Exodus 20:15
“Is It Really Yours?”
April 28, 2002 - Fifth Sunday of Easter

         Two years ago we received a call from the nursing home where my wife’s mother was being cared for. They wanted to know how to reach Beth’s brother. It turned out that he, who had care of all their mother’s funds, had not paid the nursing home in over a year. Ul­timately we discovered that he and his wife had taken for their own use what remained of Mom’s money, maybe a hundred thousand dollars. We were taken utterly by surprise and devastated to learn that such theft could occur in our own family.

         God gave the Eighth Commandment because He is not at all surprised at such goings on in human life. He knows how greatly we are tempted to steal. He does not want you or I to have any doubt that it is against His will. Any and all taking of what belongs to another person breaks this commandment.

         It may seem as if the second half of the Ten Commandments is listed in order of de­creasing importance. Murder is the greatest sin. Adultery is not quite as bad. Stealing is still less of a crime, while lying and coveting are even more minor infractions. I imagine there are quite a few thieves who justify themselves somewhat by thinking “At least I’m not a murderer.”

         Yet as Mike Merrifield pointed out a couple weeks ago in our Sunday School class, crimes against property are still crimes against people. In the worst cases, theft may take away a person’s living, leaving them to poverty and even death. Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin both taught that stealing from the poor is equivalent to murder.[1]

         It would be good, then, to examine our own hearts and lives as we did for the sins of murder and adultery, and find and confess all those seemingly petty thefts which in fact break this commandment. Whether it is a few personal long distance phone calls at work or a little too much rounding downward on an income tax return, every act of taking what is not ours creates in us a disposition to worse thefts.

         I am sure that my brother-in-law and his wife did not sit down one day and decide all at once that they would steal his mother’s money. It almost certainly began when they came up a short one month and borrowed a little from her account to pay a bill or two. But bit by bit the borrowing increased and the possibility of paying it back evaporated. A habit was established which can only be called a habit of theft. He started down the road to taking everything his mother had in very small steps. It can happen all too easily.

         As bad and damaging as it is, the worst theft, however, is not stealing from other hu­man beings. In Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament, that prophet complains that the people have robbed God. They have taken for their own use what ought to have been given to the Lord. Malachi was talking about the giving of tithes and offerings, but there is another way in which you and I can rob our Lord.

         Jesus taught us honesty even in paying taxes. In Matthew 22, the Pharisees confronted him with the question of paying tax to the corrupt government of the Romans. It was a trap. If He told them not to pay the tax, He would be breaking the Roman law and would be subject to arrest. If he said the tax should be paid, then He would lose some of His follow­ers who hated the Romans, like Simon the Zealot.

         So Jesus asked for a coin. Holding it up, he asked them whose image they found on the coin. “Caesar’s,” they replied. So he told them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

         As often as I have heard and read that story of how Jesus evaded the Pharisees trap, it never struck me until a few weeks ago that Jesus’ reference to Caesar’s image on the coin has a spiritual meaning. If what belongs to Caesar is that which has his image on it, like the coin, then Jesus is implying that what belongs to God must be whatever bears God’s image.

         The Bible teaches that you and I are made in the image of God. Our own selves are the coins stamped with His likeness. And so doing anything less than giving our very lives and everything we have to God is robbery. We are His. To pretend that we belong to our­selves and can do what we wish with our lives is the worst theft of all. Yet that is what we do every day when we sin and turn from Him. Forgetting our Lord’s claim on us, we take the lives which were never really ours and thereby steal from God.

         Victor Hugo’s great novel Les Miserables has been translated and made into a wildly successful Broadway musical and several film versions. In all versions what comes through is the compelling story of the redemption of a thief. Jean Valjean was a poor man who is sent to prison for nineteen years for stealing a loaf of bread.

         At one point after his release, hungry and feeling lost, Valjean knocks on the door of Monsignor Bienvenu, a priest, and his sister. Though a stranger, Valjean is welcomed, in­vited to supper at a table spread with the family’s best silver, then given a place to sleep. In the middle of the night however, he awakens, steals the silverware, and climbs over the garden wall.

         As the household is in an uproar after the theft, there is a knock at the door. The lo­cal gendarmes have apprehended Valjean and are dragging him back to confirm that the stolen silver is in fact the priest’s. But Monsignor Bienvenu shocks the man deep into his soul by picking up two silver candlesticks from the mantle and saying that Valjean had for­gotten to take them along with the spoons and forks the priest had given him. Assured that no left had taken place the gendarmes leave.

         Valjean tries to comprehend the incredible grace and mercy he has just been shown. The priest tells him that the silver is being given to him with an expectation. He hopes to see Valjean change and turn to good. The theft has become a purchase, a purchase of a man’s soul. He sends him away saying, “Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God.” The rest of the novel tells the story of how Valjean attempts to live out his redemption and become a good man.

         That is how Jesus Christ responds to all our many thieveries, including the ultimate theft of our own selves out of the hands of God. By dying on the Cross Jesus paid the price to return our souls to where they belong. He bought our lives back from sin, death and the devil and gave our lives to us so that we may give them back to God. Anyone can experi­ence His forgiveness and grace, no matter how great the sin. My wife’s brother has recently shown some repentance for what he has done, and even something so enormous as stealing from your mother can be forgiven in Christ. So now, he and you and I are called to live out that wonderful redemption and truly become God’s people.

         Consider today what you have that is not yours. It may literally be money or property that belongs to someone else. However, most of all, consider the truth that your life is not yours. As Paul says in I Corinthians 6, “you are not your own. You were bought with a price.” That price was the life of our dear Savior, given for you and for me, so that we might no longer live as thieves, but as children of God. Give Him back today what is His and place your life in His hands by faith. Be His today.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2002 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj