Good Shepherd United Church of Christ

The Jubilee Manifesto                       Luke 4:14-21
Jan. 24, 2010                                     Psalm 19
Metairie, LA

I say, "Jubilee" because Jesus is announcing the Jubilee Year today, right here in your hearing.

"Today!” he declares in his inaugural speech, the initiation of his mission.  Today!  It starts today!  And right here!  Right here in the sanctuary, Jesus announces, as he reads from the scroll quoting Isaiah.  Right now!  Right here!  The Year of the Lord's Favor, The Jubilee Year.

How many of us here today know what the "Jubilee Year" is?  How many of us here today have even heard these two words "Jubilee Year?" as a Biblical injunction?  This text from Luke has the weight and command of our Bill of Rights or could be compared to the Emancipation Proclamation.

Jesus is announcing the purpose of his ministry; he is setting the roadmap for God's "Kingdom Come" but modern ears are deaf to this speech.

We can recite the Golden Rule; we can name the ten commandments (well at least 6 or 7 of them); many of us can say a Creed by heart.  But the Jubilee Year?  Not so familiar.

You will see John 3:16 paraded around on homemade signs at ballgames, but have you ever seen Luke 4:18?  I never have.  Jesus' very very first utterance after his baptism and his temptations in the Desert with the Devil are Luke 4:18, right after he returns in "the power of the Spirit" to Galilee where he preaches on the Sabbath.

And the one text, from all the scriptures that might have been selected, is this:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to preach
good news to the poor.
He sent me to proclaim
release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed
to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

That year in Hebrew Scriptures is the Jubilee Year.  When Jesus took up the scroll and quoted Isaiah, his favorite prophet, he was declaring a manifesto:  the manifestation of God's dominion, God's agenda.  God's beloved son was the key in the ignition of the Jubilee Year.

Again, I ask:  Do our fourth graders memorize this text before they receive their Bibles?  Does our Confirmation Class study the Jubilee Year?  Are Christians filing lawsuits to get these words posted in the Courthouses of our land?  NO, NO and NO.

After this morning, I hope we can respond "yes" to at least one of the questions I have posed.  And that question is:  Do we know what the Jubilee Year is?

Here is what the Jubilee Year is.  It is announced with the blowing of the ram's horn to draw the attention of the populace.  And the Year begins.  Leviticus 25 describes the elements of the Jubilee Year which was legislated to occur every 50th year.  This calculation was based upon 7 times 7 which equal 49, and then the Jubilee Year.

At the Jubilee year indentured servants were released; debt was forgiven; property and wealth were redistributed.  It was good news for the poor indeed.

Beyond the social implications. the law even required that the land lay fallow.  Jubilee was a Sabbath of Sabbaths, celebrating the day of rest which God enjoyed after creation of the heavens and the earth and all the vegetation and creatures of every sort, all of it "good" and in the case of humanity "very good".

The purpose of the Jubilee Year was to "clean the slate" and was intended to redress the tendency of debtors to become hopelessly indebted to their creditors.  (Think of the home mortgage scandals of today)  (Think of the old folk song with the refrain, "St. Peter don't you call me cause I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store".)  In political terms this legislation prevented an oligarchy, where the very few own and control the vast majority of the wealth.

There is some scholarly argumentation about whether or not the Jubilee laws were actually practiced or whether they were utopian ideals meant to persuade.

Early Christianity, whose theology incorporated and declared this Jubilee Manifesto, had much appeal to the disempowered- slaves, indentured servants, women because "captives" were to be set free.  Indeed, one of the reasons that early Christians were such a threat to the imperial empire, Rome, was that slaves and indentured servants and women might just refuse to serve, and would disrupt the social order, upset the status quo.  And indeed, that is what happened.

In the U.S. era when people were enslaved, the Jubilee Year was used in the argument for emancipation.  These Christians took the anti-slave texts literally, while their opponents were inclined to argue contextually.

The Catholic Church spiritualized the Jubilee Year in 1300 when Pope Boniface declared a 100 year cycle of remission of sins which could be obtained by visiting Rome and other actions, for instance, being "truly repentant" and going to St. Peter's and St. Paul's Basilica's at appointed times.  Over the centuries, these became pilgrimages and were associated with the selling of indulgences to assure entry into heaven.

Oh!  and it is not only the Catholic church which has cashed in on the Jubilee Manifesto.  Protestants have cashed in too.  You can buy tickets to Branson's version of the Jubilee where Branson’s' best quartet, "New South", performs alongside Branson's (and I quote) "reigning comedian of the year, Mike Hague, and M.C. extraordinaire, Mike Patrick, who will keep you doubled over with laughter."

From Isaiah's prophecy to Jesus' Inaugural Address to the selling of indulgences to the amusements of comedians and magicians.

The magnificent manifesto of Jubilee has devolved to trinkets and ticket.  No wonder we want to forget the Jubilee Year.  It is a hard text.  Listen again:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He sent me to proclaim release to the captives,
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed
and to proclaim the Jubilee year.

One reason that the text is hard is that it did not happen.  The captives of poverty and debt are not free.  The oppressed are not liberated.  Debts have not been forgiven.  Wealth has not been redistributed every 50 years.  And the land has not been permitted to lay fallow, nor the seas, nor the air.

We forget that, as the body of Christ, our manifesto is to bring good news to the poor and instead we get invested in trinkets and tickets, God forgive us.

The news in Haiti is in our eyes and ears morning, noon and nighttime.  The poor, the captives, the oppressed.  Pat Robertson thinks this is an act of God's punishment because of their pact with the Devil.  The large majority of Haitians are Catholics, so I wonder who Mr. Robertson is slurring?  People said the same about us after Katrina.

Historians say that the situation is the result of decades of oppression, poverty, and corruption while the wealthy are blind to their plight.  Just like they said about Katrina.

Some say that it is a natural disaster caused by an earthquake, just like they said Katrina was about the hurricane.

We know better than the pundits because we have lived that catastrophe which combines predictable natural events with failure of civic planning, against a backdrop of decades of poverty and corruption.

And I would suggest to you that we also know first hand the solution:  The Jubilee Manifesto envisioned by Isaiah and mandated by Jesus.  Catastrophes like Haiti and Katrina are the ram's horn, clarion calls from God to act our creed.  We have hosted work campers in our fellowship hall to respond to the call.  Respond multiple times, not forsaking us.  On Jan. 30 a group from U.C.C. churches in Massachusetts will arrive.

Some have heard me say how grateful I am for our hospitality to Community...Recovery...Outreach which brings the work campers to us.  Of course, I am grateful that they come to repair our environment, natural and social. But it is more personal than that to me.  I once said that I would feel like a fraud as a minister if we did not have C.R.O. associated with Good Shepherd.  Then I corrected myself to say I WOULD BE a fraud as a minister because I would be pastoring a church with no major on-going expression of the Jubilee Manifesto.

Where ever God is in these events in Haiti , this is NOT the acts of a vengeful God, ticked off about Voodoo.  A colleague of mine, the pastor of First Baptist Church in New Orleans , says it rightly in a Times Picayune opinion piece:  "Speculations about the meaning of disasters will continue.  One truth garners near-unanimous consent:  Whatever the cause, the call to help in the aftermath is compelling and far reaching;  when trouble comes, theologian and philosopher alike must rise from the chair and become boots on the ground."

Good Shepherd suffered because of a catastrophe, but we are no longer victims.  We are largely recovered:  our facilities are in good operation, our music program is growing, our Sunday School classes have doubled, our budget permits us to call a permanent full time minister, blessings not enjoyed by most of our N.O. Association sister churches.

So now, we are in a position to bring hope to Haiti that has been granted to us.  We know first hand about natural and social disaster and now we know all about the Jubilee Manifesto.

No excuses for us!  Bottoms off the benches, feet on the fields.  Today, in your hearing, in your sanctuary Jesus proclaims the acceptable year of the Lord.  Pass it on.  Use words if necessary.

Amen