Remember, this section of Saint Paul's letter is his
general instruction of moral norms: that is, how does my faith affect every
aspect of my life - how do I live as a Christian and not as a pagan worshipper
of idols or of myself. "Offer your
bodies as a living sacrifice...your spiritual worship" effects everything:
your calendar, your check book, your social life, your family life, your sex life,
your recreation, your work. If I keep
first things first (meaning God is on the throne of my heart and not myself or
anyone or anything else), then my life will look radically different than what
is the norm in our society.
Today's first piece of advice, "owe no one
anything" could easily be translated into the American culture in
financial terms: "Have no debt."
I wonder how many fewer lives would be lost each year, how many
relationships would still be intact, how many fights we would avoid with other
people if we would simply fulfill this one sense of Saint Paul's words. If you haven't heard of it, Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University is a
wonderful program offered in church communities around the U.S. that really
allows us to put God at the center of our finances. I highly recommend this Christian-based
approach to escaping the traps of our consumerist culture which you can find at
his website (daveramsey.com), which also has many other helpful resources
resources for various ages, including books and online tools. If you feel like your finances are choking
your ability to grow spiritually because you are constantly worrying and trying
to stay afloat, this could be the way to learn the wisdom behind the advice of
Saint Paul "owe no one anything."
And when we do that, then we can truly put into practice the rest of the
verse, "except to love on another."
The word love is that same root as our english word
"charity." When we aren't
slaves to our consumerist culture, we can finally practice generosity and allow
our treasures to build up others. A
great gift.
But the truth is
Paul isn't referring merely to finances in this passage. In some ways he is talking about where our
allegiances lie, and the intangible kinds of "debt" we can find
ourselves caught in.
One way to
discover some of our allegiances, or what we might call our "ties" to
things in this world, is to simply review how we spend our so-called "free
time." For the Christian, of
course, there is no such thing: our time, like our lives, like our gifts, like
our breath, is not our own. I didn't
earn even one hour of life on this earth.
It's a gift from God. My time is
His - or it should be. But still, the
term can refer to those periods of time when we are able to choose more how it
is ordered. So what do we do? What do I think about? What do I read about or watch or play when I
am "free"? For me it is
usually pretty boring: exercise, sleep, read a book, play music, listen to
religious podcasts, visit with my family.
But I gotta be honest, sometimes I don't use that time as well as I
should. Sometimes that free time is spent
more on me than on God, and at my worst, I can end up skimping on my prayer
(doing only the "minimum" for a priest). It is in those times I can see that I still
have some serious allegiances, serious "ties" to selfish things that
do not build up others.
A saint owes no
one and no thing, "except to love on another." If "love is the fulfillment of the
law," then the saint is the one who loves perfectly.
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