himself. Social Darwinists explained economic inequalities among people as natural and inevitable by the law of the "survival of the fittest." The result was a popular ideology, which held that persons should pursue their own self-interests no matter the cost to other people. One of its main advocates in the United States, William Graham Sumner (1840-1910), said that such a system resulted in the "beneficent elimination of the ill-adapted." That is, no tears should be shed for those who were vulnerable and hurt by others pursuit of their self-interests. The world was better off without such "weaklings."
Today, not many economists or industry leaders would advocate "the unrestrained pursuit of self interest" as the best economic or social policy. Even among the most ardent supporters of a free market economy, some restraints are seen as necessary. The tenth commandment is a warning against the unrestrained pursuit of self-interest, whether at the level of corporate or government policy, or in how we use our resources as individuals and families. Just because you want something that belongs to someone else doesn't mean that you have the right to get it.
The positive intent of this commandment may well be what we learned as Jesus’ “Golden Rule:” “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) While there is nothing wrong with pursuing our own self interests, when those pursuits impinge on others, people of faith will not do anything to others that they wouldn’t want done to themselves. That sets the bar pretty high, doesn’t it?
The commandment not to covet may be the last of the Ten, not because it is least important, but because "eagerly desiring what belongs to others" may be the primary path that leads to the violation of the other nine.
This brings us to perhaps the most critical questions of this series. Do the Ten Commandments require so much that we can’t possibly hope to live by them? Or, are they the necessary boundaries for the full and meaningful lives we have been created to live? In every age obeying the commandments has meant living out of step with the values and practices of the prevailing culture. It is no different today. If we believe the commandments really are God’s expectations of us, we will do our best to obey them, won’t we?
In his book, The Gifts of the Jews, Thomas Cahill writes that the commandments are written not for the past nor for the future, but for the present. Listen to his words: "… this gift of the Commandments allows us to live in the present, in the here and now. What I have done in the past is past mending; what I will do in the future is a worry not worth the candle, for there is no way I can know what will happen next. But in this moment -- and only in this moment -- I am in control."[3] We can decide that in this day we will obey the commandments. Recovering addicts of all kinds have learned that the only way to recovery is "one day at a time."
Perhaps our prayer today should be in the words of Marijohn Wilkin who wrote a country gospel song with that title. "Yesterday's gone sweet Jesus, and tomorrow may never be mine. Lord help me today, show me the way" [to obey the commandments], "one day at a time."
[1] Walter Brueggemann, "Exodus," The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 1(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), p. 849.
[2] Ibid. p. 852.
[3] Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews (New York: Nan A. Talese / Anchor Books Doubleday, 1998) p.146.
Exodus 20:17; Micah 2:1-2; Matthew 6:25-34
Since September 2nd we have been on a journey exploring the Ten Commandments. From my conversations with you, my mail and my email, I know that some of you have at least been thinking about the commandments. Several of you gave me copies of an ad for a wall hanging under the title, “Country Commandments,” with these as the ten: “There is only one God, No False Gods, No Cuss’n, Gather on Sunday, Mind your Ma and Pa, No Kill’n, Cheatin’ is forbidden, Ya’ll Don’t Steal, No white lies or gossip’n, and No hankerin’ for others stuff.”
One of you gave me a cartoon in which a child says to the Sunday School teacher, “My Mom says the Ten Commandments are ‘settle down, stop that, wash your hands, be quiet, go to sleep, eat your vegetables, drink your milk, sit up straight, pick up your room and listen to your mother and father.”
Today, we have come to the Tenth Commandment -- "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor." (Exodus 20:17) According to the dictionary, the word "to covet" means "to desire eagerly, especially something that belongs to someone else." There was an expression common when I was growing up in Texas that seems to have the sense of what it means to covet: "I wish I had [something that belongs to you], and that you had a wart on your nose." That expression was probably limited to West Texas.
We need to be clear: there is nothing wrong with the act of "coveting" itself. The term is used in a positive sense in the expression, "I covet your prayers," which means, "I eagerly desire your prayers." So what does this commandment actually prohibit? One of the most respected Biblical scholars in the world, Walter Brueggemann, on whom we have depended at several points in this series, says that the text knows that humans are driven by desire and that the commandment itself does not regard desire in and of itself as good or bad. Whether the desire is good or bad depends on its object and how “eager” is our desire for it. The prohibition in this commandment, says Brueggemann, is the neighbor’s "house," which in a patriarchal society included the wife, slaves, and working animals. The commandment expects that within the community of faith ”the drive of desire will be displaced by the honoring of the neighbor, by the sharing of goods, and by the acceptance of one’s goods as adequate.”[1] This commandment is not focused on general envy but on a kind of acquisitiveness that disrupts the lives of others.
When the prophet Micah interprets this commandment, he focuses on its implications for “the development of large estates at the expense of vulnerable neighbors.”[2] Read again his words: "Alas for those who devise wickedness and evil deeds on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in their power. They covet fields, and seize them; houses, and take them away; they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance." (Micah 2:1-2) Just as Jesus' comments on the commandment on adultery -- "whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart" -- were addressed to men who had the power to take women for their pleasure without regard to their wishes, so the tenth commandment seems especially addressed to the "eager desires" of those who have it within their power to take vulnerable people's property.
So then, for example, what does this commandment say about "hostile takeovers" in the corporate world? There may be no other point where the Ten Commandments are more in tension with the operative values of our society than with this tenth commandment. We live in a consumer society where consumption is based not on need but on the need to consume. The purpose of advertising is less to inform about products than to generate "eager desire" for new products, whether we need them or not. While few of us do not want the newest products -- whether food, cars or computers -- we know that they come at a high price, not just to us but also to the rest of the world. While citizens of the United States make up only 6% of the world’s population, we consume 25% of the world’s energy. While, of the nations of the world, we have some of the most stringent laws to protect the environment, our rate of production and consumption make us the largest producers of waste and garbage in the world. There is a popular assumption in our society that we should be able to have these products, no matter the consequences to other people or the environment. Or, as James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communications at Rutgers University, has put it, "If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people.".
This ideology – and it is an “ideology” -- has its own history in our society. Other societies have their own ideologies. At this point I am not interested in comparison but simply to understand how we got the one we have and its implications for us today. In 1776, the year the Thirteen Colonies declared independence from Great Britain, a Scottish economist and philosopher published a book that became the classic statement advocating free market economics. Adam Smith (1723-1790) in his book, The Wealth of Nations, argued that market forces should be allowed to operate without interference. Smith said that the well being of all would be best served as everyone pursued their own self-interests. The market forces were guided, he said, by an "invisible hand." Smith's "invisible hand" was not a theistic notion, but simply a mechanism of the market. Smith's conclusion was that each person should pursue their own self-interest, regardless of how those interests affected others, because in the end the well being of all would be best served.
That the well-being of all was best served by everybody pursuing their own self-interests without restraint proved to be wishful thinking. Another rationale was added to justify the unrestrained pursuit of one's self-interest. In the nineteenth century Adam Smith's ideas were merged with those of the "Social Darwinists." "Social Darwinism" held that society evolved on Charles Darwin's biological model -- an inference, by the way, not at all shared by Darwin himself. Social Darwinists explained economic inequalities among people as natural and inevitable by the law of the "survival of the fittest." The result was a popular ideology, which held that persons should pursue their own self-interests no matter the cost to other people. One of its main advocates in the United States, William Graham Sumner (1840-1910), said that such a system resulted in the "beneficent elimination of the ill-adapted." That is, no tears should be shed for those who were vulnerable and hurt by others pursuit of their self-interests. The world was better off without such "weaklings."
Today, not many economists or industry leaders would advocate "the unrestrained pursuit of self interest" as the best economic or social policy. Even among the most ardent supporters of a free market economy, some restraints are seen as necessary. The tenth commandment is a warning against the unrestrained pursuit of self-interest, whether at the level of corporate or government policy, or in how we use our resources as individuals and families. Just because you want something that belongs to someone else doesn't mean that you have the right to get it.
The positive intent of this commandment may well be what we learned as Jesus’ “Golden Rule:” “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and prophets.” (Matthew 7:12) While there is nothing wrong with pursuing our own self interests, when those pursuits impinge on others, people of faith will not do anything to others that they wouldn’t want done to themselves. That sets the bar pretty high, doesn’t it?
The commandment not to covet may be the last of the Ten, not because it is least important, but because "eagerly desiring what belongs to others" may be the primary path that leads to the violation of the other nine.
This brings us to perhaps the most critical questions of this series. Do the Ten Commandments require so much that we can’t possibly hope to live by them? Or, are they the necessary boundaries for the full and meaningful lives we have been created to live? In every age obeying the commandments has meant living out of step with the values and practices of the prevailing culture. It is no different today. If we believe the commandments really are God’s expectations of us, we will do our best to obey them, won’t we?
In his book, The Gifts of the Jews, Thomas Cahill writes that the commandments are written not for the past nor for the future, but for the present. Listen to his words: "… this gift of the Commandments allows us to live in the present, in the here and now. What I have done in the past is past mending; what I will do in the future is a worry not worth the candle, for there is no way I can know what will happen next. But in this moment -- and only in this moment -- I am in control."[3] We can decide that in this day we will obey the commandments. Recovering addicts of all kinds have learned that the only way to recovery is "one day at a time."
Perhaps our prayer today should be in the words of Marijohn Wilkin who wrote a country gospel song with that title. "Yesterday's gone sweet Jesus, and tomorrow may never be mine. Lord help me today, show me the way" [to obey the commandments], "one day at a time."
[1] Walter Brueggemann, "Exodus," The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 1(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), p. 849.
[2] Ibid. p. 852.
[3] Thomas Cahill, The Gifts of the Jews (New York: Nan A. Talese / Anchor Books Doubleday, 1998) p.146.
No comments:
Post a Comment