Bible Text: Deuteronomy 5:19 | Pastor: Eric Danielson | Series: For Our Good | When you are being mistreated by people that are over you at work, or in government, or at home, how does God want you to respond? A lot of people retaliate in little ways to try to even the score, but is that ok? If not, what are we supposed to do?

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Dignity in the Ditches
Deuteronomy 5:19

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Well the world needs ditch-diggers too”? It’s referring to the jobs like ditch-digging that are at the low end of the totem pole in our society. Have you ever had a job like that? When I was in high school and college I had a couple jobs like that. My first “real” job was insulating houses. I did that for two summers in high school. There were four of us that worked for the company – the owner did all the bids and ordered materials and did all the financial and administrative stuff, then there were two adult guys and me who went to all the job sites and did the manual labor. It was hot, dirty, itchy work I remember my arms itched all summer from fiberglass particles embedded in my skin. I remember one job in particular – it was a big house and we had to put up plastic on the ceiling. It was one of those 90 degree 90% humidity days. I had the hammer stapler in one hand and the plastic in the other and I was sweating like crazy and the plastic was sliding over my arm aggravating the fiberglass particles and I remember thinking, “I hate this.” Thankfully the other guys were good to me and we all shared in the miserable jobs.

I was also on the bottom of the totem pole in my days working for Taco Bell in college. I worked there for one semester and interestingly never made one taco or took one order. I was always given the dirty jobs that no one else wanted to do. I would show up for my shift near the end of the day to a commercial sink full of dirty dishes and it was my job to scrub the charred grease off of them. I also remember having to go around and wash the greasy equipment and filters, which I realized was the job no one ever did because it was nasty and when my supervisor told me to do it she always had a sinister smile on her face. I was the new guy, so I got to do the stuff no one wanted to do. But I got paid like $5.85/hr and got a Taco Bell polo shirt out of the deal, so it was worth it.

Actually, I had it pretty good in both of these jobs for being the low man on the ladder – much better than some of you have experienced. Our society is set up to work like that. When it comes to work, government, even family there is a hierarchy of authority and a pecking order. And oftentimes the people who are higher up on the ladder are mainly there because they have seniority and a title and not necessarily because they have more intellect or ability. And that makes it hard to be beneath them, especially when they mistreat you. Many people like to take advantage of their position so they can boss people around and assert their authority. There is often unfair treatment and inequality and the people that are higher up can make life pretty miserable. Many people have suffered from racial, gender, or class discrimination and that mistreatment often breeds feelings of resistance. We naturally want to do things to settle the score. If we’re stuck in a situation, at least we can try to balance the scales and feel better about ourselves.

When it comes to work, we can take things from the job for personal use to make up for lower wages or being overworked. We can slack off when no one is looking and do the bare minimum to keep the manager off your back. We can do things half-heartedly, just to get by. We can bad mouth the supervisor to other coworkers. When we feel like we’re mistreated by our government we can cheat on our taxes and take home more money. We can have a bad attitude and complain whenever we can. We can cause disruptions by dumping garbage that someone has to pick up or engage in a social protest that shuts down public services. In marriage we can spend money our spouse doesn’t know about, we can manipulate them and make their life miserable. Kids can do all kinds of little things behind their parents’ backs to make up for something they think is unfair.

We justify all kinds of behaviors because of the way we are being treated. It’s very common in our society and I want us to ask ourselves if that’s ok? If you are being treated unjustly or unfairly is it ok to do little secret things to even things out? And if not, what are you supposed to do instead? This leads us into a study of the eighth commandment in Deuteronomy 5. It’s a commandment that can quickly be dismissed and thought to not apply, but we will all probably see we shouldn’t do that. It’s a commandment that applies to most of us and when fully understood is clearly for our good.

Read Deuteronomy 5:19
19 “‘And you shall not steal.

It’s easy to interpret Scripture through the same lens with which we look at life, so when we read this command we likely think of things like a thief breaking into someone’s property when they’re away, shoplifting at Wal Mart, or children stealing a cookie or some cash out of their parent’s wallet. People shouldn’t do these things, and certainly we can apply this command to these situations.

But if you’re a child trying to get away with something or a criminal trying to prey on unsuspecting victims, you probably already know you shouldn’t do that. This command isn’t going to somehow enlighten you to your fault and change your behavior. And the vast majority of us aren’t doing those things anyway – neither were the vast majority of Israelites to whom this command was originally given. Does this command only apply to a small percentage of people who already know they’re not supposed to steal? That makes it seem unnecessary and strange that God would include it in his Top 10. So my assumption in preparing for this sermon was that God had something else in mind that could apply to all the Israelites and all of us. And to fully understand and apply this command, we need to go back to its original context.

When you think of God originally giving the Israelites this command on Mt. Sinai, you have to realize that he didn’t give the command to a bunch of middle-class citizens of a free country who had opportunity and equal rights. He gave the command to a bunch of ex-slaves. They had been at the very bottom of the totem pole. Everyone in the Israelite camp had been slaves for their entire lives up to that point, as were their parents, and grandparents for many generations. They had been Egyptian slaves for 400 years and when the commands were given to them on Mt. Sinai, they had only been free from slavery for 50 days – not even two months. You can’t change 400 years of thinking in 50 days, so they still had a slave mentality and thought like slaves.

Now, I’ve never been a slave, so I don’t know how to think like one, but other people have done research on how they think. So in trying to understand how an Israelite slave might think I found an article from BBC that was very enlightening. It wasn’t about the Israelite slaves, but it was about slaves in ancient Rome who were in the same situation. The article had to do with different ways that slaves would seek to resist their masters. The author noted that even though slaves were treated like property and locked into a social system they couldn’t escape, they were human beings with minds of their own, and looked for ways to outwit and resist the absolute authority of their masters and demonstrate their opposition to slavery.

The article stated that they would “carry out acts of willful obstruction or sabotage that harmed slave-owners’ interests… They might steal food or other supplies from the household. Those in positions of responsibility might falsify record books, and embezzle money from their owners, or arrange for their own emancipation. Ordinary farm laborers might deliberately go slow on the job or injure the animals they worked with to avoid work – or they might pretend to be ill, destroy equipment, or damage buildings. If your job was to make wine and you had to produce a certain quota, why not add in some sea-water to help things along? Almost any slave could play truant or simply waste time.” The article went on to say: “Owners complained that their slaves were lazy and troublesome – instead of working they were always pilfering food or clothing or valuables (even the silverware), setting fire to property, or wandering around the city’s art galleries and public entertainments.”

The thing that’s common between all these things is that all of them are different forms of stealing. They did all these things to show opposition to the mistreatment and inequality that they were victims to. Thus, every slave would justify stealing because of their situation. This was engrained in their thinking – it’s all they ever knew. All these forms of stealing were “right” in their eyes because of their mistreatment. That’s how ancient slaves thought and I think that’s how ancient Israelite ex-slaves were still thinking even after they were set free. Their situation was different, but their thinking was the same and they would take that thinking with them into the Promised Land.

There they would be free, but in a short time a hierarchy of authority would take shape. Those who were older, richer and more powerful would rule over the poor. And everyone in those lower positions, who would make up the majority of the people, would revert to thinking the same way they did when they were in Egypt. They would treat those who were over them in the same way they treated their former masters and cheat, connive, and steal to get ahead or at least feel better about their situation. Is this kind of behavior ok?

God knew his people would think that way, so when he brought them out of Egypt he gave them the command: “You shall not steal,” and I think it applied to all of them. When you find yourself in a subservient position it’s not ok to respond to inequality and mistreatment by doing those things. This isn’t a command for just thieves and robbers, it’s a command for all of us who find ourselves in that situation in our society. I think it’s easy for us to justify these forms of stealing in our situations today, but it’s not ok.

In your situation at work, it’s not ok for you to take things, or be lazy, or complain and argue and have a bad attitude to try to even the scales. It’s not ok to cheat and cause problems for the government because of personal frustrations. And it’s not ok to do things to your spouse behind their back or to your parents to try to get the upper edge. God does not want that kind of behavior to characterize his people – even if they’re being mistreated.

Then what are we supposed to do? Are we just supposed to bow our heads and accept our defeat? I think God wants us to look at it a different way. And I think we can see what that is in what Paul wrote to one of his churches in Ephesians 6:5-8. Like I said earlier, slavery was a big thing in the Roman Empire and this is what Paul wrote to some Roman slaves who became Christians: “Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, 6 not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, 7 rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.”

The way that God wants us to respond when we find ourselves in those difficult situations is to act as if we are working for the Lord and not the person who is mistreating us. Keep our head up and serve with dignity. Do what you’ve been told to the best of your ability, not putting on a show on the outside while grumbling within, but with a sincere heart. Respond to those who are over you as you would respond to Christ. Serve them as you would serve Christ. Remember that when Christ came to earth and lived among us, he willingly took the position of a servant. He served with dignity and honor as unto God, not unto man. And the promise is that for those who follow his example, they will be rewarded by him.

God has given us this command for our good. On one hand, when we act in the way just described in these verses, in most situations, that attitude will make a huge difference. Relationships will improve, conditions will get better, and you end up in a better situation. But even if it does not, Christ is watching and he is taking your good service into account, and he will repay you with more than even you think is enough. It will be worth it in the end.

The apostle Paul, in suffering mistreatment from government and society in his service to Christ, wrote this in 2 Cor. 4:16-18: “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”