A New Accounting Method

February 23, 2025

Rev. Mary Erickson

Hope Lutheran Church

Luke 6:27-38; Genesis 45:3-11, 15

A New Accounting Method

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

How did you learn to do basic arithmetic? The methodology has changed over time. Current students learn what’s been dubbed “new math.” They’re taught a different way of adding together a column of numbers than the way people of my generation did. This can be a problem for parents when their children need help with their math homework. The way the parent sets out to solve the equation doesn’t make any sense to their child. “That’s not how Mrs. Brown taught me, Dad.”

New math versus old math. The answer to both is the same, but how you get there is different.

But in our reading today from Luke, Jesus shares what can only be called a new accounting method. And this new methodology isn’t a new way to reach the same solution. It leads to radically different end results.

Our lives together are filled with various debits and credits. We all commit offenses and infractions. These items fill the debits column on our accounting sheet. This debits sheet will have various categories. There’ll be a section detailing our personal debits, the ways we have offended others, cheated them, been cruel and uncaring, etc. This category will have subheadings for each person we’re indebted to. It begins with God and then is followed by every person we’re indebted to.

Then there’ll be another section which categorizes the people who owe us. It contains a list of every person who has ever slighted or shown cruelty to us. It begins with our bossy siblings and schoolyard bullies and continues all the way to the person who cut us off in traffic yesterday.

Both lists are extensively long, the one for the people we owe and the people who owe us.

Besides infractions of behavior, these debit lists also include lending lists. Who has borrowed from me? How much did I lend them and have they paid me back?

Those things are debits, and they need to be resolved. Accounting yearns for equalization, zeroing out. Someone needs to pay up, to make up for the debt. Someone needs to credit these accounts in arrears. There are various ways this crediting can take place. Material and monetary debits are the easiest. They’re paid back, dollar for dollar, coat for coat, cup of sugar for cup of sugar.

But for behavioral infractions, here is where it gets interesting. One possibility is very basic: eye for eye, tooth for tooth. No less and no more than what was taken. Other areas aren’t so clear cut, but something needs to happen to make the situation whole for the person who was slighted. Maybe it’s payback; maybe it’s punishment. Maybe it’s an apology. Maybe it’s a lifetime of hatred and resentment.

These are heavy duty accounting ledgers. They carry with them tremendous debt burdens.

But in his sermon, Jesus completely scraps our traditional accounting methods and presents a radically different methodology for dealing with debts.

“If anyone strikes you on one cheek,” he says, “offer the other also.” No eye for eye here. Quite the opposite!

“Lend and expect nothing in return.” That doesn’t sound fiscally strong!

“Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you.” But what about my righteous anger, Jesus? Can’t I at least enjoy that?

Jesus does also address credit. He presents three hypothetical situations and plays “Where’s the Credit?”

- If you love only those who love you, he asks, how does that CREDIT you? Don’t even sinners love those who love them?

- And if you only do good to those who do good to you, how does that CREDIT you? Even sinners do the same.

- And if you only lend to those people from whom you hope to receive something in return, how does that CREDIT you? Even sinners lend to receive in return.

No, in Jesus’ accounting method, other things measure as credit. These are the assets in his ledger:

- Kindness. Jesus reminds us the Most High is kind to the likes of us, even though we are ungrateful and wicked.

- Mercy. Jesus calls us to be merciful, just as our heavenly Father is merciful.

- Forgiveness. Not judgment, not condemnation, not retribution, but forgiveness. In another passage Jesus calls us to forgive others not just once, not just three times, but seventy times seven. How’s that for accounting!

In our worldly way of accounting, these things don’t add up. But in Jesus’ new accounting, kindness, mercy and forgiveness reap a bountiful harvest. Blessings, he says, abound in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.