Lust

Tuesday March 10^th, Exodus 20: 16 No lies about your neighbor. 17 No lusting after your neighbor's house--or wife or servant or maid or ox or donkey. Don't set your heart on anything that is your neighbor's. This is “the covet”, or lusting thing that gets us all in trouble. One problem is that our economy is based on getting people to want something they do not have, or even need and then selling it to them. For all the talk about the virtues of capitalism during election years, getting people to buy something they don’t need, and don’t even particularly want is what keeps the economy going.  That is what advertising is all about and as we can see now, it is rather a house of cards. When this advertising works we find that if we don’t want (lust after) what or neighbor has, we want (lust after) something better. What God is trying to warn us about is how easy it is to move from lusting to action. It doesn’t matter if it is drug addict, David and Bathsheba, big banks or the couple that lives at the end of the street, in the movement from simple lust to lust in action we are all capable of mowing down anyone or anything in the way of something we lust after, especially if it or they are close. It is all too easy to justify our actions and not even see our ethics or the other guy lying in the dust when we are through. Lust is the desire for salt from someone who is dying of thrust. In the end we only make things worse for ourselves and others and leaves victims in its wake.