Jubilee

Leviticus 25:1-25

July 15, 2007

Rochelle A. Stackhouse

Sabbath: a time of rest, a time away from work of all kinds, a time to meditate on the wonders of God and the love of family and friends. Sounds a bit like the ideal summer vacation, doesn’t it? Go away someplace where you don’t have to worry about whatever your work is, where there is no phone or computer, where you don’t have to cook or clean up, where there is space for quiet and contemplation. Aaaahhh; I can see all your shoulders relax even thinking about it.

We know, even if we don’t always make the time in our lives we should, that Sabbath is a good idea, whether one day a week or a week or two in the summer away. We know our bodies, minds and spirits need a time away from physical, mental or spiritual stress. We know God meant Sabbath for a gift for each human being, even if we do not claim that gift often enough. And remember our word “sabbatical” comes from Sabbath.

But have you thought lately, or ever, that this gift of Sabbath was also meant to extend beyond ourselves and to our land and our relationship to it and to the others who share this earth with us? That is what these forgotten and seemingly obscure verses in Leviticus are talking about. It begins simply enough, with the very excellent advice to farmers to let fields lie fallow once every seven years. Of course with our chemical fertilizers, our large corporate farms now ignore this good advice, and I fear we pay the environmental damage consequences of our greed. But anyone who has ever lived on a farm or knows much about farming can affirm the wisdom of this command.

Then, however, things get a bit more complicated. God calls the people to a larger Sabbath. Every fiftieth year God calls for the usual rest for the land, but then takes this all considerably further. God calls a sabbatical from ownership of the land. This isn’t just agricultural policy, it’s economic policy. On this year leases of land will end and everyone will go home. If you read on in Leviticus, it is also a year when debts are completely forgiven, when those who are indentured servants are set free, when the poor can reclaim property lost to debtors. It is a year, as verse 10 reads, when “you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land.” Words, by the way, that appear on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, one of the central historical icons of our nation.

This is radical stuff! I always think it is interesting that some folk love to quote all the commandments in Leviticus about sex, but they run far away from the concept of Jubilee! Can you imagine this, every 50 years forgiving all debt, returning property to its original owners, setting those in prison free? It’s so radical, in fact, that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that this commandment was ever followed by the nation of Israel, or by anyone else for that matter. Verse 23 is really the kicker here. God says, “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.”

The land, God says, is mine. You are aliens and tenants. Yet Israel, and all other nations and peoples, have ever drawn boundaries and put up fences and walls to clearly say to one another: “this land is your land and this land is my land. I own this land. Our nation owns this land.” It is beyond our comprehension to imagine any other way to structure our lives and our societies. Good fences, Robert Frost wrote, make good neighbors. And we believe that firmly.

I am not necessarily suggesting this morning that we blow the trumpet (or ring the bell) and declare liberty throughout the land, although you know Jesus was using this same language when he talked about his mission here (wouldn’t this, indeed, be good news to the poor, release to the captives?). What I do want to suggest, though, is that we think through some of the theological, political and economic implications of understanding land and people as God’s, and ourselves as aliens and tenants on earth.

The wonderful Bible scholar Ched Myers reflects that the Bible recognizes that all sorts of inequalities will arise in human society. “However,” he writes, “the Biblical vision refuses to stipulate that injustice is therefore a permanent condition. Instead God’s people are instructed to dismantle, on a regular basis, the fundamental patterns and structures of stratified wealth and power.” That hits at the heart of the concept of periodic Jubilee years. Jubilee calls us to re-evaluate on a regular basis what we understand to be “business as usual” in our society and our personal lives. Jubilee calls us to stop turning away from the inherent inequalities of our society and face them, trying to imagine if another way of living might be possible. Jubilee is not meant to be spiritual, but economic and political!

In his powerful speech to the UCC General Synod in Hartford in June, Bill Moyers took up this theme. The words that first slapped me across the face were, “America was not meant to be a country where winner takes all.” But his theme was not limited to America. He told about flying over Buenos Aires, Argentina and seeing hundreds of new gated communities, barrios cerrados, with walls topped by razor wire. He says the wealthiest ones are called “countries,” requiring id to cross the borders. He quotes one resident as saying, “you can’t see the poor here. That’s part of the appeal.” Then Moyers brought it home to New York, where private school tuition averages $26,000 a year, while in Mount Vernon, a Westchester community just over the border, the New York Times reported about a school which was 97% black where, except for books bought by the librarian with her own money, almost all the books are from the 1950’s and 60’s. A child’s book on possible careers talks about telegraph operators, and all the drawings are of white people. The newest encyclopedia dates from 1991 with two volumes missing. There are no computers, not even a card catalog.

“Proclaim liberty throughout the land,” says God, “the land is mine; you are aliens and tenants.”

Moyers went on to talk about a devastating heat wave that hit Chicago in 1995 and killed hundreds of mostly poor, elderly and homeless folk. The Mayor of Chicago wasn’t embarrassed by what had happened. He said, “Well, of course Chicago is a city of extremes.” Then, of course, there was Katrina. And the fact that the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest in our country is greater now than in 1960. Moyers says it’s amazing that no politician seems ever to be embarrassed by statistics like this, like the fact that our country ranks near the bottom, according to a UNICEF report, on child well-being among developed countries. We hear the statistics and we see what we see right here in New Haven and we block it out.

That’s what the Jubilee year is supposed to do for us; make us pay attention. Force us to imagine another world being possible. Compel us to have the courage to risk losing some of our own power and wealth in order to change the structures of society. Oblige us to remember that the land and the wealth it produces is God’s and we are all aliens and tenants on it.

As though echoing the sentiments of today’s Psalm, Moyers ended his speech like this.

“This new struggle for a just world; it’s not a partisan affair. God is not a liberal or conservative. God is not a Democrat or Republican. She may be a Baptist, I don’t know. But to see whose side God is on, just go to the record. It’s the widow and the orphan, the stranger and the poor who are blessed in the eyes of God. It is kindness and mercy that prove the power of faith, and it’s justice that measures the worth of the state, not empire. Kings are held accountable for how the poor fare under their reign; Presidents, too. Prophets speak to the gap between rich and poor as a reason for God’s judgment. Poverty and justice are religious issues, and Jesus moves among the disinherited.”

Proclaim liberty throughout the land. Really. For the land is God’s and we are all but aliens and tenants. Amen.