Our Debtors

Who owes us anything? When I think about people owing me--about people in debt to me, my debtors--I envision a line of people with baskets of money all lined up to pay me--except I cannot imagine who those people might be since I have never had money to give to anyone. But perhaps that image can serve to move us in the right direction with this idea, anyway. Maybe we need to think about how we would fit into the George Bailey role in our own wonderful lives. What are we giving to and what are we expecting from others? Would anyone else mistake us for the selfless hero, or do we more resemble Mr. Potter, the banker, or Uncle Billy? (None of us is an angel, so Clarence is not a fair analogy.)

The idea that anyone might owes us something cannnot be limited to money, though, or even to physical things. I am not suggesting that we should have a scorecard, that we should track all the transactions in our lives, making note of each and every time we help someone or do something kind or considerate. However, even though we might not keep a tally sheet, we are probably aware of many of the things we do for others. The question is, though, how do we deal with those debts? Do we forgive the debts, or do we horde them and treasure them?


Another way to think about all this might be to think how we feel when someone owes us a very little: are we more apt to forget it or dwell on it? If a friend borrows fifty cents to buy a stale candy bar from the vending machine at work, are we going to remind her that she owes us half a dollar or are we going to forget it? Do we make notes, real or mental, to remind us to collect?

We could say that this brings us back to the idea of how we should treat others and leave it at that, but there may be more going on here, if we are willing to look. It is true that we are admonished, in a kind of backhanded way, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; however, we are also being coached in what to hold onto--and, by extension, what to let go of.

We end up collecting debts--not the money that is owed, not the payment of the debts, but the debts themselves. We gather them, collect them, horde them, linking them one onto the next as we make our Jacob Marley chains, letting them weigh us down as we trudge through life.

But it's not really wrapped around us that we carry our accumulated debt. We are not going to exhibit so openly something we treasure so much--we have to hide it away (it is our precious, yes). We want it, and we want to keep it with us, but we want to control it and show it only when it is is our best interest, only when it might impress someone or make us look noble or altruistic; but, of course, by exposing it (and the fact that we have clung to it), we have rendered it null, void, empty--we have emasculated our golden bull.

So where do we keep it? Where do we keep all things metaphysical? In our hearts. We store our most precious things in our hearts. It is where we put Jesus, after all. But when we start putting other things in there, we start to crowd Christ--it gets to the point that we can no longer honestly say, "I've got Jesus in my heart;" we have to admit, "I've got Jesus in my left ventricle." I know that someone might object that we keep other things in there--things like our love for our wife or husband, our love for our children, our love for family and friends. But that kind of love is so much in tune with our love for Christ that it can exist together in the same space with no problem; it is like the idea that we can love two (or more) children equally, that the love of a second child does not diminish the love for the first.

Having said earlier that we do not wear our debts openly, we have to understand that we cannot hide our collection of debts, that we are going to show them whether we know it or not: the things in our hearts have a way of showing on our countenances. Just as people can look at us and see Jesus (who is in our hearts), people can also look at us and see the other things we have stored there. Just look at the Grinch: his sour expression (rendered so exquisitely by Chuck Jones based on the Dr. Seuss original) perfectly reflects the void that is his heart--for what is it that makes his heart grow three sizes that day if not love--and what is love if not Christ, especially in the context of Christmas? Look at the Grinch after his conversion experience: he smiles, yes, but he also radiates--he shines (just as the Newsboys song urges us all to do).

Whatever we have in our hearts shows--on our faces, through our actions, in our body language. I recently asked a group of young adults, if God put you in line-up, would someone (a witness) pick you out as the Christian? Our heart gives us away. In poker parlance, it is our tell, the sign that others can use to read us.

By letting go of our debts--the ones owed to us--by forgiving our debtors, we (ironically--and who does irony better than God?) free ourselves. By divesting ourselves of the things we have horded, we break the chains that have held us. By releasing the debts, by letting go of those things that we have used to tie us to others--with money, with things, with un-Christ-like feelings--we limit ourselves.

Continuing our Christmas motif, having already invoked George Bailey and Marley's Ghost and the Grinch, we can see a further extension of this freedom from debt in "The Gift of the Magi," the O. Henry story about the young couple who each sold his and her most prized possession to buy the other a Christmas present: he sells his watch to buy her combs for her beautiful hair, and she sells her hair to buy him a fob chain for his heirloom watch. They each give up something precious for the other--they sacrifice, just as Christ sacrificed, and just as we are called to sacrifice. We are not to hold onto the debts we are owed; we are to forgive them, to let them go, to sacrifice our claim on them.

Returning to George Bailey, we have to ask ourselves what kind of collection would be taken up on our behalf: have we accumulated a basket of I.O.U.s and debits or have we accumulated good will and love? The answer depends on what we have done with our debts.