About a year and a half ago, an article appeared in Northgate High
School's student-run newspaper, an article that was so appalling it
required a response. Written by Anonymous, it was the account of a
first adventure of going to the mall for the express purpose of
shoplifting. In excruciating detail, the method she used to extract
Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirts-which cost a lot of money in this person's
estimation-was detailed. No remorse was expressed. The writer talked
about the thrill and the adrenaline rush of going to the mall and
stealing. She talked about sharing it with her friends and making
plans to go the following week. This outrageous piece appeared in the
school newspaper!
I wrote a letter which was published in the next issue, and a faculty
member called to thank me for articulating a protest. The outrage and
disgust that article generated, not only in me but in fellow students
and in faculty at Northgate, offered a teachable moment. It
certainly highlighted the need for renewal of respect for God's
authority in the matter of stealing. Stealing is a national pastime,
not only here but around the world, and it's time for us to know for
sure what the Word of God says about it.
The interesting thing about stealing is that there is a converse
truth to affirm at this point. Ever since the Garden of Eden-remember
it always starts in the garden-human beings have been given ownership
and dominion. You'll recall at the end of Genesis 1, God said to Adam
and Eve, "Be fruitful and multiply. Here I give you everything I
have created for you to use. I created it because you need it. Now
use it. You have dominion over it." And that was the moment when
human beings came into possession of what they needed to live.
The Scriptures say, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in
it." By virtue of God's creation, everything around us is in
fact God's. But by that declaration in the garden of Eden, God said,
"What I have is yours. Use it well. Make sure that everyone has
enough. This is your charge." God entrusted life's necessities
to humanity for us to own and to use to sustain life.
The commandment "You shall not steal" points to this
foundational truth, that it is legitimate for individual people to
own things. In fact, it is every human being's right to own what they
need. This to me is an important fact. There are many interesting
movements around the world and through history suggesting individuals
may not own anything. The idea that the group has ownership is
the central thesis of socialism and communism. While I'm not
preaching capitalism, you understand, the notion that an individual
person does not have ownership rights is not a particularly biblical
idea.
During a person's lifetime, it takes time to cultivate the important
concept of sharing and of giving. But the first step in understanding
our obligation to share and to give springs out of a clear
appreciation of what ownership is about. It is difficult to
teach little children about sharing and giving until they first
understand that there are one or two items that are actually theirs;
those unique items that do not have to be shared unless they
personally give permission. As an example from our family, the girls
latched on to blankets. They were called their "ba-bas."
They were never asked to share their own ba-ba with anyone else. It
was truly theirs.
I remember when Katy was two, and her babysitter had a terrible cold
and had stretched out on the couch. Katy, who at age two never
parted with her blanket, toddled over to Stephanie and gave her the
blanket for comfort. Now that was a true gift, because she
truly owned her blanket. And she truly gave it away that day.
With most children, it's not usually a very smooth transition from
ownership to sharing. A little child either has the concept of
ownership, in which they own everything, or they are completely
helpless and lacking any sense of their own "stuff."
Have you heard of the toddler property laws? This might help you
understand my point. The toddler property laws go like this:
-
If I like it, it's mine.
- If it's in my hand, it's mine.
- If I can take it from you, it's mine.
- If I had it a little while ago, it's mine.
- If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours in
any way.
- If I'm doing or building something, all the pieces
are mine, and
- If it looks just like mine, it's mine.
Unfortunately, some adults have never grown out of the toddler
property laws, and that's why we have the problem of stealing. It's a
battle, parents, worth fighting, to help your children understand
that it is wrong to take something that does not belong to you.
That lesson first hit home to me at age five, when somehow I left my
neighbor friend's home with one of her necklaces. I was playing with
it in my house and it broke, which called attention to it. My mother
looked at it and said, "Where did you get that?" and the
truth came out that I had taken it from my neighbor. Mom took
me in hand and marched me next door, where I had to return something
I took, and admit it was broken. That made an indelible impression
upon me. It was the last time anything like that happened.
So what is the Eight Commandment actually command? As we have noted
in past weeks, there is a prohibition, and there is an exhortation.
On the negative side, it tells us not to take those things
that are owned by someone else. Someone has a legitimate right to own
what they own, and it is not my right to steal it.
Taking people is prohibited by this commandment also. So
kidnapping is prohibited. Slavery is wrong, because people belong to
God first, and then to covenant relationships as children, as
parents, or as spouses. So taking people is against this commandment.
Taking ideas and the fruit of creative labor in the form of
plagiarism and copying materials that are not yours to copy are
included in this commandment. So for instance forbidden by this
commandment is the stealing of other people's ideas for your own
benefit: pirating computer software-I know I'm meddling now-or
copying a CD.
About ten years ago, I produced a CD that cost a lot of money to
orchestrate, record, and reproduce. A breathless woman came to
me at Christmas one year and said, "I had the most fabulous idea
for Christmas presents this year. I bought your CD and I made ten
copies of it to give to my friends for Christmas." That is stealing.
Other applications: cheating on taxes, misrepresenting your income,
copying someone else's term paper is stealing. Cheating your company
of time, supplies, phone use, and such things as that, is stealing
and prohibited.
Now if ownership of property is something God has given as a right,
then we have to think about what the Law of Love requires in
obedience to this commandment. The Law of Love requires us to
cultivate an attitude of giving and generosity as opposed to taking,
hoarding and keeping.
Obedience to this commandment puts a halt to hoarding at the expense
of others who have little or nothing. This is why Christians over the
millennia have been interested in helping the poor. If I have way
more than my share, I am morally obligated by this commandment to
share it with you, not just out of my excess, but dictated by your
need. If I have what you need, this commandment exhorts me to provide it.
So here are some examples. Village Enterprise Fund, a Christian
mission that is based here in the Bay Area, creates jobs in third
world countries through grants that allow a group of five
entrepreneurs to begin a small cottage business. Micro-enterprises,
large and small, are sponsored by World Vision out of the Christian
conviction that every person maintains his dignity by having a job
that actually supports one's life. These jobs are nothing fancy, but
these grants are the catalyst for a group of five people who then can
build a business that will sustain as many as 35 people.
Habitat for Humanity, out of Christian conviction, believes that
every person deserves decent and affordable housing and so generates
an incredible movement, not only in Concord, where we've got a
project on Ellis Street, but all over the country. Communities
provide the elbow-grease, the sweat equity, the labor it takes to
provide good, clean, decent housing for individuals who need a home.
Would you agree that every person needs a place to live? It's like a
fundamental basic human dignity issue.
In a more controversial vein, perhaps you read in the last year or so
the stories from Zimbabwe, a southern African country, in which a
major land redistribution is taking place. After Rhodesia became
majority-ruled Zimbabwe, laws were set in motion to transfer property
from a very few whites to the huge majority of blacks. A law
was enacted to make this an orderly and gradual process in which 90%
of the population (blacks) would acquire a modest amount of farmland,
land that had been their ancestors' at the time of English
colonization. Even the whites we talked to knew this was the right
and moral thing to do. The process has been truncated because
greedy people have gotten sticky hands messed up the orderly transfer
of land ownership. But the concept behind it is right, that the
people have lived there for generations and hundreds of years deserve
to have a piece of land somewhere. In Zimbabwe, especially where
agriculture is the main means of support, land is essential. The
conscience behind that movement was very much encouraged and fueled
by the church, as a matter of moral expression and obedience to the
Lord's command.
Now I've just touched on different sorts of issues to give you the
scope of the commandment, but what I'd like to do is get us back into
the Bible and look at the story of one person whose life was changed
from a life of thievery to a life of real exciting change, and that's
the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19.
Zacchaeus was a character children hear about often, and we love to imagine.
Zacchaeus was a person who was not well-liked. Starting in verse one
of Chapter 19, let's read together what happened to Zacchaeus.
"Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there
by the name of Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was
wealthy."
Zacchaeus represented the Romans and extracted exorbitant taxes that
had made him rich at the expense of the ordinary people of Jericho.
He could charge whatever he could get away with. Rome charged a
certain amount per head, and he charged certainly that much. But
nothing regulated him. He could charge as much more as he wanted if
he could get it, and he did. And he became a wealthy man. These men
were despised in the Jewish culture as traitors. The people hated
them because they were ripping them off.
So, "He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he
could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a
sycamore fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When
Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, 'Hey Zacchaeus,
come on down. I must stay at your house today.' So Zacchaeus came
down from the tree and welcomed him gladly."
Now something has happened already in Zacchaeus' heart and mind. He
decided he wanted to seek after the Lord Jesus, and he wanted to
welcome him into his home. And that's the beginning of a change for
you and for me if stealing in the really overt or the subtle ways is
a part of our life today. Jesus cares about what you do with yours
and other people's belongings; seeking after him and welcoming him
into this area of our lives is a first step.
If Jesus comes into the center of your life, he's going to change the
way you think things through, because look what happens to Zacchaeus.
"All the people saw that Zacchaeus welcomed Jesus to his home
and began to mutter, 'Oh. He has gone to be the guest of a
sinner.'" Outrageous!
"But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord. Here
and now, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have
cheated anybody out of anything, [and the snickers begin around the
town] I will pay back four times the amount.'"
The second step of Zacchaeus' change was restitution, giving
back what he owed. He first gave up his right to rip people off, and
then he gave back what he had stolen. The Old Testament law required
you-if you had taken something that wasn't yours-to return it plus a
minimum of 20 percent, and a maximum of four times, the value of what
was stolen, depending on the circumstances. In this case, Zacchaeus
went way beyond what the law required. First he gave half of his
assets away. There isn't anywhere that says you have to do that. And
second then, to anyone specifically he had cheated, he promised four
times, which was the maximum restitution, the maximum penalty. He
would promise to refund, rebate. Talk about a tax credit! Jesus said
to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this
man too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to
save what was lost." That's what happened to Zacchaeus.
Now what would happen to you if you made it right today? Do you owe
someone a payment? Do you need to return something you permanently
borrowed? Do you need to report some income? Do you need to revise a
customs declaration? Do you need to report your financial status more
accurately? Do you need to destroy unauthorized CDs or videotapes? Do
you need to release for the Lord's use some of the excess you have
been hoarding? Do you need to give ten percent of your income to the
Lord? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, please do it,
joyfully participating in God's desire that things would have their
proper place in our lives, and that things would make it to the
proper hands to those who need them. That is the law of the Eighth
Commandment, and it is the law of love. Let us follow it together,
shall we?
Would you stand as we rehearse together the eighth commandment from
the Study Catechism.
Q - What is the eighth commandment?
A - The eighth commandment is, "You shall not steal."
Q - What do you learn from this commandment?
A - God forbids all theft and robbery, including schemes,
tricks, or systems that unjustly take what belongs to someone else.
God requires me not to be driven greed, not to misuse or waste the
gifts I have been given, and not to distrust the promise that God
will supply my needs.
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