C3/CCC Sermon Transcript for May 4, 2008 A tour guide in Washington, D. C. pointed out the place where George Washington supposedly threw a dollar across the Potomac River. "That's impossible," said the tourist. "No one could throw a coin that far!" "You have to remember," answered the guide. "A dollar went a lot farther in those days." The Debt Burden In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius gave some advice to his son as he was leaving for Paris- It’s an intriguing comment. On the one hand, wouldn’t you want to be generous to friends, especially with your parents’ money? On the other hand, isn’t there a danger of money damaging a friendship? The borrower feels indebted, and the lender ends up in a superior position. Borrowing can dull the edge of husbandry because it creates an illusion of prosperity. There are so many examples of people who borrow to create the illusion of a lavish lifestyle, get in over their heads, and end up stuck in a cycle of debt repayment. They lose all sense of who they are, and how they operate in the world. The debt trap is set when loans are too easy to get and before long the steel teeth falls like a mighty weight on the shoulders of those in debt. Suddenly, the allure of prosperity begins to blur like a mirage in a desert. Before long, it all comes crashing down. The illusion is gone, and all that is left is the stark reality of a mountain of debt. How many people commit suicide each year as a result of debt burdens? Too many! How many relationships facture because of financial crises? Too many! The debt crisis today, both the unequal relationships set up with developing countries and the unraveling debt crisis in developed countries, is one of the most profound challenges facing the world. It is above all else, a spiritual crisis of identity. Remember the words in the Lords Prayer- “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive out debtors.” The words were intended both literally and metaphorically, or might I say spiritually. The concept of the Jubilee was central to both Hebrew and early Christian communities; literally end the cycle of poverty that debt creates. One of Jesus’ central critiques of both empire and temple in his day was the heavy debt burdens placed on the poorest in society. Taxes were oppressive and unequal. The heavier burden was the unequal relationship, with hostility flowing both ways. This was the spiritual burden. The metaphoric meaning was to break the cycle of tit for tat. Equalize the relationship; blur the dividing lines between rich and poor, ruler and peasant, giver and receiver. These are just surface differences. From a spiritual perspective, there is a unity and flow to life. This is how Neil Douglas Klotz translates these words from the Lords Prayer- Debt Bondage Until we recognize our own complicity in the global debt crisis, we won’t fully realize our spiritual power as liberators. I discovered during the week that there are slave products in most of our homes, whether it is coffee, chocolate, rugs, toys or clothing. Most slaves in the world today are held in debt bondage. A child in India may become a bonded laborer because the landlord gave the child’s father a blanket. Then the child is held in permanent slavery. They are paid a pittance (perhaps 17 cents a day), charged excessive interest, perhaps given additional "loans", and told that the debt is never paid off. While many adult slaves recognize that their situation is illegal, most don’t really believe that they can ever escape the situation. This is the spiritual crisis and it takes place in the mind. When the Bible says that Jesus came to forgive sins, what it really means is that Jesus came to liberate people from all the shackles of injustice and illusion. Take the notion of debt a step further. This is more than just a financial trap. Are there people in your life that you can’t forgive? Maybe you feel that there is very good reason why you cant forgive them, or maybe you feel that justice must be done before you can forgive them. This is another form of spiritual indebtedness. 3 Steps to Debt (Forgiveness) Management What I want to do is outline some practical steps towards liberation from debt, and suggest to you that the principles that apply to financial debt management apply similarly to the issue of forgiveness.
Duncan Littlefair offers wonderful inspiration on this point. If you weren’t here last week, recall that Duncan was the pioneering preacher of Fountain Street church from 1944 until 1977 and then into retirement. He was however a lot more than a fine preacher. Duncan was instrumental in a number of community and justice programs such as inner city child literacy. The example I offer you this morning was Duncan’s influential role in the pardon of Nixon in 1974. I’m grateful to Michael Grass for his research on this matter. President Ford’s attorney was a close friend of Duncan’s. Duncan spent time in Washington in the week leading up to the pardon of Nixon. He then gave a sermon the Sunday following the pardon of Nixon. There are parts of Ford’s pardon speech that reflect the spirit, if not the words of Duncan. Now, here’s the remarkable aspect of this situation. Duncan was a staunch critic of most of Nixon’s policies, and a scathing critic of Nixon’s behavior. And yet, while most churches were completely against the pardon, Duncan felt that this was a time to leave the past behind and allow Nixon and the country to move on. Ford said as much in his speech. Duncan understood the radical notion of mercy in the Christian tradition. It’s not based on merit or worthiness. It comes before justice. Littlefair said this in his sermon following the pardon- “Mercy and forgiveness cannot be weighed and measured, balanced and counted. It must always be free and unearned and undeserved. It is the foolish nature of mercy.” Mercy doesn’t preclude justice. Mercy precedes justice. People are accountable for errors. Debts must be repaid. However, only from a spiritual base of mercy will justice have any meaning or purpose. Mercy is the context for justice. Littlefair’s discernment, and Fords, was that in this case, Nixon and the American people needed to leave this debt behind, and begin the process of untangling past, blame and causes. As a side note, it was brought to my attention that just before his death, Duncan confessed to having assisted a terminally ill friend commit suicide. It’s not insignificant that we call this “mercy killing”. Could there be a more poignant act of mercy than to say “enough suffering. Now is the time for rest?” 2. Do what you can. Debt doesn’t need to be paid all at once. Usually, you repay a debt in pieces. If you see a debt in its entirety, it can overwhelm you. If you see it in stages, it becomes more manageable. Again, this principle also relates to forgiveness. In the same sermon on the pardon of Nixon, Duncan said this- “If you cannot forgive all your friends, forgive some. If you cannot forgive all the way, forgive part of the way. Help where you can if you cannot help everywhere. Forgive where you can.” Simon Wiesenthal was a Holocaust survivor who spent much of his life bringing Nazi war criminals to justice. During the Holocaust, he saw a soldiers cemetery where each grave had a beautiful sunflower alongside it. He anticipated that he would end up alongside thousands of others in a mass grave with no adornment. After the war, he was brought to the bedside of a dying SS soldier. The soldier described how he had committed mass murder, helped to herd Jewish civilians, women, children and old men into a house that they then set on fire. But a father holding a young boy and shielding the child’s eyes from the horror looked him straight in the eyes before he jumped to his death. This had struck the soldier’s conscience and now he wanted Simon, as a Jew to forgive him. Simon listened to his story silently, paused and then left the room without saying a word. Simon was not in any sense ready for forgiveness, and who amongst us would have been? I offer no judgment on either the soldier or Simon. They each were doing what they could to restore an inhuman situation and forgiveness can no more be feigned than a loan can be repaid by good intentions. 3. Break the Debt Cycle. Pay debt with real money, not with more debt. The debt trap can be summed up with the sign hanging outside a bank- “Now you can borrow enough money to get completely out of debt.” Break the cycle by making different choices. No longer will you be a victim to debt. l can think of no better model of forgiveness than the Amish families whose children were the victims of an awful shooting in 2006. The families gathered themselves and broke the pattern of violence in the most extraordinary way. They sought the healing of the whole situation, and knew that this would require them to take the initiative. Break the Debt Cycle I end with a story that comes from the movie “The Interpreter” about a village in South Africa. What would you do? I can’t even begin to imagine what I would do. I can only hope that one day I might have the spiritual courage to make the choice for mercy. You are a child of God, so much more than the sum total of your debts. You are powerful beyond measure. You have the capacity to see life in all its complexity. You have the capacity to feel the pain of another in all its agony. You have the capacity to change and break the pattern of the debt trap. Love is stronger than death, and liberation is more powerful than the shackles of debt. Mercy is a spiritual gift, and as such as it cannot be given, only realized. Forgive where you can, and your presence will automatically liberate others. This is a spiritual community, and one that carries its own heavy debt burden. Some of you will remember the relief and freedom of July 2007 when we finally paid off our debt to the Reformed Church. Shackles were released and we are now free to move on as an independent community. There is no orthodoxy to ascribe to, just a set of core values around which we can be liberators. Now we tackle another debt, this time to the bank. The challenge is significant, but doable. Over the next three years, we can eliminate our debt and move into the next chapter of this community’s life even more boldly and creatively. We have called it the Being Extraordinary campaign- moving beyond church as usual, moving beyond operations as usual, moving beyond the cycle of debt, to an abundant future. I challenge you to make a life changing commitment to this campaign (whatever that means for you), in order to be part of a world changing community. Not because we give liberation to the world, as if liberation can be given. Rather because we live liberation together and our presence automatically liberates others.
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