Commandment 8 - It Fell Off a Lorry

COMMANDMENT 8 - IT FELL OFF A LORRY

I recall meeting a docker once, when I worked in the port of Liverpool, who claimed he could get you anything you wanted within a week at knock-down prices, from car engines to bottles of whisky.

The source of all such goods was the same, “It fell off the back of a lorry, mate”.

Like so many people, he sought to dress up the eighth commandment, namely “Thou shalt not steal" with fancy words, which disguised the fact that it is wrong to take something which does not belong to one.

Sometimes we call it defrauding, such as riding on the bus or train and not paying the fare; or keeping the excess change the shop assistant has given us by mistake, or failing to pay duty to the Customs Officer.

Sometimes we call it cheating when we copy the results to exam questions from someone else, or use someone else's ideas claiming them as one's own.

(I was interested to read an article in the Church Times the other day in which a person was quoting word for word an article which I wrote and gave to them some years ago. I was also rather annoyed three of four years ago to read a book where the author was recalling certain anecdotes as having happened to himself, where in fact, they had happened to me!)

Sometimes we call it finding, when we keep something we have found which does not belong to us.

And sometimes we call it borrowing when we take something without the owner’s permission or just fail to return it.

Whether we call it "falling off the back of a lorry", "defrauding", "cheating',,,,finding,,, or "borrowing", the result is the same, namely, that we finish up with something which does not belong to us, but to someone else. And that, my friends, is "stealing".

There is no doubt that we do not regard "stealing" as seriously as did the Jews in the Old Testament, where property was, for many people, their only means of livelihood.

For instance, if someone breaks into your home and steals your television set and your video recorder and your jewellery, you will survive.

If on the other hand, someone steals your flocks, and drives away your cattle, you will not survive. For the Jews, there were no banks and no insurance companies.

If you were a nomad - wandering from place to place, as the Jews were for part of their national history, you had no mattress to hide your money in. Theft could destroy you, or at least impoverish you for ever.

Therefore, the Jews took the eighth commandment, "Thou shalt not steal" very seriously since it was fundamental to their nomadic survival.

Today, however stealing is often not so much a personal action, but often a corporate action which leaves one feeling impotent as regards changing things.

For instance, I would suggest that the commandment is broken by fraudulent dealings in business whereby a customer receives something less than they had a right to expect.

We should not need consumer protection legislation to guard against customers being ripped off.

And what about expecting people to work for inadequate wages? I think not just of those employed on the British tea plantations of Sri Lanka, or the mines of South Africa, but also those in the sweat factories of S.E. Asia supplying goods for our multiple stores. Is that stealing?

And is not the commandment broken by employees who do not give employers value for money? I think of such practices as arriving late, leaving early, taking extended lunch breaks, receiving personal telephone calls at work, and making them - to say nothing of the use of the photocopier and paper clips.

So I could go on.

We may well smile when we hear that goods have "fallen off the back of a lorry", but I often wonder whether God smiles when we defraud, cheat, find and keep, or borrow and not return.

Does God smile when we do not receive value for money in our purchases; or we fail to give our employers value for our wage/salary; or when we exploit poverty by demanding cheap labour in order to maintain our high standard of living.

Does God smile?

After all, the Old Testament says “you shall not steal" where the New Testament says “you shall work honestly and give to those in need".