Sunday, September 15, 2019

Prodigal Son: How to Get Out of Debt (2019-09-15, Sunday-24)

• 2019 September 15 •  24th Sunday

• Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14   • Psalm 51    • 1 Timothy 1:12-17 •  Luke 15:1-32             

Title:    How to Get Out of Debt: Part 1,2

[_01_]   The Gospel of the Prodigal Son presents us with a young man with many difficulties, some of which are financial monetary difficulties.
          We could say he has many debts. He is in debt up to his eyeballs, beyond his eyeballs, in debt.
          In the Gospel and in God’s Word, “debt” is often compared to sin, or debt becomes a symbol of sin or sinfulness.
          In Luke’s translation of the Our Father we prayer, we read “forgive us our debts…”  rather than “forgive us our sins [or trespasses].”
So, how do we get out of debt? I think we all agree that LESS debt is good. I’m just using this as a metaphor – how to get out of debt, how to stay out of debt … the less money we owe to other people  or on our credit cards or to the bank, the better.
[_02_]     The Prodigal Son has a simple plan for how to get out of debt, and how to stay out of debt, but it only involves himself. It’s not a good plan.
The Prodigal Son goes bankrupt.
          First of all, in order to get out of debt or stay out of debt, you have to be willing – I have to be willing – to do something, to work, to drop some expensive habits.
          Let’s say Part 1 of Getting Out of Debt is to “Drop Some Expensive Habits”.
          The Prodigal Son has to drop some expensive habits in order to get out of debt.
          At first, the Prodigal Son is greedy and has the expensive habit of thinking only about himself.
          Sometimes, I have the expensive habit …of being too self-absorbed because I am so “busy.” This is not a good message to send to people around you. I will pay for this in the long run. It’s expensive.
          Pardon me as I give an example of this of myself. I am repeating an incident I told you about…but I think it illustrates how self-centeredness – on a moral level – keeps us in debt, or keeps us down…
          A few weeks ago, I walked out of Dunkin Donuts right down the street.  I was carrying stuff physically and mentally so self absorbed in my mind that I hardly noticed did not notice that someone had held the door for me.
          He gently whispered toward me – “thank you” – meaning that I should say “thank you.” But, even this did not register in my thick head immediately.
          That was expensive, that encounter … the coffee was cheap compared to the insult of me to the other. It was avoidable.
          He who is exalted will be humbled. 
The gentleman who kindly reminded me to say thank you … was also paying it forward, doing me a favor … I am in debt to him.
because I think about this a lot walking through doors now!
How to get out of debt … drop expensive habits.
[_03_]      I have found that I myself get stuck in “debt” or buried in debt – spiritually – when I am stubbornly resistant to change or selfishly expecting that things will always go my way.
          Don’t be self-absorbed. That’s an expensive habit.
          We are reminded that LOVE is meant to come first…

[_04_]     How to Get out of Debt, Part 2.
          This is credit-card payback 101. How to get out of debt? Make more than the minimum monthly payment !
          Now, the temptation for the Prodigal Son and the elder son…and for all of us who are in debt to our heavenly father or in debt to God is to do only the minimum, make the minimum monthly payment.
          But, the covenant with God is not a contract.  It’s a covenant in love, not a contract in law.
          I am grateful and inspired by you … who do more the minimum for your … children, for your parents, for your parish of Lourdes, for your neighbors, for your country. The 9/11 anniversary reminds us of those who did more than the minimum not only on 9/11/2001 but in days and months and years afterward.  
          Also, we do not know – looking at other people what their minimum monthly payments are.
          We gather in prayer to pray and support each other because do not know what each other’s debts are.
          Ours is relationship in a covenant of love, not just a contract.
A covenant binds persons together beyond the mere contractual agreement.
In a contract,  we may say what is the minimum I must do to keep up one side of the CONTRACT. However, a covenant is about “love” and what maximum I can do for the COVENANT.  Do you shop for a Christmas present for your beloved spouse or child based on the “minimum” you can give? Or the maximum?
[** pause **]
[_05_]     Doing more than the minimum also is the reality when we think about forgiveness of others.
          We know it is hard to forgive…and I’m not saying that “forgiveness” is the minimum…no forgiveness – forging another person, letting go of bitterness, that is more than the minimum monthly payment, but it GETS US OUT OF DEBT!
Jesus tells us to pray as he does and to ask God,  “forgive us our trespasses – forgive us our debts – as we forgive those who trespass against us… 
          And, to follow the example of the Father in the Prodigal Son parable who is not thinking of his sons only in material or monetary terms..but in terms of mercy and how is also making more than the minimum payment.
          The father is not just paying off remotely the credit card debt that was run up … and the father is not just seeing his son as a material object. In this regard, the lost son of the Prodigal Son touches us differently than the lost asset of the sheep or coin (looking for a person is different ..we don’t see people just in terms of money).
[_06_]               John Paul II wrote that the desperation of Prodigal Son is not just a material or monetary desperation where is financially overdrawn at Wells Fargo or Chase. The Prodigal Son is also desperate because he measures himself.
          The paradox for the Prodigal Son is that the focus on wealth got him into trouble. The knowledge that he is poor is going to get him out of trouble.That’s the paradox.
          “[The Prodigal Son] measures himself by the standard of the goods that he has lost, that he no longer "possesses," while the hired servants of his father's house "possess" them. These words express above all his attitude to material goods; nevertheless under their surface is concealed the tragedy of lost dignity, the awareness of squandered sonship. (John Paul II, Dives In Misericordia, n. 5)
          But..maybe he has not lost everything…because he is willing to drop his expensive habits and by repenting make more than the minimum payment:
          “It is at this point that he makes the decision: "I will arise and go to my father.”  (John Paul II, Dives In Misericordia, n. 5)
          This is how we get out of debt.   [_fin_]      

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