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What images come to mind when you hear the eighth Commandment "You shall not steal" (Exodus 20:15; Deuteronomy 5:19)? You shall not take what doesn’t belong to you. If you are like me you might have an image of a masked thief in a stripped shirt climbing over a wall with a bag of loot over his shoulder. One writer on the Commandments suggests that from a biblical perspective, stealing means: "the desire to get as much as possible while giving as little as possible" (Colin Smith). But the Bible seeks to reverse this formula: instead give as much as possible while taking as little as possible.
We have seen again and again in this series that Jesus often gave a new perspective on the Commandments. A book I was reading this week suggested that Jesus "reframes" the laws of the Old Testament. I find that a helpful image. Jesus by no means declares the Commandments wrong. What he does is to put them in a wider perspective, as if he takes a picture and puts it in a new, bigger frame so that its full meaning can be seen more clearly.
But while Jesus "reframes" many of the Commandments in his Sermon on the Mount, he doesn’t make any specific comment on the eighth Commandment. But we find something unusual in Paul’s farewell speech to the elders in the church at Ephesus, in the book of Acts, chapter 20. In Paul’s speech a saying of Jesus that isn’t recorded in the four Gospels. Paul says to the elders:
"In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the word of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, ’It is more blessed to give than to receive’" (Acts 20:35).
Paul encourages the elders to do what he had done and what Jesus had recommended: "It is more blessed to give than to receive" – in other words, the desire to give as much as possible while taking as little as possible.
But we all sense, don’t we, that this is exactly opposite of what much of our society is saying to us? Look after number one! I want it all and I want it now! God’s message in the Bible which we find in the eighth Commandment and in the words of Jesus and of Paul is really "counter-cultural" isn’t it?
A few weeks ago some members of this congregation including myself were invited to be on a panel to answer questions from the youth group. We were given a list of some of the questions in advance. One question that didn’t get answered was "Is it a sin to download music off the Internet?" Based on the eighth Commandment it seems that the answer is clearly "no" if you are paying for it. But if you are stealing it then God’s answer seems to be a very firm "yes".
But stealing from a biblical perspective is not just about a person taking illegally what doesn’t belong to them. The eighth Commandment is about all the different ways people attempt to get a lot while giving a little.
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Let’s apply this definition of stealing to some practical areas of life, such as people’s attitude towards their work. If we are employees then the eighth Commandment seems to me to suggest that giving full value in work is a priority. Paid work is relationship of trust to do the work being paid for. If stealing is the desire to get as much as possible while giving as little as possible, then at work it might include things such as:
Arriving late
Stretching lunchtimes
Taking extra breaks
Expanding the work to fill the time available
Avoiding the parts of our work we are paid to do but don’t like doing, or using work time
Pursuing our own projects.
For employers paying fair wages for work done and sharing our income with those whose work helped to produce it is important. In the letter of James he writes: "Listen! The wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts" (James 5:4). It has been said that the employers here asked the wrong question: Instead of asking "What’s the minimum amount I can get away with paying?" they should have asked, "What’s the value of my workers?" (Smith).
If we are in business the eighth Commandment draws attention to the importance of:
Charging fair prices
Doing a good quality job without cutting corners to make the job more profitable.
In today’s reading the prophet Amos criticised traders for using false weights and measures: "We will make the ephah (the container) small and the shekel (coin) great, and practice deceit with false balances..." (Amos 8:5). Both in business and privately the Commandment prioritises paying our bills on time. Paul wrote: "Pay to all what is due them, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honour to whom honour is due" (Romans 13:7).
It is not uncommon to hear people justifying what amounts to theft by saying that a certain or business don’t need the money because of their wealth. They probably don’t need it, but is it therefore acceptable to steal from those who have more than us? Colin Smith points out that for most Australians this would mean it would then be all right for most people in the world to steal from us. The average Australian high school student has more than a large percentage of the world’s population.
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I have found a couple of biblical perspectives helpful when thinking about my attitude to work in particular and my attitude to giving and receiving in general:
(1) Commitment to work as a gift from God.
In all of work, paid or voluntary, we should view ourselves as working for the Lord. Writing to the Christians in Colossae Paul gives some advice to slaves. While his comment is specific I think it can be applied as a more general principle. After all New Testament speaks of all Christians as servants of the Lord using the same word used for "slaves". Paul wrote: "Whatever your task, put yourselves into it as done for the Lord and not for your masters" (Colossians 3:23). Offering my work to God as worship to the Lord gives me a new perspective on my job.
(2) "Cultivate the habit of looking to see what [we] can bring to the lives of other people" (Smith).
I’m sure we all have a commitment to contributing to the lives of others. What I find interesting about Smith’s advice here is his suggestion that we "cultivate the habit", be intentional about actively looking for opportunities to assist others. Both today’s Bible readings record occasions when people in Israel were criticised for focussing on what they could take from others. The prophet Amos accused them of "trampling on the needy" and "bringing to ruin the poor" (Amos 8:4). And as Chris pointed out in a sermon a few weeks ago, Amos said
they were so preoccupied with profit that they were asking, "When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale?" (verse 5).
And in the reading from Matthew’s Gospel (21:12-17), Jesus drove out the traders who were even making profit in the temple (with a whip according to John’s Gospel). "Is it not written?" he said to them, and also I suspect to the temple authorities who profited from their trade, "My house shall be called (that is, ought to function as) a house of prayer, but you have made it (into the opposite) a cave of robbers".
Again Paul emphasised the opposite orientation. In his letter to the church at Ephesus he wrote: "Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, [why?] so as to have something to share with the needy" (Ephesians 4:28). Do you remember the reason he gave for his work in the verse I quoted before including Jesus saying about giving and receiving? "In all this I have given you an example [why?] that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the word of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, ’It is more blessed to give than to receive’" (Acts 20:35).
Our work is not just something we do to build up wealth for our retirement but using the time, resources and skills God has given us. Colin Smith says, "Wherever [we] go and whatever [we] do, [we] have a God-given contribution to make to the lives of other people" (Smith).
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I want to conclude by suggesting a couple of possible points of wider application. Firstly, what are the implications of the Commandment for our mission? It has been said that a focus on giving rather than taking is the "loudest statement" (Smith) we can make about Gospel values in a society that emphasises taking over giving and struggles with honesty and integrity. Secondly, during the conference I was at this week, one of the speakers, who was from Melbourne, quoted statistics from a 2006 United Nations report about the size of different countries "ecological footprint". I don’t remember what units this "footprint" was in because I was writing the figures down in a hurry before they went off the screen. They are approximate but the USA was about 9.5; Australia around 6.75; with world sustainability rated at 1.8. For me this was more food-for-thought about how much I take from God’s creation.
In John’s Gospel Jesus draws a sharp contrast between himself and false teachers. His words are striking:
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. [But] I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).
For more sermons fro mthis source go to http://www.stthomasburwood.org.au
