The Year of the Lord’s Favor

Scripture: Leviticus 25: 8-24; Luke 4: 16-21

Sermon: The Year of the Lord’s Favor

Topics: debts, Jubilee, forgiveness

Preached: January 16, 2011

Rev. Mike Abma

Leviticus 25: 8-24

8 You shall count off seven weeks^* of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. ⁹Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month—on the day of atonement—you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. ¹⁰And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. ¹¹That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. ¹²For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces.

13 In this year of jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property. ¹⁴When you make a sale to your neighbour or buy from your neighbour, you shall not cheat one another. ¹⁵When you buy from your neighbour, you shall pay only for the number of years since the jubilee; the seller shall charge you only for the remaining crop-years. ¹⁶If the years are more, you shall increase the price, and if the years are fewer, you shall diminish the price; for it is a certain number of harvests that are being sold to you. ¹⁷You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God; for I am the Lord your God.

18 You shall observe my statutes and faithfully keep my ordinances, so that you may live on the land securely. ¹⁹The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live on it securely. ²⁰Should you ask, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ ²¹I will order my blessing for you in the sixth year, so that it will yield a crop for three years. ²²When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating from the old crop; until the ninth year, when its produce comes in, you shall eat the old. ²³The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. ²⁴Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.

Luke 4: 16-21

The Rejection of Jesus at Nazareth

16 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, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

¹⁸ ‘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 let the oppressed go free,

¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

²⁰And 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. ²¹Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

THIS IS THE WORD OF THE LORD

THANKS BE TO GOD

INTRODUCTION — DEBTS

Walter Brueggemann is an Old Testament scholar, a seminary professor, and the author of many books. He tells of how he and his father-in-law, who happened to be a Presbyterian Pastor, used to discuss all kinds of theological topics. One day they were discussing the Lord’s Prayer — what is the proper wording of the Lord’s prayer?

Should we say, Forgive us our trespasses?

or forgive us our sins?

or forgive us our debts?

At one point in the discussion, his father-in-law —

being a good Calvinist and well aware of the economic realities of life —

well his father-in-law got this grin on his face,

and then said, half-jokingly, and half not,

“You know, I’d rather have my debts forgiven than my sins.”

I think we can relate to his father-in-law.

Sin can be a slippery term – what is a sin, exactly.

But debts?

We are more familiar with debts.

We also know the economic realities of life:

We know the language of debts and assets;

Whether we are in the red or the black;

Whether we are ahead or behind;

Whether we are underwater or above water.

We may not be able to produce a spreadsheet of our sins,

but we could create a spreadsheet of our debts.

LEVITICUS

Leviticus was given to the people of Israel as they were about to enter the Promised Land. That land was filled with Canaanites. We are not sure where that word “Canaanite” comes from, but we are quite sure it means “trader.”

The Canaanites were “traders.”

They were business-savvy people;

people who bought low and sold high.

The land of Canaan was ruled by a market economy.

Leviticus was given to Israel to remind them that they were not Canaanites.

God had different plans for his land,

his property,

and his people of Israel.

Part of that difference was built into the calendar.

One day in seven was to be a Sabbath day of rest.

One year in seven was to be a Sabbatical year of rest for the land.

And our passage this evening is about most special time of rest of them all —

After seven times seven years, after 49 years,

on the 50^th year,

the trumpets would sound

and a Year of Jubilee would begin.

We did not read the whole chapter,

but there were certain things that were to happen on this Year of Jubilee

that were astounding and would baffle the Canaanite way of life:

First, all land was to be returned to the family whose inheritance it was.

Not sold back to that family, but returned to it, free of charge.

Second, everyone who had sunk into debt and had become a servant to pay off that debt, well, those people in debt-servitude were to be freed — no more debt, no more servitude.

Lastly, anyone in prison because of war or debt had to be released.

The Canaanites thought this was crazy.

This was no way to run an economy.

Private property was sacred.

If you owned a field, it was your field.

But Leviticus 25 lays out different economic principles.

First, when the Israelites bought a field, they did not buy the property, per se.

Read this chapter and notice that what they bought was the number of harvests this field would produce until the next Jubilee.

Then, at the next Jubilee, the field would be restored to its ancestral family. The principle, here, was that only God owned the land.

And God had given to each tribe, and each clan, and each family their apportioned piece as a gift.

God was possessive of his land, and he was possessive of his people.

Later in this chapter it says that his people must never be slaves.

He had rescued them from slavery in Egypt, and they were never to be slaves again.

They could become servants for a time to pay off a debt.

But even this servitude had limits — in the Year of Jubilee, all debts were cancelled, and all servants were freed to return to their home land.

Can you see how this Year of Jubilee was meant to be a full economic restart.

The rich who had acquired a bunch of property and even a bunch of servants,

would have to freely give them up.

And the poor who had lost a bunch of property and even their freedom,

would have it all returned.

IDEALISTIC

Walter Brueggemann, that Old Testament scholar, writes that he has been teaching about the Year of Jubilee for years in his Seminary course. And every year, the first thing his students ask is, “They didn’t actually ever put this Year of Jubilee into practice, did they?”

Well, we are not sure.

We are not sure if the Year of Jubilee was ever put into practice.

But is that the point?

Isn’t the point why God devoted a whole chapter of his Law to outlining this Year of Jubilee in the first place?

Isn’t the point knowing why it is here?

Isn’t the point knowing why Isaiah,

knowing that this Year of Jubilee was not being practiced,

nevertheless promised that when the Messiah came,

he would finally declare liberty to the captives,

he would finally proclaim release to those who were oppressed,

he would finally proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor?

So why is the Year of Jubilee here?

The Old Testament is a realistic book.

It knows all about economic life.

It knows that when things get tough,

a person can easily slip then slide into deep poverty:

first you would sell your kids into servitude,

then you would sell your land,

and finally you would sell yourself.

But once landless, it would become almost impossible to climb out of debt.

Read Amos, Micah, and more of Isaiah:

they all complained bitterly about the rich getting richer

and the poor getting poorer.

Land – and the ability to freely work your own land —

that was the great social security of that age.

The Year of Jubilee was to be the great antidote to perpetual poverty.

the great antidote to permanent servitude.

It was the Great Restart, the Great Second Chance.

to return to you ancestral land

as a free person and to start again.

JESUS – OUR JUBILEE

In the synagogue in Nazareth,

Jesus reads this passage from Isaiah 61,

which has its roots in Leviticus, and in the Year of Jubilee.

And Jesus concludes his reading with these words:

“Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

What did Jesus mean by this?

What Jesus was saying is this:

“I am the Jubilee.

I am the one to restore dignity to all people.

I am the one proclaiming a kingdom

in which everyone gets to restart their life.

Everyone gets to restart their life with honor.”

The way Jesus did this was to allow himself to become a slave;

The way he did this was to allow himself to be broken.

The way he did this was to allow himself to be a prisoner.

But through his brokenness, we are made whole,

In becoming a servant, a slave, we are made free;

In taking on our debt, we can make a fresh start.

Now we belong to this King and his Kingdom:

all that we have belongs to our King.

We live in his favor, in his freedom.

The kingdom Jesus proclaims,

does not abide

deep poverty alongside great wealth;

The kingdom Jesus proclaims does not abide

great privilege alongside endless disadvantage.

It does not abide this because it has its roots

in the Year of Jubilee.

PROBLEM of REALITY

But we….we have become accustomed to living among the Canaanites.

Talk of a Year of Jubilee,

talk of a Kingdom that frees people and let’s them start over,

well, we are told that kind of talk sounds unrealistic.

This Year of Jubilee sounds too idealistic — how can there be a thriving economy if it is not anchored to private property?

And yet….yet we also know something is amiss in our modern system.

Something is not right.

The rich are getting richer; the poor are getting poorer.

Our country, which prides itself on equality, is becoming a nation of inequality.

40 million people – 1 in 8 – use food-stamps.

10% of the population is trapped in an underclass and cannot get out.

As the economist, Timothy Smeeding of the University of Wisconsin writes,

“We live in a winner-take-all society.

The winners keep winning; the losers keep losing.”

This is reality.

This is the world we live in.

DREAMERS

“Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

We are followers of Jesus – the incarnation of Jubilee.

As his followers, we pray.

We pray, “Your Kingdom come…”

And the kingdom we are praying for

has its roots in this Year of Jubilee,

when all debts are paid,

and everyone gets a second chance.

As followers of Jesus we baptize our children.

When we baptize them, we declare that we are all kin —

we are all brothers and sisters in the kingdom

all devoted to the teachings of Jesus

all devoted to sharing what we have with those in need.

As followers of Jesus,

we break bread together,

knowing that when we eat this bread and drink from this cup

we are experiencing the presence of Christ with us;

but also knowing that

whenever we feed the hungry

whenever we welcome the stranger

whenever we care for the sick,

we are experiencing the presence of Christ with us then too.

Does this mean that we are dreamers,

idealistic dreamers?

Yes, in a way we are:

for every time we eat this bread and drink from this cup

we are dreaming of the day

when every stomach is fed,

every prisoner is free,

every person is joyfully working

and all debts are forgiven….

all trespasses… all sins….all debts are forgiven. AMEN