The tenth commandment 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" (Exodus 20: 17). Biblical scholar Walter Breuggemann has called attention to this commandment as an expression of a way of being in the world that models God's dream and God's desire for how we live.

            To covet means to desire what someone else has: to want it and feel you need it in order to be whole yourself. To covet reflects a personal attitude of deficit. So many of our problems as a society, as a nation, and as individuals seem to stem from the desire to make ourselves feel whole by grasping, taking, or at least coveting what someone else has. God's message, again and again, is that we are only whole when God fills us. Such wholeness does not come with

possessing goods or the achievement of rank and status. It is not a matter of good reputation or of the fulfillment of a task, as laudable as these may be.

            God's way is an attitude of abundance. We are all part of a generous and very good creation. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asserted that the "threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." In the same spirit, unless we find a way for all people to have access to the benefits of society, to know the blessings of true justice, and to experience the wealth that only comes with being generous with all that we have for the common good-unless we live with such a spirit of abundance-we are likely to fall prey to the temptations of envy, resentment, and covetous behavior, even if we call these by other names such as free enterprise and the marketplace-even if we choose to see ourselves as always one-down to others or not as valuable.

            The world around us tells us many things about the way we should be. We should be good and well behaved. We should go along and not cause trouble. We should be polite even in the face of injustice. We should hide our faults and be ashamed of our broken places. But God tells us time and again, "I have made you as part of the goodness of creation. You are beloved just as you are." And so, while striving to grow and realize our potential as human beings Is a valid and vital dimension of the journey of life, it is not a journey to earn love or to earn acceptance. Most often, for most of us, it is a journey to accept who we are and the divine role each of us has to fulfill.

Thanks for continuing to bless me as we journey together.  

--Jack F. Price

To read more by Jack, be sure to order your copy of Finding Faith: Honest Answers about God, the Bible, and the Church Today at:  www.findingfaithnow.com or www.lulu.com/buy (download available)

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