The Financial Crisis

I am not a Roman Catholic and I certainly don't agree with all the positions of the Roman Catholic Church. But when they get one right, I'll be happy to say it, and I think this letter from Bishop William Murphy, chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development to the Treasury Secretary and the Congressional leadership says the right things. My thanks to the Daily Episcopalian for posting it!

September 26, 2008

Dear Secretary Paulson, Majority Leader Reid, Minority Leader McConnell, Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Boehner:

The economic crisis facing our nation is both terribly disturbing and enormously complicated. I write to offer the prayers of the U.S. Catholic Bishops and express the concerns of our Conference as you face difficult choices on how to limit the damage and move forward with prudence and justice. As pastors and teachers, my brother bishops and I do not bring technical expertise to these complicated matters. However, we believe our faith and moral principles can help guide the search for just and effective responses to the economic turmoil threatening our people.

• Human and Moral Dimensions: This crisis involves far more than just economic or technical matters, but has enormous human impact and clear ethical dimensions which should be at the center of debate and decisions on how to move forward. Families are losing their homes. Retirement savings are at risk. People are losing jobs and benefits. Economic arrangements, structures and remedies should have as a fundamental purpose safeguarding human life and dignity. The scandalous search for excessive economic rewards even to the point of dangerous speculation that exacerbates the pain and losses of the more vulnerable are egregious examples of an economic ethic that places economic gain above all other values. This ignores the impact of economic decisions on the lives of real people as well as the ethical dimension of the choices we make and the moral responsibility we have for their effect on people.
• Responsibility and Accountability: Clearly, effective measures are required which address and alter the behaviors, practices and misjudgments that led to this crisis. Sadly, greed, speculation, exploitation of vulnerable people and dishonest practices helped to bring about this serious situation. Many blameless and vulnerable people have been and will be harmed. Those who directly contributed to this crisis or profited from it should not be rewarded or escape accountability for the harm they have done. Any response of government ought to seek greater responsibility, accountability and transparency in both economic and public life.
• Advantages and Limitations of the Market: Pope John Paul II pointed out that "the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs." But there are many human needs which find no place on the market. It is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental human needs to remain unsatisfied. Both public and private institutions have failed in responding to fundamental human needs. A new sense of responsibility on the part of all should include a renewal of instruments of monitoring and correction within economic institutions and the financial industry as well as effective public regulation and protection to the extent this may be clearly necessary.
• Solidarity and the Common Good: The principle of solidarity reminds us that we are in this together and warns us that concern for narrow interests alone can make things worse. The principle of solidarity commits us to the pursuit of the common good, not the search for partisan gain or economic advantage. Protection of the vulnerable “workers, business owners, homeowners, renters, and stockholders" must be included in the commitment to protect economic institutions. As Church leaders we ask that you give proper priority to the poor and the most vulnerable.
• Subsidiarity: Subsidiarity places a responsibility on the private actors and institutions to accept their own obligations. If they do not do so, then the larger entities, including the government, will have to step in to do what private institutions will have failed to do.

This is a challenging time for our nation. Everyone who carries responsibility should exercise it according to their respective roles and with a great sensitivity to reforming practices and setting forth new guidelines that will serve all people, all institutions of the economy and the common good of the people as a nation. This includes not just the leaders of the economic life of our country. It means the political leaders and all those whose own expertise can contribute to a resolution of the current situation.

Our Catholic tradition calls for a "society of work, enterprise and participation" which "is not directed against the market, but demands that the market be appropriately controlled by the forces of society and by the state to assure that the basic needs of the whole society are satisfied" (Centesimus Annus). These words of John Paul II should be adopted as a standard for all those who carry this responsibility for our nation, the world and the common good of all.

Sincerely,
Most Reverend William F. Murphy
Bishop of Rockville Centre
Chairman, Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development

I have heard some conservative commentators talking in the last few days about the "market" and how "the market must be allowed to work its will". I suggest that such worship of the market system is idolatry. We should leave God as our only object of worship.

"A New Heart and a New Spirit"

[Our lessons today were Ezekiel 18:1-4, 25-32, Psalm 25:1-8, Philippians 2:1-13, and Matthew 21:23-32.]

Ezekiel was a prophet of the Babylonian exile in the Sixth Century B.C.E., and he speaks in a time of change for the people of Israel. The Temple in Jerusalem—where God lived—has been destroyed and the people scattered, with some of the elite taken away to Babylon. When they are forced to worship without having the Temple and in a place far from God’s Promised Land, major changes in their thinking result.

Until now, Israel, like other Middle Eastern cultures of the time, believed in tribal responsibility for wrongdoing. This concept of holding all members of the tribe personally responsible for the acts of its members is exemplified by the proverb quoted here: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”

Ezekiel, speaking for God, establishes a new principle: because all life belongs to God, it is unfair to punish others for one person’s wrongdoing. This principle of personal responsibility for one’s actions leads to a statement of the importance of repentance. If you are being held responsible for the sins of others, your personal repentance of sin isn’t too useful. However, God says through Ezekiel that if you turn from your transgressions and get “a new heart and a new spirit”, you will live.

We aren’t very big on personal responsibility these days. “It’s not my fault; it’s because of where I was born or my social status or something that takes the responsibility for my actions off my hands.” I read a column this week about the proposed bailout of the financial system, where the author said that he wanted the bankers and others who lost this money to simply say “I’m sorry” and mean it, because their recklessness has had a horrible cost. They were horrified at the very idea—one even said to him, “I guess you want us to grovel”—of accepting any degree of responsibility for their actions.

Our Gospel lesson from Matthew could stand some context. This takes place during Holy Week. Jesus has already attacked the moneychangers and sellers of animals in the courtyard of the Temple, not, by the way, because the moneychangers and sellers were bad per se. The moneychangers were necessary to convert the Roman coins with the emperor’s likeness on them to more acceptable Jewish coins. The animals needed to be sold to serve as sacrifices in the Temple worship. Jesus wanted to stop the moneychangers and sellers to stop the Temple worship as a protest against the way that the Temple authorities had become a part of the domination system and had become a “den of thieves.” When the chief priests and the elders ask by what authority Jesus is doing “these things,” they are referring to his actions in Holy Week.

Jesus tells this parable of two sons (which is found only in Matthew’s Gospel). The father asks his two sons to go work in the vineyard. One says he won’t, but then changes his mind and goes to work. The other says he will, but doesn’t. The Pharisees correctly say that the first son is doing his father’s will, but they obviously missed how the parable applies to them.

When Jesus says that the tax collectors and prostitutes will go to heaven before them, it isn’t because their answer to Jesus’ question is wrong. It is because they are saying the right things, but not doing them. When God, speaking through John the Baptist, asked the Pharisees to do His work, they might have said they were, but they clearly didn’t do it. They were like the second son. The tax collectors and the prostitutes, like the first son, changed and got themselves “a new heart and a new spirit”. The Pharisees instead remained focused on the laws that secured their own power.

What about us? Are we giving God the right answers with our mouths, but not living up to what we say? Do we say one thing here in Church on Sunday and live some other way outside? A critical point to take away from this parable is that truly being a follower of Christ is not about we say, it is about what we do and how we live. As Paul tells us in his letter to the church in Philippi, we are called to be of the same mind as Jesus—a mind of love, humility, and reconciliation.

We often hear that if we posted the Ten Commandments in public places or had public prayer in schools, things would be better and people would change because of it. But, isn’t that relying on what we say to cause change? Rather than saying prayers in schools or seeing the Commandments on the wall, let’s try living the Greatest Commandment—to love our neighbor as we do ourselves.

Fairness

[Our readings today are Jonah 3:10-4:11, Psalm 145:1-8, Philippians 1:21-30, and Matthew 20:1-16.]

Anyone who has more than one child or anyone who wasn’t an only child has more than a passing relationship with “fairness.” My mother used to tell a story of how, after my younger sister was born, my sister and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye, to say the least. At her wits’ end, my mother went to our pediatrician and asked what was wrong with us. His reply surprised her: “Mrs. Davison, you were an only child, weren’t you?” And, of course, she was!

We are very concerned with “fairness” and “justice” in life, especially when we feel that we have gotten the short end of the stick. Most people don’t raise issues of fairness when they are favored. I heard a story about a poster that had three fish on it—a large fish, a medium fish and a small fish. The large fish is thinking, “There is justice in the world!” as it’s about to eat the medium fish. The medium fish is thinking, “There is some justice in the world!” as it’s about to eat the small fish. The small fish is thinking, “There is no justice in the world!” I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.

In the parable we read today, the landowner pays the same daily wage to everyone whether they came at the beginning and worked all day or came at the end of the day. How outrageous! How unfair! Shouldn’t the ones who work longest and hardest get more as they clearly deserve? Don’t we say “the early bird gets the worm” and “God helps those who help themselves”?

But God isn’t “fair,” at least not by our standards. As a priest said about this text, “I am so glad that God isn’t fair. If God were fair and gave me what I truly deserve, I would be tortured slowly before being consigned to hell forever.”

In Charles Dickens’ wonderful story, A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Past takes Scrooge back to a Christmas party thrown by his employer in his younger days, Mr. Fezziwig. The Ghost notes Scrooge’s pleasure at the festivity, and comments, “A small matter to make these silly folks so full of gratitude.” When Scrooge protests that it isn’t small, the Ghost reminds him, “Why! Is it not! He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?” Scrooge responds, more like his former self than the cold mean thing he has become, “The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.” And even as he says the words, he realizes how much he has changed since those happy days, before money became an idol to worship.

Our landowner is a man very much like Mr. Fezziwig—eager to employ people, but also generous even to those employed only for a fraction of the day. He never claimed to be fair; he says he is generous. Generosity isn’t about giving someone what he or she deserves; it’s about the freedom of the giver to give out of his abundance to whomever he chooses—not because he is paying a debt, but because he wishes to freely give.

God’s generosity was also shown in the reading from Jonah. Jonah is angry with God because God didn’t act “fairly” towards the wicked people of Nineveh. God has forgiven them, when Jonah wants God to be tough and judgmental—towards them, of course, like the early workers want the landowner to be towards the latecomers.

God is fair; he doesn’t give us what we deserve. None of us deserve salvation; God doesn’t owe it to us. But He gives it to us anyway. He treats us infinitely better than we deserve. God is like the landowner who pays the daily wage to all the workers and like Mr. Fezziwig who brings joy without counting the cost.

And what is that daily wage? Entry into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Once there was a man who died and came to the pearly gates where Saint Peter greeted him. Peter, in addition in to carrying the keys, had a clipboard in hand. He said to the man, “Before we let you into heaven there are a few questions you have to answer and I have to fill out this form. We work on a point system here in heaven—maybe you’ve heard something about it. You tell me all the good things you’ve done and I’ll score your points—and when you reach a hundred points I’ll let you into heaven. OK?” The man thought for minute and then began to recite all his good deeds. “Well, I was married for over 50 years and I never cheated on my wife all that time; I never even looked at another woman with lust in my heart.” Saint Peter said, “Very good; better than most, in fact; that’s worth three points.” The man was a little surprised at the score, but continued, “I was very active in my church—I went every Sunday and I was a longtime member of the men’s group.” Peter said, “Excellent; that’s another point!” Exasperated, the man said, “My goodness, at this rate I’ll never get into heaven based on what I’ve done. I can only throw myself on God’s mercy.” And Peter said, “Oh, that’s a hundred points right there. Welcome to heaven.”

We get there on God’s mercy; not what we have done ourselves.

God’s economy doesn’t work as we seem to wish it would, rewarding those who work harder. Instead, God’s economy values us far more than our worth. Shouldn’t we try to follow His example?

Forgiveness

[Our readings today are Genesis 50:15-21, Psalm 103, Romans 14:1-12, and Matthew 18:21-35.]


We often have the wrong idea about forgiveness.

In our Gospel lesson, Jesus tells a parable of forgiveness. The parable is set in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is not the afterlife, but it is a time and place, here on earth, where God’s justice is truly done. When the King’s servant, who owed 10,000 talents—a huge sum, like millions of dollars, could not pay his debt and asked for more time, the King forgave the debt completely! But then, the servant was himself owed a hundred denarii—just a few dollars in today’s money—and refused to forgive the debt! The King, learning of this, handed the servant over to be tortured until the entire debt was paid!

Such are the consequences of failing to forgive. When asked by Peter how many times we should forgive, Jesus says seventy-seven times. This is an idiomatic way of saying as many times as we need to. We are always called upon to forgive.

We often act as if we can only forgive someone who has wronged us if they have repented in some way. Forgiveness isn’t easy, because we have been truly wronged and it hurts. Isn’t our hurt, our pain, righteous and just?

This week, we remembered the seventh anniversary of a great wrong—the evil attacks of September 11, 2001. We remembered the victims: those who died, those who were maimed in body or spirit or both, and those whose lives were changed forever by the loss of loved ones.

But we need to remember September 11, 2001, as an event that challenges us to forgive. We aren’t called to forgive for the benefit of the perpetrators of those awful deeds, but for our own.
We pray for this in every service of our church in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” Our sins, our debts, are forgiven, only to the extent that we forgive others. Remember the servant, who was forgiven his great debt only as he was willing to forgive a small one.

While it is a good thing when someone who hurts us asks our forgiveness, what if they don’t? Do we hold on to our anger, our pain and say we can’t forgive unless they apologize?

There are many stories of people who will not let anger go, especially when their cause is just. What have they gained with their anger? Sorrow, bitterness, loneliness, physical and mental pain. We believe that when we are hurt we must be compensated. We say, “Don’t get mad, get even!” Sometimes we claim the role of God, who said “Vengeance is mine”—that is God’s—“I will repay.”

After September 11, some felt that we need to take action in reprisal and, to some extent we did, when we invaded Afghanistan. In many ways, that could be justified as removing from power an evil regime that supported the perpetrators. But many of us saw our role as avengers, that we were punishing evil, forgetting that vengeance is God’s role. But, some of bitterness and pain we felt over 9/11 caused us to do things which we can not justify. How do we square some of the things we have done as a nation over the last seven years with the promise in our Baptismal Covenant to “respect the dignity of every person”? Might not some of these misdeeds of our own been avoided had we been willing to forgive?

Does forgiveness mean forgetting what has happened? No. Even when we forgive, we may not forget and perhaps should not forget. But when we begin the healing process—the process of reconciliation—by forgiving, we are reminded that we have already been forgiven ourselves. We need to remember the importance of forgiveness in our lives and not the least, here in St. Christopher’s.

Many years ago, I had the opportunity to see a concrete example of forgiveness that should inspire us. On November 14, 1940, the medieval cathedral in Coventry, England, was destroyed by the German Air Force in a raid that did horrible damage to the city and took many lives. When a new cathedral was built, part of the shell of the old cathedral was left standing. Behind the altar, on the ruined wall was placed the words: “Father Forgive”. If out of the pain and grief of that war, those people could forgive that debt of 10,000 talents, how can we do less and not forgive that debt of a hundred denarii?

9/11

The events of seven years ago today are still very strong in my mind. I remember how that Tuesday morning was beautiful bright and clear here in Georgia, as it would be in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington. I was walking down the hallway of the Headquarters building at Robins Air Force Base (where I worked and still do) when one of the young captains said that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center in New York. Several of us watched on a small portable TV with bad reception as the horrors of that morning unfolded.

Its hard to understate the fear that many felt that morning. Rumors spread of additional bombs and dangers. Our base was put on lockdown status with buildings locked up and workers confined to offices, even though at the time, I rather doubted Al Quida was much concerned with a base in rural central Georgia.

I truly can't imagine what the victims of 9/11 felt as they realized that this was no adventure movie and only death awaited them. The stories we would learn of fortitude and sacrifice enoble us all, yet I can't help wondering whether I would react well in such a time. I am grateful that, so far, this cup has not been presented to me. Nor can I imagine the grief and emptiness that faced the victim's families, who simply said goodbye to their loved ones as they did every day, not knowing that this would be goodbye for this lifetime. I have tried every morning to make my last words to my wife as I leave for work assurances of my love, so that if something awful happened, she might at least have that consolation.

We need to remember that the acts of 9/11 were the evil of men, not God, and that on that morning, God's will was emphatically not done.

Cost

[Our lessons were Exodus 3:1-15, Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c, Romans 12:9-21, and Matthew 16:21-28.]


Last week, we got to hear about the Confession of Peter that Jesus is the Messiah and Jesus’ statement that Peter was the rock upon which he would build the church. Today, we continue the story and Jesus tells the disciples just what being the Messiah and following the Messiah would cost.

And Peter, in his usual way, follows up his great revelation with a tremendous clanger: “God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you!”

There are several problems with Peter’s exclamation. First, it is based upon a serious misunderstanding of what Jesus being the Messiah really meant. To Jews of that time, the Messiah was to be a warrior king who would free the people of Israel from foreign domination. For the Messiah instead to suffer and be killed was unthinkable. Impossible! God simply would not allow that to happen!

Also, Peter’s objection overlooks the sacrifice that Jesus would have to make and the sacrifices that we ourselves are called to make. If Jesus’ sacrifices—suffering and death on the cross—are not made, there would be no resurrection!

Peter, like us, wants to avoid the cost—the pain, the unpleasantness, the rejection, the suffering, and ultimately, the death he himself would suffer in Rome. We ourselves want to remember Christmas and Easter and not think of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. We are sort of like the story of the young man, eager to make it to the top, who went to a well-known millionaire businessman and asked him the first reason for his success. The businessman answered without hesitation, “Hard work.” After a lengthy pause the young man asked, “What is the SECOND reason?”

When Jesus delivers his crushing rebuke to Peter, “You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things,” he is saying that is putting human ways of thinking—about the role of the Messiah, not wanting to pay the cost of discipleship—in the way of what God wanted.

We cannot do what Peter wanted, which was to take the cross out of Jesus’ life and death, because the cross is where God endured the greatest pain and suffering a human can endure. And because He did, he understands and shares in the pain of our mortal lives.


In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonheoffer asserted that there is a cost to following Jesus. We hope that we will not be called upon to pay the same cost that Bonheoffer did—a slow, gruesome hanging by the Nazis. There can be other kinds of costs, some petty, some large. We take up our crosses and we must be ready to endure what we must so that God’s work can be done. But we know that with God’s help, the cost will not be unendurable. [Note: in Westminster Abbey's Gallery of 20th Century Martyrs, Bonheoffer is on the right.]

But what we gain for that cost is beyond belief! If we are willing to give up our lives to save them, if we are willing to not hoard ourselves, we can have everything that truly matters. But, if on the other hand, we give up our eternal lives to gain worldly things, we will gain nothing of value.

In one of my favorite plays, A Man for All Seasons, the title character, Sir Thomas More has just heard Richard Rich give obviously false testimony which will condemn More to the block. When he is told that Rich has been appointed Attorney-General for Wales, he says, sadly, “For Wales? Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . But for Wales!”


While Sir Thomas was executed by Henry VIII’s government, he has been honored for his integrity and courage and has been canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. On the other hand, Richard Rich, who eventually became Lord Chancellor as Lord Rich and was a Protestant under the Protestant King Edward VI and a Catholic under the Catholic Queen Mary, may have died in his bed, but he became infamous.

Like Richard Rich, we can sacrifice honor and integrity for personal gain. But, Jesus makes it clear that the little we gain will be dwarfed by what we will lose—our opportunity to be with God in his Kingdom.