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Sunday, July 17, 2016

WE NEED GOD: To Deal With Desire

A Sermon based Upon Exodus 20: 17; Mark 7: 14-23; James 1: 13-16
By Rev. Charles J. Tomlin, D.Min.
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Year C: Proper 11, 9th Sunday After Pentecost, July 17th, 2016

Cleve Wilkie, the late staffer of the Baptist Children=s Home of North Carolina was known for his humor.   Once he told how POOR MOSES got to feeling extremely low and blue, so he decided to have a talk with God about his troubles. 
AYou know my life has not been easy,@ he said to God. 
AFirst, my mother put me in a basket and floated me down a river. 
Then I left Egypt for 40 years.  You remember the burning bush, the plagues, and the Passover.  Life has been a riot.@
God sympathetically nodded.
AAnd there=s a lot more,@ added the disconsolate Moses.
ABut you know and remember everything, so I don=t have to tell you all the rest.   But I really can=t handle much more and I have this terrible splitting headache!@  God looked kindly at Moses and said,
AHere, take these two tablets and call me in the morning.@[i]

Seriously, do these ‘two tablets’ still have something to offer to relieve the struggles of our world?  Several years ago T.V. mogul TED TURNER PROCLAIMED himself Aking of news@ and then declared the Ten Commandments obsolete, saying AThe Ten Commandments don=t relate to current global problems. When Moses went up the mountain there were no nuclear weapons, no poverty, and there was no overpopulation.  Besides, nobody likes to be commanded to do anything.  Commandments are out.@[ii]



Along with Ted Turner, most of today’s culture does not know what to do with commandments.  We are a people who RESIST REGULATIONS, restrict governments, and make our own personal lists for what to do with our lives.  WE would rather Independence day, rather than Dependence day.  Even in the Church, we too would rather sing Amazing Grace than Trust and Obey.  ANo rules, just right@ catches is the popular spirit.  ANOBODY LIKES TO BE COMMANDED.” Commandments are out.@



Perhaps, the most dramatic proof of the CULTURAL DEATH of the Ten Commandments was the controversy which arose a few years ago when Alabama JUDGE ROY MOORE was hounded for displaying a little plaque of the Ten Commandments on his courtroom wall.  Several public schools subsequently fought to publically display them too, while local courts said that   any kind of public display of them violates the separation of church and state.  Interestingly, Roy Moore and other well-meaning folks, may have rightly understood our moral need, but I’m still don’t think that public displays will actually get them into people’s hearts. 

So, for most the remaining weeks of summer, we are going to CONSIDER THE VALUE of the Ten Commandments.  I’m not going to argue about whether our nation should hang these ten words in public places, but we are going think about how we can HANG THESE TEN WORDS where God first put them, into the HEARTS and lives of God’s people.  I want us to consider these commands in reverse order, because it begins with our hearts.  We will start where most people are and end up where God wants to be, in the heart of his people.

DESIRES DETERMINE US
In Exodus 20:17 the TENTH COMMANDMENT (or Word) says, “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 (Exod. 20:17 NRS).   While the issue of coveting, wanting or desiring what another has MAY NOT SEEM SO SERIOUS, (have you coveted your neighbor=s slave or donkey lately?), this word is CONNECTED TO THE VERY HEART of all that matters, and is the MOST COMPREHENSIVE of commandment of all.  This commandment goes straight for the heart to ask would you like to have.  It’s something we ask ourselves frequently in this materialistic-oriented world that offers so much. 

But this commandment raises a more fundamental issue.  It raises the issue of Awhat should we have or want?@   In other words: What kind of life should we be living together and ‘under’ God?  And even more poignantly, this word reminds us that AWE CAN BECOME WHAT WE WANT.@  

In Mark 7, during one of his struggles with the legalistic Pharisees, Jesus told his disciples that ITS NOT WHAT GOES INTO A PERSON that determines who they become but its WHAT COMES OUT. AIt is the thought-life that defiles you.  For from within, out of a person=s heart comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, and deceit, eagerness for lustful pleasure, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.  All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you and make you unacceptable to God.@ (Mark 7: 20-23).


JESUS WOULD NOT SAY ‘WE ARE WHAT WE EAT’ but Jesus says that WE BECOME WHAT WE DESIRE within our own heart.   Healthy humans have the freedom to desire, to decide and to become what we want.  WE CHOOSE.  We have the power to DETERMINE our own life based on desire.

A largely unknown tale entitled AThe Great Stone Face@, written by the Nathaniel Hawthorne who who gave us AThe Scarlet Letter” centers upon A MAN NAME ERNEST who grew up in a village with a natural wonder.  Nature had majestically carved in the side of the mountain the features of a human countenance so realistic that from a distance, a Great Stone Face seemed to be alive.  Children were told that someday someone in the vicinity would be born who was DESTINED FOR GREATNESS and would bear a resemblance to that great stone face. 



As Ernest grew into manhood, he never forgot the prophecy he=d heard from his mother=s knee.  He allowed the Great Stone Face to BECOME HIS TEACHERC mediating upon the face, looking to it for guidance, reading stories about it, speaking about it to others who would listen.  Years passed, but NO ONE EVER CAME who resembled the grander of that face.  Of course, impostors came, but Ernest had studied the details of the face so well, that he was an expert on the face and could not be fooled.  He was saddened that as he got older, the man with the face had not come.



One day a poet who had written about the Great Stone Face came to visit Ernest.  They enjoyed each other’s company and longed together to see the appearance of the face.  As they walked and talked together for several days THE POET LISTENED TO ERNEST=S ELOQUENT SPEECHES about the face.  In one moment, with the Great Stone Face looming in the background, the poet listened to Ernest=s moving speech about the Face and suddenly realized what should have been obvious all along.  He looked and made the comparison, A ERNEST IS HIMSELF had the LIKENESS of the Great Stone Face!@  Ernest had BECOME LIKE HIS IDEAL.  Hawthorne=s story reverberates to us that,AWhat get=s our attention gets us.@  We become what we want as our desires determine who we become.

DESIRES CAN BE DANGEROUS
Since desires are determinative, they CAN ALSO BE DANGEROUS. In another text from Luke, A YOUNGER BROTHER CAME asking Jesus to become a judge over dividing an inheritance between he and his brother.  In the ancient world the elder brother had complete control over how an inheritance was decided.  Evidently this elder brother didn=t pass much to his younger sibling, so the younger comes to Jesus with a complaint.   
    ATeacher, please tell by brother to divide our father=s estate with me.@   It seems like an understandable, fair request.  
    But JESUS REFUSES to allow himself to get involved in this dispute.   AFriend, who made me a judge over you to decide things like that?@  


Isn=t this an amazing response?  Jesus did not decide for him, but he gave the young man A STIFF WARNING.  ABeware!   Don=t be greedy for what you don=t have.  Real life is not measured by how much we own.@ (Luke 12:13-15).  

It is important to understand that NEITHER Jesus, nor this commandment are AGAINST HUMAN DESIRES for having the right kind of things in our lives.  Buddhist philosophy says that all suffering in life is due to human desires.  It suggests that IF WE GET RID of all our DESIRING, we can then rid ourselves of our SUFFERING.  While there can be some truth to this, Christianity takes a very different view.  Christianity says that GOD HAS CREATED a world of many GOOD THINGS.  God has given us the ability to desire and create even more good things which may ASSIST US relieving much human suffering.  THINGS ARE BASICALLY GOOD, but at the same time we need to be reminded that having is NOT THE ULTIMATE source of human happiness.  AReal life is not measured by how much we own,@ Jesus said.  

Do your REMEMBER THAT ELVIS HAD three jets, two Cadillacs, a Rolls, a Lincoln Continental, two station wagons, a Jeep, a custom touring bus, and three motorcycles.  His favorite car was his 1960 Caddy Limo.  The top was covered with pearl-white Naugahyde and the body was sprayed with 40 coats of special paint that included crushed diamonds.  Nearly all the metal trim was plated in 18-karat gold.  There were two gold-flakes phones, as well as a gold vanity case with gold electric razor and gold hair clippers, and an electric shoe buffer.  The limo also had a gold-plated TV, a record player (kids, ask your parents what that was), an amplifier, an air conditioner, its own electrical system, and a refrigerator that could make ice in precisely two minutes.  We could say that Elvis had it all, but as you also know, Elvis died a lonely and deeply unhappy man.[iii]



Having things, even having the best things in life, will NOT ASSURE THAT YOU WILL BE HAPPY or have a full life.  Jesus suggested in the Beatitudes that being poor in spirit, being mournful, even being persecuted could bring more genuine happiness than having what you want.  Having material things might be fun, interesting, sometimes even advantageous, but having what we want doesn’t assure us of getting what we really need. But of course, this is NOT WHAT THE ADVERTISERS TELL US.  In our wealthy culture, it is the ADVERTISERS JOB TO MAKE US WANT MORE STUFFB make you desire, covet and hopefully buy, even if it means that you will ‘be in debt up to your eyeballs’.
 
Last week I spoke about Woolworth=s department store.  Mr. Woolworth revolutionized merchandising in this country and in Europe as well.  The large contribution which Woolworth made was to invent Ashopping@.  Woolworth had the bright idea to put the merchandise out on the tables and in showcases for everyone to see.  Before that, people would enter a store and tell a clerk what they wanted.   The clerk would go and obtain for them the merchandise in the storage area and present it to the customer for purchase. 



Since the invention of ‘shopping’ a great change has taken place in our attitude toward having ‘stuff’.  We have become a people who no longer know how to name what we want, but if you let us shop a while, we’ll think of something.  It doesn’t take long for us to CREATE A DESIRE FOR IT, buy it, and believe that we are made happier.  And if you notice HOW THE ADVERTISEMENTS ARE PRESENTED these days, it’s also a QUALITY OF LIFE, the freedom, the adventure, or even the spiritual resource that is being offered.  Through ‘things’, we are promised what all we ‘want’ in life.  But this is, according to Holy Scripture, is exactly what having things cannot do.  Both desiring and acquiring can be very dangerous, it is a promise they don’t deliver. ABeware!  Jesus said.  Don=t be greedy for what you don=t have.  Real life is not measured by how much you own.@

CONTROLLING DESIRES


Since desires don=t always lead us to what we really need, the 10th commandment reminds us that we need God’s help us CONTROL OUR DESIRES, to discipline them, to limit them, to channel them and then to aim them in the right direction.  That is why the commandment does NOT SIMPLY SAY, ADON=T COVETB period,@  but it more explicitly says ADon=t covet what your NEIGHBOR HAS.@  The key to how God helps us control our desires has something to do with your ‘neighbor’.   Let me explain.



WE ALL HAVE DESIRES and we all have desires for things we may see in the worldBeven things that our neighbor has.  The Bible itself reminds us that there are GOOD THINGS THAT WE SHOULD COVET-- good gifts that others have developed-- like loving spirits, generosity, responsibility and hard workC all of which do enable people to become good mangers of ‘many things’.  Jesus nor the Law forbids wanting what can help, encourage and motivate us, but we are warned that wanting THINGS CAN BECOME BAD when we lose making ‘having’ the top priority—when only God should have that place. 

It is this kind of wayward, UNRESTRAINED DESIRE THAT LOSSES CONTROL, results in wrecks marriages, destroys homes, damages relationships, and makes for unhappy lives and impaired communities.  This kind of ‘coveting’  TURNS NEIGHBORS INTO OUR COMPETITORS and the DISTORTS our perspective about what really matters.  It is the kind of wayward desire Jesus saw as defiling and the Book of James also warned us about, when he wrote that our selfish desires ‘cause us to fight and war with each other’ (James 4:1-3).  With all these biblical warnings about coveting desires, how can we tell whether we have normal desire or an inordinate form of it? How do we know if we’re entertaining desires that can become destructive to both ourselves or our neighbor?  Let me SUGGEST A SIMPLE TEST. 

Once the apostle Paul said that Alove is not envious@ (1 Corinthians 13:4) and he further exhorted that we Christian should always Arejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.@ (Rom. 12:15).  All of us know that it is always EASIER TO WEEP with our neighbor than it is to rejoice with them.  But it is this ability to be ABLE TO REJOICE AT OUR NEIGHBOR=S GOOD FORTUNE that may be a true test for our own personal desires.  If you truly love someone, care for someone, and want to be their neighbor, you will rejoice when they Ado well for themselves.@  THE INABILITY TO REJOICE WITH OTHERS, especially in their gain, may mean that something is not right with you.  It could mean your desire is wrong-headed or becoming destructive.

Most of us will remember the story of the Texas CHEERLEADER=S MOTHER a few years ago.  This mother deeply desired to see her daughter win a spot on the high school cheerleading squad.  But when it appeared that another girl was going to get the coveted position, something in this mother snapped.  Instead of rejoicing with those who rejoice, this mother went out and hired a hit man to take out her daughter=s rival.  Coveting that position for her own daughter lead to a death wish, for the neighbor and also, for the mother herself.  Now from a Texas prison, she has lost her daughter and her life. By failing to control her coveting more, she also lost what had.  This story is an extreme, but it does POINT TO the real TRAGEDY OF COVETING.  You know how it goes.  You are perfectly happy with your computerC until they come out with an upgrade, or you are perfectly happy with your carC until your neighbor gets the newer model.  You are PERFECTLY HAPPY with your lot in lifeC your family, your job, you homeC UNTIL you start thinking like a cow who mistakenly believes “the grass is greener on the other side.”  Have you see the CARTOON with four cows in for different pastures in quadrants next to each other and all the cows are eating in the other’s pasture?  That=s a good picture of what coveting desire and greed can doC it can make you terribly unhappyC not just unhappy about what your neighbor has, but very UNHAPPY WITH WHAT YOU YOURSELF HAVE.  It is a desire that can ruin our joy.

Have you ever watched CHILDREN AT PLAY?  They are natural at coveting.   And you don=t have to be in a rich nation to see this in children.   D.T. Niles, who was once a great missionary to India and living in poverty among the people of India, once told how he gave his boys bananas, each would naturally compare the length of one to the other in order to see who got the largest.  
Think about WHY CHILDREN DO THAT?  To be born that may means that we fall short, not because we are bad, but because Children don=t have enough experience to appreciate what they have.  Someone has said, ACOVETING IS ALMOST ALWAYS NEARSIGHTED.@[iv] 

It’s not just that we look and see things we want, but DON=T SEE FAR ENOUGH into what it means to appreciate what we have.  When we desire something, it becomes dangerous when we FAIL TO look far enough to ASK WHAT having this WILL THIS COST?  Would I trade all my family, my wife, my children, my self-respect for a one night stand with my neighbor=s wife?  Or if I covet my neighbor=s house, do I also see it=s price?   That is, do I ponder the payments my neighbor has to make, the mortgage, the burden of the upkeep?  Or even if covet my neighbor=s position or prominence in the neighborhoodC do I see how tiresome it might be to live in a fishbowl or get constant public attention?  COVETING IS ESSENTIALLY TO LIVE SHORT-SIGHTED.   We look, we see, we want, but we fail to consider the costs of what it means.  That is what a child has not learned to do, but that is the lesser impulse that an adult must learn to control.  OVER COMING the desire of covetousness is AA MATTER VISION@, says Ellsworth Kalas.[v]   If we want to keep from destroying our lives with short-sighted desires, WE MUST LEARN TO WANT and SEE MORE, NOT LESS.



This is exactly what Jesus taught.  He showed us that the key to happiness for the Christian is to LEARN TO SEEK THE HIGHER THINGS and see the bigger picture and to also learn about what matters most.  Until we fill our lives with the higher values and virtues, and even with God, we will be constantly trapped and robbed of quality of life by our short-circuiting desires.  Eugene Peterson translates Jesus familiar words from Matthew 6 this way: The place where your treasure is, you will want to be and end up being...  Your eyes are windows into your body.  If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief,  your body will fill with light.  If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a dank cellar.  If you pull the blinds on this window, what a dark life you will have!@
To covet, to have lesser or destructive desires, is to settle for living in a way that will short change your life.  If you live with your eyes squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, what a dark life!   But JESUS SAYS C LET THE LIGHT IN, see more, not less!   See all, not part!   See completely, not partially!



Do you REMEMBER AGNES of Albania?   She was born in 1910 and her Father was a man of means, a wealthy traderC  accomplishing much, until he died young.  After HER FATHER DIED, the mother had to raised Agnes and her brother alone.  Her family suddenly FOUND THEMSELVES POOR.  In that poverty her mother told her to see more than her circumstanceB to open her eyes and wonder at the treasures she could have, though poor.   She told Agnes that it was THE INTANGIBLES of love, compassion, and devotion to God that were the GREATEST VALUES.  This is what mattered most.  Cultivate high values and shape other-worldly virtuesC that was her mother=s vision.

Agnes trusted her mother’s words and opened her eyes and made her motto of life, AOnly for Jesus.@  She GAVE HER LIFE TO SERVING OTHERS, even though she had nothing much herself, and she wanted to see more in life that what one could own or acquireC she sought treasure in heaven.    
 


When Agnes died in 1997, SHE OWN ONLY A FEW COTTON SARIS, a cloth BAG in which to carry them, and a pair of well-worn SANDALS.  But the rich, the powerful and the regal came from all over the world the PAY THEIR RESPECT to one of the greatest persons who ever lived.  For you see, this women who LEARNED TO LOOK DEEPER and higher values of life is known to us, not by her family name, Agnes Bojaxhiu of Albania, but as MOTHER TERESA, the Saint of Calcutta, Nobel laureate and founder of one of the largest mission organizations in the world.  Though SHE ESCHEWED THINGS MONEY COULD buy, Mother Teresa VALUED THINGS THAT MATTER MOST, prayer, love and smiles, and caring.  You don=t have to live exactly like her, but WE ALL CAN LEARN FROM HER.  This is what she wrote in her seventies, words that teach us all how to see:
LIFE IS AN OPPORTUNITY, benefit from it.  
LIFE IS BEAUTY, admire it.  
LIFE IS BLISS, taste it.
LIFE IS A DREAM, realize it.  
LIFE IS A CHALLENGE, meet it. 
LIFE IS COSTLY, care for it.  
LIFE IS WEALTH, keep it.  
LIFE IS LOVE, enjoy it.  
LIFE IS A PROMISE, fulfill it. 
LIFE IS SORROW, overcome it. 
LIFE IS A SONG, sing it. 
LIFE IS A STRUGGLE, accept it. 
LIFE IS AN ADVENTURE, dare it.  


LIFE IS LUCK, make it. 
LIFE TOO PRECIOUS, do not destroy it. 
LIFE IS LIFE, fight for it!@[vi]

Mother Teresa mastered her desires.   But she did covet.  She was one of the MOST COVETOUS people I=ve ever known about.  But she did not covet wealth nor what belonged to othersC but SHE COVETED WHAT BELONGED TO JESUS CHRISTC his unconditional love, passion for compassion, his active care and actual concern for the human race.   She coveted THE ABEST GIFTS@, the higher valuesC she lived for the vision of the gospel and the negative powers of the world had no hold on herC whatsoever.

It seems that evil one has conspired against many in our generation, when it comes to fueling desires for all the wrong things. But there are STILL THOSE WHO will OVERCOME, and they win the greatest prize of allC eternal life.  We all should covet that.   Amen.





[i]. In Charity & Children, June, 2000, p. 4
[ii]. As quoted by Michael G. Moriarty in The Perfect 10, Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2000, p.15.
[iii]. From a Sermon by Rev. Michael Usey on College Park Baptist Church=s Web-site, www.collegeparkchurch.com
[iv]. J. Ellsworth Kalas in The Ten Commandments from the Backside, Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1998, p. 102.
[v]. Ibid, p. 103.
[vi].As quoted by Rob Schenk in The Ten Words that will Change A Nation, Tulsa, Albury Publishing, 2000, p. 206.

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