Month: December 2022

Scripture: Deuteronomy 15:1-11

Video Link: https://youtu.be/-uhaEZAldG0

Structure:

• Introduction
• Release for relationship
• Release for peace
• Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

What do you think the average mortgage is for a first home buyer in New Zealand today? $200,000? $300,000? $500,000 or maybe $600,000? [Wait]

If you guessed between $500,000 and $600,000, then you were spot on. The average mortgage for a first home buyer in New Zealand is around $578,000. That equates to a monthly repayment of more than $3,700 over 25 years, the better part of $45,000 per annum.

Today we continue our series in Deuteronomy, focusing on chapter 15. In this passage Moses talks about debt and the relationship between borrowers and lenders in ancient Israel. From Deuteronomy 15, verses 1-11 we read… 

At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. ² This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel the loan he has made to his fellow Israelite. He shall not require payment from his fellow Israelite or brother, because the Lord’s time for cancelling debts has been proclaimed. ³ You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your brother owes you. ⁴ However, there need be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, ⁵ if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. ⁶ For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you. ⁷ If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your poor brother.  ⁸ Rather, be open-handed and freely lend him whatever he needs. ⁹ Be careful not to harbour this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for cancelling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. ¹⁰ Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. ¹¹ There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore, I command you to be open-handed toward your brothers and towards the poor and needy in your land.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

In this Scripture passage Moses instructs the people to release each other from financial debts every seven years. Cancelling debts is at the heart of loving your neighbour as you love yourself. The people are to release for relationship and release for peace.   

Release for relationship:

Do you think of time as linear, going in a straight line? Or do you think of time as cyclical, going in cycles?

Time can be thought of either way I guess. The seasons of the year: spring, summer, autumn and winter are a classic example of cyclical time. The earth revolving around the sun also illustrates cyclical time.

But we are not left untouched by each orbit of the sun. We come from a past that we cannot change. We are affected by the present moment and we are moving towards a future which is unknown. Linear time.

Perhaps time is both cyclical and linear, moving forward in a cyclical way.

Ancient Israel had a very definite cycle to restore and support their life together. Every seven days they stopped work and rested, everyone on the same day. Every seven years they took a Sabbatical, when they let the land lie fallow, not growing any crops. And every 50 years they celebrated a Jubilee, when ancestral lands were returned to their tribal owners.

The Sabbath cycles provided release. Release from work. Release from debt and release both from the trap of wealth and the trap of poverty. In verse 1 of Deuteronomy 15 we read…

At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.

Ancient Israel didn’t have a banking system like we do today. They didn’t get a $600,000 mortgage to buy their first home and then pay it off over 25 years. They didn’t need to. They simply built a house on family land using natural building materials close by.

Nevertheless, there would inevitably be times when something went wrong. Perhaps the main bread winner in the family got sick and couldn’t work. Or maybe your crop failed or your ox died and had to be replaced.

When misfortune struck, and you needed to find a way to feed your family, you might approach a fellow Israelite for a personal loan. No interest was charged on this micro loan, although some form of security might be offered. You simply paid back the loan when you could afford it.

The difficulty is that when you paid back the loan you might still be short and so you would have to borrow more money from someone else. Being stuck in poverty is like treading water in the open sea. It takes all your energy just to keep your head above the waves. What you need is someone to lift you out of the water and give you a boat so you can make it back to dry land.

Giving someone an interest free loan saved them from treading water. Cancelling that debt put their feet on dry land.  

Now obviously there was greater risk in lending to someone in the sixth year, when the seven-year cycle was coming to an end. So the temptation was to avoid lending money to anyone at that point, in case they ran out of time to repay you. Moses has this to say…

⁹ Be careful not to harbour this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for cancelling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing.

That phrase, ill will, is literally, evil eye. So the meaning is something like, ‘do not give your needy brother the evil eye’. In other words, do not resent your needy brother for asking for help or being an inconvenience. Do not avoid him when you see him coming.

The other thing we notice here is the word brother. Moses keeps referring to the poor who borrow money as brothers. We hear the word brother about six times in as many verses. This is not to exclude women. We could say brother or sister.

The point is, your creditors are not just a number in your ledger. They are fellow human beings. They are family and they are of special concern to Yahweh. You release people from their debts for the sake of the relationship.   

The economy must give way to the neighbourhood. Relationship capital is more valuable than cash in the bank.

Israel’s inter-personal relationships are not to be defined by debt or money. Their relationships are to be defined by their covenant loyalty to Yahweh, by their shared history and by God’s blessing in the land. 

God released Israel from slavery in Egypt and gave them a fresh start in the land of plenty. Likewise, the people of Israel should release their brothers and sisters from debt and give them a fresh start so they don’t spend the rest of their life treading water.  

Forgiveness is another word for release. When we release someone from the debt they owe us, we are forgiving that debt. We are letting the matter go and not pursuing it further. The opposite of forgiveness is resentment. Resentment is when we hold on to the debt in anger and self-righteousness.  

Jesus does not want us to suffer in that way. Nor does he want us to be defined by debt or money. He wants the community of his followers to be defined by their love for one another. And forgiveness (releasing others from what they owe) is the true test of love.    

In Matthew 18, Peter asks Jesus, how many times should I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times? Peter thinks he is being generous. But Jesus lets the air out his balloon saying, not seven times but seventy times seven. Forgive without limit in other words.

Then Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving servant. The one about the man who owed his master millions and was forgiven his enormous debt simply because he asked, but who then refused to forgive the debt of a fellow servant who owed him far less by comparison.

Needless to say the story did not end well for the unforgiving servant. Not only did the unforgiving man ruin his relationships with his fellow servants, he also ruined his relationship with the king, his master.

It’s like that with us. If we don’t forgive others, if we don’t release them from the debts they owe us, then we end up ruining our relationships with everyone, including God our master. Forgiveness can be a painful and costly process, but at the end of the day it always costs more not to forgive.

We release others for the sake of relationship and for our own mental well-being (our own peace). As the saying goes, ‘to refuse to forgive someone is to let that person live rent free in your head’. That is its own kind of torture.

The good news is you don’t have to wait seven years to forgive. You can release others whenever you want. We release for relationship and we release for peace.

Release for peace:

Take a moment now to clench your fists, like this. Now imagine trying to tie your shoe laces with your hands clenched. Or imagine trying to eat your dinner or catch a ball or give someone a hug or a helping hand. Not sure you could do any of that particularly well. About the only thing you can do with clenched fists is punch someone.   

The longer and tighter you keep your fists clenched the stiffer your fingers become. Okay, now you can release your hands. Don’t want you to hurt yourself or anyone else.

From verse 7 of Deuteronomy 15, Moses says…

⁷ If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your poor brother. ⁸ Rather, be open-handed and freely lend him whatever he needs…

Now it should be noted that Moses is talking about giving according to your means. If you are scraping by on the bones of your backside, then you don’t need to go beyond your means or get into debt to help someone else. Giving, in Deuteronomy, is in accordance with what you have received from God. You are not expected to give what you don’t have.

What we notice, in these verses, is that we give with our heart and our hands. In other words, we need the right attitude in how we think and feel about the poor (that’s the heart part) and we need the right action in how we treat the poor (that’s the hand part).

Listening is key to having the right heart attitude and therefore the right action. Moses is telling the people to help the poor in their own neighbourhood, who they have probably known for years. In that context you could plainly see your neighbour’s need and you would know they were not playing you.  

The equivalent today would be helping a friend, family member, work colleague or fellow Christian who is in need. Maybe their hot water cylinder has to be replaced or they need new tyres for their car, but they can’t afford it, so you lend them the money to get it fixed.

That being said, our context today is a bit different from the context Moses had in mind. We don’t always know our neighbours that well and we have even less relationship with the poor and homeless. So when someone does approach us for money they are usually a stranger and we may have no way of knowing whether they are scamming us or not. 

Most of us here are middle class Christians who probably feel some degree of guilt when we see someone begging on the street, like we are not doing enough. Acting out of guilt to make ourselves feel better is not ideal and may not lead to a good outcome.  

Verse 8 talks about lending what the poor need. So two good questions to ask are: what is needed here and is it in my power to lend what is needed? We don’t want to assume to know what is best for the other person.

Yes, you may have wisdom and knowledge to offer but the people you wish to help also have a few clues. The poor generally know what they need better than anyone else. So those who are able to lend a hand should do so with humility and a listening heart.

Of course, listening to the poor, getting to know them, takes time; time we don’t always have. Often it’s just easier to blindly give some money.

 Jesus had this to say about giving to the poor…

² “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others… ³ But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, ⁴ so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Jesus is warning against using the poor to make ourselves look good. That just humiliates the poor. God delights in undercover good deeds, done with a pure heart and without an ego trip.   

In verse 10, of Deuteronomy 15, Moses goes on to say…

¹⁰ Give generously to him [your brother in need] and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.

These words need a bit of understanding. Some people have used this verse (and others like it) to preach a kind of prosperity doctrine or cargo cult. They might interpret it as a get rich scheme, along the lines of the more you give the more wealth and health God will bless you with personally.

But I don’t think it works like that. The main motivation here is not to benefit yourself. The main motivation is to help those in need, trusting that God will take care of you.

Besides, we can never put God under obligation. God won’t allow himself to be manipulated. God acts freely.

This is how it works. When debts are not forgiven, the rich grow richer and the poor grow more desperate. A dangerous divide develops between rich and poor and both sides become fearful of each other, unable to relate in a right way. Decent people are reduced to despair or violence. Crime goes up, anger and hurt boil over. The fabric of the neighbourhood disintegrates. Peace is lost and what you have worked for is undone.

But when debts are forgiven, right relationship is strengthened through acts of kindness. The gap between rich and poor is closed. Bridges of communication and understanding are built. Those who have forgiven debts have nothing to fear from the poor, while those who have had their debts cancelled have no cause for despair or rage. The fabric of the neighbourhood is enriched. Peace is restored and what you have worked for is blessed, it prospers.

Now, when we talk about peace, we don’t just mean the absence of conflict. Peace (or shalom), in a Jewish understanding, is the presence of abundant life, wholeness and wellbeing. Peace in your heart and mind, yes, but also peace in your relationships. A community in which everyone has more than enough. A life giving culture in your neighbourhood that money can’t buy.       

So the blessing God gives, when people forgive each other, is the blessing of a better world in which to raise your kids and grow old. It makes sense to release people from their debts because release allows relationships to breath and it fosters peace. We release for relationship and we release for peace.

In many ways I’m preaching to the choir. I imagine most of you here are open-hearted and open-handed in your giving and forgiving, so I don’t want to labour the point.

Conclusion:

But I do want to point to Jesus, because it is through faith in Jesus that we experience the peace of release. In Luke 4, Jesus said of himself and his mission:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free…

Jesus came to release us from a spiritual debt we could never repay by ourselves. Jesus came to set us free from the power of sin and death, so that we can enjoy peace in our relationship with God and peace with each other.

What is it that binds you? What is it that taxes your peace? Do you have someone living rent free in your head? What release do you need?

May the Lord set us free to be a blessing to others. Amen.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?

• Do you think of time as linear or cyclical? What cycles did ancient Israel have to support and restore their life together? What cycles do we (today) have to support and restore our life together?

• Have you ever been oppressed by poverty or debt? How did you feel? What did you do? In what ways did God help you?

• Why did Moses instruct the Israelites to cancel debts every seven years? Why do we need to forgive?

• How are the relationships of God’s people to be defined? What should not define our relationships?   

• Giving to the poor needs to be done with a right heart and hands. What is a right attitude (way to think / feel) towards the poor? What is a right action to take with the poor? 

• Discuss / reflect on Deuteronomy 15:10. How is this verse best understood?

• What is it that binds you? What is it that taxes your peace? Do you have someone living rent free in your head? What release do you need?