[AI translation] We started explaining the Ten Commandments a good year ago. Since then, we've always dealt with the next one on the last Sunday of every month or so, so we've now come to the last one. At first glance, this is the requirement: 'Thou shalt not covet another's' - as if I seem insignificant compared to the rest. For by coveting something that belongs to the other, one does not actually harm anyone. Then there is no actual misappropriation. One can covet without anyone knowing that it will never become a sinful act.Well, first of all I would like to say how wrong it is! Yes: by wishing we do a great deal of harm, and above all to ourselves! Desiring, coveting, creates a very unpleasant, unpeaceful spirit. It makes you unhappy. Most of the trouble in one's life is not caused by actual inconveniences, by lack, not by not having something, but by the fact that the other person has it. Most trouble is caused by a certain lack of vision, seeing the other person's as better than my own. The other: according to the details of the Scripture, the other's house, the other's wife, the other's servant, the other's maid, the other's ox, the other's donkey, and we could go on: the other's clothes, the other's standard of living, the other's position, job, in general, I value the other more, I consider him more beautiful, I want him more than what I have.
This is the feeling we are talking about here in Commandment X, which always belittles my own and magnifies the other's. It makes me as mournful, miserable and unhappy as Ady once lamented: "How much gold rings And all the other's... How many women there are And all the others... How much of everything there is... (Sighing at dawn) Adam, from a tree that was not his own, could not see the Paradise that was his. To David, all the throne and splendour of kingship faded away, he could not rejoice in being young, rich, popular, ruler of a whole happy kingdom: he felt miserable because he saw and coveted a woman who belonged to another! Is this not still the case today? With coveting, with longing for the other, some dark force enters our lives and torments us, tortures us, makes us unhappy. We do ourselves a great deal of harm!
But also to others! The same dark force that makes me, myself, unpeaceful and unhappy, makes life miserable for others: it makes it oppressive, poisons the air, the hearts. The envious man is an evil man, because he destroys trust, he extinguishes love, he steals from the other man, because he cannot rejoice with his joy. Think of the atmosphere of a family where brothers and sisters are envious of each other, where one of the spouses is jealous of a stranger. Envious desire disrupts the coexistence. But it also steals from God! For the only thing man can give to God is gratitude. The envious man, the soul that craves for the other's, cannot give God this very thing: he cannot truly give thanks! It steals from God!
So it is not such an insignificant sin that this commandment speaks of. In fact, I think it is the other way round, as it seems: it is here, in this last one, that the whole Ten Commandments are really deepened. This is where God reaches deepest into the human heart! For just think: if one reads a little superficially through the previous nine commandments of God, if one looks only at the letter of the law, one easily comes to the conclusion, like the rich young man, "I have kept all these things from my youth; what lack is there in me?" Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's" - as our basic verse says - then there is no excuse any more. Yes: one can still keep oneself more or less afloat with the previous nine commandments, because they apply to all sorts of moral issues that can be debated objectively or indifferently. One can find a way out, depending on how one interprets, for example, stealing, keeping Sunday holy or respecting one's parents, and easily reassure oneself that there is nothing wrong with one's life... But you can't do that with the X Commandment. It puts you in a corner. This Word pulls all the rug out from under the feet of a complacent man.
This commandment says - well, not this commandment says, but the Living God Himself, before Whom we shall stand at the last judgment - so the Living God says: Thou shalt not covet another's! As if to say: Oh, man, do you think that because your actions are so decent, so impeccable, so well-bred, that now there is nothing more wrong, now you are all right, now your life is up to divine standards? Wait, do not be so soon satisfied with yourself! Your actions are only one part, and a small part, of your true being, your actions do not always express your true and whole self. There is a much larger, invisible part of what you are, the inner world of your soul, and I will judge you not by the outward display of good moral behaviour, but by the inner you! It is what is inside that tells you who you really are!
And let's be quite honest with each other that our inner world is a very, very sad picture for all of us. Because someone can be very beautiful and impeccable on the outside, there is nothing wrong with their behaviour - especially if they are not so young and have a responsible position in society - they can be a well-balanced, correct person, until people see what they think and feel on the inside, what they long for, what they fantasise about, what they hope for, what they dream of! Good thing we can't see into each other's hearts! If what is inside were to be turned outward, I think we would become unbearable for each other, we would be disgusted with each other!
But that is how God sees us: from the inside! It is written in the Bible, "Man looks at what is before his eyes, but God looks at what is in the heart." (1 Sam 16:7b) What suffering it must be for God to see us! For that heart is not something so innocent, so sweet and romantic, as is usually perceived by the heart of gingerbread... That heart is a very dark corner: the basement of our individuality. It's a stuffy, bad-airy, rotten place, where a lot of ugliness, ugliness is swirling around. Jesus, the greatest specialist of the human heart, once told us what is in that heart and what can creep up the cellar stairs in an unguarded moment. Like enemies of the night from within the Trojan Horse, like robbers and murderers from their hiding places, grim, dark forces rise up from the cellar of our hearts. Jesus names these forces, "For out of thence proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, gluttities, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, lasciviousness, evil eye, blasphemies, pride, foolishness: all these wickednesses proceed out of the heart of man, and defile a man." (Mk 7,21-23) It is clear that all these terrible things begin in the heart, from the heart, in a seemingly harmless form, in the form of desire: the desire for something or someone. All real sin begins somewhere down there, in the depths, in the heart...
What is the heart? Well: it can be expressed in a more modern and psychologically responsible way. Because what the Bible calls the heart is what current science calls the unconscious world of the human soul. And this unconscious world is nothing more than a collection of old and new experiences, of memories and feelings that have been passed down through us, of impressions received from our early youth, which, together with inherited traits and emotions resulting from physical endowments, combined with the influence of the environment, guide will and action and, often unconsciously, force us to decide and act in ways that later turn out to have been completely wrong. This is where we can see most clearly the sin-infested state of our human nature, how the influence of sin permeates us to the very depths of our being, to the unconscious depths of our self, to the basement of our soul, how the depravity of our human nature is total. And in the Xth Commandment, when God says, "Thou shalt not covet," He puts His hand on this deepest root of our human life.
Well, but if that's so, is it enough that God says, "Thou shalt not covet"? Is it enough to give good advice, or even a stern warning, or even a threat? Are we capable of not desiring what belongs to another? It is in vain for someone to say, "Do not covet," because we covet! This desire: the deepest, most primordial feeling in us, something that has become instinct, nature. If you put two six-month-old babies side by side and put a little rag doll in the hand of one of them, the other one will wish with such irresistible force that it will squeal, struggle, struggle until it somehow manages to tear it out of his hand and get what belongs to the other one! And is it not the same later? What is in the other's hands is always more exciting, more interesting, more desirable. Isn't this the source of all strife, from nursery school quarrels to marital tragedies to world wars? Isn't it a solution, then, to warn someone good-naturedly: don't covet the other's! Nor is it a solution for someone generously to satisfy the desire of one's heart. To say: Did you wish it? Well, there you are, there you are, you have had what you wished for, now you are satisfied! For the terrible thing is, that the nature of the man who desires another cannot be satisfied. He always wants more. No matter how much he has received or acquired, he will always have something that the other does not have, and then he will want it again. For if anyone is truly honest, he can only say to him: But, Lord, I desire it, I cannot help it, however I fight against it, I desire it, I cannot help desiring it!
And yet God says, "Do not covet! Do you feel, Brothers and Sisters, that this is a final corner from which there is really only one refuge: to cry for mercy?! When the depravity of my own life to its very roots becomes so obvious, when it becomes so obvious that I can only do the opposite of what God says, commands, then the only excuse is that Jesus did enough for me, died for me, took the condemnation for me! So, the fact that He took upon Himself God's judgment of me, that He has obtained mercy for me, is that the forgiving, sin-cleansing effect of His blood reaches down into my heart, into the very depths of my cellar, into the dark unknowns of my subconscious soul!
And that God, for the sake of Jesus, forgives all that was stirring in that heart, corrupt to the core, as a wish: is it all settled now, are we done? Actually, yes! In fact, I could end this sermon here. For there is no more glorious news than that God cleanses us with the blood of Christ, that God forgives us for the merits of Jesus Christ, or that God gives us grace in the death of Christ! But Jesus is not only the propitiation for our sins, Jesus not only died for us, but He is also the resurrection and the life for us! And that means that in Him we too can always rise again and walk in newness of life.
In other words: in Christ and through Christ, it is still possible not to covet the other! In other words: by being cleansed of the old, it is possible to start something new... Of course, even now, the old desire will always reappear in us, but at such times you should always think again that you have received such a great gift in the forgiveness of sins, in eternal life, in Jesus Christ, that you cannot wish for more, for something greater! He who has precious pearls of truth does not desire the pearls of others!
When someone can say: 'I have eternal life in Christ' - and they have a new type of car or a higher standard of living. I have a living Saviour - and he has plenty of money, youth, good health: then he no longer has in his heart the thought that it is good for him, but it would be good if I had what he has. And here let me remind you of the very first Word of the Ten Commandments, the introduction, "I the Lord am your God, who brought you out... out of the house of service." Therefore do not covet the other's! In other words: always remember what Jesus did for you when He died and rose again, and then you will not desire the other! There are few happy people in the world because there are few truly contented people. And truly it is as the psalmist says:
O happy is the life of such a man'
Whom God hath put in his grace,
And forgave him his trespasses,
And covered all his sins.
Blessed is he whose great iniquity
God hath not imputed to him,
And deceit is not in his heart,
He walks without deed in his life.
(Psalm 32:1)
Amen
Date: 26 October 1958.
Lesson
Jak 1,13-18