The Real Debt Crisis – George Smith, September 11, 2011

On this tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001, we are gathered in church not for a special service but for a regular Sunday church service.   The liturgy, the readings from the Bible, the prayers, the confession and the Eucharist are powerful hands for holding our weekly struggles and today are more than strong enough to support the weight of today’s national and worldwide remembrance.  There is no shortage of print, images or voices which have and will comment on this anniversary.  There is so much to say, to see and contemplate that it is almost overwhelming.  One Episcopal priest, Barbara Crafton, who was in New York on 9/11 blogged this week that her instinct on this tenth anniversary is to run away, to no particular place, just somewhere away from it all.  I understand this instinct – the instinct to flee.  But together, here before each other and God, we must resist the urge to hide or runaway.  It is our work and the purpose of our liturgy to face the horror, the ugliness, the river of tears, the dread , and everything that it is – to look at it, remember and  to ask God for strength and wisdom as we continue with our lives as Christians, as Americans as humans.

Out of the huge jumbled pile of names, lessons and actions that sits around us, I want to choose three things to pull out: those are Andy Kates, 10,000 talents and this afternoon.

Andy Kates and I first met each other back in August, 1981.  We were freshman at Wesleyan in the same dorm, on the same hall, two doors apart. During the first week of orientation, the dozen or so of us from that hall walked around campus like a giant amoeba.  We were safe in a pack as we made that crucial and rapid transition into college and adulthood.  My clearest memories of Andy from freshman year are of him studying at his desk.  He was intense and focused.  His goal was to go to medical school and become a doctor and he took all of the chemistry, biology and other  pre-med classes he could get his hands on.  But he was anything but a book nerd.  He was athletic, quick-witted and with dark hair, green eyes, quick smile and handsome good looks, he was popular and someone who had his act together.  Fast forward fifteen years, and we both went to our tenth reunion.  By that time, both of us were married with Andy and his wife expecting their first child.  Instead of going into medicine, Andy has taken a detour into business and had graduated from Harvard Business School.  It was good to see him – happy, focused as ever and everything going his way.  I expected to read someday about Andy becoming the CEO of an investment bank or Fortune 500 company.  September 11^th, 2001 started as a typical morning for Andy – for most people everywhere.  Getting to work by 7:30 a.m., he took the elevator to the 105^th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center.  He was a rising star at Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment firm that undergirded the giant market of government bond trading.   At 8:46 a.m., American flight 11, hijacked and piloted by Mohamed Atta, crashed into the 99th floor of the north tower.   Atta was the key organizer of the group of 19 men who hijacked the four planes that day.  The sound, feeling, emotions of those seconds and minutes following impact are wrenching to imagine.  The damage caused to the North Tower destroyed any means of escape for the 1,344 people above the impact zone.  During the hour and forty-five minutes between impact of plane and collapse of the tower at 10:28 a.m., Andy was able to make a call to his wife.  What he said was simply: “A plane hit the building.  It’s on fire.  I love you very much.”  There wasn’t time for philosophy or theology.  In the midst of death and terror was simply love, and wish to express it and make it known.  I am struck by the parallels between our lives.  Andy was married and had three children, two girls and a boy, each two years apart.  Andy and I had both gone to business school and had worked in investment banking.  He was a marathon runner, having completed the New York Marathon in three hours and fifteen minutes.  My best time was three hours, twenty-one minutes in Columbus, Ohio.  We were each grounded in our faith traditions, his Jewish, mine Christian.  We woke up each morning thinking how lucky we were – to have our families, our good health and good fortune and so many opportunities in front of us.  Andy was one of the 2,996 people who died on September 11, 2001.  And this morning, I offer my sorrow and remembrance to you and to God.

10,000 talents.  This is a detail from today’s parable in the Gospel reading that I don’t want to go overlooked.  It is the amount of the debt that the first slave owed to the king.  How much is 10,000 talents?  If you assumed it was something like 10,000 dollars, you are way off.  According to historical records, a single talent was worth approximately 6,000 drachmas (Greek) or dennarii (Latin).  A drachma was the equivalent of a day’s wage – enough to feed and take care of a family for one day.  Do the math and multiply 6,000 by 10,000 and you come to a debt that was 60,000,000 drachmas.   In today’s dollars, assuming $20 an hour for an eight-hour work day, that’s $9 billion, 600 million dollars.  Knowing this, it now becomes clear that the amount of money that the slave owed to the king was astronomical – and except for a few people like Warren Buffet, a fantasy beyond anyone’s comprehension.  And what did the king do?  He not only released the slave but forgave him the entire amount of the debt – no repayment plan, terms or interest demanded.  The balance was set back to zero.  Jesus introduces the parable by saying that this type of debt relief is what the kingdom of heaven is like.  It is a place where incomprehensible debts are written off in an instant.  The flipside to this, which isn’t stated, is the story of how the slave got into such debt.  The king must have been very generous, lending to the slave without question.  You might say that the king wasn’t a very good administrator.  But Jesus would say that the economics of the kingdom of heaven are super abundant generosity and forgiveness.  On Friday, stock markets around the world fell sharply.  Analysts say that it has to do with the on-going European debt crisis, and that investors are nervous over lack of plan for how wealthy countries like Germany and France will bail out their poorer neighbors, Greece, Portugal and Spain.  If we were to give a title to today’s parable from Matthew’s Gospel, I suggest “The Real Debt Crisis.”  The debt crisis of the parable (and today’s world for that matter) isn’t about the vast amount owed to the king.  That was taken care of easily enough.  The crisis is over the small amounts of debt – the 100 denarii that the second slave owes to the first slave.   100 denarii is roughly the equivalent of $16,000 – not a small sum, but a grain of sand compared to the $9 billion plus owed to the king.  It could be compared to a new car loan – one that many people are at various stages in paying off.  In dealing with what is owed to him, the first slave won’t even consider a payment plan.  He takes swift and harsh action, putting the second slave in prison, which cuts off his ability to provide food for his family and causes waves of misery to second and third tiers of the extended family.  The debt crisis is not in large things.  It is over small ones.  A key lesson of the parable is that the devil truly lies in the details – the small debts we owe one another.  The real debt crisis lies not between God and his people but between the people themselves.   Called to be citizens of the kingdom of God, we must devote our attention, generosity and forgiveness on the mostly small debts we owe to each other.

The last of the three things is this afternoon. the rest of this day.  We will leave church this morning and our program year kick-off celebrations renewed, fed at the Lord’s Table and by the food of coffee hour and the carts of the hotdog man.  This afternoon is our chance to respond to the Gospel and put into practice the lesson of the parable in the context of the anniversary of September 11^th, 2001.  The huge debts owed – the cost of the lives of the 2,996 dead, the single priceless life of Andy Kates, these are not ours to settle.  There is no payment plan that exists or will ever exist that can, by human standards, settle the balance sheet.  But this afternoon, you and I will have the opportunity to cancel a debt with someone, perhaps even with ourselves.  There are many forms that this debt can take – and we only need to look around to see it – the irritation with something somebody says, the grudge held over a slight received, the jealously over another’s success, the judgment over another person’s politics or religion, or the hurt from a criticism.   Half a dozen or so St. Markers will be donating blood at the Amaddiya Community Mosque.  Others will be participating in an interfaith prayer service.  Whether forgiving, giving or praying – this afternoon (and every day following) is our opportunity to contribute to solving the real debt crisis, one that is humanitarian and not theological.

If I had my wish, I would wave a wand and restore the twin towers, the Pentagon and those four airplanes back to the way they were on September 10, 2001.  I would undo the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  I would stop Cain from killing Abel.  The success of the Harry Potter books and films may tap into the desire we all have to wave wands and achieve instant results.  As much as we wish for them, we know that magic wands do not exist.  And not only that but anything that happens in an instant is not the fabric and substance of life.  Instants are a part of life – that is true – whether the moment of baptism,  a born-again moment, the moment the “Amen” consecrates the bread and wine, the “I do” at a wedding, the last breath at death or the moment of resurrection.  9-11 was an agonizing, horrible instant.  All of these are anchors and pivots of life, but what follows and the way we live after these many instants is what matters.  You will find this truth told every week in our liturgy and worship.  And it is found in the on-going practices of our life as a community of faith, one that has existed at this corner of Main and Hillside for over 100 years.  And on this kick-off Sunday, real depth of substance is found not so much in the kick-off but with the grace of God, in the many days of the program year ahead.

Amen.