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Please note:

This script cannot exactly reflect the transmission, as it was prepared before the service was broadcast. It may include editorial notes prepared by the producer, and minor spelling and other errors that were corrected before the radio broadcast.

It may contain gaps to be filled in at the time so that prayers may reflect the needs of the world, and changes may also be made at the last minute for timing reasons, or to reflect current events.

Sam Wells:
Good morning and welcome. Advent is a time when we anticipate what God will finally complete on the last day and we what God has already fulfilled in Jesus, and the difference between the two. It’s an important difference. If we concentrate too hard on the dramatic things God will do on the last day we tend to downplay what God has already done in Jesus. But if we assume everything has already been achieved in Jesus, we overlook all in God’s world that remains in agony and distress, awaiting Jesus’ second coming in glory.Ìý So we pray: E’en so Lord Jesus, quickly come.

Music: E’en so Lord Jesus, quickly come (Paul Manz)

Sam Wells:
Today we reflect on just one aspect of human distress, and our estrangement from God and one another. In Presbyterian versions of the Lord’s Prayer, what others call sins or trespasses are known as debts. ‘Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.’ Debt names our shortcomings before God as well as what we owe to one another. Debt is a prison that dominates many people’s lives.

When the prophet Isaiah looks forward to a time of restoration after Israel’s exile in Babylon, he talks about Israel being set free from oppression, imprisonment, and grief. But the central metaphor is about being released from debt. Isaiah says, ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,’ and the programme of liberation he describes epitomises our Advent longing for God to bring forward the final freedom of the last day that we may experience that liberation now.

Liberating God, in Christ you release us from debt and empower us to announce your coming kingdom; send your Spirit upon all who are in prisons of their own or another’s making, that in their despair they may glimpse your Advent hope; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.

The person who, links the prophecy of Isaiah to its fulfilment in Jesus is the presence of the Old Testament in the New that we call John the Baptist. This is what the first chapter of John’s gospel says about him.

Hannah Reed:
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.Ìý (John 1: 6-8)

Sam Wells:
Bernadette Farrell’s hymn, Longing for light, expresses the yearning John the Baptist embodied,

Music: Longing for light (Farrell)

Sam Wells:
So what does it feel like to be in debt and how do people come to get into a hole they can’t get out of? Tim Bissett, Director of the Radio 4 Christmas Appeal with St Martin-in-the-Fields, explains.

Tim Bissett:
In 1989 I became heavily in debt for the first time. 1989 was a good year for me: I got married, bought my first car and went abroad on holiday.

I was encouraged to get into debt by my family. They told me I was
doing a good thing. It was a good debt to have. My debt, of course, was a mortgage. That debt enabled my wife and I to move from rented accommodation into a home that will, one day, become ours.

I never seriously considered that this good debt could become a bad debt.Ìý I was employed, healthy and secure.
In September 2014 the average total debt per UK household was over £55,000 – made up of debts that are both good and bad.
The Money Advice Service estimates that 18% of Britons, 8.8 million people, consider themselves to have "serious" financial issues.

At St Martin’s we often hear stories from people with the bad kind of debt. Often those stories begin, ‘I was fine until...’.Ìý ‘I was fine until I lost my job,’ or ‘I was fine until I got sick.’Ìý Such stories show us how good debts can turn bad very quickly. Often the story goes on, ‘I just couldn’t keep up with repayments. I never asked for help or took advice. I just left leave letters unopened. I was frightened of the phone ringing and I dreaded a knock on the door.’

Ìý

Those with bad debts often fall into two kinds:Ìý there are those who can’t pay and those who won’t pay. People that can’t pay but address their debts can be supported and helped to make a plan to pay their debts off. Those that ignore their debts and fail to act end up being put into the ‘won’t pay’ category. For them the outcome is far more uncomfortable and can impact their lives for years. It can feel like a prison from which there’s no escape.

Sam Wells:
When Israel was in exile in Babylon it felt like a prison from which there was no escape. But when Israel returned from Babylon, the prophet Isaiah announced that this wasn’t just release from a physical prison, it was liberation in every way.

Hannah Reed:
A reading from Isaiah chapter 61.

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to provide for those who mourn in Zion-- to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to display his glory. They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.Ìý (Isaiah 61: 1-4)
Sam Wells:
Frank Houghton’s words describe the lengths to which God in Christ goes to set us free, here in arrangement by David Willcocks.

Music: Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour (arr, Willcocks)

Sam Wells:
Our preacher this morning is the Bishop of Stepney, the Rt Revd Adrian Newman.

Bishop of Stepney:
As Bishop for much of London’s East End, money is high on my agenda.Ìý Nearly 50% of children born in Tower Hamlets, where I live, are raised below the poverty line.Ìý And yet the average salary is a touch under £80,000 per year, which tells you a lot about the balance between the wealth of the few and the poverty of the many.

The theologian and pastor Helmut Thielicke once said that ‘our cheque books have more to do with heaven and hell than our hymn books.’Ìý For Christians, money is not primarily a political or an economic question, it is a religious question. It is central to Christianity.

Christianity came to birth in a social setting where personal debt was a distinctive and pervasive feature of life, and the early faith took its identity in large measure from this fact.Ìý Debt was a central part of the social environment in which the early church emerged. In the Jerusalem of Jesus’ day, large sums of money flowed in through trade; but there were high demands for taxes and tribute levied on the poor.Ìý Wealth creation was as necessary in Jesus’ day as it is now for the well-being of society. Those who were rich had significant sums of money which they needed to invest, and the poor had reason enough to borrow.Ìý It was a situation not unlike what we saw just a few years ago, with large sums of money chasing a great many willing borrowers.

The result, in Jesus’ day, was that many of the village farmers, making just enough to live on by working the land with their families, were easily led into debts which they were unable to repay. The pages of the Gospels offer fascinating glimpses into this world of the powerful rich and the financially-enslaved poor. Many of Jesus’ followers knew from first-hand experience exactly what debt was like. Jesus’ imagery and stories draw on these experiences to illustrate the character of God and the transformed social relationships of the Kingdom. Start looking for evidence of the central question of poverty and debt in the Gospels, and you can’t stop.Ìý It's everywhere! Think of the parables of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, or the Labourers in the Vineyard.

But nowhere is it more clearly expressed than in the famous words which introduce us to what Jesus' ministry is going to be about: 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.Ìý He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.'
These words, which Jesus speaks in Luke Chapter 4, quoting Isaiah 61, frame the picture of him in the Gospel.Ìý 'The acceptable year of the Lord' is a direct reference to the Year of Jubilee, a fascinating and ancient idea designed to protect the poor.Ìý Jubilee was a form of social experiment, all the more tantalising because we don’t have any historical records to tell us whether anyone was ever brave enough to try it – or, if they did, whether or not it worked. Every fifty years, all fields had to lie fallow, everyone would return to their ancestral homes, all debts would be cancelled, all slaves set free.Ìý In other words, every 50th year, anyone trapped, enslaved or oppressed by the inevitable way that money attracts money, land attracts land, power attracts power; all those enslaved by the structures that create poverty would be set free, and released. No one could accumulate money, land, property or power beyond the 50th year.Ìý Every 2nd generation, everyone went back to square one.

This was utopian, idealistic, probably never implemented and quite possibly unachievable.ÌýÌý They called it the year of Jubilee, the year of liberation, the year of freedom; and it was this year of the Lord’s favour that Jesus came to proclaim.

The implications of this are simple, yet profound.Ìý Jesus Christ was born into a world characterised in large measure by the experience of poverty and debt.Ìý His life and message was about releasing people from its grip into the fullness of life which God had promised.Ìý This is the gospel that Christians live and preach.

A previous Director of Christian Aid, Michael Taylor, once memorably called the Jubilee principle An Impossible Possibility.Ìý I don’t think that’s a bad description of the life of Jesus Christ, or indeed the type of life that Christians are called to lead – tracing out by imagination and courage the outline of a world where the impossible becomes an outrageous possibility. Churches like St Martin-in-the-Fields are at the forefront of this great tradition of Christian social transformation.Ìý Their annual appeal is Jubilee ministry, Christ-like ministry, and the Spirit of the Lord is upon it.

I chair the Church Credit Champions Network, a simple idea, offered on behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, aimed at energising church congregations to help them build the capacity of their local Credit Unions.Ìý It’s a grassroots, organic approach to supporting the community finance sector and promoting the common good.Ìý When I’m with the amazing people who pioneer this work I come alive, because it’s Jubilee ministry, Christ-like ministry, and the Spirit of the Lord is upon it.

Examples like these abound across the life of the church.Ìý As followers of Christ our calling is to liberation, freedom, the overturning of structures and circumstances that trap, enslave and oppress people.Ìý From bereavement to debt, from bad housing to loneliness, from unemployment to ill health, those structures and those circumstances are not just financial ones, but now, just as in Christ’s day, they will include money.Ìý Our calling, like that of Jesus, is to be good news to the poor.Ìý And because the scandal of extreme inequality touches every society and each generation, the church must indeed pay as much attention to cheque books as hymn books.

The Jesus we follow conflated the religious with the social with the economic with the political in one gorgeous and outrageous cocktail.Ìý He urged within his followers those things which might make the impossible a possibility.Ìý It’s a captivating vision, and the Spirit of the Lord is upon it.

Music: Ev’ry time I feel the Spirit (arranged Chilcott)

Sam Wells:
Bob Chilcott’s arrangement moves us to pray in the liberating power of the Spirit.
Ìý
Katherine Hedley:
Anointing God, you sent Jesus to bring good news to the oppressed; visit today all who live in fear of attack, in their own home, in the neighbourhood, in their place of work or in time of war; lift the burden from any who are beset by demons in their own mind, in the maze of memory or the anxiety of the unknown; and walk with those who live in constant pain or in the valley of the shadow of death. Show them your face in the compassion of your Son, and lift their suffering by the power of your Spirit. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

 
Transforming God, in your Son you proclaimed liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners; bless all who are enslaved by debt, fearing to open the post or answer the door, not daring to take advice or dreading every ring of the phone. In their isolation give them friends; in their despair bring them hope; and in their desolation open their eyes to where they may find redemption.Ìý Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

God of impossible possibilities, your Spirit binds up the broken-hearted. Abide with your children who dwell among the ashes of broken promises, poisoned relationships, or dashed expectations. Where our own lives are out of control, shrouded in secrets or denial, scared of discovery or of the truth, speak to us in your still small voice of calm, and show us where our true security lies. Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We say the Lord’s Prayer in its Presbyterian form

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory
forever and ever. Amen
Sam Wells:
The Streetwalker’s Carol from the Lantern Carols by Sharon Grenham Toze and Sasha Johnson Manning proclaims the Advent hope that every isolated person in despair will be swept up will be embraced by the arms of the one who came as a baby and will return as a king.

Music: The Streetwalker’s Carol (Sasha Johnson Manning)

Sam Wells:
Advent is not just about the hope of personal redemption; it’s about the final coming of heaven to earth, enjoyed by every corner of the compass. May the earth be filled with the glory of God. Hills of the north, rejoice.

Music: Hills of the north, rejoice (Little Cornard)

Blessing:
Christ the Sun of Righteousness shine upon you, scatter the darkness from before your path, and make you ready to meet him when he comes in glory; and the blessing of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be upon you this day and for evermore.Ìý Amen.

Organ Voluntary