The word of Yahweh was addressed to me as follows, "Son of man, are you ready to judge? Are you ready to judge the blood-stained city? Confront her with all her loathsome practices! In you people take bribes for shedding blood; you lend for profit and charge interest, you profit from your fellow by extortion and have forgotten about me - declares the Lord Yahweh. Now I shall clap my hands at your acts of banditry and the blood that flows in you. In you, the princes are like a roaring lion tearing the prey. They have eaten the people, seized wealth and jewels and widowed many inside of her; shedding blood and killing people to steal their possessions. The people of the country have taken to extortion and banditry; they have oppressed the poor and needy and ill-treated the settler in a way that is unjustifiable. Hence I have vented my fury on them; I have put an end to them in the fire of my rage. I have made their conduct recoil on their own heads - declares the Lord Yahweh."  (Ezekiel 22:1-2,12-13,25,27b,29,31, NJB)

I am sure by now that anyone living in the Western world knows about the mess in the US economy which exists from the so-called sub-prime mortgage crisis. The housing market has crashed. Large investment banks have been writing off billions of dollars in losses due to worthless debt instruments they hold. Foreclosures have skyrocketed. The Federal Reserve Bank has been lowering interest rates, despite rising commodity prices, in order to ensure liquidity in the financial markets and allow those holding adjustable mortgages to preserve a lower rate of interest when their anniversary date comes due. Congress has passed legislation to supposedly freeze the rates on some of these consumer loans, despite this being a violation of the free market system we operate under. Day after day the pundits seem to revise their predictions of when and how this will all end. It seems the cockroaches have not all come out of the cupboards yet.

How did we get into this mess? One word - greed. Who has been greedy? The large investment bankers? Yes. Mortgage companies? Yes. Homebuilders? Yes. Average everyday American consumers? Yes. The last entry will rankle some folks. Surely this is a problem created on Wall Street by millionaire bigshots with no conscience, right? Yes and no. While it is true that the degree of risk ignorance and the creativeness with which this latest in a long list of financial fiascoes was conjured up may be in some ways unprecedented, it is really no different than any other of the manias which have gripped societies going all the way back to 1929 or the Tulip Craze in Holland in 1637. Everyone was happy. The bankers got big salaries and bonuses. The banks raked in profits. The mortgage companies were rolling in cash. The homebuilders were never busier. And fat-cat consumers got all they wanted. Big houses at low interest rates, and since we all know that real estate values never decline, why worry? I can either sell to the next guy or refinance if need be. Except...what if real estate values don't really go up forever ad infinitum; what if some folks can't really afford the mortgage plus mortgages insurance plus two car payments they took out; what if folks start canceling orders for new houses; what if the delinquency rate on our loan portfolio goes up much higher than we planned for? Oops.

We now live in an immediate gratification society. Does anyone out there remember Christmas clubs and lay-away plans? Gone with the wind. Plastic has replaced all that. Buy now, pay later has replaced E pluribus unum as the national motto. "Refinance and cash out" became a way of life. We want it all, right now, not next year.

Read again above the word of the Lord which he spoke through his prophet Ezekiel. The setting has changed. It is not 586 BC Jerusalem but 2008 America. But the behaviors which offended God are the same: extortion, dishonesty, usury, oppression, the destroying of lives. God said back then that he would not stand for it. Jerusalem fell and the people were taken into exile. Most likely the greed today will not be met with physical exile but rather a financial exile, one out of which many will not recover for years and years. And in our consumerist society, the loss of your credit rating is as much an exile as being taken bodily to Babylon. Their conduct is surely recoiling on their own heads.

Lord God, mercy! We read that there is nothing really new under the sun, yet time and time again we forget it. We forget that the ends do not justify the means. We have been greedy, going along with the way of the world instead of denying ourselves as your Son Jesus did. Put the words of your prophet John on our lips, "Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" We need your grace, your guidance, and your forgiveness to do this. We cannot do it alone. Have mercy upon us. Amen.

Contributed by Diane
Sunday January 20, 2008
Liturgical Year A Week 8
Sunday Gospel reading:
Second Sunday after the Epiphany