Red on My Ledger

 Red on My Ledger

By Bobby Neal Winters

When my wife and I were married, it was in a Presbyterian Church.  The minister, knowing our plans to become Methodists when we joined a church together after our marriage, noted a difference between the way the Methodists and Presbyterians say the Lord’s Prayer.  

“The property-minded English Methodist pray for their trespasses to be forgiven, but a good Scottish Presbyterian would rather be forgiven his debts than his trespasses any day.”

Our sin is viewed as a debt, but as a debt owed to whom? 

Natasha Romanoff, aka “The Black Widow”, from the Marvel Avenger movies uses the phrase “red on my ledger” in referring to her past misdeeds.  She uses it to answer the question of why she is taking part in the Avengers’ activities.

A ledger is a place where we keep account of our business transactions.  Traditionally, profit is entered in black, but debts are entered in red.  For her the red takes on a second meaning as it is the color of blood, and she has had a very bloody past.  She has a deep sense--using a word the Avengers would never use--that she has sinned. 

But to whom is the debt owed?  Who can she repay?  The people she has sinned against are dead. 

By being part of the Avengers, being one of the good guys, she is trying to get that red off her ledger.  She is trying to atone. Her character progresses, but the red--in her heart at least--remains on her ledger.  She does not feel forgiven.  Whatever she’s done, it doesn’t feel like enough.

Blood is a part of our Christian tradition.

The first sacrifices mentioned in the Bible were those of Cain and Abel.  Abel’s was accepted but Cain’s was not, so Cain--in a fit of jealousy--killed Abel.

One question that always comes up is why didn’t God accept Cain’s offering?  This has been debated for literally thousands of years, but one answer is that Cain’s offering didn’t require the shedding of blood, it wasn’t a true sacrifice. 

It is more than somewhat perverse that while Cain did not shed the blood of an animal, in killing Abel out of jealousy, blood was shed, and Abel becomes Cain’s blood sacrifice as it were.  Because of this, in ancient Christian tradition, Abel is a type of Christ.  Christ’s blood wipes out all of our ledgers.

In Avengers: Endgame, Natasha sacrificed herself in place of her friend Clint Barton in order that they secure the “Soul Stone,” a McGuffin needed by their fellow Avengers. Ultimately none of her other actions--again, in her heart at least--were able to remove the red from her ledger. 

To put it in Christian language, the “red on her ledger” was a Cross to her.  Christ invited us to take up our crosses and follow him. When you take up your Cross,  you are giving your life.  For the overwhelming vast majority of us, we give our lives minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day over the course of our normal three-score and ten in service to our family, our loved-ones, and our neighbors.  A few are called to larger sacrifices, to martyrdom.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like'' the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube. )