From the Vicarage - Sept' 2006

The item of summer news that really sticks in my mind concerned bankruptcies and insolvencies. The number of mortgage repossessions and declarations of personal bankruptcy are increasing alarmingly. As part of the news report, the BBC interviewed a representative of the Citizens’ Advice Bureau. According to the CAB a lot of the blame was to be laid at the door of lenders; banks and building societies simply make it too easy to borrow too much. Then again, people focus more on the amount they are borrowing rather than on how much they will have to pay back; not enough thought is given to the repayment levels.

These two phenomena are no doubt real contributors to the problem. But is there a more fundamental force at work here? People naturally want as much a possible for as little as possible. Every economic transaction is determined by the interaction of two forces – the price paid is the result of by how much there is and how much people want it. We call it supply and demand and it is fundamental to every healthy society. Rather more fundamental to the human psyche, though, is the desire of something for nothing. And this is where unscrupulous forces are often to be found. The vulnerable and the gullible are often ensnared by excessive borrowing or by gambling. People can become convinced that a loan is a gift or that the next bet will be the winning one.

Debts and owing are not ideas which readily present themselves from the pages of the Bible. We are told to owe no one anything except the debt of love. The Old Testament people are often exhorted to take no interest on a loan (the sin of usury). And the Lord’s Prayer could be translated as asking to be released from debt. But this all seems rather peripheral to the main thrust of the Christian message. Isn’t it all about being reconciled with God and preparing ourselves for eternal happiness with him? Well, yes it is. The only thing is that indebtedness lies precisely at the heart of our relationship with God.

The Christian view of the world is to see human beings as indebted to their Creator. We can only stand before God if he cancels those debts. To regard us as we are would be to shun us as hopeless sinners. Instead God lovingly cancels our debt to him when we believe in Jesus. And this in turn means that we are to cancel the debts that others owe us. This is the meaning of ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’.

To see ourselves as those who have been freed from the burden of debt by a loving Father means more than that we should extend his forgiveness to others. Christians should go further and regard with the utmost suspicion all promises of something for nothing – whether it be to buy it now and pay back loads more later or to win it at impossible odds. Such false promises rob people of their freedom and dignity and do immeasurable harm to the fabric of our society. God, on the other hand, is a rather more favourable creditor and an understanding of what we owe him will take away our need to become indebted to others.

Fr P