Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields. In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property. If you sell land to any of your own people or buy land from them, do not take advantage of each other. You are to buy from your own people on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And they are to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what is really being sold to you is the number of crops. Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 25:10-17
“This provision of the law returns property sold before the Jubilee to the original family landholders. Israelites who fall into servitude because of debt or destitution are freed, their debts cancelled, and they return to their families. The land itself shall have rest, a sabbatical in seven-year cycles…
The significance of this law is threefold. One it prevents undue concentration of wealth and holds up the inalienable character of clan landholdings. Two, it emancipates those who, because of misfortune, fall into debt and eventual slavery, and enables them to start again. Three, it renews the land and reminds Israel that the land belongs to God, that they are not owners but only tenants with right to use, or usufruct, and land cannot be sold permanently.
On the whole, the Jubilee is a periodic, structural remedy to economic deformations and imbalances that arise within a fifty-year period. It is a kind of social homeostasis, a way of maintaining productivity and social wellness by restoring to impoverished families their original land inheritance… Instead of generational poverty, there will be the blessing of protection and prosperity for the next generations (Isaiah 65:23-24).”
Melba Padilla Maggay in Living Faithfully in a Multicultural World (Manila: OMF Literature, 2018) 129-130. Special thanks to Anjji Gabriel for sharing this book with me.
For the foreseeable future I plan to lean into the biblical idea of ‘jubilee’ to learn more about God’s design for His people with regard to economic and social relations. I will explore its OT roots and NT expression in the early church writings. This seems fitting to me as I have only another six weeks or so in my 50th year. And, my word for the 2018 is ‘abundance’ which also fits well with ‘jubilee’.
Let’s consider three thoughts about God’s design for ‘jubilee’ and think about how they reflect God’s generosity in the world filled with patterns that Maggay describes with the term “economic deformations” which promote “generational poverty” and pervasive brokenness. In plain terms, the worldly patterns cause people to take advantage of each other rather than help one another.
Firstly, we live in a time where there is “undue concentration of wealth,” and it is only getting worse. The gap between the rich and poor is widening. This runs contrary to God’s design, which is why we see voluntary sharing that brings equality in the NT (2 Corinthians 8:13-15). God cares that everyone has enough, and we should too! Those blessed with abundance should not accumulate it but rather enjoy and share it. Sharing openhandedly is an aspect of generosity.
Secondly, the issues of debt and slavery are widespread. In America, the financial system expects everyone to participate in the diabolical debt economy; whereas the Scriptures call for a different debt to remain outstanding in perpetuity: love (Romans 13:8). To show love, Jesus desires that we live within our means to have margin and freedom to help others like the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). Aiding others with love is another reflection of generosity.
Thirdly, it is blasphemous for anyone to say they own anything! This strong language comes straight from God. We see it repeatedly in the Torah (first five books of the OT) reminding people to live as tenants in the land (Leviticus 25:23; Deuteronomy 10:14; Exodus 9:29, 19:5, et al). Since we own nothing, we must handle God’s resources in a way that accomplishes God’s purposes in the world. Faithful, obedience stewardship empowered by the Spirit produces the fruit of generosity.
I am thankful for writers like Maggay who remind us that we live in a world of “economic deformation” which promotes “generation poverty” and brokenness. In response, she inspires us to aim at “living faithfully” for God. We counteract the nefarious worldly systems not through erecting political structures but by individually and collectively living out the teachings of Jesus. In so doing, we exhibit the OT idea of jubilee, which is at the heart of Christian generosity.