“Jubilee”

(Luke 4:14-21)

Then Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding region.  He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom.  He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.  He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.  The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  The he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

I used to wonder why Jesus sat down after he read the scripture in this story.  We’re told that he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down.  It turns out that it is standard practice in the synagogue to stand to read scripture and to sit to expound upon it.  I discovered that the reason for this is that rabbis wanted to be at eye level with their students. So it was from the teacher’s chair that Jesus said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

            Oh, the text that Jesus read may have seemed short and sweet and harmless, but, coupled with what follows, verses we did not read this morning, Jesus got really prophetic with the folks, really challenged them.  Well, this eventually got Jesus driven out of his hometown….

            So, I want to get back to when he had stood up to give the reading of the day.  He spoke the words from the prophet Isaiah, chapters 61 and 58, and I’m going to repeat them for us: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”    Now, this happens to be what we call a Jubilee text.  You have probably heard what Jubilee is, but I’ll go through it.  Simply put, you can think of it as the 50^th year. 

First, though, let’s get a little background.  The number 7 is incredibly important in Hebrew scripture.  It is a beautifully complete number.  God created in 7 days, there are 7 candles in the candelabra, that sort of thing.  Now, if everything had gone according to God’s plan, on every seventh day, every Sabbath, we would fix what had gotten messed up in the prior six days.  Wouldn’t it be something if we all would live this way!! 

Well, as you might imagine, this wasn’t working so well even way back in these ancient times.  You might even say the system failed, so, then, the sabbatical year came into being.  This is how it was supposed to work: every seventh year the mess that had accumulated in Israel over the past six years was to be corrected.  The people were to forgive any debts that people owed them.  They were to forgive any grudges they were holding.  Again, though, instead of fixing things, the system seemed to perpetuate the problems.  Folks weren’t following through. 

So the ancient religious leaders figured out a Sabbath of sabbatical years and called it the Jubilee year—the 50^thyear.  If you’re interested, Leviticus 25 attempts to lay it all out.  As Isaiah puts it and Jesus reads it, it is called the Year of the Lord’s Favor.  You will be amazed if you read this.  It’s about looking out for your community members and bringing order to our life together.

            Now, folks, this is what Jubilee is.  By the way, our ancestors, and we, have never been able to pull off any of this because it is an extreme position in favor of forgiveness and mercy and has us putting our money where our mouth is in terms of taking care of one another in every way, including financially. 

We humans have simply not been able to comply with this approach, but some of the ideas remain powerful and formative and creative.  They really do.  Jubilee is an explosive, radical idea that we, in every generation ought to look at and work toward.

            Let’s start with the idea of rest (which is at the base of the Sabbath).  To think of doing absolutely nothing is an embarrassment to us modern folks, yet that is precisely what Sabbath is—doing nothing, being with our people, being involved in re-creation and restoration.  I would add this for you to think about: “One of the ways you can get in touch with what’s important is to stop doing what’s NOT important….”

            Further, Jubilee is about establishing the common good, the vision of welfare for all.  It is about being merciful to people who have fallen on hard times or whose lives are a mess. 

Folks, the way we know how to be merciful is to remember how we, all of us, are recipients of others’ mercy and of God’s mercy.  There are times when each of us has had to make a new beginning, to leave our past behind.  It could be that we had to declare bankruptcy or ask a relative to release us from a debt or to be forgiven for a terribly hurtful thing we said or did.  Jubilee is a new beginning.  Without new beginnings we are all sunk.

            Now, regarding Jesus’ saying, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing:” you can think of him as the hero of God’s ruling.  He has been anointed and sent, and his mission is controlled by God’s acting.  The anointing and the mission have come from God, and it’s all focused on a particular audience, and they are those who are oppressed and broken-hearted, the captives, the prisoners and all who mourn, the downtrodden, and the marginalized. 

            You may have noticed that this is an absolutely inclusive group.  Every one of us is included if we’re honest. AND, the thing is, everybody is going to be left out if those who are excluded are not included.  Did you get all that?  There is nothing for any of us if those forgotten are not remembered. 

            I can’t help but think of our world today.  We have made a religion out of the “what’s in it for me?” approach.  We expect voters to identify the one issue that affects their own lives and then to find a candidate who will seem to champion that issue.  We have seen this laid out to the extreme over this past year. 

If health care is not going to benefit your family, then we think it’s not necessary to provide for others.  If you don’t have a son or daughter or spouse or parent in the military, then go ahead and declare war.  Or the flip side, if you don’t have anyone in the military, who cares if they are funded.  Or if I’m working, there must be something wrong with these folks that can’t find work.  If I have a nice, warm, cozy home, then I see no reason to help any of those folks who are losing their homes or are living with no home. 

And, from the pulpit, what do we want to hear from Jesus?  What we want is for him to say something that will prove that our own approach is right.  This is true for preachers AND listeners, I dare say. 

I would submit that, when Jesus stood up in the temple on that day, folks did not want to be reminded of the Jubilee agenda, this world-shattering care for ALL God’s people, this amazing mandate to release people from debts and mistakes and wrongdoing.  No, they wanted to be massaged and told how pious they were and how God was blessing them because they were so good.

Here’s the thing that goes along with Jubilee: when we reject mercy, when we reject our need to be merciful, it will eventually become a judgment against us.  WE have become unmerciful.  It’s saying we ourselves don’t need mercy.  That is so wrong.  Jubilee is a time for advocating for others, for everyone.  We can’t be advocates unless we see that God has advocated for us.  If we think it is we who are doing this for others, we’ve got it wrong.  This stuff is God’s action always and forever. 

Friends…if we are under the illusion that we can do it all ourselves, then we don’t need Jesus.  Apparently, we don’t need that guy who is God’s ultimate advocate.

If we vote only for our own needs and wants, we are not living the Gospel life, the Jubilee vision.  Jubilee, pure and simple, is voting for family…not just our nuclear family or the family of our origin, but for the whole human family.  If one person is purposely left out of the equation, we had better go back to the drawing board.  Exactly what Jesus does is what the church is expected to do.

In chapter 7 of Luke, we get a picture of Jubilee.  Jesus was asked, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”  Here’s his answer: “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.  And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me….”

Now, you may say, “We can’t do that healing stuff (which may or may not be true), but the point is not exclusively the healing stuff, it is that Jesus welcomed everyone, no exceptions, and advocated for them.  No one was left outside of his care.  No one…. 

Perhaps this is a Jubilee year.  Wouldn’t that be something?  So, I’m going to put on my thinking cap and decide what I will do differently since this just may be the year of the Lord.  No, you know what?  I’m going to put on my prayer cap and listen for what God is showing me to do differently because we can’t do this stuff by ourselves or by our own will.  With God’s help, let this be a Jubilee year.  We can declare it to be so.

Remember our song from two weeks ago.  “We are the ones, we are the ones, we’ve been waiting.  We are the ones we’ve been waiting for….” 

Friends, open your eyes.  Open your ears.  See what kind of healing and caring and advocating that God has for us to do.

…I hope you were able to listen to Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde in her sermon this past week at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C.  I declare that it was a master class in preaching.  She began to talk about unity, about the importance of community.  Later she referred to the powerless, particularly immigrants, and implored the new president of our nation to offer a new approach, an approach that shows mercy and kindness.  She spoke, in the style of Rabbi Jesus; she spoke truth to power. 

No Christian should have missed the connection that her words made to our stated mission to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to live the Jubilee mandate. 

Friends, the president of our country did not get scolded on that day.  He was challenged to be the Christ-follower that he claims to be.  We’ll see what happens…. 

In the meanwhile, we all are the ones who have been called to a Jubilee way of life, a life of mercy, forgiveness and service.  We are the ones.  Amen.