Although pirates have launched more than 70 attacks on vessels in Somali waters this year, no ship carrying WFP food assistance has been attacked while under Canadian escort.
Most, if not all us, would praise the efforts of the Canadian forces, but we also shake our heads at a world where food for those who will die without it must be protected from pirates. In case any of us have forgotten, Canadians are still standing between the combatants in Cyprus, where we have been for 61 years. Where is our gift of Christmas peace?
There was no peace when the words of Isaiah were first heard. The beginning of our text is a study in contrasts—darkness and light, joy at the harvest and the yoke of their burden, the means of war and a fire of victory. These verses reflect both the current situation and what God holds out for the people if they will only turn to him. The boot in verse five no doubt refers to the heel of the Assyrian army which seeks to crush any and all resistance in Israel.
What then would those who lived with Isaiah have heard when they listened to these words? The insightful Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann tells us this text is a decree
from the palace, likely a birth announcement of a new heir to the throne of David. He says it is “an announcement of God’s faithful gift of newness through a new ruler, in response to sore need in the community. The newness mediated by the oracle is that the realm has come under new governance” (Texts for Preaching—Year A, 38).
Brueggemann goes on to say the angels in the Bethlehem story have the same role. “They are making an announcement on behalf of the court. A new heir has been designated, who will faithfully inaugurate a new creation (Ibid.).
But where is the gift of peace? The promise is glorious, but what about the fulfillment? The Assyrians carried off thousands upon thousands of Jews into exile. These were people who heard the words of God through Isaiah and hoped there would indeed be a ruler who was Prince of Peace.
Again, where is the gift of peace? As Christians we have listened to these words of Isaiah and heard them as a description of Jesus. Those of you familiar with Handel’s magnificent oratorio, Messiah, will know that verse six of our text was set to music in that great chorus sung by the choir, For unto us. Yet still I can talk this morning about where our Canadian troops are stationed, where they are sailing and flying in places of conflict all over the world. Where is the gift of peace?
Let’s answer that question then. For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
The gift of God to us is a person whose pursuit is peace. Quickly let’s take a look at each part of this gift. The first thing is the necessity of a relationship. What do you enjoy about Christmas morning? For as long as I can remember my attention has been divided between opening the gifts for me and watching others open their gifts. I take delight in watching the reaction of someone else.
These, of course, are the same people who often caused me to lose my temper later in the
day when Chris and I were involved in the nearly impossible task of getting the turkey, the mashed potatoes, the stuffing, the gravy and the brussell sprouts to the table while all of it was still hot…or at least warm…or maybe we’ll keep the gravy just on the edge of boiling and that will warm up everything else! Delight one minute and frustration mere hours later—and what relationship doesn’t have at least a bit of that.
Peace is not something static; its not a box or a bauble. It comes with a person and this person, this Jesus has a pursuit. God gives to us the prince of peace. What are the images that come to mind when we hear the word prince? There is that pop singer with that as his one-word name. There is a English chap named Charles who attends parties and opens hospitals and makes disparaging comments about modern architecture. But when Isaiah spoke about the prince of peace, this is the title of someone who rules.
He has a pursuit. He will do what is necessary to make for peace. For this peace that is promised is not passive. This peace is not the mere absence of conflict. What is promised is the shalom of God.
“Shalom…has expansive connotations. It means harmony, wholeness, and right relationship with God, others, self and earth. Isaiah offers prophetic pictures of shalom: the wolf lying with the lamb, weapons turned into farming tools, deserts blooming” (“Our Shalom Vocation,” Christianity Today, November 2008, 69).
Where is our gift of Christmas peace? I read recently a story about a 19th century Russian priest named Father John Kronstadt. Most of his fellow clergymen refused to visit the villages that surrounded their cathedrals—chronic poverty had fostered a debauched despair that made the rural areas treacherous. But Father John would enter the slums and get down in the gutters. He would find some fellow sleeping off whatever he had done the night before; he would cup his chin, look him in the eyes, and say, “This is beneath your dignity. You were created to house the fullness of God.”
Friends, in that true story is a parable of peace. Father John did not expect the gift of peace to be a lifeless object wrapped and boxed. Peace came with a person named Jesus who invited Father John to join him in the pursuit of God’s shalom, not merely the absence of conflict but also completeness, wholeness, harmony  and restored righteousness.
A couple of years ago at the beginning of December a grade one child at the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago was asked by her Sunday School teacher the name of the season that comes before Christmas. “Advil,” said the girl. Perhaps things had been a little tense in the lead up to Christmas at her house.
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,” said the angels, “and on earth peace among those whom he favours” (Luke 2:14). The echoes of that chorus can still be heard wherever you and I welcome the ruler who brings peace and join him in sharing harmony, wholeness and the righteousness of heaven.
Will you be reaching for the Advil later today or tomorrow? Reach out also to God who wishes for you the shalom of the Saviour.

B

1 Timothy 5:1-8 (New International Version)

Advice About Widows, Elders and Slaves
1Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, 2older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. 3Give proper recognition to those widows who are really in need. 4But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. 5The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help. 6But the widow who lives for pleasure is dead even while she lives. 7Give the people these instructions, too, so that no one may be open to blame. 8If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Family Matters!

9 SOMETHING “DIFFERENT” 
Item five in The Ultimate Top 10 List asks for a particular degree of care when we deal with it. First of all, it is the only one of the commandments that has a promise attached to it. That doesn’t make it more important than the others but it does make it different. God connects the business of honouring father and mother to long life in the promised land.
The second thing about this commandment is that it appears to be the transition between two phases of this Top 10 List. The first four commandments clearly have to do with our relationship with God. The last five clearly have to do with person to person relationships. Number 5 is in the middle. It’s about family matters and yet the promise, given in anticipation of certain behaviour, impacts on our relationship with God.
The third thing is that there is potentially more emotion attached to a discussion of this commandment than of any of the others. The one exception is you shall not commit adultery. But while that discussion in two weeks might have particular pain and emotion attached to it for a few of us or half of us or even most of us, all of us either had parents or we are parents, and given human imperfection there are little mistakes and major disasters attached to every remembrance of how we were raised and how we raised our own.
Yet here it is as part of The Ultimate Top 10, honour your father and mother. No matter what emotion is attached to this business, we need to come to this commandment with the same assumption I bring to all the rest—this is another opportunity to live in harmony with the will and purposes of God. What is it then that God is telling us in this part of The Ultimate Top 10? 
9 FAMILY MATTERS 
There is no way to escape the central importance of family to every human on the face of the earth. Last Sunday Rachel and Christopher brought their son Luke and presented him for dedication to the Lord. It is of crucial importance to that child that Rachel and Christopher are his parents. It matters biologically and emotionally; it matters psychologically and spiritually.
I am of the opinion that every child enters this world with certain tendencies. This observation is more anecdotal than scientific, but any parents who, like us, raised more than one child, will point to the incredible differences that develop in children who grew up within the same circumstances. Our Rachel and Andrew are barely 18 months apart in age. Rachel was tiny. Andrew was not. Once he learned to walk they were always together. Yet, what different people they became!
Having said that, there is so much that is taught to children. Over the centuries the rabbis of Judaism have interpreted the fifth commandment as not a battering ram for parents—“you must honour me because God says so”—but as God stressing the vital importance of the teaching role that every parent has. In other words, while I might call on my children to give me honour or respect, God calls on me to make sure I have given my children a compelling reason to show honour to me.
For example, according to the Talmud, a father is obliged to teach a child the Torah, to teach a craft or job skill and some say also, emphasizing the practical, to swim. “The parent’s success in parenting is determined by how effective a role model and a pedagogue he or she is, and by how well the parent helps the child to become socially, morally, intellectually, and financially independent of the parent (The Ten Commandments for Jews, Christians and Others, 95).
This emphasis on the role of the parent as teacher in the life of the child points us in two other directions. As I have said on at least one other occasion, there is never a question about whether or not a child is getting an education, the question is whether the education is good or bad.
We know then, that any child is going to be exposed to lessons that will need to be rejected. Let me offer myself as exhibit “A”. There is something about driving that brings out both impatience and hostility from somewhere deep within my psyche. I believe I have taught some good lessons to our children; none of them were connected with driving.
There are some of you here who might want to tell me your mother or father are not worthy of being honoured. I believe what you are truly saying is there were a few things or perhaps many things they taught which you had no choice but to reject. Of course that’s true. Humans make mistakes. But what valuable lessons were taught? What gifts of grace and support were given? Honour your mother and father for those.
I suppose it is possible there are extreme examples where you couldn’t point to a single positive lesson that was shared. I submit the commandment is still relevant to you because it holds up the ideal to which all of us would aspire—parents who give their children something worth honouring. This is so central to building life with relationships that I believe God had to tell us how important it was for him. Indeed it is part of The Ultimate Top 10.
There is another direction in which we are pointed by the importance of the parent as teacher. I hope you won’t mind if I share some thoughts about my mother and father. The first home I remember was in Scarborough, just north of the intersection of Danforth Road and Warden Avenue. The church my mother attended was First Avenue Baptist, near Broadview and Gerrard. It was from my mother that I learned the importance of the Christian community. Until my mother got her driver’s license we made that trip to church on a long ride involving both a bus and a street car.
One of the reasons it was my mother who taught that lesson was my father found it necessary to work what he called “odd jobs” as a handy man. At one point I discovered that my dad was an expert at hanging doors, a skill I came to understand is not possessed by everyone. I have rarely met anyone who worked harder than my father. Growing up in Newfoundland during the
Depression, he never finished elementary school but made sure all four of his children had the opportunity for post-secondary education.
I owe a debt of honour and gratitude to my parents for what they contributed to making me who I am. Realizing that I am not self-made points me beyond my earthly parents to the heavenly Father who created me in his image. “The Talmud describes each person as an amalgam of body and soul, where God provides the soul and the human parents provide the raw materials for the body. Hence, each child has three parents, three partners in his or her creation: God, mother, and father—each due honour and reverence (Ibid., 96).
9 PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS 
The story is told of a 19th century rabbi of Zhitomer in the Ukraine. “The rabbi of Zhitomer was once walking along with his son when they came upon a drunken man and his drunken son, both stumbling in the gutter. ‘I envy that man,’ the rabbi said to his son. ‘He has accomplished his goal of conveying his values and his lifestyle to his son. I can only hope that the drunkard is not more successful with his son than I am with you’” (Ibid., 98, 99).
Friends, lessons will be passed on. Values and lifestyle will be communicated. What should we be doing about that? Let me offer a word of challenge and a word of commendation.
The image for the word of challenge is Luke, Rachel and Christopher’s son and our grandson. We need allies. Now if it was only me asking, you would understand completely. But Luke has two wonderful parents, at least a dozen or so aunts and uncles, he is the first grandchild for Christopher’s parents, and he has the devoted love of my wife Christine. We need allies. We need the church to stand with us so that Luke will be taught what it means to love God and neighbour, what it means to follow Christ as Saviour and Lord, what it means to seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. This is why, as much as I wish David Tigchelaar every blessing from God as he responds to the call of God upon his life, I am sorry that David will not be leading our
children’s ministry past this summer. And if there has been anything on my part that hasn’t been tended to in the past month, it’s because I have been trying to get the word out to as many people and places as possible it is priority #1 to find the new person God wants to help us all be allies in raising Luke and all the children of this church.
The image for the word of commendation is the offering Blythwood collects the third Sunday of each month in support of Guardians of Hope. To honour mothers and fathers is a part of what we do to honour and support the elderly. It is also part of what we do when we look to places in the world where someone must step in if godly values and a kingdom lifestyle is to be communicated.
Friends, it is important that we do this. The Guardians of Hope are those who have taken it upon themselves to care for children in Africa orphaned by the spread of AIDS and HIV. The Guardians of Hope are people like Bonnie Hartley who first proposed to the Board a monthly offering for this ministry. The Guardians of Hope include all of us who give a little or a lot week by week or month by month.
It all fits together doesn’t it? We raise the children of this church and we give them a reason to respect and honour us. And the next generation is then shaped to do the same, and the next, and the next…

B

Proverbs 6:16-19 (New International Version)

16 There are six things the LORD hates,
   seven that are detestable to him:
17 haughty eyes,
   a lying tongue,
   hands that shed innocent blood,
18 a heart that devises wicked schemes,
   feet that are quick to rush into evil,
19 a false witness who pours out lies
   and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

Tell the truth!

9 TELL THE TRUTH? 
There was a young man who lived in the Middle Ages who went to a monk with this confession: “I have sinned by telling slanderous statements about another person. What should I do?”
The monk looked thoughtfully at the young man and then said, “Go get a chicken, pluck its feathers, and then place a feather on every doorstep in town.”
He didn’t quite understand why such a task should be given to him, but he did it and then returned. “What now?,” he said.
“Go back and pick up all of the feathers.”
“But that’s impossible! How can I do that? There were hundreds of feathers, and by now they’ve blown all over town!”
“And that is just what has happened with your lies,” said the monk. The damage they have done can never be retrieved.”
That’s the sort of story preachers love. If you remember nothing else from the sermon today, you’ll remember that story and there might even be an opportunity to tell that story in the next couple of weeks. We accept the truth the story tells, but our culture’s attitude to this story is a shrug, a yawn and an indifferent “whatever.”
Last December, the Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based ethics institute released the results of a survey involving almost 30,000 students at 100 randomly selected high schools across the United States, both public and private. The surveys were given in class and anonymity was assured.
Here are some of the findings:
•cheating in school is rampant and getting worse. Sixty-four percent of students cheated once in the past year and 38% did so two or more times;
•thirty-six percent said they used the internet to plagiarize an assignment;
•forty-two percent said they sometimes lie to save money—but boys are more guilty of this than girls, 49% as compared to 36%
One of the more interesting aspects of the survey was that despite what they admitted, 93% of the students said they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character, and 77% agreed with this statement: “when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.”
Before we condemn these students, let’s look at the examples they have been given to follow. I know the New York Yankees make an easy target in the home of the Blue Jays, but Alex Rodriguez, the Yankee’s third baseman admits to taking illegal performance enhancing drugs and then lying about it, but as long as he can still park those hanging curve balls into the left field bleachers, he’ll get cheered in the Bronx.
For teens more interested in commerce than sports, there’s the wonderful example of Bernie Madoff, who on March 12 of this year pled guilty to defrauding thousands of investors of almost $65 billion. This, of course, involved a violation of the eighth commandment but the whole of the scheme was an elaborate lie, known in the investment world as a Ponzi scheme.
What are we going to do? Should we admit it is simply more realistic to talk about nine commandments? This business of telling the truth is a quaint carry-over from another era. Or should we take a good look at why God has made this part of The Ultimate Top 10? In the time we have left, that’s what I want to do. Let’s take a look at what it means to tell the truth in relation to others, ourselves and God.
9 TRUTH HAS CONSEQUENCES 
God expects us to tell the truth about others. As you can tell from the way in which this commandment is spoken, there is something of the legal necessity for truth in the background. If you are called upon to tell what someone has done you are to tell the truth.
I learned the importance of this a number of years ago. A friend of mine asked me, along with a number of others, to take a day and spend it in
court at the trial of his son. This young man had had some brushes with the law and his parents were well aware he was no angel. But he had been charged with the armed robbery of a convenience store, obviously a serious charge with serious consequences. An eye-witness had fingered him as the culprit. His parents decided to make every effort to defend him because they knew on the night in Toronto when this crime was committed, their son had been with them an hour away from the scene of the crime. He was found not guilty. The truth was eventually told but with no thanks to that witness who thought he or she  knew the truth.
The truth has consequences. So does the lack of truth. It is a sad commentary on western culture that one cosmetics company has built their advertising around the idea of the campaign for real beauty. What the Dove company is telling us is that this culture has allowed lies to be told about what constitutes beauty. What we see in advertising is not the natural beauty given by God. What we see is a fantasy sold as reality. Buy this you’ll look like that. It’s not possible, as you can see in this film.
9 TRUTH BLESSES 
Last month at one of our Wednesday studies we were looking at the counsel from the letter of James dealing with the tongue. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing (3:10). The apostle says this ought not to be so and I suggested to the group that in telling our tongues can be a source of both, that James was also giving us a hint as to the solution. If your tongue can bless, then use it to bless—that was the direction I was going in.
But it was Brenda Bush who gave us all the text for our efforts. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer (Psalm 19:14). Brenda told us she meditates on that verse as a way of asking God to give her words of blessing.
I want to suggest this is a good word for us as we seek to be truth tellers. “In the Christian tradition the prohibition against false witness has
often been interpreted as demanding not only that we avoid harming others with distorted speech but that we positively help them with loving speech” (The Ten Commandments for Jews, Christians and Others, 186).
Let me suggest a simple experiment to conduct this week. You have the scripture card in your folder this morning with Psalm 19:14. Tape or pin that up where you will see it—the bathroom mirror, on the box of cereal, on your travel mug, or on the dash of the car. Say it and pray it several times each day. Then look for a situation at work, at home, at school, at church where you can choose to give a loving word, a blessing word, a word which as Luther put it, “benefits everyone, reconciles the discordant, excuses and defends the maligned” (quoted in Ibid.). I believe it will make a difference. If nothing else you will bless yourself through the truth, but I believe you will bless others also.
9 TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT GOD 
It should go without saying, but we need to hear it. God expects us to speak the truth about God. Proverbs 6:19 tells us that one of the things God hates and that is an abomination to him is a lying witness who testifies falsely. It seems to me the most important witness that a believer makes is to the reality of God in his or her life. We need to be sure we are telling the truth. We need to be sure we are telling the truth in a way that blesses those who hear our witness. 
In the few minutes we have left I want to explore that idea with you. It seems to me that one of the things that has happened in churches like Blythwood is that we have recognized that much of what is thought to be a witness to God at very least strains the truth with the result that we have largely decided to keep our mouths shut.
Let me give you an example from many years ago. I was once paying a pastoral call on someone who was dealing with a particular illness. If memory serves me correctly, this was an ailment of some long standing. During the course of the visit, the person who was ill told me her own mother, also a committed Christian, had told her the reason she was still sick is that her faith
was not strong enough. If it had been she would have been cured. I think most of us know one of two things—either that is wrong or, if it’s right, we don’t like the sound of such theology. However we find the whole business of divine healing confusing and think the best way to deal with such tough issues is to say nothing.
There is also the lack of truth-telling to which I would make my confession. I confess that I conclude in reference to most of the people I know who are not active followers of Jesus Christ that they are content and happy just the way they are. It is impossible for me to know if this is true or not because I have not taken the time to ask or to explain why I believe any human life finds its ultimate purpose in knowing and serving God.
All of us know we must take care when we witness. It is as easy to get it wrong when we talk about God as when that witness wrongly identified my friend’s son as a thief. It is also possible that we will tell the truth in a way that blesses when we witness. To the grieving we can tell the truth about our hope. To the lonely we can tell the truth about the Saviour who is a friend and about a congregation of gracious welcome. To those estranged from God we can tell the truth about his reconciling forgiveness. To anyone we can tell the truth that the God we know is the God of love.

Mark 10:17-22 (New International Version)

The Rich Young Man
17As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 18"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. 19You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.'[a]" 20"Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy." 21Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." 22At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Be content!

9 LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION 
Leo Tolstoy, in one of his later stories, tells the fable of a Russian peasant who has heard of a region where land is plentiful. For 1,000 rubles he can own all the land he can circumnavigate in one day. If he fails to return by sundown to the spot he began from, the money is forfeited. As the story unfolds, the buyer begins with high hopes, but also with just a little too much appetite for acquisition. Morning turns to afternoon and the sun begins to sink in the western sky. The man rushes to meet the deadline, and in order to travel faster begins to discard any belonging that might slow him down—his coat, his boots and his cap. He reaches his destination but the effort has been too much for him. He collapses and dies. Tolstoy concludes: “In the end, six feet, from head to heels, is all he needed.”
 There’s something to lift your spirits, eh? You’ve had a long week at work or you’ve had a series of doctor’s appointments or stress in the family has ramped up to a level you didn’t think was possible, and when you come to church the preacher tells you it’s all going to come down to you in a box in six feet of real estate. You could have stayed home and read the paper if you wanted that sort of edge taken off your smile.
But stay with me, the news is not going to be all bad. For again God prohibits something not because he wants to confine us and limit our freedom but because God desires real life for us. Not a life defined by the pursuit of things but a life defined by the one who pursues us in order to love us and give us that which is truly needed.
9 I WANT MORE 
Some of us will wonder if this commandment is truly needed. I have already been forbidden to take my neighbour’s wife—that’s adultery. And it’s hands off his donkey too—that stealing. In the last of God’s Ultimate Top 10 it is not an action that is
being prohibited but an attitude. Let’s look at this very carefully. I will use the example of the fountain pen.
I have had a long-standing love affair with the fountain pen. As much as I love doing my work on a computer, every now and again I get a twinge of nostalgia about the days when every sermon or article began with a blank piece of paper and one of my fountain pens. Every now and again I will go into one of those stores that sells the expensive pens and just admire how pretty they are. (Yes, I am well aware how weird this is, but it is basically harmless.) However within this little quirk of mine is an insight into the trap of coveting.
Let me explain. Here is the oldest fountain pen I currently own. When my brother, Fred, was married to his wife, Trish, in 1994, I conducted the service and was the master of ceremonies. They gave me this pen, inscribed Rev. & M.C. and the date. It’s a Sheaffer, a good pen.
The second oldest pen that I own was a gift from one of the members of the Whitby Baptist Church. During the 10 months I was interim pastor of that congregation I met this man, whose hobby was constructing pens from their constituent parts. I must have, at some point, said something about my love of fountain pens, and when my time at the church was finished he gave me this gift. It also is a good pen.
The most recent pen is this one, bought at a stationary store on Rue St. Jean in Quebec City. Do you see what’s going on in deep recesses of the soul of your pastor? I had one fountain pen to use at home. I had a second pen to use at the office. I don’t actually write very much; most of my work is done on a keyboard. Why did I need a third pen? I didn’t. I coveted a third pen and I would gladly buy a fourth. On our last day in Bolivia in 2008 we went shopping. I passed a store that sold pens. I could have bought a beautiful fountain pen for about one-quarter of the price I would have paid in North America. I’m still mentally kicking myself for resisting the temptation. Because, you see, the one that I could have is always going to be better than the one or two or three that I’ve got. That’s coveting!
I recently read a story about a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, New York, where the guest list included authors Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. Vonnegut says to Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his best-selling novel Catch 22 over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … enough” (Bogle, John C., Enough., 1). The reason God tells you at the end of his Ultimate Top 10 to turn away from coveting is simple: this is not the healthy desire for a satisfying career, or for meaningful relationships or for a life that matters. Coveting of that which you do not have can never be satisfied. It is a wound that cannot be healed. It is a demon that will drag you further and further into hell.
9 WHAT ARE WE CHASING? 
But I promised some good news. Let’s get to that. Fred Craddock, one of my favourite preachers tells the story of meeting a greyhound, whom his niece had taken into her home after its racing days were over. Fred struck up a conversation with the dog.
“Are you still racing?”
“No.”
“Well, what was the matter? Did you get too old to race?”
“No, I still had some race in me.”
“Well, what then? Did you not win?”
“I won over a million dollars for my owner.”
“Well, what was it? Bad treatment?”
“Oh, no,” the dog said. “They treated us royally while we were racing.”
“Did you get crippled?”
“No.”
“Then why?” I pressed. “Why?”
The dog answered, “I quit.”
“You quit?”
“Yes,” he said. “I quit.”
“Why did you quit?”
“I just quit because after all that running and running and running, I found out that the rabbit I was chasing wasn’t even real.”
Friends this is a matter of our hearts. This is a matter of our relationship to God. You may
remember a few weeks ago I spoke about the traditional Jewish understanding of the commandments being given to God’s people on two tablets, five on one, five on the other, with a link between one and six, two and seven, and so on. There is also an understanding that the tenth commandment brings us back around to the first. The person who covets is confessing to a lack of trust in God.
Psalm 119, the longest of the psalms, is a poem about the beauty and wisdom of Torah, of God’s law. Throughout this series we have used verses from the psalm as our call to worship. In verse 36 the poet asks this of God: Turn my heart to your decrees, and not to selfish gain. In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, the apostle says there are all sorts of sinful actions and attitudes that have crept into the church because of people who mistakingly imagined that godliness is a means of gain (6:5). Then Paul goes on. Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it (6:6, 7).
Let me suggest then some ways in which we can gain that godliness combined with contentment and defeat that demon called coveting. First, meditate on the two truths that Paul tells, that to think godliness is a means of gain is to bring nothing but sorrow to the family of God, and that just as we came into the world with nothing so we will leave the world in the same way. You may have heard the story about the fellow who was desperate to take some of his wealth to the afterlife. He arranged for the purchase of the sturdiest casket money could buy and converted his cash into gold bricks. His lawyer was instructed to make sure the gold was hidden in the bottom of the casket. When he arrived in heaven, no one could quite figure out why he had bothered bringing his own paving stones because the streets there were already finished.
Am I really suggesting that we think about our own deaths? Yes. Is that part of the good news I promised? Yes! I say that because to think about the end of this life is not to contemplate the end of me, but rather to focus on my hope as a
Christian, hope for life in unbroken fellowship with God.
The second suggestion involves waste management—wasting money and wasting time. What I mean by this is simple. Give away money and give away time without any calculation. For example, when I see a person who is homeless asking for spare change, I almost immediately begin to calculate what it is this money could be used for. Perhaps he is going to buy a bottle of cheap wine with it. And that calculation means I keep my money in my pocket. If someone is on the street asking for money, here’s one thing I can be sure of 99.8% of the time—he or she needs the money.
Give away time. I think one of the reasons why many churches see fewer people on Sundays is that more and more worship is regarded as a waste of time. Do more of it. St. Augustine urged us to be greedy for eternal life. “Do you covet endless money? Then desire eternal, endless life. Do you hope for possessions unlimited? Seek eternal life” (quoted in The Ten Commandments for Jews, Christians and Others, 210, 211). Develop a greedy love of prayer.
Frederick Buechner once observed: “There are people who use up their entire lives making money so they can enjoy the lives they have entirely used up.” In our text today, the man was chasing stuff that wasn’t real. That’s what he should have been grieving over.

B