The timing for Canadian author Margaret Atwood couldn't have been much better. Her new book, based on the upcoming Massey Lectures is called Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth. How is that for prophecy in these anxious times. According to reviews it is both thoughtful and humorous. She draws on Dickens' Scrooge and cartoon character Scrooge McDuck to explore her theme.She points out that religion also uses the debtor/creditor relationship. She includes a lecture/chapter called Debt and Sin and the Shadow Side. When I think about it, Jesus told several parables about debts forgiven and unlikely payment for work. He understood that even in a peasant society ears perked up when money was discussed.
Thanksgiving is an excellent time to consider a gift given which truly can't be repaid, Are we indebted to God for the love of Christ? When is that payment due? What does it mean to be forgiven that debt? In my own mind the message of love in Christ says that this is a gift of redeeming love that can't be repayed, but that is not cause for fear because it was given freely. So we are liberated to live as generously as possible in every day.
I'm looking forward to Atwood's Payback and the lectures.
2 comments:
You asked Are we indebted to God for his love? and I wonder how to answer this. If I compare God's love for his children, with a parent's love for a child, I can at least begin to comprehend the gift that has been given us. It seems that we are indebted, but may not always be in the state where this can have meaning. When is the payment due? I think payment can only be due when we are ready to accept that it is due. And I think "to be forgiven that debt" means that God is aware of our limitations in this respect and patiently waits for us to pay our debt freely out of true thankfullness versus a state of repentence. To repent has to do with the releasing of guilt, to be thankful has more to do with accepting forgiveness. In my opinion repentence is the easy part because you still feel in control of that action, it still has to do with the will. And God knows how attached we are to our own will. Acceptance is more like free falling into a state of grace which may seem more like jumping off a cliff into the deep unknown sea, a state of affairs that involves letting go of the will and accepting God's in its place.
What you point out, pupil, is that human analogies or metaphors are helpful in describing our relationship with God, they are ultimately incomplete. The Old Testament concept of jubilee as debt-relief resurfaces in the phrase from the Lord's Prayer about forgving trespasses or debts. In the end it is about unexpected, lavish grace.
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