Year of the Lord’s Favor

Buddy Summers

1/8/2006

Homeboy Jesus goes into his mother’s synagogue. He stands up to read. A scroll is handed to him. It’s a brief passage--- two verses in Isaiah. [Isaiah 61:1-2]. It concludes this way, “I have been appointed by God’s Spirit to proclaim ‘the year of the Lord’s favor’.” Sweet Jubilee, so beautiful. Perhaps, when the Messiah comes.

Returning to his seat, Jesus meets their approving faces and declares, “Today, this passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” Dead silence. Long pause. Then as one they rise up like a tidal wave. Enraged, according to Luke, they pursue Jesus to the edge of a cliff---Kamehameha style. A narrow escape. What was that all about?

This morning I will show you the relevance of “jubilee---year of the Lord’s favor.” I want to engage your eagerness to explore not only “the Biblical jubilee” but its applicability to important challenges this year. God willing, I will leave you breathless with anticipation about the remaining weeks in this two month sermon series.

The Jubilee Dream

Jubilee is an idea and a dream. It is also a faith based pragmatic program for social, economic, and spiritual renewal. Still interested?

The idea of the Jubilee Year arose among Jewish leaders as they returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon in the sixth century B.C.E.

You remember Babylon of course---the place where they had hung up their harps and wept---“how [can] we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land.” [Psalm 137:4] They had been forcibly removed from Jerusalem. The Holy Temple, God’s house, had been destroyed. At first, lament and stubborn memory held the exiles together as community. “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither.” [Psalm 137:5]

In due course, an understanding arose among the ex-pats that somehow this was all God’s doing---the destruction of the Temple, the Exile, everything. They had been warned that something like this would happen for at least the last two centuries. The prophet Amos had said---

For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment; because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals—they trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way. [Amos 2:6-7]

God’s patience it turned out was not infinite. God had finally acted. They would remain in Exile until such time as God saw fit to do a new thing.

The good news was that, even though the Temple was gone and their exile was part of God’s discipline plan, with God they were apparently still on speaking terms. The prophet Jeremiah conveyed to them an astonishing Word---

“To all…whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses…plant gardens…take wives… have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons, give your daughters in marriage, multiply there, do not decrease.  Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you…pray [on behalf of the city], in its welfare you will find your [own] welfare.”  [Jeremiah 29:5-7]

The Babylonian Exile was more than bearable. Many prospered. So much so, in fact, that when Babylon was liberated (and when the Persian commander decreed that all foreigners sequestered there were free to go home), some didn’t.

Those that did return to Jerusalem, however, had a huge job ahead of them. The city walls were in ruin. The Temple was destroyed. As important as it was to rebuild the infrastructure, however, some felt keenly the need to find ways to avoid some of the disastrous failures of the past. This led, in part, to the proliferation of little rules to help avoid creating offense to God.

One socio-religious experiment was an unmitigated disaster even though Ezra 10 doesn’t present it that way. Every returnee married to a non-Israelite was required as a sign of rededication to God to abandon his wife and children. I’ve heard this passage expounded upon without being disavowed as the Word of God. I don’t see how it can be seen as anything but a reprehensible act of ethnic cleansing.

Before we get too bent out of shape however, we need to ask ourselves how much different that is from allowing an underground garment industry that pays below minimum wages (as if the minimum would help) while denying school and health care to children whose parents are working (regardless of immigration status), or deciding that being born in the US is no longer a sufficient reason to be regarded as a citizen.

It was in this context, however---looking for ways to avoid the failures of the past, especially the failure to care for the most vulnerable among them---that the Jubilee dream arose. The concept grew as an extension of the Sabbath which was based upon God’s having rescued the Hebrews from non stop production lines in Pharaoh’s Egypt.

The Jubilee program is incredibly simple and comprehensive. After seven years time seven, every fiftieth year, in gratitude for liberation from Egypt, Israel would proclaim release to captives and debtors. All indebtedness was to be erased. Anyone who had been sold or taken into involuntary servitude for reason of indebtedness of any kind was to be released.

Further, since the earth was the Lord’s and could be neither permanently possessed nor permanently lost by anyone, in the Jubilee Year, all land would be returned to the original family grant holders. This was based on the idea that when Israel had entered the Promised Land, every family received land according to their tribal affiliation. It must be admitted that the idea of land trusteeship as opposed to land ownership was always (and remains today) somewhat counter-cultural.

Unavoidable differences over time in the accumulation and loss of wealth arise from causes as diverse as weather patterns and the distribution of chromosomes. The corrosive effects of this fact upon community could be mitigated however. Jubilee was a practical vision. By starting over every fifty years, it limited the duration and extent of the negative social effects caused by the inevitable migration of wealth.

The Jubilee Dream which arose during this post exile period was written back into the emerging texts of Torah (explicitly in Leviticus 25). So far as we know, however, it was never actually put into practice.

Jesus’ Declaration

So when five hundred years later Jesus proclaimed as present reality what had for so long been regarded as a sweet dream, his status changed in a heartbeat from “isn’t he cute” to “damned dangerous fool.” By advocating land reform and debt forgiveness (in short, an upheaval of the economic and political world), he became a threat to himself, his family and village. Jesus, what if someone took him seriously?

John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus if “he was really the one.” Jesus said “tell John what’s happening.”

The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. [Matt 11:4-5]

These are signs of the Kingdom of God, signs of the Jubilee. According to Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus’ proclamation of the Jubilee Year is the dynamic (perhaps I should say the “dynamite”) content of his proclamation of the Kingdom of God. When Jesus taught us to pray saying, “give us our daily bread…forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”, he was inviting us to live out the Jubilee Dream.

Alongside the “already” of the Kingdom of God, there is the “not yet.” There are many ways in which life as experienced by rich and poor alike is anything but an experience of God’s kingdom and ways on earth. Do you know what I mean?

In other words, the “not yet” of the Kingdom looms large. Jesus’ message was and is---Repent (turn around, change course) the Kingdom is near, this is the acceptable year of the Lord.

So Where Does The Rubber Hit The Road?

In our Vision Statement we say,

We enjoy wrestling with the challenging social and intellectual issues posed by Christianity.

That not really true for me, all the time. Here’s an example: There was a meeting in the church this week. A City Counsel Person was in attendance as was about fifty citizens including some of our members. A sign in the choir loft read something like, “Tax Relief Now. Show Them How Angry We Are.”

Property Tax bills will rise precipitously this year, again. This is due to the steep increase in the cost of housing on Oahu. A sharp increase is difficult for everyone to fit into their budget, most difficult for persons on fixed incomes.

Some people even say they cannot pay dramatically increased property taxes. I think that this means that they will not be able to pay an increased tax bill without getting a loan, a negative mortgage, or something drastic like that which would reduce the value of their estate.

Those speaking to the concerns included at least two CCU folks and the Council Person. There is a petition asking that City and County to operate in 2006 within the same income and expense parameters as 2005. (Forgive me if I don’t have that exactly right.)

Before the meeting is over, the 50 or so citizens pledge to go out and collect at least 5,000 more signatures. Some say, “Let’s get 50,000 signatures.” Everyone agrees: something must be done.

I had already signed the petition, last Sunday. It was an act of personal loyalty to Bob. Now that I’ve started reflecting upon it in the light of concerns of The Biblical Jubilee, however, I’m not sure exactly what would constitute a just outcome in this serious problem which has got the attention of so many of us.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this man. In support of his well-being, I would throw myself in front of a truck, even if he were driving it. Or, for any of you, for that matter, I hope.

I don’t’ think it will come to that, but as I’ve been preparing this sermon series on the Jubilee and a biblical approach to economics in community, I couldn’t help but wonder how the Jubilee Vision informs us here and whether or not Jesus’ message “Repent, the kingdom is near” applies. I think it must.

For example. There must be a way to address the issue not only of funding the City and County budget but of addressing the content of the budget itself so that it truly takes into account the needs of the homeless and most vulnerable in our community.

And is it truly conducive to community building to protect the wealth of some of us if it comes at the expense of providing for the basic needs and welfare of others?

Is there anything to learn from the eight century B.C.E. prophet Amos who denounced Israel’s neglect of the poor or sixth century Israel’s dreams to mitigate the community destroying effect of the concentration of wealth?

I get it why Jesus was run out of town on a rail. There are not only lots of answers, but there are probably important questions which are not even being asked yet.

I don’t know the answers or even the best questions. I do believe we are called to work for the common good. I do believe that values represented by the Jubilee Dream speak directly to the most important of our concerns.

CONCLUSION

In both Jesus’ day and our own, the Jubilee Dream remains both energizing and unrealized.

For the next two months, we will move through Old and New Testament passages asking, “What about that Year of Your Favor, O God, applies to us? How can we, as followers of Jesus, be good news to the poor, sight to the blind, and release to the captives?” (Luke 4:16-21)

All I can say for sure is that the next two months of sermons and study of the Biblical Jubilee and its application to our lives promise to be very interesting.

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