December 1 2018
FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS.
Jesus, in the prayer he left with us, created a lot of controversy: for instance: what actually is meant by DEBTS?
Newer versions translate DEBTS as TRESPASSES and lately I have understood that to indicate our sinful excursions into nature, our unwarranted ‘trespassing’ into God’s creation, the environment or whatever you call our actions in cutting down the rain forests, in degrading the land and fouling the air.
But my recent contemplations, new reading of the Bible, and seeking out commentaries, have made me wonder whether my current explanation needs to be expanded.
So, what did Jesus have in mind when he asked us, his followers, to pray to his father, who is in heaven, to forgive us our debts, or trespasses, or sins, as we ought to forgive our debtors – those who make life difficult for us.
My struggling with these lines is the more acute because THE LORD’s PRAYER is often the only section in the Bible we have memorized, that’s why I believe it is necessary to have a clearer, more accurate understanding of that prayer.
However, I still believe that, in the light of the environmental sins we all continuously commit (because we are forced by our capitalistic society to either starve to death by not wanting to use oil – now an impossibility – or be a collaborator in sinning against creation) ‘forgive us our trespasses’ definitely has an ecological aspect. But now, thanks to my continuous reflection on this so important prayer, I am more and more convinced that it also has a deeper meaning.
So I decided to take a fresh look.
For this I resorted to two different sources, one written by two people I know well: Bob Goudzwaard and Mark Vander Vennen, in their HOPE IN TROUBLED TIMES. In that important book I looked up their references to THE YEAR OF JUBILEE, so explicitly described in Leviticus 25.
Here’s what Goudzwaard and Vander Vennen wrote: “If God’s people would practice JUBILEE justice and righteousness… where periodically debts are cancelled, slaves are set free, land returned to the original owners … then God would bless the land with peace and prosperity.
“Jesus, in his inaugural sermon, declares that he has come to proclaim the Year of Jubilee (Luke 4: 16-30 Page 197).”
A few pages later, (page 203), they wrote, “It is not an accident that the Year of Jubilee begins with the Day of Atonement (“atonement means ‘reconciliation’ or ‘making reparation’.) And that day is not just one of personal reconciliation. It is also the day of economic forgiveness and a new beginning for a sinful economy.”
I can add that a contemporary example of DEBT FORGIVENESS happened in Germany in 1947 when the Allies, the USA and Great Britain, forgave all the debts the German economy had made thanks to Hitler’s war policies. This signaled the beginning of the German’ Wirtschaft Wunder”, its post war Economic Miracle.
The USA would do itself a great favor by canceling ALL STUDENT DEBT. Let’s hope that the Democrats make this a priority.
My second source is Michael Hudson.
Michael Hudson is Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College.
His new book has the telling title of AND FORGIVE THEM THEIR DEBTS, “Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Years.”
Dr. Hudson’s book is about the origins of economic organization and enterprise in the Bronze Age, and how it shaped the Bible. It’s not about modern economies. But the problem is that the Bronze Age –2,000 -1600 Before Christ – and early Western civilization was shaped so differently from what we think of as logical and normal, that one almost has to rewire one’s brain to see how differently the archaic view of economic survival and enterprise was.
Hudson writes, “Credit economies existed long before money and coinage. These economies were agricultural. Grain was the main means of payment – but it was only paid once a year, at harvest time. You can imagine how awkward it would be to carry around grain in your pocket and measure it out every time you had a beer.
“We know how Sumerians and Babylonians paid for their beer (which they drank through straws, and which was cleaner than the local water). The ale-woman marked it up on the tab she kept. The tab had to be paid at harvest time, on the threshing floor, when the grain was nice and fresh. The ale-woman then paid the palace or temple for its advance of wholesale beer for her to retail during the year.
“If the crops failed, or if there was a flood or drought, or a military battle, the cultivators couldn’t pay. So what was the ruler to do? If he said, “You owe the tax collector, and can’t pay. Now you have to become his slave and let him foreclose on your land.
“Suddenly, you would have had a slave society. The cultivators couldn’t serve in the army, and couldn’t perform their prescribed public duties to build local infrastructure.
“To avoid this, the ruler simply cancelled the debts (most of which were owed ultimately to the palace and its collectors). The cultivators didn’t have to pay the ale-women. And the ale-women didn’t have to pay the palace.
“All this was spelled out in the Clean Slate proclamations by rulers of Hammurabi’s dynasty in Babylonia, and neighboring Near Eastern realms. They recognized that there was a cycle of buildup of debt, reaching a not repayable high overhead, followed by a cancellation to restore the status quo.”
Dr. Hudson continued, “This concept is very hard for us Westerners to understand. Yet it was at the center of the Old and New Testaments, in the form of the Jubilee Year – taken out of the hands of kings and placed at the center of Judaic religion.
“When debts were cancelled in Babylonia and other Bronze Age Near Eastern realms, it would have been against their way of thinking to complain that some debtors were benefiting from being freed from debts that other people had paid. In the first place, all cultivators became debtors during the growing season, with payments for everything from agricultural inputs to beer at the local ale-house to be paid on the threshing floor at harvest time. So annulling such debts benefited the population at large.
“With regard to individuals who had borrowed out of need, it was recognized that if some could not keep up, it was because they were poor or unable to do so. Mutual aid became the principle of helping people who were sick, widows who lost their husbands or other factors that obliged them to run up debts. Not to have helped such people would have deprived the community of their productive labor.
“Conspicuously absent from ancient moral values is the modern “moral hazard” theory to play solvent individuals against debtors. The point of reference was what would happen if people were not forgiven their debts. How would this have affected the community as a whole?
“The answer is that debtors unable to pay would have fallen into bondage to their creditor, working on his land, and ultimately have lost their own land. They therefore would not be available to work on their own land to grow crops to pay taxes and other obligations to the palace, or to provide corvée labor on public works, or serve in the military. Clean Slate proclamations were part of the community’s self-preservation.
“At the same time, the moral opprobrium was felt toward creditors. They were blamed for impoverishing society at large by their selfishness. The Greeks called his hubris, money-love and wealth addiction. And rulers saw an independent creditor class turning its wealth into large landholdings of creating a rival power to the palace.
“The context for today’s debt overhead is one in which most debts are owed to private-sector banks, bondholders and other creditors. Also, not everyone is in debt – and society is rich enough to afford imposing a loss of status and self-reliance on large classes of debtors. Still, there is a logic in forgiving debts owed by the needy (but not by the wealthy).
So far Dr. Hudson describing his new book AND FORGIVE THEM OUR DEBTS.
Today`s situation.
Today we live in a society where DEBT will do us in. Never has there been a time when the rich were so rich and indebtedness so pronounced. Thanks to historically low interests today’s debt is easy to carry, but inflation looms.
When, in 2008, banks were on the verge of collapsing, and with it the economy, governments rescued the banks. Today the indebtedness extends to governments, especially of poor nations, but also the USA which runs an annual ONE TRILLION deficit, their total debt being more than $23 Trillion. The USA public at large carries a $13 Trillion debt, while world-wide debt exceeds $250 Trillion.
The danger is that inflation will increase, due to Climate Change which endangers the food supply and thus make daily living more expensive. Trump has made a devil’s bargain with Saudi Arabia, promising not to punish them for killing Jamal Khashoggi, in exchange for lower oil prices, something which will temporarily keep inflation in check.
My new understanding.
Jesus announced THE YEAR OF JUBILEE, the age of peace and prosperity.
Jesus left us with the words, “Forgive us our debts”. My new understanding is that we must ask forgiveness for getting into debt, because debt binds us to the forces of evil where ‘the lust for money’ is the leading cause of all sin.
Once we have debts, we must obey the forces of capitalism, the malignant powers that destroy God’s good creation, the opposite of JUBILEE, because JUBILEE signifies the beginning of THE NEW CREATION. Once we have debt, our allegiance is to the DEBTOR, who, in turn also is a slave to the Greater Evil, reason why we also must ask for forgiveness there.
Shall I mention ENVIRONMENTAL DEBT as well? In Jesus’ time there was little of that because it is a Modern Day sin. To merely explain FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS as a small personal matter, such as a white lie here and being jealous there, is too easy an explanation.
Faith is an all-encompassing affair: it extends to every action we do. Faith involves our diet, what we eat to stay healthy; faith is a factor in how we live, from exercise – our bodies are holy – to the way we travel-highly polluting. Faith also extends to monetary matters. Debt – trillions of it – is a major factor in the exploitation of creation.
Ernest Hemmingway in THE SUN ALSO RISES, wrote, “How did you go bankrupt?”: Two ways, gradually, then suddenly.”
The same applies to collapse, whether financial or environmental: it often happens slowly at first and then suddenly it’s there, as the tipping point is passed.
Every one of our actions contributes to collapse and makes it necessary to pray, FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS.
Matthew 19: 23-25 is part of the story of the rich man who came to Jesus for instruction, and was told by Jesus to give all he had to the poor and then join the Jesus` followers, and live by faith. For him that was too much.
That same question haunts us to day
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
We are richer than this rich man. How did we become so rich?
We, every one of us, including me, became so rich by theft: We simply stole everything we have from the future. Our fraudulent wealth, both environmental and monetary, we stole from our children and grandchildren. We have left them with little or nothing: worse than nothing: messy weather, filthy air, dangerous storms, sickening soil, depleted fauna, the list goes on.
The time for answers is over.
“Who then can be saved?”
It’s time for PATIENCE and PENITENCE and especially for the PRAYER: FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS.