LAW HOMILY: Coveting Time

The Shepherd's Church

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We want to worship him in spirit and in truth today. We are on the 10th commandment

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Which is you shall not covet your neighbor's house you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or Anything that belongs to your neighbor.

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It's the Word of the Lord When I was a little boy, I used to smirk kind of quietly under my breath when my grandpa would grumble

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About the world and about culture that he thought was slipping through his fingers like vacation sand on the last day at the beach

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I Remember the far away look in his eyes as he stood at the edge of a parking lot seemingly looking across the fabric of time

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Remembering a field and a patch of land that he used to play in that had now been covered by asphalt.

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I Remember the stories of adventure down at Dutchman's Creek and bear holler Yeah, those are real places

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All the excitement in his retelling of crawdaddies and dirt daubers and the glimmer of sadness that swept across his eyes

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Every time that he came back to the truth that he was no longer there but was here

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I Recall one day as we were cleaning our shotguns and mink oiling my first basements meant

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How he responded when I brought up the latest in new technology This new amazing creation called a bag phone dating myself

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You can take it everywhere you want to go It was kind of the same as a home phone in size and awkwardness

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But it was in a bag and you could plug it into your car And I remember the thought seemed to befuddle and bewilder the old man

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In his mind a death had occurred in his world in his habitat That I didn't have the capacity to really understand for several decades

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I Remember how news headlines seemed to weary him how his voice grew heavy when he spoke about things how things used to be and how?

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He still wanted things to be at the time. I couldn't understand the feelings that were going on inside of my grandpa

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I was living in an exciting world of change with new and amazing possibilities like AOL instant messenger and Napster Dial up internet and Minesweeper What could my grandpa be upset about with in a world where there's

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Minesweeper And it got me thinking What was it about the past that made him stare off in the fields that way

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Why couldn't he just enjoy the moment that we were living in why mourn what?

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Was lost when there's so many things that have been gained and I resigned myself at the time to assume that this was just merely a symptom of getting older That I was not going to inherit

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But the truth is that I have inherited it Because I find the same ache rising in my chest in these dark days as he did back then

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I Noticed myself staring off into the distance past my porch and lull back to my granddaddy's porch where he smoked his pipe and I ate peaches and scuppy dons as We prepared for my grandma's homemade chicken dumplings.

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I Feel the persistent ache of those familiar foundations those institutions the music the culture that I would love to preserve cracking eroding and Collapsing around me and I feel the cold shadow of a new order that has crept over the world that's rushed upon Western civilization like the

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Visigoths attacking Rome and now in my 40s, I Know what it is to stand watching the world that you love erode and being angry about it

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To feel the pulse of your time and the time that you once loved growing weaker and faint

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I had a moment recently where I wrote a very scathing article about Cracker Barrel Eliminating the old man from their porch a racing heritage that I love

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I was angry because it was the only place in New England that I felt like I could get biscuits and gravy and felt like I was at home

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And like my grandfather I became discontent about it. I became angry over it and Maybe you can resonate with this this week, especially

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But here's the danger The Tenth Commandment does not only forbid me from envying my neighbor's house

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My neighbor's car my neighbor's wife my neighbor's donkey if that were the case but it also forbids me from envying a different time a

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Period that's gone That I will not live in again It forbids me from from so coveting the good old days that it makes me sick to live in these days

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Have you ever thought about how it's possible to covet time? it forbids us from despair a

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Kind of despair that demoralizes us anger that destabilizes us bitterness that demobilizes us it forbids us from so Idolizing a different hour in a different time that we forget that God has put us in this hour and at this time for a very particular and purposeful reason

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You are not out of place in your world you have been chosen by God to live here and now for his good for his glory and for the for the

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Christianization of the world When we get in these moments where eyes glaze over and we look back into the past we actually become paralyzed from serving in our present

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Which means that our nation continues to look the way that it does in our future The reason we are here at least one of them is

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Because people like me have coveted a different time And I don't want to do that anymore

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I want to live in my time I want to serve my God in my time I Want to be faithful in my time regardless of how dark the days become

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However, it is that you have experienced coveting whether it's the same as me

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Listening to Johnny Cash with a tear in your eye Or whether it's in some other way, let's pray

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Let's ask the Lord God to forgive us Let's ask the Lord God to strengthen us.

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Let's ask the Lord God to fill our bones full of cement So that we could stand for Christ in This day at this time that he's called us to amen

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Let's pray Lord it is so easy for us to become discontented

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It is so easy for the subtlety of covetousness to creep upon our countenance

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In so many different ways Lord, would you protect us? Lord, would you make us the kind of joyful rebels?

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That are like Paul singing hymns in prison That are like John and James walking away praising

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God after a beating of a lifetime Lord would you make us hard and soft would you make us joyful and righteous?

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and Lord, would you protect us from? this so slippery of sins That we would not covet

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But that we would be consent Lord help us and forgive us in Christ.