On Monday, two men probably in their late-20s were in front of me in the check-out line in the grocery store. As the cashier finished helping the person in front of them, one of her co-workers came over to ask for help with something. While the cashier was distracted, one of the men told the other to take the 6-pack of beer they were going to buy and set it on the table by the window where other customers were bagging their purchases. I watched the man do as his friend told him, incredulous that I was actually seeing this happen.
The cashier finished helping her colleague, greeted the men in front of me, and began scanning their groceries, oblivious to the fact that the beer was no longer there. While his friend got out money to pay, the man who had moved the beer swooped up their other things, took them over to the waiting beer, and hurriedly dumped everything into a grocery bag.
The entire time this scene was unfolding all I could do was think, I have to say something. I can't just knowingly let these guys steal right in front of me. But I couldn't come up with anything to say. Even if I would have known what to say, I don't know how I would have gone about doing it because the men were standing right in front of me.
I rode the whole way home on the streetcar feeling guilty and thinking I should have done something to stop them. The thing is, this isn't the first time I've seen someone stealing. One day last year while the streetcar I was on was stopped to pick up people, I witnessed a man in one swift motion pick up an umbrella from a rack outside a drug store and stuff it under his jacket, all while continuing to casually stroll down the sidewalk. I recognized that man as one I'd seen get caught trying to steal some salami in a grocery store a couple of weeks earlier.
I shared this experience with Elsa, and she said she might have said something like, "Excuse me. You forgot your beer," depending on how "scruffy" the guys looked, but that in most cases she probably would have reacted the way I did. She reminded me that those men in the store acted based on the guidelines of non-Christian, European culture. I told her there are still non-Christians who value honesty and integrity.
How does a Christian go about handling situations like this? In an effort to protect yourself, do you let someone get away with breaking the law and, even worse, being dishonest? How does the situation change when you're in a foreign culture? Or does it? How would Jesus have handled a similar incident?
I don't know the answers to those questions. I do know that the whole experience bothers me, and I hope I'm not confronted with a similar one in the future.
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2 comments:
Interesting dilemma... I think I would have probably mentioned something to the cashier after they left. If nothing else, the next time they came in the cashier would have been aware of them. Since they were buying other things, it wasn't a lack of cash that prompted the theft. It was the thrill of getting away with it. Unless you say something right as they're doing it, the real opportunity to intervene has passed by. Knowing me, I might have said something like, "Dudes! What are you doing?"
Dad,
I agree that the thrill was the motivation. It seemed like they'd been planning to pay for the beer until they saw an opportunity when the cashier was distracted.
I think if I were a man or if they had been women, I would have said something. As it were, I didn't feel comfortable.
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