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Jubilee
(God and Poverty) Leviticus 25; Isaiah 61:1ff; Luke 4:17ff The year of Jubilee is about forgiveness of debts, freedom, and hope in life. It is this idea that Jesus makes the basis of his self-declaration in Luke. Signifying what his kingdom would be like. Hickory Lane Christian Church Washington Courthouse OH Rob Hoos
Introduction • This week, as I was conversing with friends who are in ministry, and others who are in the bible college and seminary, I found that the thought that occupied my mind the most was the difference I see in todayʼs church and the church described in scripture. • It is an obvious issue to anyone who has read through the New Testament that we, even as a “Restoration Movement” Church are still very far from the picture of the early church we see described in the bible and early christian writings. • I began to consider what the difference could be. • Is it teaching and doctrine? • Well, there are some glaring issues with teaching and theology in churches today, so maybe that is the problem. • Maybe we just donʼt understand these theological and spiritual truths like we should, and if we did we would see the church turn around and grow, and spread the good news of Jesus like it never has before. • This has been one of the key focuses of my preaching to this point is giving understanding of spiritual matters more so than anything else. • If we only understand these spiritual truths, then weʼll start acting like the early church.
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• But this week I got to thinking, and even in churches where I see a very deep understanding of these spiritual realities, there is still this blatant difference between them and the early church. • This is not just an indictment of the church, but myself as well. • I have studied a great deal on my own, and in college and seminary, but my focus on these theological and spiritual aspects have still left me disappointed in myself because I still see a discrepancy between myself, and the way I live with the way of the early church. • There is some key component missing in the way that people do christianity today. • I have come to understand that one of the big problems in the church, and even in my own way of thinking is that we have this dichotomy between the spiritual and everything else. • When we think of Church, and scripture, and Christianity, our thoughts are predominately spiritual. • Church is spiritual, • Christianity is spiritual, • the bible is spiritual, • the information we find in there is spiritual, • and this train of thought keeps going. • As a result, the spiritual becomes relegated to our christianity, and the rest of life (that which we do not classify as spiritual) is seen as categorically different.
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• We expect, we even want to focus on the spiritual when we are here, because that is all this is about, right? • There are two problems with having this split in ourselves and the way we think: 1. The bible doesnʼt think that way, 2. It has caused us to misunderstand who we are to be, and what the bible is really talking about. • In the bible, we do not see the separation of the spiritual from everything else. • They came at life, and christianity with a holistic approach that did not only change their spiritual ideas, but their entire being. • This is why James has no issue saying that faith without works is dead, or why Jesus can say “you will know them by their actions” because spiritual reality and action are not divided in their minds. • If we come at the bible with our framework for thinking, then we will only draw incomplete or inappropriate conclusions about what these things mean. • We will not understand the teachings of Jesus or the bible, and thus we will not really understand what God is trying to communicate about who he is, and who we ought to be. • Transition: The reason I am running on about this, is because this realization has totally changed the way I look at the topic we are discussing today. • We are beginning by looking at the words of Jesus in Luke 4 as he begins his public ministry.
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• To be honest, this sermon was hard for me to write because for most of the week, I was distracted with finding a spiritual meaning when the meaning that needs to be brought forward was sitting right in front of my face.
Jesusʼ Opening Speech • In Luke 4, Jesus is just beginning his public ministry by going around and teaching in the synagogues. • While he is in the synagogue in Nazareth on the Sabbath, he is asked to do the scripture reading for the day. 17And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, 18"THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR. HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES, AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, 19TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD." 20And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." • On first glance, what does this make you think of? • What is Jesus obviously talking about here? • If you said his death, burial, and resurrection, you would be partly correct. • His sacrifice for our sins is definitely a part of this, but it is only one part of something much larger that is being declared. • If you will, it is the spiritual aspect of this statement.
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• This is how people typically look at the meaning of this passage. • There is, however, a lot more going on here than meets the eye. • Transition: Maybe, a fuller understanding of this action of Jesus can be understood by looking back in the book he was reading from at the time. • So we look to the book of Isaiah the prophet in the 61st chapter.
Isaiah 61 • Isaiah is living during the time of the fall of the Northern Empire of Israel to the Assyrian king. • All of these people are being led away captive to a foreign land, and they are hopeless and far away from their land and God. • It is here where Isaiah begins to deliver a little hope to them. • It is here, where God begins to speak about the restoration of Israel. • That there will be a time when he comes back to deliver them, and to restore Israel and to make them his people once again. Isaiah records these words. 1The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners; 2To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, Transition: How then does this influence what we see Jesus saying in Luke 4. • • Is this the real meaning of what Jesus is saying, the restoration of Israel, and the hope of these people who are in captivity?
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Jesus in light of Isaiah 61 • In light of what we just read, it would seem clear that Jesus is talking about his position as the one who would come and restore Israel. • That he would give them hope and peace, and would come to take them away from their captivity under these foreign nations to make them his people. • After all, it does say Jesus has been sent to: “To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners; To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD.” • This language would lead us to believe that. • But, as you and I know, this restoration of Israel did not happen in a physical way in the sense that Jesus threw off the Roman oppression and made Israel their own nation. • Instead, we see another element to the meaning of this statement which is also more spiritual, that is that Jesusʼ actions made the restoration of Israel possible in a spiritual way instead of a physical way. • Those who have joined themselves with Jesus are seen as children of Abraham by faith, and thus the Spiritual Israel who had faith in Jesus have been redeemed and made into a people for God. • Transition: But this is still not quite all of the meaning that we see latent in Jesus statement in Luke 4, because Luke 4 and Isaiah 61 share a lot of conceptual similarities with one of (in my opinion) the greatest laws in the Old Testament. • The Year of Jubilee.
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Year of Jubilee, is that it? • When Jesus and Isaiah these things, they are doing more than simply using a concept that they have created to talk about what Jesus is going to do. • When they use the language that they do, they are really drawing upon a deep and significant social aspect of Judaism, namely the year of Jubilee.
What is Jubilee? • The year of Jubilee is literally translated, the year of the ramʼs horn. • It is only addressed at great lengths in Leviticus 25. • This is a long passage, so I am only going to read little bits and pieces of it. • Unless you want me to read an insanely long part of the bible that is... I didnʼt think so. 8'You are also to count off seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. 9'You shall then sound a ram's horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land. 10'You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family. 11'You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines. 12'For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat its crops out of the field. 13'On this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his own property. 17'So you shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the LORD your God. 20'But if you say, "What are we going to eat on the seventh year if we do not sow or gather in our crops?" 21then I will so order My blessing for you in the sixth year that it will bring forth the crop for three years.
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22'When you are sowing the eighth year, you can still eat old things from the crop, eating the old until the ninth year when its crop comes in. 23'The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me. 24'Thus for every piece of your property, you are to provide for the redemption of the land. 28'But if he has not found sufficient means to get it back for himself, then what he has sold shall remain in the hands of its purchaser until the year of jubilee; but at the jubilee it shall revert, that he may return to his property. 35'Now in case a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you. 36'Do not take usurious interest from him, but revere your God, that your countryman may live with you. 37'You shall not give him your silver at interest, nor your food for gain. 38'I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God. 39'If a countryman of yours becomes so poor with regard to you that he sells himself to you, you shall not subject him to a slave's service. 40'He shall be with you as a hired man, as if he were a sojourner; he shall serve with you until the year of jubilee. 41'He shall then go out from you, he and his sons with him, and shall go back to his family, that he may return to the property of his forefathers. 42'For they are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt; they are not to be sold in a slave sale. 43'You shall not rule over him with severity, but are to revere your God. 55'For the sons of Israel are My servants; they are My servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. • I know that was a lot to take in all at once, so letʼs boil it down a little bit. • Here is basically what the law of Jubilee is saying: • If you become poor, and you sell your house and land, you can redeem it whenever you get the money, but if you remain poor and are not able to buy it back, it becomes yours in the Jubilee once again.
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• If you become so poor that you have to sell yourself and your family as slaves to someone else. They are not allowed to treat you like a slave but like hired help, and you can redeem yourself when you have the money. If you never get the money, then you gain your freedom on the year of Jubilee. • If you have outstanding debts, they are canceled at the year of Jubilee. • Let me say this again, jubilee is about • Debts are canceled • Slaves are freed • Land is returned • Poverty cycles are broken
• Imagine with me that in the course of your life, youʼve hit hard times, and because of the bills and life problems, youʼve lost everything you have ever owned. In addition to that, you werenʼt able to pull yourself out of debt even after that, so you had to sell your whole family (including yourself) into slavery. You may have been a slave for 5 years or 49 years, but one way or another life has not been easy. As you approach the day of Jubilee, you do so with hope that this time things will be different. That this time you can make it work. • On the day of atonement you go with your master to the temple and watch as an animal is sacrificed so that God will pass over your sins. You have that day experienced the Joy of knowing that your sins have been dealt with, and that you are forgiven your debts by God. But then, during this festival, they sound the Ramʼs Horn and you realize that not only have you been atoned for today, but also that you have
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your ancestral land back, that you are no longer a slave, and that all of your debts have been canceled. You and your family are free, have your property back, and are starting afresh with no debt. This is the year of Jubilee.
• Everyone gets to start fresh at least once during their lifetime. • There is no generational poverty or poverty cycles or permanent slavery. • God provides a solution for poverty, that is, he ends it once every 50 years, and lets everyone start over. • Everyone is made equal, and instead of hierarchy, we see community. • Transition: It is language associated with this event that Jesus chooses to use when he is talking about himself in the beginning of his ministry. • What a curious choice.
Jesusʼ Jubilee • What begins to take shape is not just Jesus referencing in some vague way his death burial and resurrection which would save us from our sin. • He is not even simply referencing that he is the one who will restore Israel as is promised in Isaiah 61. • Though both of these things are a part of the whole, what the declaration really is sounds more like this, Jesus is bringing Jubilee! • Jesus is associating the beginning of his public ministry with the coming of the Jubilee promised in Isaiah 61. • He is the one who will bring this Jubilee. • The slaves will be set free, the debts will be cancelled,
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• indeed the Favorable Year of the Lord.
My First Inclination • My firs inclination is to talk to you about how understanding Jesus as the bringer of the Jubilee helps us to understand his sacrifice from a different perspective, and maybe it will enrich the way we think about it. • I could tell you that Jesus came and set the slaves free by freeing us from our slavery to sin, and I would be right in doing so. • I could even enjoy telling you about this cool law in the Old Testament and we could Just enjoy coming to know God as the one who cares for the poor and oppressed. • This would be my focus were I wanting only to communicate spiritual truth.
The problem • The problem is, this reveals nothing really new to any of us. • We all know Jesus loves us, we know he cares about the poor. • We know all of these spiritual and theological ideas, so what relevance does any of this really hold for us?
Jubilee Teachings... • When you stop looking for simple spiritual and theological truths, and look at the whole of what is being presented, just looking at what Jesus is actually saying. • It changes things a little. • Jesus is basically saying, I am here, and I am bringing Jubilee. • This would mean that one of the foundational aspects of his kingdom which Jesus brings would be tied with the idea of the Jubilee celebration.
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• It would lead me to make the statement that Jesusʼ Kingdom, is at least partly about embodying the characteristics of Jubilee. • If this were true, wouldnʼt we expect to see Jesus talking alot about forgiving debts, and caring for the poor, and not worrying about money. • We would expect to see social class systems break down in the kingdom of God. • We would expect equality, and sharing, and concern for others to dominate the landscape of Jesusʼ disciples. • Wait... That is what we see. • What if we have been focused so long on the spiritual aspects of Jesus statement that we have missed out on everything else. • What if Jesusʼ intentions for his followers was to be living in a continual year of Jubilee. • What if Jesus teachings fit right in line with this, and force us to understand their importance. • Shortly after his proclamations about the Jubilee, we read the following straight from the lips of Jesus.
Teachings • Blessed are you poor, yours is the kingdom of heaven • blessed are you who hunger now because you will be satisfied • blessed are you who mourn you will be comforted • Woe to the rich you are receiving your comfort in full • Love your enemy, do good to those who mistreat you
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• Bless those who curse you • Whoever takes your coat give him your shirt as well • Give to everyone who asks of you and do not demand back what has been taken from you • Love your enemies, do good, lend expecting nothing in return. • Be merciful just as your father is merciful. • It is no surprise that, with the idea of Jubilee in Jesus kingdom that the disciples, and the members of the early church sold what they had, cared for the poor, the orphan, and the widow, bought people out of slavery, were open handed with one another, cared for one another, saw everyone as equal within the body. • It also explains the difference that we see between the early church and todayʼs church.
Application • Instead of being only concerned with “spiritual” things, the members of the early church encountered and reacted to Jesus sayings as they were meant, encompassing social, spiritual, moral, and physical transformation. • They saw this Jubilee kingdom as a place where the poor and oppressed are cared for, where action is taken to try and benefit other people, where Jesus commands were honored as being actual literal commands instead of nice spiritual sounding suggestions. • That is why we see them caring for the poor, going to the outcast, selling their possessions, living simply, forgiving debts, freeing people from slavery, and embracing one another as brother and sister.
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• Because they understood Jubilee. • I challenge you today, to look at the commands of Jesus and ask the question... What if there is not some super deep spiritual lesson to this, what if Jesus really meant for me to sell what I have, live simply, and give to the poor? • What if Jesus really meant for this to be a Jubilee, instead of a religion.