Friday, August 20, 2021

The Ten Commandments

John Stromgren

The Ninth Commandment

In some traditions, this commandment is merged with the last one, but for Luther’s congregations it was handled separately. Here’s what he says about it in his Small Catechism:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house.”

What does this mean for us? We are to fear and love God so that we do not desire to get our neighbor’s possessions by scheming or by pretending to have a right to them, but always help him keep what is his.

There is in human nature, and perhaps in our American culture in particular, a feeling of scarcity – that somehow we never have quite enough. We compare ourselves with others, and often come up lacking. We notice what our neighbor has, and, suddenly, we want that. Have you ever thought about what your neighbor is coveting? Maybe something of yours! It seems that we have a tendency to overvalue what someone else has, and undervalue what we have. “The grass is always greener,” the saying goes. We know that we should not covet what belongs to our neighbor. But we can’t stop there. Luther prescribes the antidote for coveting: helping our neighbor keep what is his. In fact, doing things for other people heals lots of self-centered ailments, as our rector Rob has often pointed out. We have enough. We are enough.