“Breaking Vicious Cycles”

Leviticus 25:8-24; Isaiah 61:1-4; Luke 4:16-30

I had a very disturbing argument with a woman a little while back. We were talking about how much sports stars were getting, and I noted that it is not only sports stars that get more than they need, but CEOs who, in this country, average four hundred times as much as those who “work the lines.” “It is sinful,” I noted. She was aghast. Apparently, it is alright to talk about sports figures getting too much, but not those who keep the engines of the economy going. In her mind, they get what they deserve and, if those who work the lines don’t feel that they are getting enough, they can change jobs or work themselves up the corporate ladder. Of course, she was wealthy.

Long ago, Moses set a new standard for Biblical ethics, when he announced the Jubilee. Every fifty years, those who had bought land had to give back to those to whom God had given it, when he divided it among the tribes of Israel. The land was their inalienable right, a gift of God that could not be removed from them. It had to be given back because, in the end, it did not belong to them, but to God, and God had decided that this was the best way to ensure that everyone had enough, and no one had too much.

The year of Jubilee officially began when the yabal sounded. All property was to be returned. All debts were to be cancelled. All slaves were to be set free. At the center of biblical faith was this Great Jubilee – a countering of our acquisitive nature, a brake on our covetousness, an act of community sanity that restored to everyone what God had said was properly a gift for each, which restored community, and gave everyone a stake in the economy. It affirmed for them that the heart of life has not to do with accumulation but with sharing.

That seems apropos to our day, as we battle a recession, and hear about the greed, rampant in the marketplace, that has done so much damage to our society. In point of fact, the Scriptures talk more about money and economic justice than they do about salvation. And at the center of its teaching is not the tithe, but Jubilee.

When Moses set up a new economic and political system for the people of Israel, he remembered how it was in Egypt, with the rich enslaving the poor. He saw how this was true in the other nations as well – it was the same story everywhere. The acquisitiveness of a few led to the concentration of wealth and power, and societies composed of haves and have-nots. In such a situation, true community is impossible. So he announced that, every fifty years, everything had to go back – back to God, back to his promise - the land and its gifts would be for all of his people. It was the most outrageous and also the most important requirement of the faith. It was so important that he also established lesser Jubilees to remind the people, of which the Sabbath – resting on the seventh day – was the most important. The Sabbath was to be for them a prefiguring of the Great Jubilee, a “foretaste of the feast to come,” a sign of God’s continuing intention to care for his creation, not just for the fiftieth year, but always.

Along with his institutionalization of Jubilee came these words:

“Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, the year of release is near and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing … do not consider it a hardship.” (Deut. 15:9, 18)

The Jubilee was not simply to be an economic requirement, but a requirement of the heart.

It was this Jubilee that Jesus proclaimed as the very heart of his Gospel in his inaugural sermon: “He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives … to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then Jesus added, “Today this saying has been fulfilled even as you are listening.” Jesus not only announced that it was time for the Great Jubilee. He announced that he WAS the Jubilee. Then he set about healing the blind, the deaf, and the lame, he set people free from their acquisitiveness, and proclaimed good news to the poor – everyone had a place in the community again.

People did not take well to Jesus’ message. His own townspeople tried to stone him. They didn’t want him to spoil “business as usual,” because everyone had a bit of what belonged to someone else. We all do. Those who run the engines of the economy would do the same today. Mention “economic equality” and people start screaming “socialist” or “communist.” The bad news is that many people today would try to stone Jesus, too.

The purpose of a vision, is so that we can measure ourselves against it. The purpose of a vision is not to set a particular policy, but to set a direction. The only way we can live by such a great vision as the Jubilee, is if we are prepared to see the world with larger eyes –through God’s perspective: If we see that those who die with the most do not win, but rather that they destroy community. If we see that our faith is not about angels floating around in heaven, waiting for us to join them, but about God becoming Emmanuel, the God who is with us here on earth as well, who cares about our life, both now and in the future, who is on the side of both the rich and the poor, and whose desire is to create communities of justice and mercy. The vision of Jesus is that of creating the rule of God on earth, as it is in heaven: a vision of the peaceable kingdom, where no one is at risk, and where all have enough. To have that kind of community, you cannot have those who have too much while others have too little. You cannot have some who are excessively privileged, while others suffer. Inequities must be balanced by neighborliness and concern for the least.

This vision isn’t a matter of Democrat verses Republican, conservative verses liberal, or Capitalist verses Socialist. It’s about doing what God has called us to do, and being the kind of people God has called us to be. What is at stake is the Gospel, the message that God has freed us from death, as well as those ways that lead us toward death, so that we can experience the abundance of life God means for all of his children to have. It is the message that, in Christ, God has declared the year of Jubilee; he has cancelled our debt, so we need to finish the job by cancelling one another’s debts. It is the message that God has acted gracefully and mercifully toward us, so that we may act gracefully and mercifully toward one another. The Gospel is the message that he has made of us a new community, the body of Christ, where Jubilee is both proclaimed and lived.

What will you do in response to this call to Jubilee? Will you forgive others as you have been forgiven? What debt – of the pocketbook or of the heart – will you cancel? Will you accept God’s offer of grace and mercy – and grant that same gift to another? Will you work, not just for money, but to build community, a place where all experience the blessings of God’s Jubilee? May you experience the blessings of God’s Jubilee; and may the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, keep your heart and mind in Christ Jesus our Lord.