Coveting is one of the 10 Commandments, but we don’t treat it like it’s in God’s Top Ten List. All we do is covet. If you’re not familiar with the term “covet,” it refers to wanting what your neighbor has--not in the sense of merely liking what they have but wanting it so bad that you fail to appreciate what you have, so bad you want to have it and you want them not to have it. It’s a matter of status and control. It’s a desire strong enough that it leads to action at whatever the cost. When one covets, there isn’t enjoyment of the thing in itself, but rather enjoyment of others not having what you have, enjoyment of others being jealous of you. It’s an ego trip to a self-centered destination.
The actual verse in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:17) 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.” Although coveting your neighbor’s church isn’t on the list, I’ve learned it should be.
A United Church of Christ minister named Rev. Michelle Torrigan penned a blog post about ministers coveting other ministers’ churches and asked clergy to consider they were called to the ministry they were at. Instead of spending one’s energy coveting what other churches are doing, why not spend that energy on improving where you are at? Ever since I read Torrigan’s blog post, I’ve thought about my own tendency to wish for other places of ministry with more status, more members, more money, more young families, more and more whatever. It’s an indicting self-realization. I believe the same is true for laypeople when it comes to churches.
Recently, I preached on the pursuit of status. I shared that we all compare ourselves to others. We take shortcuts to building our self-esteem by looking down on others, but by those standards you inevitably must realize you may be “above” some but you are also “below” many others. It’s a no-win game. No matter how much your status rises in whatever arena matters to you, it is never enough. You are always below somebody. Instead of being grateful for what you do have and enjoying life, you are constantly feeling inadequate and afraid of falling down the ladder of status.
Because the status game, otherwise known as coveting, is all about oneself, it is inherently self-centered and not in a self-care healthy sort of way. When it is applied to churches, then one is never at church for the right reasons--namely, worshipping God and living in loving community. Instead, one is there as a consumer to get and never give. It’s all about whether the music, sermon, etc. made you feel good, gave you an emotional fix and enabled you to go about your life without sacrificing anything.
In every church I have served, I have watched people move in and out. They show up looking for an emotional fix and when they inevitably stop getting it, they move on to another church. When they get involved and inevitably see a church is made up of broken people just like them, it’s too messy, so they move on.
In some ways, the transitory ones are preferable to the folks who stay but always complain. They visit other churches and see things they like (never looking below the surface, never questioning the superficiality, never questioning the lousy theology) and then stay in a cycle of negativity complaining but never working to make their church any better. It’s so much easier to covet what the church down the block has than to actually be involved in the messiness of real intimacy in one’s own. Coveting doesn’t require a sacrifice of time, money, energy or empathy. It feels good in that dopamine-firing kind of way but it never feeds the hunger of an empty soul.
In the churches I've served, I’ve heard lots about what other churches are doing. I’ve heard a lot about how former pastors just weren’t charismatic enough, dynamic enough, and talented enough to attract people the way other ministers do--and I guess i became one of the former pastors who weren't enough. I’ve heard about so much fear about the church dying and how we don’t have enough young families and youth and children. I’ve heard a whole lot about coveting other churches, but I haven’t heard very much at all about what people are willing to do to invest themselves in the church they are at.
I wonder what would happen if the people who currently consider themselves members of a church spent the same amount of energy showing up and investing themselves in community as they did comparing their church to other churches--usually megachurches that no small church can "compete" with in terms of money and program. If the folks coveting other churches actually invested in their current one, they might actually have a church they’d want to go to--that is if they really want to go to church for the right reasons: worshipping God and living in loving community. If it’s just a matter of making you feel better, there are plenty of churches to offer you that--but none of that stuff will feed your hungry soul.
Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of things the average congregation could learn from other churches--even megachurches, but ultimately everything the average church needs to be the church God calls it to be is already present--IF folks will do more than covet.
Grace and Peace,
Rev. Chase Peeples
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