Text: Romans 8:9-27
In the
news this past week there has been a story of a man who made himself debt free
by paying off his $114,460 student loan in cash. He is a ventures capitalist in Toronto
and happened to make enough profit from the sell of a start-up company to make paying
off his student loan possible. So, he
thought that it would be funny to pay it all in cash; not the banks. His went as far as to threaten to make him
pay for any extra armoured vehicle deliveries involved. Oddly, it took his bank three days to get that
much cash. Then, with cash in hand,
actually a half-full canvas grocery bag, he walked three blocks to the lender
bank where after nearly three hours of interrogation they finally accepted the
withdrawal receipt from the other bank as proof that the cash was not
ill-gotten. It makes us wonder if banks
remember what they're here for.
On a CBC
radio show Friday they interviewed this man and then took calls from people
about their experiences of paying off debt.
One woman shared that she had owed over $50,000 on a small business loan
which she paid off in a lump sum with money she received from a bequest. I am assuming the loan was actually on a line
of credit because within hours of the payoff VISA called to let her know that
they were unhappy she had paid them off.
These companies who profit from extending credit love to keep us in debt
even if it means they never get the principle paid back.
Debt has
become a fact of life these days, especially credit card debt. The Vanier
Institute of the Family reported in February 2011 that the average Canadian family is dealing with
$100,000 in debt and owes far more than it earns. They also said that the debt-to-income ratio is about 150 per cent. This means that for every $1,000 in after-tax
income that a Canadian family earns, it owes $1,500. That
was a year and a half ago. Average
consumer debt fell in 2011 by 3.4 percent.
Yet, the average adult Canadian person not household owes $25,960 in
none mortgage related debt – credit cards, automobiles, student loans, etc.
Centuries ago if you owed somebody and
couldn't pay, you went to debtor’s prison.
That doesn't happen anymore. Now
if you can't pay your debts, you declare bankruptcy which requires you to
tighten the belt a bit and endure a bad credit rating for a couple of years and
then you're back in the game hopefully having learned something. Not to long ago there was a stigma placed on
debt. It was shameful to owe somebody
anything. If there was something you
wanted, you saved your money and paid for it outright. But now debt is just something everybody
has. Going into debt is simply a tool for
getting what you want right now, but where does it end and it will end. The collapse of the banking industry in the
States and its residual recession are proof that reckoning does happen. Debt is a horrible, parasitical evil we too
readily allow to persist. We seem to thrive
on it like flies on a decaying corpse. I
shudder to think what it's going to take to break the global economy ourselves
included from this addiction.
Having
said all that, I find it interesting that Paul uses the language of debt to
describe life lived in accord with the Holy Spirit. Here in Romans chapter 8 Paul indicates that
we are under obligation to live life led by the Holy Spirit. At least that is the way the NIV says
it. Most other translations use the
stronger wording that we are debtors to God to live life led by the Holy Spirit
because of the new life he has given us in Jesus Christ through the presence of
the Holy Spirit with and in us leading us to live faithfully. The Trinity has given us the Holy Spirit by
whom, through whom, in whom we participate in the resurrected or New Creation
life of Jesus Christ now as the real and living hope that we are heirs with
Jesus to life in the New Creation when the day comes. Because the Holy Spirit is in us we will be
raised from the dead just as Jesus has been.
Therefore, we are under obligation.
We owe the Trinity for our lives to live according to the Holy Spirit's
leading.
We are
debtors Paul tells us, not to the
flesh,
not to the sinful nature. We are under
no obligation to live our lives solely for the benefit of the unholy trinity of
me, myself, and I. We are under no
obligation to let ourselves be controlled by greed, lust, pride, power, fear,
shame. We are under no obligation to be
controlling and manipulative. Like debt
is in our society that way of life leads only to death and we owe it nothing. Jesus paid off all those debts to which we
were slaves. We are free. He bought us.
Our lives are no longer our own to do with as we please. As the answer to the first question of the Heidelberg
Catechism states: "…I am
not my own, but belong--body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful
Saviour Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious
blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over
me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my
Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.
Because I belong to him, Christ, by His Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life
and makes me whole-heartedly willing and ready from now on to live for
him." The question for
that answer is “What is your only comfort in life and in death?”
We do not
belong to ourselves. We belong to our faithful
Saviour Jesus Christ. I don’t
know about you folks but I quite often find myself with no recourse in this
life other than just having to step back and remind myself that my life is in
Jesus’ hands and let go of whatever it is I am trying to control, whatever it
is that has hurt me and left me stewing in anger to the point of depression,
whatever it is I am inordinately thinking I am in need of other than simply
being grateful. If I don’t let my life
be in my Lord’s hands, I go insane. Our
only comfort truly is that we belong to our Saviour Jesus Christ and he is
indeed faithful.
Paul says
there that all who are led by the Spirit are children of God. Probably the first work of the Holy Spirit in
us is getting us straight in the head by causing us to know that we are
children of God and leading us to be able to step back and let go and let our
lives be in the hands of our Lord. The
earliest theologians of the Christian faith described sin as a problem of the
mind. We are insane in that we do not
know ourselves to be beloved children of God.
We cannot know this until Jesus has brought us together with himself
before the Father by encountering us with the Holy Spirit. The word repent means quite literally to be
with-minded. It is to be with-minded
with Jesus in the Holy Spirit knowing that the Father loves us each as much as
he does his own only-begotten Son.
This
with-mindedness, though initiated in us by the gift of the Holy Spirit, also
requires work on our part. We must use
this personal knowledge of God given us by the Holy Spirit to put to death the
ways we have become accustomed to acting in this world that are in accordance
with the insanity of not knowing we are beloved children of God. The bank we owe our lives to is the loving
communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Paying our debt to the Trinity will not have us healthy, wealthy, and
well-adjusted. Quite the contrary, we
will suffer as Christ Jesus suffered. Yet,
the sufferings are nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed in
us. The Holy Spirit is the foretaste of
this; so also the comfort. Therefore, may
you know him now. Amen.
