“Forgive Us Our
Debts”
Rev.
Alison Longstaff, Oct. 13, 2015
Bath
Church of the New Jerusalem
Isaiah 40:6-11; Luke
16: 19-31; Heavenly Secrets 6960
I love researching sermons. The deeper I delve, the bigger and broader
and more amazingly interconnected the insights become. (It doesn’t get better than being
Swedenborgian in my honest opinion.)
Heavenly Secrets 6960. ‘Put your hand into your bosom’ means making truth ones own. This is evident from the meaning of ‘hand’ as power, and from the meaning of ‘bosom’ as love. The chest corresponds to love since the chest holds within it the heart. We have a sense of ownership of or attachment to the things we love. Therefore ‘the bosom’ symbolizes the things we ‘own’ or identify with, which is the same as the things we love. For this reason ‘putting a hand into one’s bosom’ here means making something one’s own. And for this reason 'the bosom’ symbolizes a person’s true self, or all the things with which one identifies or one ‘owns.’
“Forgive us our debts.”
I have had this topic on my heart for a
while, having listened to many stories of good people struggling with
overwhelming debt in the past several years.
I came to Maine with no debt and will be leaving with several thousand
in debt, so it is an active personal topic as well.
According to my book-keeping program, I now have
a negative net worth. I am worth less
than nothing. It doesn’t matter what my
character is or my desire to do good, or my kindness, or my life
experience. Put me next to someone who
earns more than I do—who owns more
than I do—and I can be seen as “worth less” or worthless. In today’s
culture it means I must be less deserving.
That it would tell Jesus the same thing were He among us today is only a
little comforting.
“Forgive us our debts.”
Debt weighs heavily on our hearts. In this culture in particular debt seems to
strike at our very sense of human worth,
not just material worth.
Take yourself back to a time when you
realized that you owed far more than you could pay. Surely everyone in this room has experienced
that bottom-dropping-out sensation—that cold hollow in the gut when you
realized you didn’t know how you would repay a debt. Remember that insurmountable
bill—that frightening peek into the future that struck at your very sense of
worth and capability. It doesn’t feel
good.
To have a hopeless, unpayable debt forgiven, throws us sobbing on our
knees.
As I researched this topic, I kept being
struck by the relationship of debt with ownership, and Swedenborg’s extensive
discussion of what is “our own.” In
spiritual growth circles, phrases have emerged such as “I need to own my part
of it,” and “that wasn’t mine to own”.
They are used to describe how we do or don’t take responsibility over
our part in misunderstanding and conflict.
Spiritual growth work invites us into greater and greater clarity over
what we do and don’t “own” in our relationships. This clarity brings healing to
all areas of our lives. We develop the ability to “own” our part rather than
“pass the buck” to someone else.
Spiritual “ownership” means we take
responsibility for our contributions to life situations. We become better and better at managing what is ours and leaving alone what isn’t ours
in our relationships with others. We start spending increasing energy on our
own spiritual territory and stop spending so much energy on what other people
“should” be doing. The metaphor holds strong all the way through. Our debts are all the things we are refusing
to take responsibility for yet which drain our ability to be of service to
others. We need help acknowledging them
and learning to manage them. This is far easier than it sounds but it is
essential to our happiness.
“Forgive us our debts.”
When the scripture reading from Isaiah says
that God carries the lambs in His bosom, it is symbolizing the way God embraces
our innocence and vulnerability. The
bosom symbolizes what someone loves most—it is the “heart place.” The female bosom symbolizes motherly comfort
and nourishment; the male bosom symbolizes fatherly protection and
strength. The Divine bosom encapsulates
all of these qualities in one and transcends them as well. Our weakness and ignorance are next to God’s heart. He carries us tenderly even when we feel weak
and unworthy.
When we pledge allegiance, we put our hand to
our “bosom.” This shows our willingness to support something we hold dear. This intuitive act of placing our hand on our
heart springs from the spiritual meaning of showing commitment to the things
that have the most meaning in our lives.
Swedenborg tells us that we are what we love. The things we draw to ourselves represent our
desire to “own” or be identified with those things. Ultimately, everything we pull close represent
what we love, and what we love is who we are.
Why would we pull close those things that reflect badly on us, even if
we are responsible for their existence?
We say that phrase every time we say the
Lord’s Prayer. It is a simple phase, holding within it such a world of meaning. We are not asking that God forgive
our debts when we pray this. We are
stating the reality of what God is
already doing. Our “debts” are
already and continuously forgiven by God.
It is we who cannot forgive
our debts. It is we who feel the shame,
and can get caught between denial and self-abuse when we realize how much we
“owe” spiritually. We struggle with all
aspects of spiritual ownership. We tend to swing between wanting too much
“credit” or wanting none at all even though it is due. We notice when others “take credit” unduly
and we feel the injustice of it.
Where do you lie on the spectrum of ownership
of your spiritual worth? Do you
acknowledge the riches you have and use them in wise service, or do you tend to
feel undeserving and bury them in the ground? Are your riches repeatedly cast
before swine? When the world wants to hand
you responsibility because of your spiritual abilities, do you hide your gifts
under a bushel, or do you step up and offer from your bounty? Or are you the one most likely to give
energetically more than you have only to end up needing help yourself or in debt?
Because we all tend to be out of balance in
one direction or the other, there is only honor in recognizing yourself in one
of these profiles. “Owning” your
tendencies is the first step toward a healthier spiritual “financial portfolio.” As for me, I am the one who gives away too
much. I repeatedly “spend” too much on
helping others, forgetting to leave enough for myself. There is a false “Christian” cachet
associated with this way of living that is not actually helpful. Another name for an overly-sacrificing style
of relationship might be “codependency.” So detrimental can codependency be to
healthy relationship, it now has its own twelve step group to aid people in
recovery. Far from making everything better as it likes to believe it can,
codependence is often as big a part of the problem as what it is trying to help.
And this brings us back to ownership. If I am too ashamed to “own” the ways I am
codependent, but instead pass responsibility onto others, (blaming) I will
never get free of my spiritual “debts.”
Only by owning my part in each problem to the best of my ability (but no
more than my part) can I help restore my relationships to their rightful
balance. Even if those around me are
wobbling in their balance, the more stable and healthy I am in myself, the more
I make space for others to find their balance.
The only debt I can own is my own.
The only contribution I am responsible for is my own. And because we are all so interconnected, the
more stable and balanced I become, the more easily those around me can find
their own balance.
“Forgive us our debts.”
My grandfather kept a little black book on
each of his eight children, tallying what they were costing him as they grew up.
Imagine the emotional impact that must have had on those seven little girls and
one little boy. One day my grandmother, who
rarely stood up to her charismatic but often violently angry husband, threw
those books in the fire. He never raised
a hand to her, they say.
A chasm of unworthiness existed in the heart
of my grandfather. He could not
forgive himself for whatever he thought was so completely unlovable inside
himself, so he spread harsh judgment and blame onto those around him. A terrible accuser existed inside his own
consciousness, placing on him a sense of debt so great he could never get out
from under it. He could not love his
children because he could not love himself.
I don’t know what wound he carried, but I don’t believe he ever forgave
himself on this earth. He died of a massive heart attack at age forty eight. My prayer is that he found the
self-forgiveness he needed in the life to come.
“Forgive us our debts.”
God would no more keep a book of deposits and
debits on our spiritual account than would any loving parent. Imagine saying to a newborn, “Well, it will
be twenty thousand for the hospital fees; another ten thousand for the
prenatal visits, blood-tests, and ultrasounds; then there was the six hundred
for the maternity wardrobe; two hundred for the prenatal vitamins; and we
haven’t even begun to add up the costs of diapers, immunizations, clothing,
school costs, university…. Will that be
check or credit card?”
We can never repay our “debt” to God, but it
isn’t about debt, with God. It is we who cannot forgive our debts, not
God. We are born profoundly imperfect,
frightened, and ignorant. We then
inherit whatever the family legacy might be, be it privilege and loving support
or blame, abuse, and addiction, or something in between. If we leave this life having made any
progress on the spiritual family legacy, I count it as a win. Besides, no one
can see our spiritual balance sheets but God anyway.
And God forgave our debts before we were
born.
Amen
The Readings
Isaiah 40: 6-11
The
voice said, “Cry out!”
And
I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All
flesh is grass, And all its loveliness is like the flower
of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of
the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The
grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.”
O
Zion, You who bring good tidings, get up into the high mountain;
O
Jerusalem, You who bring good tidings, lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up,
be not afraid;
Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”
Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”
Behold,
the Lord God shall come with a strong hand, and His arm shall
rule for Him;
Behold,
His reward is with Him, and His work before Him.
He
will feed His flock like a shepherd; He will gather the lambs with His arm, and
carry them in His bosom, and gently lead those who are with young.
Luke 16:19-31
“There
was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury
every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with
sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even
the dogs came and licked his sores.
“The
time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.
The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment,
he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus in his bosom. So he
called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip
the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in
this fire.’
“But
Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good
things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here
and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great
chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you
cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
“He
answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have
five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this
place of torment.’
“Abraham
replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
“‘No,
father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they
will repent.’
“He
said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be
convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
