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Learning for Life: Cultivating a Student Spirituality
Week 16
Brian Walsh, University of Toronto
Economics
16.1 An economics of trust
“And 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. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth, or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces.” Leviticus 25.10-12
The vision is as breathtaking as it is impractical. Breathtaking in its scope, the year of Jubilee effectively breaks the back of multi-generational poverty. It may be the case that your father, or even your grandfather, fell into bad times and had to sell the family inheritance. It may well be that most of your life you have lived in poverty, enslaved to another person. But it doesn’t need to be this way forever. The fiftieth year is coming, the year of Jubilee. And when the trumpet blows to announce the day of atonement, to announce that all sins, all debts have been forgiven, then your salvation will come and you will be returned to your land and released from your slavery. Here, at the very climax of the Torah, is a vision of economic restoration, justice and hope. Breathtaking.
And yet it all seems so impractical. Even the math around the fiftieth year itself seems to spell economic suicide. The forty-ninth year is a sabbath year, so no planting or reaping for that year. And then the Jubilee year is the sabbath of sabbaths so there is no planting or reaping for that year either. That means that the abundance of the crops during the forty-eighth year will need to sustain the people until the harvest of the fifty-first year! That’s three years of abundance that must be harvested before the sabbath and Jubilee year cycle begins. Who could ever have come up with such a precarious economic system? Well, here the Sunday school answer is right, “God.”
A Jubilee economics is about rest for the land and justice for the poor. It counters the 24/7 culture of production and insatiable consumption by insisting upon rest. And it overthrows an economics of affluence in which the poor are always left out by insisting upon a just redistribution of the economic resources of the land.
And such an economics makes no sense … apart from a relationship of deep trust. It all hangs on the abundance of the forty-eighth year. If a famine hits that year, then keeping justice would result in poverty and hunger for all. This is an economics of trust that believes that the God who calls us to economic justice is the Creator God of abundance who will provide for all.
Prayer: Extravagant Creator, God of justice; give us an imagination to live a life of jubilee justice. In a world worried about scarcity, give us trust in your abundance. Amen.
16.2 Jubilee Economics
“The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.” Leviticus 25.23-24
Now he couldn’t really mean that, could he? I mean this must simply be an ancient way of speaking, this language about tenants and aliens. We call people ‘aliens’ who don’t quite fit, who don’t have citizenship, who haven’t been ‘landed’ in the sense of becoming ‘naturalized’ Americans or Canadians. And while some of us may indeed live our lives as tenants (especially while we are students) surely home ownership has always been at the heart of the American dream.
And of course we believe that our world belongs to God, but surely that isn’t meant as a prohibition against private property or the buying and selling of land on the market. I mean, isn’t that the way that we provide for the ‘redemption’ of land – by allowing someone else to redeem (that is, to purchase from us) our land?
Or is there something much more radical going on here? What would it mean for our economic lives if we really believed that land – this creation, with all of its resources, our homes, our possessions – really wasn’t ours? That the world is not there for our economic exploitation, but is owned by the Creator, and is there for redemption? What would the redemption of the land mean if we understood this term in its deepest religious sense? How is land redeemed? How do we live in this creation with a self-understanding of aliens and tenants?
For most of us, higher education is seen as a ticket to a life of economic security with all of the possessions, assets, ownership and power that such security entails. We don’t go to college so that we can live our lives as aliens and tenants, but as citizens and homeowners.
Unless our lives are captivated by a Jubilee economics, that is. Then we may well own land, build houses, purchase goods and invest in business activities – but all of these economic decisions will be for the sake of redemption and subject to the will of our sovereign Landlord. We will make economic decisions that will bring justice to the poorest of the poor and not perpetuate their oppression. And we will hold our land, our homes, our possessions and our investments in a way that they further the cause of ecological justice and restoration rather than perpetuate the blasphemous rape of creation.
Prayer: It’s all yours, Lord, it’s all yours. This world belongs to you. Help us to live as if we really believed that. Amen.
Quote: “Our destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship … it is the most horrid blasphemy.” Wendell Berry, Sex Economy, Freedom and Community (Pantheon, 1992).
16.3 An economics of forgiveness
“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. Then 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 your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.” Leviticus 25. 8-10
So when does the year of Jubilee begin? On the tenth day of the seventh month, when the trumpet is sounded throughout the land. Jubilee begins on the day of atonement. Indeed, since the fiftieth year is the sabbath of all sabbaths, then this is the atonement day of all atonement days. If on all those other forty-nine days of atonement the people had experienced the forgiveness of their sins, then on this atonement of all atonements, that forgiveness was to most radically permeate the very structures of Israelite society.
The day of atonement was the only day of communal fasting required by the Torah. On this day the whole community would stand in solidarity of sin and in solidarity of self-denial. Rich and poor, land owner and indentured servant, master and slave – all stood in the same place before their God. This leveling of all of society in an act of penitential fasting set the stage for the leveling of society constituted by the year of Jubilee. Just as rich and poor were the same before the Lord in their sin, so also would rich and poor be the same before the Lord in their forgiveness. And while the solidarity of sin required a shared fast, so does the solidarity of forgiveness entail a redistribution of the community’s wealth so that all could start from a level playing field again.
“Our Father in heaven,” Jesus prays, “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.” This is a Jubilee prayer that has been reduced to a pious saying about personal sin. But Jesus has something much larger than personal sin in mind here. How do the poor get caught in a cycle of poverty? How did proud farmers get reduced to serfs working on what was once their land but is now owned by a rich land owner? By debt, of course. “Forgive us our debts” means exactly what it says.
A Jubilee economics is an economics of debt forgiveness. In a world where both personal and international indebtedness cripples most of the world’s population we need to find ways to make this audacious vision of economic debt forgiveness a liberating economics for our time.
Prayer: God of Jubilee, God of forgiveness. As we hallow the year of Jubilee, we hallow your name. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. May your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
16.4 An economics of generosity
If there is among you anyone in need … do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbour. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it be …. And when you send a male slave out from you a free person, you shall not send him out empty-handed. Provide liberally from your flock, your threshing floor, and your wine press, thus giving to him some of the bounty with which the Lord your God has blessed you. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you: for this reason I lay this command upon you today. Deuteronomy 15.7-8, 13-15.
Bono had just thanked the President and extolled the virtue of American charity. And then he said, “That’s the good news. But there’s some bad news. You see the issue of AIDS in Africa isn’t a matter of charity, but of justice.”
Justice, not charity. Being open handed and not tight fisted isn’t a matter of charity, but of justice. Economic generosity isn’t simply a matter of showing kindness to those less fortunate, but a matter of seeking economic justice for the oppressed.
No one should be enslaved to another person. But in a broken world such enslavement, often related to debts owed that cannot be paid, will always happen. Israel’s Torah knows that this will happen and that is why it provides the community with the Jubilee legislation to provide a way for those who become enslaved to be set free. Freeing slaves is a matter of justice precisely because no one should be enslaved.
But what about the generosity shown to the released slave? Surely that is a charity that goes beyond the call of justice. No, even this generosity is required by justice. Why should an open-handed generosity make sure that the slave isn’t released empty handed? Why insist that he leave with some animals from your flock, perhaps a couple of goats, a lamb or two, maybe even a cow? So that he has the resources to start his own flock. Why should you gather up seeds from your threshing floor? So he can plant them and sustain the life of his family on the land from the crops produced. All of this is necessary if a jubilee economics will work. People need the resources to become economically self-sufficient. It’s all about justice.
Well what about the wine? Why does the man need wine? Why to rejoice, of course! A generous economics of justice is an economics of joy.
Prayer: Give us open hands, Lord. Open hands of justice. Forgive our tight-fistedness. Amen.
Quote: “Everything is bullshit but the open hand.” Bruce Cockburn, “Strange Waters,” Charity of Night (Golden Mountain Music, 1996)
16.5 Piety and Justice
Is this not the fast that I choose; to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Isaiah 58.6-7
After the exile the people of Israel instituted fast days to remember the destruction of the temple and the demise of the monarchy. But the prophet was unimpressed. What’s the point of fasting if you continue to oppress your neighbours and exploit your workers? And why fast in memory of those oppressive institutions of the monarchy and the temple when there is a deeper and more radical fast day to be recalled – the day of atonement and the beginning of the Jubilee year? If you want to find healing after the shock and horror of exile, then keep Jubilee in your daily lives. Loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, set the oppressed free and then break that yoke.
What would this look like today for the homeless poor? First, loose the bonds of injustice. Take the conditions that create injustice and loosen them, take steps to alleviate the immediate pain of oppression. If people are on the street and families can’t feed their children, then set up homeless shelters and food banks to address the immediate need.
But emergency food rations and shelter will never fulfill the call to justice. So we need to take the next step and undo the thongs of the yoke. It’s hard to break free from the yoke of poverty when you are living in a shelter and dependent on a food bank. Perhaps to undo the yoke is to actually help folks find a way beyond emergency shelters and into transitional or low-income housing. In the context of more secure housing people would then be set free to seek employment, go back to school or take care of their children in their own home.
Loosen the bonds of the yoke, then undo those bonds to set people free, and finally, take that yoke of injustice and break it so that it can never be used again. Beyond personal misfortune and bad decisions, are there structural causes of homelessness in our time? Is there a lack of affordable housing? Why? Might it be connected to the self-interest of the housing industry? Might there be a failure of government policy at work? Are people poor because they cannot live on either welfare payments or on minimum wage employment? Are they caught in a cycle of poverty because we have economic and political systems that do not have a Jubilee imagination? Then justice requires that we seek to transform those systems. Indeed, this is true piety.
Prayer: No more cheap piety, Lord. No more religious enthusiasm devoid of justice. Give us the courage and imagination to share our bread with the hungry, provide the homeless with shelter and work towards a Jubilee justice which will break their yokes of bondage. Amen
16.6 Lord of the Jubilee
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 let the oppressed go free, 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. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” Luke 4.16-22
“He unrolled the scroll and found the place.” He went looking for that particular text, that particular prophecy about good news to the poor, release to captives, setting the oppressed free. He went looking for that text about the year of the Lord’s favor. For his inaugural sermon before the hometown crowd Jesus went to a text that was a much beloved prophecy about the coming again of the year of Jubilee.
This is, after all, Joseph’s son. Joseph, whose family had lost their inheritance in the area near Bethlehem years ago and been scattered throughout. Joseph, forced to return to Bethlehem with his nine month pregnant wife by imperial edict. Joseph, like so many of the men of his time, longing for justice, longing for freedom from the imperial rule of Rome, longing to be able to live again on the land of his ancestors, longing for Jubilee.
And here is Joseph’s son reading a Jubilee text. You could have heard a pin drop as the young man sat down to speak. And in that quiet expectation he said one sentence. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Today is Jubilee! Today is the day of atonement when all is forgiven. Today the oppressed are set free, the captives are released and the poor hear some good news. Jesus has the audacity to say that Jubilee has arrived simply because he says so. Jubilee is announced because Jesus is beginning his ministry. Jesus is the Lord of Jubilee.
But there are two problems. First, Isaiah 61 makes no reference to the blind receiving sight. Why did he add that bit? And second, why did he end the reading early? You see, after the language of the year of the Lord’s favor, Isaiah goes on to say, “and the day of vengeance of our God.” Why did he drop the language of vengeance? Can there be justice without vengeance?
Prayer: Jesus, you are the Lord of the Jubilee. Come and be the Jubilee Lord of our lives. Amen.
16.7 Whose Jubilee?
And Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue was filled with rage. They got up and drove him out of town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way. Luke 4.24-30
From amazement to murderous rage. That was quite the debut performance in the Nazareth synagogue. First Jesus proclaimed Jubilee and the crowd loved him. And then he deliberately provoked his neighbours to the point that they attempted to kill him. And he did so by referring to a couple of Jewish tales that were not on the list of favourite bedtime stories for the children. And in doing so he both expands the meaning of Jubilee beyond the tradition of Moses and makes clear that the Jubilee he brings is different from that hoped for by his countrymen.
Who is Jubilee for? Which slaves are set free? If you look again at Leviticus 25 you will see that only Israelite slaves were to be set free. Foreign slaves did not receive the benefit of Jubilee emancipation. But by referring to these stories about the widow of Sidon and the Syrian military commander Jesus is saying that Jubilee is not just for the privileged community, but is on offer for all. Indeed, Jubilee is precisely for people who are despised and rejected, people who don’t ‘deserve’ it.
Now maybe it becomes clear why Jesus added that bit about the blind receiving sight and dropped the reference to vengeance. What his oppressed neighbours wanted was Jubilee for themselves and vengeance on their oppressors. But Jesus will have none of it. Jubilee is not about vengeance, but about forgiveness. And if you can’t see that, then you remain blind to what God is really up to in the coming of Jesus.
Prayer: Open our eyes, Lord. Open our eyes to the scope of your Jubilee kingdom. Open our hearts, Lord. Open our hearts to the depth of your love. Amen.
Copyright © CRCMA 2008
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