2025-04-10 A Meditation on Debt

“1 I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise; 2 I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word. 3 On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased. 4 All the kings of the earth shall give you thanks, O Lord, for they have heard the words of your mouth, 5 and they shall sing of the ways of the Lord, for great is the glory of the Lord. 6 For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar. 7 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life; you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me. 8 The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.” (Ps 138:1-8 ESV)

Debt is not a heavy thing, in the sense of having witnessed, having seen come together paradoxically, having braved the heat of day and emerged contemplative. Debt is also a Discovered thing, our duty no stark alternative to blessed status but rather a “both-and” alongside our Invite, the Calling, the ministry to us Here and Now. We are ministered to, in the hope some duty is evoked and then discharged.

Emerging claustrophobic, then, rather we emerge Patient and though surrounded, blocked in on all sides, fasted and discomfited, we have grown Accustomed to the plight and to the Locale remedial and fasted and stark.

It is a stark Contemplation around things that simply should never have even been Witnessed, never brought to bear, never to the light of day. That we survived the bomb blasts and the awful tenacity of sin… this is a testament to the One who said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And we do endeavor thus to promise one another, truth spilling forth in part perhaps because of that Stark and fasted, claustrophobic even, weight of Glory.

The weight of glory, it calls us back from all Pinnacles of human attainment, knowing this, that where Christ is named, positive successes meet the stereotypically-expected insincerity and fraudulence. There is actual Christ-stuff going on here! And we would flee to the mountains! Away from that subdued, subterranean, underwater learning to breathe and have faith in the breathing apparatus. Discipleship is not about memorizing rules! It is about coming to Trust in the One who cared little for our moral state except insofar as our moral state was beckoning, tempting, ridiculing us. He wants us moral, but only if that is what we want to be! And the status of Subterranean, of Subdued, of Lugubriousness-turned-hearty, attractive, food for the journey if only we hear the weeping plea, that Something Significant prevails, that Something Spiritual is instilled, that Something Experiential registers.

For, we were bought at a price. We have faux-heroism around refusing to accept “handouts”, but not only is God aware of each penny expended, but invites us to warm to that notion: I consider you to be worth it! And it is neither way out of our pay grade nor cheap and insignificant: He gives us things we can actually “Feel” and “Do the math” around: stop over-exaggerating! Stop underestimating! It was a price almost within our reach, that we might feel the longing and the personal responsibility, to be those purchased at a price. Not too disinterested or absent, but Obligated to reflect: He paid the debt for my sins.