Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“You shall not steal.

• Deuteronomy 5:19

“If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed; but if it happens after sunrise, the defender is guilty of bloodshed.
“Anyone who steals must certainly make restitution, but if they have nothing, they must be sold to pay for their theft. If the stolen animal is found alive in their possession—whether ox or donkey or sheep—they must pay back double.

• Exodus 22:2-4

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

• Romans 13:8-10

People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy his hunger when he is starving.

• Proverbs 6:30

“If thieves came to you, if robbers in the night— oh, what a disaster awaits you!— would they not steal only as much as they wanted? If grape pickers came to you, would they not leave a few grapes?

• Obadiah 1:5

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

• Matthew 25:34-40

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Since she was a doll that had come to life, we came up with the term ‘other living.’  She was not a human, an animal, or even a plant, but she was definitely living, and very vibrant.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs went shopping.

But this week, she played the role of a street cop on walking patrol.  Since I was not there at the time and got all this information from the breakfast lady at the hotel and from Babs later on, I will tell it like a story.

Babs was wiping down her table when the breakfast lady said, “Honey, you don’t have to do that.  That’s my job.”

Babs bubbled, “But I like to help.  It’s no problem, and you have been very busy this morning and very attentive also.”

The breakfast lady sighed, “Thank you for saying that.  I hope my boss knows.”  Then there was a flash of movement behind her.  “That little rat!  He is in here every day stealing the bananas.  He walks away with a few other things too.”

Babs asked, “Is he a guest?”

The breakfast lady said, “No, he is one of the neighborhood kids, I guess.”

Babs giggled, “I could pay you for the bananas, but I think I will go find the boy.”

The breakfast lady said, “No, he might be dangerous.  I am thinking about calling the police and they can have someone in the lobby to catch the boy.”

Babs scrunched her nose, “I want to at least try.  I will be back soon.”

With that, Babs left the hotel and walked to the street.  Something said for her to turn to the right and then left at the traffic light.  A quarter mile down the street, she saw the boy leaning against a tree, eating a banana.

Babs smiled and said, “Nice bunch of bananas!  Are they ripe?”  The boy clutched the bananas closely and he started to get up to make his escape.  “Nope, just sit right there.  I want to sit and talk.  I am not here to arrest you or take you back to the hotel where you stole the bananas.”

The boy shifted his weight to take a run for it, but he stopped.  It seemed that something inside him could trust this woman.  He asked, “Do you want one?  I could share, ma’am.”

Babs shook her head.  She sat next to the boy.  “No, thank you, I ate so many pancakes, I think I will pop.  But you said, ‘ma’am’.  Your mama must have taught you to be polite.”  He nodded.  “And your mama probably taught you to not steal, right?”  He nodded.  “So, tell me your story.”

The boy said, “My mama did the books for the furniture store down the street.  They closed the place a few months ago.  The unemployment covered the rent, but then mama got sick.  When we paid for the medicine, there wasn’t enough for the rent.  I don’t have a papa.  It’s just the two of us.  Please, I got to get these bananas to mama.  Don’t say nothing.  I tell her a nice woman let me have them.  They have so much extra at that hotel.  They throw food out nearly every day.  Please.”

Babs said, “You do know that the eighth commandment is to not steal?”  He nodded.  “Did you know that if you stole a sheep or a donkey and you kept it safe, you would have to return the animal but pay back the owner double?  You stole a half dozen bananas.  You should give the hotel a dozen.  That’s the way that works.”

He pleaded, “But we are homeless.  We sleep in our car, and if mama can’t get a job soon, we won’t have gas to keep us warm this winter.  I can’t pay back the hotel for stealing the bananas.  And yesterday, she wasn’t looking, and I got a few cups of yogurt too.”

Babs shook her head.  “Young man, hmpf.  I do not even know your name.”

The boy shyly said, “Johnny.”

Babs nodded, “Okay, Johnny, do you know that Jesus and then the Apostle Paul talked about the law that explains what the second half of the Ten Commandments is all about?”  Johnny shook his head.  Babs continued, “Jesus and Paul said to love your neighbor.  The extra at the hotel is indeed like what Obadiah said in his prophecy.  Others will come and take it, but stealing is still wrong.  You must pay them back in some way.  And you and your mama need to find a better way of getting food.  See that church across the street?  We are going over there to ask a few questions.  The Bible says that we should show compassion when someone is hungry, even when they resort to stealing.  It’s in the book of Proverbs.”

They went across the busy street and walked into the church, Johnny still holding his last two bananas.  They were directed to the financial manager, since the pastor was out visiting the elderly.

Babs asked, “Ma’am, do you know the parable of the sheep and the goats?”

The financial lady snickered, “Yes, I do.  I have read my Bible a few times.”

Babs nodded, “Well, this is Johnny.  His mother worked at a furniture store.  The unemployment is not enough to sustain their needs.  They are sleeping in their car.  She has been sick and looking for a job is hard.  As the king tells the righteous, here is a boy who is hungry.  He may have a mother, but he is fatherless.  He is a stranger.  Do you have a food bank here, or nearby?”

The financial manager beamed, “Yes, we can give Johnny a bag of food for now.  Then, his mother can come by and fill out the paperwork.  We can set her up with a monthly distribution.  If they are in a car, he’ll need food that does not need cooking.”  She waved for the custodian to come in.  They talked a little bit.  Then the financial lady talked to Johnny some more.  There were shelters, but they would only take them for a few days at a time.  Before they were finished, the custodian returned with two bags of groceries.  He had a few canned fruits and a can opener, a few sticks of beef jerky, boxes of cereal, and breakfast pastries that you put in a toaster (still okay cold).  They apologized that on short notice that was all they had.

Babs and Johnny thanked them.

Johnny asked, “Where are we going next?”

Babs smiled, “Back to the hotel to apologize.”

Johnny said, “No, they’ll have me arrested.”

Babs looked Johnny in the eyes, “Trust me, Johnny.  I am very good at delivering messages.  I have been doing that for a long time.  When I have explained the situation, they will not mind at all.  But I need a decision from you.  Will you work to pay for the stolen bananas and yogurt?  And I see your eyes darting to the side.  Let’s just say, will you work for all the food you have stolen?”

Johnny shrugged, “They probably aren’t hiring.  I’m too young.  And I have to take care of mama.”

Babs giggled, “Johnny, I said to trust me.  I just need to know that you will be responsible enough to work off your debt.”

He agreed and they walked back to the hotel.

This part of the story, I can vouch for.  Babs walked in carrying Johnny’s two grocery bags.  I was finished early with my sales call.  When Babs was not in the room, I sat in the lobby, next to the fireplace.  Babs walked by me without noticing.

The breakfast lady said, “Great!  Now, I can call the police.”

Babs smiled, “No, that will not be necessary.  Johnny is willing to work off the cost of the food.  In being Harold’s travel buddy for nearly a year now, I have watched a lot of breakfast areas in operation.  Johnny could clean tables.  Half the time, people wipe a few crumbs away from the previous person’s meal because you are too busy cooking more sausage or restocking the yogurt.  And if the pancake maker or waffle iron quits working, it stays broken until after breakfast is over.  Johnny is not old enough to have a job, but his mother is out of work.  They are homeless, living in their car.  He needs a break.  It will be a personal covenant between you two.”  Babs went on to explain how his mama had lost her job.

The hotel’s general manager walked in.  “Did you say she did the books at the furniture store?”  Babs smiled and nodded.  “I just lost my night auditor.  Each night, I need an independent person to check the books so that everything is straight.  You know, do we really have an income that matches the number of rooms that have become occupied?  That kind of thing.  Johnny, I leave at four o’clock.  Can you get your mama here by then?  Even if she is still sick, if she can sit and balance the books in the middle of the night, that is all I need for now.  We can even give you a room at the hotel until you get something more permanent.  If your mama can wash the sheets and towels, and maybe clean a room on occasion, we might make it a fulltime job.”

Babs said, “I will let the front desk person know this is your food.  That way, the bags won’t slow you down, and you can get them back when your mama shows up for her interview.”

Johnny was out the door like he had been shot out of a cannon.  Babs dropped the groceries off at the front desk.  Then Babs turned and saw me smiling.  I was thinking that if I had done that, it would not have turned out that way.  I would have probably gotten mugged.  Babs had this knack of being in the right place and people who might angrily bite your head off would smile at her and help her.  I had no idea what her secret was, or I did not until later.

Babs said, “I am exhausted.  Why not order out a pizza?”

The hotel manager said, “No, you don’t.  The pizza is on us.  We have enough free pizza coupons, it won’t cost us anything other than the tip.”  I gave her the type pizza that we liked and our room number. They promised to deliver it to the room.

I suggested, “Babs, I suppose you have lived out a Bible study today.  Do you just want to rest?”

Babs shook her head and looked as stern as she could look, which failed miserably.  “Not on your life, Buster!  You owe me a big Bible study.  Maybe we can look at Ezekiel with all those wheels inside wheels or the dry bones.”

I laughed at her failure of her tough person look, she was too lovable to pull it off.  “Sure, Sweetie, we will start after we have eaten free pizza.”

As we were waiting for the elevator, we heard the general manager sigh, “I haven’t been to church in a long time.  I wonder where a good one is?”

The front desk clerk said, “These groceries came from that church down the road a bit, on Wilson Street.  They left some fliers in the grocery bags.  You could walk from here.  Looks like they have a lot of community service activities and a healthy youth group.”

The general manager said, “I think I will give it a try.”  The breakfast lady said that she might see her there too.

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

The church where I presently attend houses the community food bank.  They can make emergency distributions, but when approved after the paperwork is filled out, there is a monthly distribution.  Often more than one hundred families get food there.  Usually supporting the local food bank is one of the best ways for charity dollars to be spent.  Volunteers from several churches gather food, inventory everything, and distribute it.  The church does not charge for storage rental, and everyone is a volunteer.  The donation is 100% given to those who need the food.  You can donate the food or cash which is used to supplement the donated food for complete healthy meals.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.