by Ken Sehested
In his first sermon, Jesus chose to read from Isaiah 61, an explicit references to the
covenant terms from Mt. Sinai regarding jubilee observance and its profound
project of social, political and economic restructuring.
{Written in 1998, prior to being a founding co-pastor of Circle of Mercy Congregation, Asheville, NC.)
I occasionally substitute for my wife, a pastor, when she’s out of town on Sunday. Several years ago her pulpit absence occurred when the lectionary text called for a sermon on the “jubilee” theme in Scripture. She had originally planned to address the celebrative aspect of jubilee, with a projected sermon title of “Jubilee Whoopee.”
Which was fine with me. But as I began preparations for my own sermon, I discovered that the word “whoopee” carries some unfortunate associations with promiscuous sex. So, to circumvent that potential confusion, I went looking for an alternative term, preferably one with similar exuberance. “Yahoo” soon came to mind.
Further study confirmed the choice. “Yahoo,” according to Webster’s dictionary, was the name given the race of brutish beings in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The term generally signifies “an uncouth or rowdy person.” Yahoos are lowlifes.
What’s more, “yahoo” appears as a dictionary entry just prior to “Yahweh,” the most common Hebrew name for God. What a fortuitous opportunity! “Yahoo”—denoting the uncouth, sometimes rowdy, generally uncultured—listed right next to “Yahweh,” the one whom Jesus named as Abba. Yahoo and Yahweh, what an unlikely sequence of words . . . yet what a perfect coincidence to highlight the biblical theme of jubilee!
Few in our congregations are familiar with the jubilee theme in Scripture. As a common English word, “jubilee” is generally associated with special anniversary celebrations or with the high emotional intensity of “jubilation.” The term’s historical background in Scripture—and its subversive implications for modern economic life—are unfamiliar even to most “Bible-believing” Christians. The practical function of the classic jubilee texts is similar to that of the Zacchaeus story in Luke’s Gospel: We teach our children the popular song about the “wee little man,” but the song fails to finish the story which outlines the content of Zacchaeus’ confession of faith in Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, let’s review the basics.
The fountainhead of the Bible’s teaching about jubilee is in Leviticus 25. The text represents God’s instructions, via Moses, concerning covenant strictures for the newly-freed Hebrew slaves upon entry to the “promised land” of liberty and freedom. Every seventh year was to be “a sabbath to the Lord” (v. 2). The initial character of this sabbath: the land was to rest—sowing and pruning were forbidden. Then, every “seven weeks of years” a grand sabbath was to be called. During this fiftieth year not only was there to be a halt to agricultural labor, but also: all lands revert to original owners, debts are canceled, slaves are freed, and the poor have equal rights to harvest at will (regardless of land ownership).
Other Hebrew Scripture traditions feeding into this jubilee vision include earlier sabbath observance teachings from the “Covenant Code” of Exodus (particularly chapters 21-23) and Deuteronomy (especially chapter 15); and from royal proclamations of “release” found in Jeremiah 34, and Ezekiel 46, all of which invoke commands to free slaves (or indentured servants), particularly when that condition is related to indebtedness. {1}
The jubilee theme is also heralded by the more well-known statement from Isaiah 61—and then quoted almost verbatim by Jesus (Luke 4:18-19) in his inaugural sermon at the temple in Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. . . “ (Isaiah 61:1-2a). The latter phrase from both Isaiah and Jesus are explicit references to the covenant terms from Mt. Sinai regarding jubilee observance. {2}
The agenda of this mandate involves a radical reordering of social life, utilizing structural antidotes to the extremes of both wealth and poverty. Taken together, the jubilee instructions embodied in carefully worded Levitical legislation represent a profound renewal and revitalizing of life: of the land itself, of material relations within the human community, and of the community’s relationship with God.
Why isn’t this material taught in our congregations?
You would think that any biblical theme prominent enough to stretch across this much history—from early covenant history between Yahweh and the people of Israel, to the later prophetic outbursts critiquing Israel’s apostasy, all the way to Jesus’ own self-defining statement of mission—would merit consistent and thorough attention in the preaching and teaching ministries of the church. But it’s not. A number of plausible explanations come to mind.
First, the fact that the core jubilee teachings are found in Leviticus explains a lot. Leviticus contains the core “Holiness Code” regulations of ritual purity, a collection of minute and detailed rules and regulations, the “jots and tittles” of the Mosaic law. Their reading often sounds as obscure, puzzling and plain nonsensical as a book of Internal Revenue Service tax regulations. Theologically, the church has generally viewed this material as rendered obsolete, eclipsed by New Testament norms. {3}
Second, the jubilee instructions fly in the face of modern economic theory and practice of free-market capitalism. Forgiving debt and returning land to original owners would undermine our economy, contradict our fundamental notions of the right to private property {4}, remove the economic incentive to hard work {5}, disrupt food security {6}, threaten basic liberties {7}, even compromise our national defense {8}. Surely we need not adhere to biblical teachings which call into question such cherished ways of life?!
There is a third reason why our congregations are so unfamiliar with Scripture’s jubilee theme. But before turning to that, let’s examine some additional biblical material.
God’s bias toward the poor
Shalom is the Hebrew word we usually translate as “peace.” But the notion is much bigger than its English rendering. In common English usage, “peace” means the avoidance or absence of conflict. It indicates the lack of something: war or lesser forms of overt violence.
In Scripture, on the other hand, shalom indicates the active presence of multiple dynamics: well-being, harmony, honest relations, forgiveness. It is a relational concept indicating health and balance.
The foundation of peace, biblically speaking, is justice—the quality of right-relatedness that used to govern (at creation) and will someday reign again (in the promised “new heaven and new earth”). Currently, the “principalities and powers” are aligned against God’s shalom as indicated by the pervasive presence of injustice and oppression which eventually erupts as open violence. This pattern of broken relations seems to saturate every area of life: within families and communities, between different racial/ethnic groups and social classes and nation-states, within the pollution-choked created order. Not to mention with God.
•”Sow for yourselves righteousness [justice], reap the fruit of steadfast love [shalom],” says Hosea 10:12.
•”And the effects of righteousness [justice] will be peace, and the result of righteousness [justice], quietness and security [qualities of right-relatedness] for ever,” says Isaiah 32:17.
Justice is basic to the One depicted in Scripture as creator, redeemer and sustainer. Not as an “extra” item on the agenda, but as basic to divine nature. Not tit-for-tat justice; and certainly not the vengeance-based norms of justice which increasingly govern our criminal justice system {9}. The distinctiveness of God’s justice is the fact that it is based on need rather than merit. God’s vision—and the church’s, whenever we are faithful—is that of a redeemed, restored, renewed creation. In order to get from here to there, special attention must be given to those who have been left out of the earth’s bounty, who have been excluded from community—those for whom the world’s social, economic and political systems and institutions have no use.
As Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says so succinctly, justice means sorting out what belongs to whom and giving it back.
Jesus blessed the “poor" {10}, in his sermon on the mount, saying “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Similarly blessed are the “meek,” who are destined to inherit the earth. Few themes are as consistently emphasized throughout Scripture as God’s special concern for the poor {11}. God has a distinct bias toward the poor—in the same way as Jesus portrays the shepherd as being biased toward the one sheep gone astray (Matthew 18:12-14). The many are abandoned in favor of the one at risk.
A frequent note of the Psalmist is the mobilizing effect which the cries of the poor have on God: “‘Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will now arise,’ says the Lord; I will place them in the safety for which they long” (12:5). The initial naming of God in Scripture occurs in the context of God’s mobilizing in response to the cries of the poor (Exodus 3) {12}. The only time Jesus speaks explicitly about the entrance requirements for heaven, the list involves no doctrinal questions, no measurement of religious fervor, not a word about personal morality. All the criteria involve our response to the marginalized, the neglected, the forgotten, the traumatized (cf. Matthew 25). In fact, oppression—the act of hoarding life’s resources (whether personal or corporate, actively or passively) in the face of want is an indication of atheism (cf. Psalms 10:11), of idolatry (cf. Matthew 6:24), of attempts to deceive the Almighty (cf. 1 John 4:20). Knowledge of God and advocacy for the poor are virtually synonymous (Jeremiah 22:16). It is a theological issue, not simply a social concern.
God is especially concerned over the welfare of lowlifes, yahoos. And any faithful reflection of that priority will be marked by those who (in the descriptive phrase originating in the Latin American church) exhibit a preferential option for the poor.
All well and good, you say. We believe in charity, and we’re liberal-leaning Democrats (or at least moderate Republicans) in social politics.
But there’s the rub. Our social commitments are shaped more by a combination of class interests and political ideology and are only tangentially connected to our faith, to our Bible reading, to our Christ-confessing. Many in the church are “reading” current realities through the social sciences (plus a few proof texts from the Bible); and some have become actively engaged, on genuine humanitarian grounds. But few are engaged in contemplating and responding to the pain of the world as a spiritual discipline—seeing the violence, injustice and oppression ravaging our personal and corporate lives as within the scope of spiritual discernment.
Spiritual formation and prophetic action
Which brings me to the third and final response as to why the jubilee theme is so unfamiliar in our congregations. Whether “liberal” or “conservative”—as an organizer I find surprisingly little difference between them in this regard—our people generally fail to see what salvation (the big issue for believers) has to do with demanding justice and making peace. And thus our evangelism, where it’s carried on at all, is confused with religious marketing.
Some years ago a friend contacted me and asked me to speak at a Baptist conference on peacemaking. In her letter, she said: “I want you to speak on ‘Why should we work for peace when folk just need to get saved?’” At first—realizing my friend has a great sense of humor—I thought it was a joke. Then I realized what a genius she was! Whether framed this straightforwardly or not, this is the core question with which the majority of our people are wrestling.
In short, our congregations are marked by a warped spirituality. We have been formed spiritually in ways that bracket the realities of violence and poverty and oppression, ignoring them (at worst) or confining them (at best) to the margins of our attention. We have segregated “spiritual” matters from “physical” or “material” ones, emptying our preaching and teaching of its ability both top bless and to condemn. The “salvation” we offer is more like cotton candy—mostly air and empty of calories. Reigning notions of spiritual reality are vacuous, a judgment reflected in the Mother’s Day “Family Circus” cartoon of several years ago, where the young boy turns to his sister and says, “I’m going to give Mom a spiritual bouquet and save my money for a catcher’s mitt.” Or they have been utterly co-opted, as in the full-page newspaper ad headlined: “For a spiritual uplift on low monthly terms, contact your local BMW dealer.”
Preaching and teaching more “social concerns” sermons and lessons won’t change this. We need to start at a more fundamental level, teaching our members how to read the Bible through the eyes of those who suffer—study done in conjunction with active mission involvements which bring our people into sustained contact with actual suffering people.
We need to learn again how to pray, somehow in proximity with those now crushed but who recognize genuine good news in our Lord’s prayer: Thy kingdom come, on earth, as in heaven. And our worship needs reviving, in ways that put us in touch with the experience of (in the words of that old hymn) leaning on the everlasting arms. Not as escapist piety, but in the power of Spirit, facing the forces of animosity, hatred and destruction, as did those who gathered the evening of December 5, 1955, for the mass meeting in Montgomery, Alabama, at the end of the first day of that historic bus boycott. “What a Fellowship” was their opening hymn, and they sang about “leaning on Jesus” because they knew that the angry crowd forming outside and threatening to mob the sanctuary would not be restrained by the police.
Bible study, prayer and worship {13} in this mode—at some point, to some degree, in some fashion—will get the church into trouble with “the world.” Ironically, though, being in trouble is the ideal environment for studying the Bible, prayer and worship.
Justice is at the heart of the jubilee agenda, an agenda enveloped in a spiritual vision. Practicing jubilee does not entail a mimicking of Levitical social, political and economic policies. Scholars themselves acknowledge that the details of jubilee legislation shifted and changed as circumstances were altered. Rather, jubilee must be enacted with creativity and imagination, as well as courage. In the end, though, it is not our courage, our will-power, that saves us. This is the message of sabbath-keeping: that hard work is not self-generated but is nourished in rest, in confidence that there is a buoyancy in the universe which we can trust, a power to which we can connect but do not sustain or manage.
This confidence, this hope, is the ace up every believer’s sleeve. Ironically, its powers are not available to those who seek to secure their own safety and security and sufficiency. Only by relinquishing such claims, only by “losing” our lives—for Jesus’ sake, which means for the sake of his “little ones”—do we find true life. Only then are we in a position to inherit the earth.
The meek, as they say, are getting ready. Blessed are you yahoos—along with all who recognize God’s jubilee intentions and step forward to affirm the acceptable year of the Lord.
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Sonnet for Ascension Day”
by race where victims are always culpable for their own demise. Black tears are of no consequence because they come from bodies deemed defective by the myths of racialized thinking. Until all hearts begin to break and mothers of privilege join the funeral procession only then will sorrow cease to be our song.” — Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III
into house arrest. Years earlier, perhaps with a sense of foreboding, she had composed her famous song of farewell, “Aloha ‘Oe.” (see below) Thanks to Pam McAlister, “
includes a fascinating map of such produced by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
the internet
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shame into praise.
have always made America great. (Thanks Charlie.) 
United States actually has decreased over the past decade. In 2007, there were 12.2 million immigrants here without legal status. By 2016, that had fallen to 10.7 million, a decline of about 14 percent . Of those 10.7 million, two-thirds of the adults have lived here more than 10 years, meaning they aren’t new arrivals but long-term residents. As is often the case, public fears and political propaganda don’t square with the facts. Undocumented immigrants make up about 3 percent of the U.S. population.” —
¶ Good news. Much of the area along the Jordan River where Christians believe Jesus Christ was baptized in the Jordan River is fenced off because of thousands of unexploded mines. But “the HALO Trust, the world's largest humanitarian landmine removal organization, has now received permission to begin removal of the mines.” (See photo at right by Oren Liebermann/CNN) —
southern border.” But then, Fox News correspondent Chris Wallace openly challenged Trump’s chief fact-bender, saying “The state department says there hasn’t been any terrorists found coming across the southern border from Mexico.” —see 
National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, where on any given day you can observe some 60 species of butterflies, the most diverse in the country.
¶ Lectionary for Sunday next. “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate.” —Isaiah 62:4
Other features
“‘Providence has ordained the most perfect consummation for human life by giving it to Augustus, by filling him with virtue for doing the work of a benefactor among men, and by sending in him a savior for us all, to make war to cease, to create order everywhere. The birthday of the god [Augustus] was the beginning for the world of the glad tidings that have come through him.’” —kls
white men—both historic lows. And about 100 countries around the world have higher percentages of females in their national legislatures.
in which we failed to fall apart, perhaps we can glean a small harvest of hope for the year ahead.” —
epiphanies must be appropriated and domesticated for partisan use if order and stability is to be maintained.” —continue reading “
sorrow that we have ceased to believe they exist. But we have within us the consecrating capacity to rise above those moments and behold the bigger picture in all of its complexity, complementarity, and temporal sweep, and to find in what we see not illusory consolation but the truest comfort there is: that of perspective.” —Maria Popova, “
¶ Recessional. “
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reluctance to speak in first-person pronouns. You can’t get a more dramatic contrast between this feature of public humility and that of the first-person obsessiveness of the present West Wing occupant, for whom everything is first filtered through his relentless ego and self-preserving interests. He is a man incapable of shame and, in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah, does “not know how to blush” (6:15).
campaign likely represents the apex, for generations to come, of “kinder, gentler” conservatism. His “thousand points of light” campaign to celebrate small benevolent achievements deserves high regard more than cynical lampooning.
Defense Caspar Weinberger, for illegally selling arms to Iran (then as now a ranking national enemy) in order to fund a congressionally forbidden “Contra” war against the democratically elected Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The pardons likely prevented discovery of Bush’s own knowledge of, and/or participation in, the scandal.
neither surprised nor concerned. The root of "creed"—credo—means "I give my heart to." The only thing to which Trump gives his heart is mercantile exchange. Besides this, though, I also believe that many of the church's troubles began when we first started asking state operatives to say the creed, any creed, alongside us in our sanctuaries.
too forgotten for God to remember us with new life.
¶ “A group of young people (left) can sue the federal government over its climate change policies, the Supreme Court said Friday. Since it was first filed in 2015, the government has requested several times that Juliana v. United States be dismissed.” The climate change lawsuit inspired this rally in Seattle, along with ones in Portland and Eugene, Ore. (photo by Elaine Thompson / AP) —Jacob Pinter, 
insist on a more assertive, individuated figure to front the Christmas story? “I, for one, think not.” —continue reading “
ge Glee Club, “
not a mere backdrop.” —Pádraig Ó Tuama, “
advertisements encouraging people to buy more junk they don't need. Subverting commercialism for a remembrance of the story of poor immigrants being guided to a safe sanctuary in the midst of dodging a government out to harass and kill them. Happy Subversive Holy Days, all you subverts!” —Dan Trabue
commitment to truth telling. The habit of severing personal kindness from public justice is a delusion.
will apply for food stamps.” —continue reading “
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