Sermon Illustrations on Debt
Stories
The Blood Suckers
During a large part of my childhood my father was in school, so we never really went on a traditional “vacation” until late in my elementary school years. I distinctly remember one of our first trips, where we left the suburbs of New York City for the beauty of New England. We finished the first day not quite to our destination, but there was a small pond next to the motel we were staying in.
My brother and I somehow convinced my parents to allow us to take a dip. Unfortunately, our time in this strange body of water was cut short as these strange, quarter-size creatures had attached themselves to numerous parts of our bodies. While we found this quite interesting, my mother did not.
“Leeches! Hold still, I need to get them off you!”
It turned out these odd looking worm-like beasts were sucking our blood. And needless to say, they needed to be removed. A leech provides an interesting metaphor for our lives doesn’t it? There are circumstances and lies and, dare I say people, that can suck the life force right out of us. And the hard part is that oftentimes we don’t even know it is happening. My brother and I had no idea that these little worms were doing. And this is where mature, safe-brothers and sisters can help us pull the proverbial leeches out and restore us to health.
Stuart Strachan Jr.
The Death Pledge
Mortgage is a French word. It’s a combination of two Old French words, mort meaning “death” and gage meaning “pledge.” Yep, signing a mortgage means you are signing a death pledge. It was named this as a mortgage only ends when the loan has been paid off, or when you die. So if you are of the age when you are thinking about getting a mortgage, please don’t let this grizzly etymology sway your decision.
Patrick Foote, The Origin of Names, Words, and Everything Between.
A Debt We Couldn’t Pay Ourselves
Suppose I sell you a piece of commercial property on which I am already behind in my mortgage payments. You not only pay me a fair price for the property but also pay my overdue payments. Now the property belongs totally to you. I no longer have a say in how the property is used. This is essentially what Christ has done. By His death on the cross He paid our debt to God, a debt we could not possibly pay ourselves.
If He Gets Crucified
There’s a story told in Soviet Russia during the reign of Joseph Stalin. An elderly woman was praying in a Russian Orthodox Church. Walking to the front of the church, she came to a cross of Jesus and kissed the scarred feet. As this was happening a Russian soldier approached her, saying “Babushka, are you willing to bend and kiss the feet of Stalin like you’ve kissed the feet of Christ?” The woman demonstrated a quick wit as she replied, “Yes. If he gets crucified for me.”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Just Charge It!
I recently attended an event sponsored by Compassion International, the International Child Sponsorship Organization. The event was called “Stepping into My Shoes”. The purpose being to show children in America what it is like living in a third-world country. At one point, children are encouraged to “work”, breaking rocks and shining shoes. For their efforts, each received their compensation: ten cents. They then went to a “shop,” where they could exchange their newly acquired wealth for items. Unfortunately, their 10 cents didn’t get them very far: a soccer ball was 30 dollars and a toy plane was 20 dollars. One rather distraught young girl wanted to purchase a Barbie doll, but she was $79.90 short of the total price of $80. The daughter, exasperated, finally said, “Why don’t you just charge it on your card mommy?”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Lending to the Lender
While most of us probably avoid borrowing money, there are cases in which people actually enjoy borrowing from other people. For instance, the Austrian poet Peter Altenberg loved to borrow money from other people, even while maintaining a healthy bank account. A friend of his, the poet and critic Karl Kraus tells a story of how Altenberg pleaded over and over again to borrow a hundred kronen, and, on account of his low balance himself, had to turn him down each time. At one point, Kraus got so frustrated with Altenberg that he shouted, “Look, Peter, I’d gladly give it to you, but I really, really, don’t have the money.” “Very Well”, Altenberg responded, I’ll lend it to you.”
Stuart Strachan Jr., Source Material provided by Clifton Fadiman, Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes.
The Loan
There was a man in New York City. Walked into a bank and asked for a loan. A loan officer came out and introduced himself. He said, how much you want? He goes, I want $5,000. I’m going to Europe on business. I’ll be back in two weeks. I’ll pay it back in two weeks. You need $5,000? Yes, sir. He goes, well, for us to loan you $5,000, we need some sort of collateral. We need some sort of security. What have you got? The guy who wanted the loan pulled out the keys to his Rolls-Royce and says, it’s parked right out in the front. Would that be enough security? And the guy said, well, that would be plenty.
So everything checked out. The man got the loan, walks out of the bank with the $5,000. Meanwhile, an employee of the bank takes the keys, gets in the Rolls-Royce, drives it under the bank in the parking garage underneath in secure parking. In two weeks, the businessman returns from Europe, pays back the $5,000 plus the interest, which was $15.41.
The loan officer approached the man and said, listen, thank you for your business, but while you were gone, we did a little checking, and we discovered you’re a multimillionaire. You don’t need a $5,000 loan. So why would you come in here to get a loan for $5,000 when you’re a multimillionaire? The man smiled, and he said, where else in New York City can you park a car in a secured area for two weeks for only $15.41? That’s why he was a multimillionaire.
Poverty and Indedbtedness: Ibu Emptat’s Story
Consider the following summary of an interview conducted by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two of the world’s leading researchers on poverty:
In a village in Indonesia we met Ibu Emptat, the wife of a basket weaver. A few years before our first meeting (in summer 2008), her husband was having trouble with his vision and could no longer work. She had no choice but to borrow money from the local moneylender — 100,000 rupiah [$18.75 US] to pay for medicine so her husband could work again, and 300,000 rupiah [$56 US] for food for the period when her husband was recovering and could not work (three of her seven children were still living with them). They had to pay 10 percent per month in interest on the loan.
However, they fell behind on their interest payments and by the time we met, her debt had ballooned to 1 million rupiah [$187 US]; the moneylender was threatening to take everything they had. To make matters worse, one of her younger sons had recently been diagnosed with severe asthma. Because the family was already mired in debt, she couldn’t afford the medicine needed to treat his condition. He sat with us throughout our visit, coughing every few minutes; he was no longer able to attend school regularly. The family seemed to be caught in a classic poverty trap — the father’s illness made them poor, which is why the child stayed sick, and because he was too sick to get a proper education, poverty loomed in his future.
The family is trapped: Sickness causes poverty, which causes sickness, which causes poverty, which causes a loss of property to the moneylender, which causes more poverty, which causes sickness, which causes . . . Note that there is no single solution to the entrapment.
Health insurance could have helped to cushion the blow of the father’s illness, but such insurance is often unavailable in poor countries; and even if it existed, it is unlikely that the family could have afforded it anyway. Moreover, even if they had insurance, there is the additional problem of inadequate healthcare services to provide the necessary medical care. The problems are multifaceted, and the solutions must be as well.
Taken from Brian Fikkert & Russel Mask, From Dependence to Dignity (p. 77). Zondervan.
Sleeping Well
Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor, had quite the sharp wit. After hearing about a Roman nobleman who had passed away with enormous debts (which were kept private throughout his lifetime), he sent one of his emissaries to the auction to bid on a single item. Augustus told him to bid on the man’s pillow. His reason: “That pillow must be particularly conducive to sleep, if its late owner, in spite of all his debts, could sleep on it.”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Studies
Poverty and Indedbtedness: Ibu Emptat’s Story
Consider the following summary of an interview conducted by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two of the world’s leading researchers on poverty:
In a village in Indonesia we met Ibu Emptat, the wife of a basket weaver. A few years before our first meeting (in summer 2008), her husband was having trouble with his vision and could no longer work. She had no choice but to borrow money from the local moneylender — 100,000 rupiah [$18.75 US] to pay for medicine so her husband could work again, and 300,000 rupiah [$56 US] for food for the period when her husband was recovering and could not work (three of her seven children were still living with them). They had to pay 10 percent per month in interest on the loan.
However, they fell behind on their interest payments and by the time we met, her debt had ballooned to 1 million rupiah [$187 US]; the moneylender was threatening to take everything they had. To make matters worse, one of her younger sons had recently been diagnosed with severe asthma. Because the family was already mired in debt, she couldn’t afford the medicine needed to treat his condition. He sat with us throughout our visit, coughing every few minutes; he was no longer able to attend school regularly. The family seemed to be caught in a classic poverty trap — the father’s illness made them poor, which is why the child stayed sick, and because he was too sick to get a proper education, poverty loomed in his future.
The family is trapped: Sickness causes poverty, which causes sickness, which causes poverty, which causes a loss of property to the moneylender, which causes more poverty, which causes sickness, which causes . . . Note that there is no single solution to the entrapment.
Health insurance could have helped to cushion the blow of the father’s illness, but such insurance is often unavailable in poor countries; and even if it existed, it is unlikely that the family could have afforded it anyway. Moreover, even if they had insurance, there is the additional problem of inadequate healthcare services to provide the necessary medical care. The problems are multifaceted, and the solutions must be as well.
Taken from Brian Fikkert & Russel Mask, From Dependence to Dignity (p. 77). Zondervan.
Analogies
The Blood Suckers
During a large part of my childhood my father was in school, so we never really went on a traditional “vacation” until late in my elementary school years. I distinctly remember one of our first trips, where we left the suburbs of New York City for the beauty of New England. We finished the first day not quite to our destination, but there was a small pond next to the motel we were staying in.
My brother and I somehow convinced my parents to allow us to take a dip. Unfortunately, our time in this strange body of water was cut short as these strange, quarter-size creatures had attached themselves to numerous parts of our bodies. While we found this quite interesting, my mother did not.
“Leeches! Hold still, I need to get them off you!”
It turned out these odd looking worm-like beasts were sucking our blood. And needless to say, they needed to be removed. A leech provides an interesting metaphor for our lives doesn’t it? There are circumstances and lies and, dare I say people, that can suck the life force right out of us. And the hard part is that oftentimes we don’t even know it is happening. My brother and I had no idea that these little worms were doing. And this is where mature, safe-brothers and sisters can help us pull the proverbial leeches out and restore us to health.
Stuart Strachan Jr.
A Debt We Couldn’t Pay Ourselves
Suppose I sell you a piece of commercial property on which I am already behind in my mortgage payments. You not only pay me a fair price for the property but also pay my overdue payments. Now the property belongs totally to you. I no longer have a say in how the property is used. This is essentially what Christ has done. By His death on the cross He paid our debt to God, a debt we could not possibly pay ourselves.
The Debt Must Be Paid
Mercy goes beyond justice, it does not undercut it. If I forgive you the hundred dollar debt you owe me, that means I must use one hundred dollars of my own money to pay my creditors. I cannot really make you a hundred dollars richer without making myself hundred dollars poorer. If the debt is objectively real, it must be paid, and if it is my mercy that repays your debt, I must pay it. That is the reason why Christ had to die, why God could not simply say ‘forget it’. Instead he said ‘forgive it’ and meant that if we did not pay it, he had himself.
Peter Kreeft, Back to Virtue. San Francisco, Ignatius Press. 1992, p.113f.
Humor
The Death Pledge
Mortgage is a French word. It’s a combination of two Old French words, mort meaning “death” and gage meaning “pledge.” Yep, signing a mortgage means you are signing a death pledge. It was named this as a mortgage only ends when the loan has been paid off, or when you die. So if you are of the age when you are thinking about getting a mortgage, please don’t let this grizzly etymology sway your decision.
Patrick Foote, The Origin of Names, Words, and Everything Between.
If He Gets Crucified
There’s a story told in Soviet Russia during the reign of Joseph Stalin. An elderly woman was praying in a Russian Orthodox Church. Walking to the front of the church, she came to a cross of Jesus and kissed the scarred feet. As this was happening a Russian soldier approached her, saying “Babushka, are you willing to bend and kiss the feet of Stalin like you’ve kissed the feet of Christ?” The woman demonstrated a quick wit as she replied, “Yes. If he gets crucified for me.”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
Just Charge It!
I recently attended an event sponsored by Compassion International, the International Child Sponsorship Organization. The event was called “Stepping into My Shoes”. The purpose being to show children in America what it is like living in a third-world country. At one point, children are encouraged to “work”, breaking rocks and shining shoes. For their efforts, each received their compensation: ten cents. They then went to a “shop,” where they could exchange their newly acquired wealth for items. Unfortunately, their 10 cents didn’t get them very far: a soccer ball was 30 dollars and a toy plane was 20 dollars. One rather distraught young girl wanted to purchase a Barbie doll, but she was $79.90 short of the total price of $80. The daughter, exasperated, finally said, “Why don’t you just charge it on your card mommy?”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
The Loan
There was a man in New York City. Walked into a bank and asked for a loan. A loan officer came out and introduced himself. He said, how much you want? He goes, I want $5,000. I’m going to Europe on business. I’ll be back in two weeks. I’ll pay it back in two weeks. You need $5,000? Yes, sir. He goes, well, for us to loan you $5,000, we need some sort of collateral. We need some sort of security. What have you got? The guy who wanted the loan pulled out the keys to his Rolls-Royce and says, it’s parked right out in the front. Would that be enough security? And the guy said, well, that would be plenty.
So everything checked out. The man got the loan, walks out of the bank with the $5,000. Meanwhile, an employee of the bank takes the keys, gets in the Rolls-Royce, drives it under the bank in the parking garage underneath in secure parking. In two weeks, the businessman returns from Europe, pays back the $5,000 plus the interest, which was $15.41.
The loan officer approached the man and said, listen, thank you for your business, but while you were gone, we did a little checking, and we discovered you’re a multimillionaire. You don’t need a $5,000 loan. So why would you come in here to get a loan for $5,000 when you’re a multimillionaire? The man smiled, and he said, where else in New York City can you park a car in a secured area for two weeks for only $15.41? That’s why he was a multimillionaire.
Lending to the Lender
While most of us probably avoid borrowing money, there are cases in which people actually enjoy borrowing from other people. For instance, the Austrian poet Peter Altenberg loved to borrow money from other people, even while maintaining a healthy bank account. A friend of his, the poet and critic Karl Kraus tells a story of how Altenberg pleaded over and over again to borrow a hundred kronen, and, on account of his low balance himself, had to turn him down each time. At one point, Kraus got so frustrated with Altenberg that he shouted, “Look, Peter, I’d gladly give it to you, but I really, really, don’t have the money.” “Very Well”, Altenberg responded, I’ll lend it to you.”
Stuart Strachan Jr., Source Material provided by Clifton Fadiman, Bartlett’s Book of Anecdotes.
Sleeping Well
Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor, had quite the sharp wit. After hearing about a Roman nobleman who had passed away with enormous debts (which were kept private throughout his lifetime), he sent one of his emissaries to the auction to bid on a single item. Augustus told him to bid on the man’s pillow. His reason: “That pillow must be particularly conducive to sleep, if its late owner, in spite of all his debts, could sleep on it.”
Stuart Strachan Jr.
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