Jubilee

We’ve just completed a small group here at Essex Church, focusing on the origins of our liberal religious faith.  One of the surprises, for some of us on that course, was just how very biblically based was the faith of those early Free Christians.  They believed the Bible to be the Word of God and they struggled to free themselves from church doctrine and return to the written word, the text.  But it wasn’t really until the 19th century that Biblical scholarship began in earnest and a more liberal, interpretative approach emerged, linked with other areas of study such as archaeology, history, literary studies and comparative studies of near eastern civilisations. In theology there is an issue known as Biblical Authority – which asks ‘what is the Bible to you?’  Here within our congregation of Kensington Unitarians we perhaps contain a more varied range of answers to that question than you might expect.  But whatever our own views we probably share a concern for the way in which, both here in Britain and abroad – in our own time, not hundred of years ago – words of the Bible are being used to justify oppression of certain groups.  Some people believe that the Bible is the Word of God, that every word of it is therefore true and then find Biblical passages that justify their particular moral stance.

An email that did the rounds on the Internet some years ago still seems relevant today.  It’s a reply to a right wing radio chat show host, Dr Laura Schlessinger, whose show was at one time the second most listened to radio show in the United States.  She’s known for her negative views on homosexuality and on modern pagan religious beliefs.  She used the Old Testament book of Leviticus in particular to back up her views, advocating a “Biblical morality”.  Now Leviticus is primarily a book of rules for the Hebrew tribes people – some of these rules are highly relevant for life today – some perhaps less so.  The guidance it contains has probably been in existence in oral form for centuries but was perhaps collected together by a priestly source between 600 and 400BCE.  So the Book of Leviticus is at least two and a half thousand years old.  Here are just a few extracts from the spoof email – a letter to Dr Laura:

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When people try to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to follow them:

a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Lev.1:9).The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7.In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

c) Lev.25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

d) I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

e) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev.11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this?

f) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?

g) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread – cotton/polyester blend. He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them (Lev.24:10-16)? Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev.20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

The email letter made its point – it is hard to cite Biblical authority for some passages of the Bible and then conveniently ignore others.  But for me that doesn’t mean we should therefore disregard all that is contained in this collection of books that together make the Old and New Testaments.  And it is the Book of Leviticus that contains the idea of the Sabbath and of a jubilee year.

All of which is a long winded way to make the link with the recent celebrations of our queen’s diamond jubilee – marking Elizabeth’s 60 years on the throne and linking in with the celebration of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee in June 1897.  The two longest serving monarchs in British history.  Descriptions of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee celebrations include mention of her visit to Kensington, when 30,000 children from local Sunday Schools lined the railings of Kensington Gardens to wave at the Royal parade as it made its way to the Albert Memorial.  And what is the connection between royal celebrations and an ancient Biblical text?  

We heard a few extracts earlier on from chapter 25 of Leviticus.  In that chapter the Hebrew tribespeople, newly settled in the land that Yahweh has promised them, are given important guidelines for the ways they must live.  A Sabbath day of rest must be observed each week. The land must be given a Sabbath year of rest every seventh year.  And when seven times seven years have been completed, the 50th year must be declared a Jubilee, a time of radical re-alignment – primarily to do with land ownership.  Yahweh says to the people, “the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants” (Lev.25.v.23).  The jubilee was to be announced by the blowing of the ram’s horn – blown to this day by Jewish communities to mark Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  We have a Jewish community, Beit Klal Yisrael, that has been meeting in our church building since 1990, and the sound of that horn is indeed a wake up call.  The horn is known as the ‘jobel’ and it is here that we have the root of the word jubilee.  But early on in Christian history the Hebrew word ‘jobel’ was confused with the Latin word ‘jubilo’ meaning ‘I rejoice’, and the radical challenge of the Hebrew concept became less clear.

I’ll quote now from an excellent blog written about the recent jubilee celebrations by Nick Spencer, Research Director for the Theos Think Tank, a group committed to a sensible exploration of the place of religion in society and culture.

“The ‘jobel’ was an idea of such transformative power that Jesus used it, via the prophet Isaiah, to announcing his ministry in Luke 4: “he has anointed me…to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

 It was an idea as brilliant in its simplicity as it was far-reaching in its repercussions. Having distributed the land equally among families, clans and tribes, the people were called, once every fifty years, to stop. Debts were cancelled, people returned to their ancestral lands, the land itself given the chance to rest. In a single stroke, the poor were to be lifted up, the lost reintegrated, creation given a moment to breathe, and the birthright of future generations secured.

 The genius of the idea was not in its utopianism but its realism. Early Israel did not pretend the people were naturally selfless or communistic. On the contrary, it presupposed a market economy but tempered its tendency towards inequality and exclusion by basing it on ineradicable ‘stakeholder’ foundations. Every family knew that no matter how hard the times they fell on, their basic stake in society could not be lost for good. Conversely, the successful knew that no matter how well they did for themselves, they would never simply be able to rest on inherited wealth.”

 Many Biblical scholars would probably question whether the nation of Israel ever managed to mark a jubilee in this radical way.  But these passages from Leviticus offer humanity an ideal, an aspiration, an encouragement to strive towards greater equality in a world society that is so very unjust.  You may recall the Jubilee Debt Campaign that began just before the millennium in 1999.  Its three key aims are to:

– Cancel the unjust debts of the most indebted nations

– Promote just and progressive taxation rather than excessive borrowing

– Stop harmful lending which forces countries into debt

These aims were badly needed back in 1999.  And much progress was made in the cancelling of Third World Debt as it was then known.  But when we consider the world now in 2012 there clearly is much, much restorative work still to do.  We need a jubilee, though perhaps less of the flag waving kind than the strident, call-to-justice kind.

In a work that I’ve been reading recently, Proclaim Jubilee! ~ A Spirituality for the 21st Century, theologian Maria Harris explores what guidance a jubilee might hold for us, individually and collectively.  It’s an inspiring book on many levels, not least because she uses the ancient rules from the Book of Leviticus and makes them relevant for us today. She advocates making times for rest and reflection, she encourages us to re-engage with that which is Holy, she reminds us of the importance of forgiveness and the righting of wrongs.  She makes a valuable link between celebration and gratitude.  Harris does not shy away from the difficult parts of the ancient concept of Jubilee, one section of which calls for the giving of liberty to all Hebrew slaves but keeping captive any slaves from neighbouring nations.  Her view of Biblical authority is similar to mine.  We know that this collection of books, our Bible, is a historical text.  Some may consider its writers to have been divinely inspired.  But I have to feel free to pick and choose the elements of the Bible that I’ll use as a moral compass and the elements I cannot accept as relevant for life today.  And what makes this ‘pick and choose’ approach different from Dr Laura’s selectivity in choosing texts to inform her ‘Biblical morality’?  For me it comes down to love.  If someone is using the Bible to support views that are based on hatred or fear or that may increase hatred or fear in others then I think that is a misuse of the text.  If someone is using the Bible to support views that are based on love and acceptance and justice – well that’s got to be worth waving a flag for. 

I wonder what you think?

 

Words we said in unison:

 

May there be a time of jubilee, for all peoples of the world;

for all those who are wrongfully imprisoned

or economically burdened,

for anyone who is not allowed to be who they truly are,

or who is judged unfairly.

Let us join in building a world for all people,

a world where justice shall roll down like waters and peace like an ever-flowing stream. And so may it be.  Amen.

Rev. Sarah Tinker

Sermon – 10th June 2012