DEBTORS
A sermon by George R. Pasley
Isaiah 6:1-8; Romans 8:12-17
I’ve been reading what I consider to be an absolutely fascination book this week. It’s titled “Payback,” and it’s a book about the nature of debt.
However, it’s not written by an economist. It’s written by a writer, Margaret Atwood, a woman well-versed in literary tradition. Atwood’s thoughts are literary, historical, and even theological in nature, so they wonder into some strange but very enlightening places.
For instance, she recounts an experiment conducted on a certain species of monkey by two anthropologists.
They taught the monkeys to offer pebbles to their trainers, and when they did they were given a slice of cucumber. The monkeys came to understand that whenever they wanted a cucumber slice, they need only offer up a pebble.
But then the researchers threw a wrench into the gears of that primate economy. To one particular monkey, on one particular day, they gave a grape instead of a cucumber.
Now, monkeys are not much different than people. We value a grape at coffee hour more than we do a cucumber slice.
Well, the other monkeys noticed. Immediately they all offered up pebbles, but in return they were not given grapes. Instead, they received the standard cucumber slice.
But these monkeys were not deterred. They refused to accept the cucumber slices. They screamed. They acted out in other ways. In fact, some of the monkeys stopped eating all together.
Those who have read the report of the experiment cite it as evidence that human beings may indeed be hard-wired for some sense of fairness- that there is a relative nature to what we give and to what we receive. In fact, we probably all know that somewhere in its pages the Bible instructs: an eye-for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
Atwood cites another experiment, a few decades ago using some computers that were rather crude by modern standards.
Computer programmers each programmed their computer to participate in a game, a game very similar to the Survivor television series that has enjoyed so much popularity the last few years.
In each encounter, each computer would choose to cooperate, be generous, be obstinate, be stingy, even to be somewhat malicious. They could act in a combination of ways, and weren’t relegated to one particular mode of behavior. The programmers programmed their computer to act in a way that the programmer thought would win.
As it turns out, the wining computer used a software its programmer had named “tit-for-tat”.
On the first encounter with another computer, it cooperated in a slightly generous manner.
On each succeeding encounter with that opposing computer, it would act in direct response to how it had been treated in the previous encounter.
Cooperation was exchanged for cooperation.
Generosity was exchanged for generosity.
Obstinacy was exchanged for obstinacy.
Stinginess was exchanged for stinginess.
Maliciousness was exchanged for maliciousness.
And that computer won the game.
Now I have to admit, sometimes I think life works that way.
Sometimes I even WISH life would work that way!
But the reality is, it doesn’t.
Take this story that Atwood tells about one of her fellow authors: on his 21st birthday, his father presented him with an itemized bill for the entire cost of his rearing. It is said in literary circles that the fellow actually managed to pay it, over time of course.
But when I hear that, and I suspect that when you hear it, our immediate reaction is, “Something’s wrong with that equation!”
Does a man raise his children with the expectation of being repaid, in full, tit-for-tat?
Does a son actually expect that he can repay his parents for what they have done, if they have raised him well and with love?
But just imagine that you did expect exactly that.
Then let’s imagine you are given the bill, and suddenly see there the very high cost of love.
I have no idea what the monetary value of love might be, but I imagine that if I did see such a bill, I might cry out as Isaiah did, WOE IS ME!
We know very little about Isaiah’s life, and none of it is about his early life, except that we know the name of his father.
But I’m going to make a presumption, and the presumption is this: Isaiah was a good Jew.
Isaiah probably kept the Sabbath, probably made his required offerings and sacrifices, probably kept the rituals, probably even loved his neighbors and was merciful and generous.
But then one day- one particular day during the year that King Uzziah died- Isaiah saw something.
It wasn’t a bill, not quite, but it was a picture of the goodness of God, and it was so incredible that to Isaiah it was like looking directly at the sun.
If it was a bill, Isaiah would have thought something like this: I can never repay this, and all of us together cannot repay this. In fact, we are going deeper and deeper into debt, we are ruined!
But it wasn’t a bill, it was a picture of the greatness of God, and so it terrified him even more than a bill because it threatened the very nature of his being.
Just as a slug does in the presence of salt so does a sinner wither in the presence of holiness, and Isaiah was withering fast.
Now, that’s almost too much for any of us to comprehend, because God did create us and call our creation good, and we do manage to see glimpses of that goodness and hold on to them- and well we should. Never let anyone tell you that you are nothing, no matter what sort of trouble you are in or what you have just been caught doing. After all, Jesus died for you so that makes you somebody very special indeed.
But still, we can’t possibly measure up to God. That’s why Paul went back to economics and called us debtors.
There used to be a thing in
How could you possibly pay your bills from prison? Well, you couldn’t, though a good many folk that were in prison would indenture their wives and their children- a transaction that made them virtual slaves- in hopes of paying the bill and getting out of prison. Most of those indentured servants came to
But Paul says if we try to pay God back in that way we’re as good as dead. It won’t work. We just get further and further into debt.
Let me stop here and make a few connections between economics, debt, and sin.
There are costs to our sin. Some of those costs- more than we dare imagine- can be measured in dollars and cents, and that bill alone would probably scare us to death. But a good many more of those costs have to do with damages to relationships. Even worse, in ways that are almost impossible to measure, sin damages the emotional, mental and spiritual well being of both the sinner and the victim.
Finally, sin is a stain on the honor and glory of God.
Don’t believe it? Imagine raising a daughter and sending her out into the world, only to have her commit some heinous crime and see reported in the newspaper her name and the name of her parents.
I’ve seen that happen, and I’ve seen the anguish of the parents, an anguish which I presume pales when compared to the anguish God experiences when we sin.
So, where does that leave us? Ruined, according to Isaiah, and as good as dead, according to Paul.
That is where our sin leaves us, but that’s not where God leaves us. In fact, that’s where God FINDS us and saves us.
Listen first to the passage from Isaiah: you probably noticed that when Isaiah was crying WOE, the seraph in the vision sprung into action.
Those actions, actions taken in accordance with the plan of God, atoned for Isaiah’s sin and marked the bill PAID IN FULL.
Isaiah was ruined but God reclaimed him and restored him, and that’s what Jesus has done for us. When there is nothing that we can do there is always something that God can do.
Now let’s look at the Romans passage. Paul says if we try and pay that debt in a normal tit-for-tat fashion, we’re cooked geese. But God is giving us a different way, and that way is to follow where God’s spirit is leading.
We’re lost, we’re doomed, we are adrift at sea and a fierce storm is on its way. But God has a strange way out, if we will only follow.
Isaiah cried, “Send me,” and God sent him.
The Spirit led Jesus thorough an adventure filled life and a horrible death, but he came for us and our salvation.
Today, the Spirit has brought each of us here to this Communion Table, this table that was set by God’s gracious initiative seeking us out when we were lost.
But the Spirit of God will not leave us here. Instead, it will lead us out.
Now, I can’t say where the Spirit will lead you. I can’t even say this very day where it might lead me. After all, following the Spirit of God is an adventure, not a cruise, and in
But I can tell you this: wherever it leads, it will have something to do with paying love forward because our journey is a reaction to God’s gracious initiative.
Wherever the Spirit leads, it will have something to do with restoring relationships, and dignity, and hope.
Wherever it leads, it will involve some messiness, some bruises and calluses, some splinters and blisters, some failures and some confusion.
Whatever trail it takes will likely have more cucumbers than grapes.
There may be some good company along the way, there will likely be some annoying company along the way, and there will certainly be times when it seems like we are very much alone. After all, it was that way for all the prophets and it was that way for Jesus.
But we won’t be alone, not ever. We might be confused, we might be scared, and we might be discouraged.
But by the Spirit’s power we can take our breath and say, “What’s next?”
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.
