YOU SHALL NOT STEAL
The seventh commandment, 'Thou shalt not
steal', is about property. Nothing seems more obvious. Stealing means
unlawfully taking what rightly belongs to another. But the seventh commandment
is not simply about property. Like all the commandments it is, in the first
place, about people.
The ten commandments summarise the laws
which God gave to his people as part of his covenant with them. He is anxious
to guide them towards justice in their dealings with each other so that they
will be like him: holy as God is holy, which means righteous as God is
righteous, just as God is just. The seventh commandment is about people. It is
about how people ought to relate to each other in the matter of material
possessions. Stealing comes to mean taking what another needs, and it is
unlawful and unjust.
The seventh commandment has to be
understood in the light of many other laws about property in the Books of
Exodus and Leviticus. The point then becomes perfectly clear: the laws of
Israel about material possessions show a primary concern for people and their
needs. What is more, there is a distinct bias in favour of the weaker and
poorer sections of the community: widows, orphans, travellers, slaves, and even
animals.
For example, fields, vineyards and olive
orchards were only to be worked for six years and allowed to lie fallow in the
seventh. No doubt this makes good agricultural sense but the reason given for
it in Exodus 23:11 is ‘so that the poor of your people may eat, and what they
leave the wild animals may eat’.
Chapter 25 of the Book of Leviticus speaks
of the ‘sabbatical year’ that comes every seven years and also of the jubilee
that comes every fiftieth year. It was to be a year when all debts were
cancelled and all slaves set free. All property and possessions lost since the
last jubilee year were to be restored to their first owners. The main focus of
this law is clear: the people are to divide their goods fairly among themselves
and this fair division of things is to be restored periodically. Every now and
again the social order needs to be restored to what it was when Israel was
young and close to God.
It is a fine ideal and although there is no
record of it ever actually being put into practice in the history of Israel, it
continues to inspire Christian reflection on questions of justice and property.
The seventh commandment belongs in this
context of sabbatical and jubilee years and this helps us to see how the other
laws about property are to be understood. Jesus makes the laws about property
even more radical: ‘do not worry about your life, what you will eat, what you
will drink, what you will wear … give to everyone who begs from you, and do not
refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you’ (Matthew 6:25; 5:42). The new ideal
is of a community where all things are held in common and resources are
distributed to all as any has need (Acts 2:44-45).
The Christian tradition never forgot that
the seventh commandment is a commandment about people. In situations of great
need, the goods of the earth become common property. To take what one really
needs for life and survival is not, morally speaking, stealing. If I have two
loaves of bread and my neighbour has none and we are both starving he is
entitled to one of my loaves. It is his right. It is not something I may or may
not give him, out of ‘charity'. The right to private property is not an
absolute right. It is qualified by the needs of my neighbour, who is every man
and woman.
That may sound like some very radical kind
of talk. But those comments come from eminent saints and teachers of the
Church: John Chrysostom, Thomas Aquinas, Pope Paul VI, Basil the Great and
Ambrose of Milan. The Bible has many other wise and challenging things to say
in regard to property. The commandment against stealing is not the last word,
but the first word, in a collection of laws that embodies a vision that is
humane and compassionate. We will be judged, in the end, Jesus says, on how we
shared our goods with one another: ‘I was hungry and you gave me food … naked
and you clothed me’ (Matthew 25:35-36).
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