January 21, 2007
(Third Sunday after the Epiphany)
The Jubilee Year
by
The Rev. Canon Susan Sommer
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 •
Psalm 19 • 1 Corinthians
12:12-31a • Luke 4:14-21
(From
The Lectionary Page)
If you're lucky, someone crosses your path at the right time in your life and is able to speak words that the Spirit empowers you to hear. I’ve been lucky. One such person was named Gail and she and I talked regularly over the space about five years. We talked a lot about forgiveness – about how hard it is to move forgiveness from something we hold conceptually to something we actually practice. How forgiveness is a cardinal virtue in both of our religious traditions (Gail is Jewish) and one of the most difficult for people of good will to exercise.
Forgiveness lies at the heart of today's gospel passage, though that might not be immediately apparent. Jesus is in the synagogue in his hometown. And of all of the passages of Scripture that he might have selected -- remember, there was no lectionary then! -- he selects passages from Isaiah 58 and 61. These passages speak of the Anointed One of God ushering in freedom: release to the captives, sight to the blind, relief from oppression, and proclaiming the Year of the Lord's Favor. The Year of the Lord's Favor. Isaiah was most likely referring to the year of the Jubilee which is detailed earlier in the Bible -- in Leviticus 25. The Jubilee year was to be a time of restitution and restoration for all Israel. Slaves and prisoners were to be freed. Debts were to be forgiven. Land was to be returned to families who had leased it or used it as collateral. Every 50 years was to be a year of forgiveness of debt. It was like a regularly scheduled divinely ordained do-over. It was God's way of renewing and replenishing Israel.
Near as we can tell, the Year of the Jubilee was never actually observed in a literal sense at any time in Israel's history. None of the historical documents makes reference to it, either directly or in passing. The year of the Jubilee remained a symbol, something the people of Israel held onto in hope, rather than something they actually experienced in real time. Not hard to figure out why. To put the Year of the Jubilee into practice would have required a regular redistribution of resources and assets which ran counter to the interests of the tiny minority of people who actually held the resources, the assets, and the power. Then, as now, people don't let go of their currency that easily.
But what is interesting is that the Jubilee -- the Year of the Lord's Favor -- remained a religious symbol. What the Jubilee proclaims is that God's agenda, God's desire, God's deepest longing for God's creation is that of forgiveness. And where God is concerned, forgiveness is about freedom -- not just for those who are being forgiven, but for the one who is doing the forgiving.
That seems to be where God and humanity often part company. For God, forgiveness is freedom from that which oppresses. It’s the freedom that comes when something that was broken is restored to wholeness. But for humanity, forgiveness seems to something else. For humanity, forgiveness more often seems to be about a redistribution of assets. For example, if you owe me money and I forgive that debt, I have just shifted some of my assets over you. I've just given you money. You've gained. I've lost. The stakes seem even higher when we're talking about forgiving someone for the pain that person has caused us. For example, if I’ve hurt you, I’ve already taken something that belongs to you -- be it trust, or peace of mind, or dignity, or your tender feelings, or whatever. Assets have been redistributed. I’ve gained and you’ve lost. For you then to forgive me that offense seems to suggest that you are now expected to give even more of your assets away. Where’s the motivation for that? So long as we think of relationships in terms of transactions, so long as we think of forgiveness in terms of asset redistribution, we get stuck and we stay stuck – as individuals and as a society. Forgiveness devolves into an abstraction – a pious but impractical and unobtainable virtue.
Jesus showed us a radically different approach. He served notice to those with ears to hear that his ministry would enflesh the year of the Jubilee because the freedom that the Jubilee expresses is always, always God’s default setting. No longer will this be a future hope, unrealized in the moment. From Galilee to Golgotha, Jesus will enact the Year of the Lord’s Favor in word and in action. His will be a life of radical, divine forgiveness, as in restoring what was broken, freeing all who are oppressed by suffering of any stripe. He will live this way, he will die this way, and he will be resurrected this way.
It’s the good news that too many of us two thousand years later still haven’t grasped. Forgiveness isn’t an abstraction, and it’s not an impossible task on our interior to-do list. Forgiveness is about daily living in such a way as to be free from bondage of suffering. To forgive is to make a decision for wholeness as over against brokenness. It is to love ourselves as God loves us, which is to say, enough to free ourselves from a worthless, useless burden. It does not deny the reality of the injury, nor does it give permission for further injury, nor is it something that can be demanded or placed on a timetable. Forgiveness never obviates accountability or consequences. What forgiveness does do is extinguish the power that the suffering holds over us.
Jesus sat in the synagogue in Nazareth and reminded his friends and family what kind of a God we worship -- a God of Jubilee. From Galilee to Golgotha, Jesus will enact the Year of the Lord’s Favor in word and in action. He will live this way, he will die this way, and he will be resurrected this way. It’s the goodest good news there is. And it’s for us.
