Lent
is traditionally a season of contemplating the Ten Commandments, or words of
life. How many of them can you call to mind? Here’s the eighth:
You
shall not steal.
Exodus
20:15
I
once went to a church supplier to purchase some ash ahead of Ash Wednesday. The
seller informed me that priests and vicars were always being caught trying to
steal ash, deflecting the attention of whoever was behind the counter towards
some other item they might or might not actually be interested in buying. It
was, he told me, a dog (collar) eat dog (collar) world at that time of year.
Theft
is driven by a fear of not having enough. Of there being a lack, and of needing
to not be found wanting. It is a very understandable fear of slaves — and all
the more-so of slaves who are descended from Joseph, the hero who saved the
whole world from famine and yet whose memory, at least for the Egyptians, had
been swallowed whole by the intervening years, as insatiably hungry as the
grave. It is a fear that haunts us to this day, not least vicars woken in the
night by feverish nightmares of Ashen humiliation.
But
you do not have to steal from your fellow former slaves now that you have been
set free by this god, whom they are already, falteringly, beginning to discover
to be their Provider. There is enough for all, for today.
What
do you fear will run out?
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