The economy being what it is drives the couple to ask a one peso loan from the same bank. Again, government sponsored info commercials that went, "Isip entreprenyur!" (Think entrepreneur!) helped. Their peso deposit serves as collateral. The bank charges them 30% on the loan. In effect, on the peso they deposited and actually loaned, the bank earned 25 centavos. From another perspective, Juan and Maria paid the bank 25 centavos for allowing them to use their own money!
It's no wonder banks are among the most profitable businesses in the world today. (Don’t get me going on the oil cartels that bleed our economies dry.). But let's go back to that one-peso loan of Maria and Juan.
The couple earns a peso so they go back to the bank to pay their loan. 30 centavos is used to pay for the interest. 70 is left for the principal. They still owe the bank 30 so they get another peso loan. 30 centavos of that is used to pay for the balance of the first loan. They leave the bank with 70. If this cycle continues, Juan and Maria will be perpetually making new loans just to pay their maturing loans. But what if tragedy strikes, in the form of land grabbing, pestilence, typhoons, sickness, COVID-19, or worse, death? They cannot pay their loan and the bank forfeits their collateral. Without collateral, loans require higher interests. The cycle continues at a much painful level: Maria and Juan take new loans just to meet the interest on their maturing loans.
This happens every single day: at the level of the 5/6 operators, at the local banks, in the IMF and the World Bank. Most people do not know that private banks actually run the economies of many countries. Study the financial system of Hong Kong, for instance.
Sunday's lection from Luke 4 is based on the "the acceptable year of the Lord's favor" which is the Jubilee Year. This vision is found in Leviticus 25 and it is probably one of the best pieces of Ancient Israelite legislation ever written. The celebration of the Sabbatical year--and more importantly, the Jubilee--is rooted in justice. Justice requires that all slaves are set free, that all lands are returned to their rightful and original owners, and all debts are canceled.
When the Bible says debts, they are really debts, not trespasses, nor sins. Indebtedness dispossess, displaces, disenfranchises, and dehumanizes. Thus, cancellation of debts, all debts, is a major proclamation of the Jubilee. Cancellation of debts is also a major plea in the Lord's Prayer.
It is heartbreaking but it is true. Then and now, Juan, Maria, farmers, fisher-folk, laborers, and indigenous peoples remain the most indebted people on earth.
“Scattered across the countryside one may observe certain wild animals, male and female, dark, livid and burnt by the sun, attached to the earth which they dig and turn over with invincible stubbornness. However, they have something like an articulated voice and when they stand up they reveal a human face. Indeed, they are human beings...Thanks to them the other human beings need not sow, labour and harvest in order to live. That is why they ought not to lack the bread which they have sown.”+
They ought not to lack the bread which they have sown. Yet in the Philippines, and in many parts of the world, they, unfortunately, do lack bread. And much more.
#IAmWithJesus
#JusticeForMyanmar
#FreePalestine
#EndTheCultureOfImpunity
#ChooseJustice
#StopTheKillingsPH
+Jean la Bruyere, French moralist of the late seventeenth century (cited in J.D. Crossan's The Essential Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), v.
*art, "Christ in the Synagogue," Nikolai Nikolaevich, 1868 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).
