Lie, cheat, and steal—the three seem to go together so well. In light of last week’s sermon, these are the methods often used to get something that belongs to someone else. You lie in order to damage another’s reputation in an attempt to convince yourself and others that they don’t deserve it. You cheat in order to sway possession of an object in your favor. You steal in order to obtain something that isn’t yours.

These are all the active methods you employ to do these things. And in so doing, you have broken two commandments, the Seventh and Eighth.

• You shall not steal.
  We should fear and love God so that we do not take our neighbor’s money or possessions, or get them in any dishonest way, but help him to improve and protect his possessions and income.

and

• You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
  We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.

You are to be defending your neighbor and his reputation, never lie about him. You should be speaking well of him, not spreading gossip or speaking of him in a way that would bring further shame on him. You are to be helping your neighbor to keep and improve his possessions and income, helping him to defend and protect them from any who would want to steal them, and certainly not steal them yourself.

It was a long, hard trek through the wilderness. It was probably made to feel longer by the fact that they had fled from slavery and had little to nothing with them as concerns provisions. But, there were promises: land as far as the eye can see, milk and honey, fertile soils, and the presence of God…and, along the way, food and drink.

Now, imagine how it must be when you keep doing things—you keep trying things—and it seems like you’re getting nowhere; in fact, you might be rather intimate with that feeling. Recall how it feels when you don’t get your way, and it compounds, time after time. What do you feel like doing? What do you start to do? You start to grumble and complain. You start to play the blame game. You start to gossip and spread rumors. You find yourself in a predicament or some other unfortunate or unwanted or unpleasant situation and you start thinking that it has to be someone’s fault that you’re like this or that things are like this…someone else’s fault, that is. And the whole time, you make stuff up to make it seem worse.

So, you might have an inkling of what things were like for the Israelites during the Exodus. I’m not bringing this up so that you might have some sympathy for them, but a bit of understanding…about yourselves. So, bear in mind a time that they were breaking camp and making their way through the barren wilderness. This particular time, they were leaving Mount Hor, trying to go around the land of Edom. In their frustration at the situation—in their anger toward God and Moses—they cried out, accusing God and Moses of bringing them into the wilderness to die.

At the risk of making this sound like a middle or high school term paper, Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition, defines covet as, “to desire (what belongs to another) inordinately or culpably,” or, “to feel inordinate desire for what belongs to another.” Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, simply put, to covet is to desire that which is not yours, be it some concrete object or something more abstract, such as power and authority or fame and reputation.

Much as marijuana had been described in the past as a gateway drug, covetousness is a gateway sin. It was once said, and may still be, I’m uncertain, that using marijuana opens the floodgates to the use of harder and more dangerous narcotics. I don’t think that that can be said in every case, and perhaps there are numbers that can show that as in more and more places, marijuana is used medicinally and even recreationally without legal ramifications in some places. In any event, whether it can be said of marijuana or not, I refer to covetousness as a gateway sin.

I brought the hymn up last week, and here’s why… “[Though hordes of devils fill the land,] or [Though devils all the world should fill,]” you sang just a little while ago. Don’t they ever? It’s what you heard in two of this morning’s readings.

You heard of Satan, often called the Great Tempter, as he tempted Jesus in the Gospel today. Before that, you heard of his temptation of Eve (and even Adam) in the Old Testament lesson. Temptations are always crafty and surreptitious; that’s the way the Great Tempter works them. He always waits for the most opportune time to tempt his victims. Usually, it’s when the victim is at his or her weakest, the time when the person will put up the least resistance. Satan likes to win, so he plays when he has the advantage, or thinks he has the advantage.

The partying over, it is now Lent, a season of the Church year which goes against almost everything that the world out there, given over to Satan, wants to teach. Here is a season of somber reflection and contrition. Here is a season dedicated to mourning over sin. Here is a season of sacrifice. All the while, the rest of society would want to fill your heads with thoughts that everyday will be happy and carefree. It is given over to the doctrines of gluttony and greed.

And lest anyone think that this is something new, the world has always held to these doctrines, from the time that the serpent tempted Adam and Eve through to today. And it will continue for ages to come, until Christ returns.

That’s why you hear the prophet proclaim in this evening’s Old Testament reading, “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.; Return to the LORD your God…” Sackcloth and ashes are fine, but the point is introspection which leads to a God-given contrition—rending of one’s heart. After all, as it is stated in tonight’s Psalm: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Such introspection should be heartbreaking, gazing upon the things that you have done but should not have and the things that you should not have done but did. For such introspection, according to the Word of God, will reveal your sin—that dirty, little word, as the world out there wants to think of it, if it has to think of it at all. If you are not heartbroken, then you are only deceiving yourself, and the truth is not in you. (cf. 1 John 1:8) “If we say we have not sinned, we make [God] a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:10)