Sermon for the Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist, Capitola,

given by Rev. Eliza Linley /August 12,, 2007

  The Episcopal Church of Saint John the Baptist welcomes all to worship God and to share

Christ's love in the world.  We are a parish family committed to provide liturgy, Bible study, music, counseling, and Christian education for children, youth, and adults, and to equip all our members for life and for service to other

“In ancient Israel there was a social and economic ideal that embodied “shalom”, that concept of wholeness and peace that we Christians think of as the Reign of God. This ideal involved the idea of Sabbath, a seventh day when God rested from the work of creation, and we were to do likewise. Similarly, every seventh year was a sabbath, too, when one had the opportunity to cancel debts, set slaves free, and let the land rest. Furthermore, every seventh Sabbath year was a time of “jubilee”, a fiftieth year when these injunctions were to be taken so seriously that every generation would get a fresh start, wealth would not accumulate in the hands of a few, and economic justice would prevail. Whether or not there really was a golden age when these excellent ideas were the norm is a matter of conjecture. But it is certain that at some point between the 8th and 10th centuries before the Common Era, (that’s almost 3,000 years ago) another model became the norm. 

In this economic model, distribution of wealth was NOT equal, and God’s ownership of creation was NOT respected. Some farmers were forced into debt in order to keep from starving, and, because of high interest rates, those farmers were forced into slavery. A similar situation prevails today in central India, where cotton farmers plagued by drought and undercut by US government-subsidized cotton lose their small holdings to moneylenders. Suicide among these farmers has become epidemic.

This old story also parallels the current international debt crisis that was reinforced by the astronomical rise in interest rates in the 1980’s. Debtor nations today have been forced to use state industries to service their loans from the World Bank rather than to build their economies, forcing them into an endless cycle of poverty. International debt has become a contemporary form of slavery.

This ancient and ongoing failure of justice is the background of the parable of the unmerciful servant. This is the reason a slave owed his master money. 10,000 talents, by the way, was a fabulous amount, unpayable over many lifetimes. King Herod’s entire annual income was 900 talents2. Yet the servant, desperate not to be sold down the river with his family, swears he will pay it all back. He is not asking that the debt be forgiven. He thinks in the legalistic framework that got him into this mess in the first place. So the master’s forgiveness of the whole debt doesn’t really compute. He just can’t comprehend the empowerment that this huge forgiveness might mean to him. It has not changed his worldview. Thus he goes to the slave who owes HIM money, grabs him by the throat and has him thrown in prison, guaranteeing that the debt cannot be paid off. The system is broken. Punishing the victim will not fix it. This is as true today for debtor and lender nations as it was in Jesus’ parable. The irony is that the huge, the unpayable debt we all owe to God for our very lives has already been paid off! Has it not transformed us out of legalism into a worldview of creative grace?

The debt which hinders the very life of a nation is not just a financial concern for a few.  It becomes a spiritual condition for all of us, a condition that requires our action to set it right. In 2005 the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative was signed at the G-8 conference, promising debt relief to 40 nations. So why is this still such a pressing issue? Many of these nations have seen no relief whatsoever. Conditions for debt cancellation require applicants to fulfill certain preconditions, such as privatization of industry and government spending reduction, inevitably in areas which will require poor people to pay more (if they can) for water, education, health care, and other essential services. Countries must spend several years putting these policies into place before being granted any actual debt cancellation – years during which people die from lack of health care and children are unable to go to school. The free market economies that these preconditions point toward mean that farmers will simply lose their land to multinational corporations. These corporations, unlike the small farmers, can afford to grow crops for export, providing irrigation and chemical fertilizers and pesticides beyond the means of a family farm.

In addition to these burdens, for every dollar of debt relief granted a country, the World Bank is REDUCING the amount given in development assistance. The Bank will give new grants only once it receives additional contributions from wealthy donor countries, assistance that has not been forthcoming. In other words the structures our developed nations have set up, ostensibly to help the world’s poor, are acting like the unmerciful servant, propping up a system and a theology of scarcity that is broken. 

There are countries that have received debt relief and so been able to abolish school fees, provide free immunizations, fight HIV/AIDS, and improve access to safe drinking water. When Burundi abolished school fees, an additional 300,000 children were able to enroll. In Zambia, fees for rural health clinics have been abolished, making it possible for people to access medical care in a country where 65% of the population lives on less than  $1/day3. Change can and will happen. But not until we in the West, blinded by our comforts and our fears, have changed our worldview to see these others as our neighbors and to press for change. 

Almost 400 years ago the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London preached these words:

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

What could John Donne have known about globalization? Yet he describes a world we know. If we have not been brought to this consciousness by Christian charity, then market economics have done it. The implosion of economies in Africa will surely affect our future as much as material decisions we make affect those we’ve never met. Global warming is washing away, not just clods, but whole islands in the Pacific, thanks to the carbon footprint we ourselves have made. Our souls’ health and the planet’s require a transformation of human relationships. What if the model of God’s demanding justice and limitless mercy that Jesus describes over and over again in parables is the only one that makes good economic sense? Wouldn’t that be a surprise? 

The Jubilee USA Network is supporting a bill in Congress calling for 100% cancellation of debts, without harmful conditions, for all countries needing those resources to reach the Millennium Development Goals, which include reducing extreme poverty and hunger by 50% by the year 2015. At today’s forum we will learn more about how to support this bill, including the story of David Duncombe, a priest who is currently on a hunger fast, visiting the House and Senate offices daily to convince our legislators of the importance of this bill. This is also Jubilee’s Sabbath Year, that biblically-based seventh year for clearing all debts. What better time to build on the successes of the Jubilee movement – to restore the dignity of millions of people in Africa and elsewhere around the globe, and to restore our own integrity by ending our complicity in the endless cycle of debt?

Desmond Tutu wrote a book, No Future Without Forgiveness, about South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, describing how it was simply impossible, as a matter of practicality, for the nation to move forward after the tragic years of apartheid without forgiving one another. We have heard a lot this morning, between the sermon, Minute for Mission, and the forum, about international debt relief. Yet the most important piece of information for us is not international, but internal. It is this: that we cannot have an open heart, our lives cannot be transformed, unless we embody the forgivenenss that sets us free.