by Rev. Stephen Peake:

DATE: January 13, 2008
TEXT: Leviticus 25 (Jubilee)

In just a couple of weeks time, we at St Bride's will be entering our 50th year as a parish.

On February 1, 1959 a group of people gathered in a portable building out on our present day parking lot.

They expected maybe a couple dozen people
to show up but instead a couple hundred made their way to this new church that first Sunday.

That was almost exactly 49 years ago
--and some of you who are here this morning
were a part of that original congregation.

As we enter our 50th year
--our GOLDEN JUBILEE YEAR
we do so giving thanks to God
for his goodness to us here
at St Bride's.

In the coming year we will be planning our Golden Jubilee celebration for 2009.

This morning, I want to set the stage
& preach on this topic of Jubilee
and I'm doing it today
rather than two weeks from now
because I want to ask you
to keep what I say this morning
in the back of your mind
as we come to our pre-vestry meeting
on Tuesday.

I hope
this might begin to focus our thoughts
as we prepare to celebrate 50 years.

Biblically the 50th year
was a significant anniversary
--it is called "The Year of Jubilee".

The origin of this Jubilee year
goes back to the first Scripture reading we had
this morning from the Old Testament
book of Leviticus.

The word 'jubilee' itself
comes from the Hebrew word 'juval'
which literally means
"a horn made from the horn of a ram".

Every 49 years
a special ram's horn was to be blasted
to mark the beginning of
the year of Jubilee.

[PAUSE]

At it's very heart
Jubilee is about restoration.

If we had read
the opening verses of Leviticus 25
we would have seen God commanding Moses
to give the land they would be entering
a chance to rest.

In those verses
God tells Moses
that for 6 years crops can be grown
but every 7th year
is to be a year of Sabbath rest
for the land itself.

The command of course
is rooted in the created order itself
--I'm sure you all picked that up.

In Genesis 1--the story of creation
you will recall that in a metaphorical sense
God created the world
in 6 days but on the 7th he rested.

When God gave Moses the 10 Commandments
God called his people to follow that pattern
--a pattern of six days of work
with a day of Sabbath or rest on the 7th.

With the year of Jubilee
that creation ordinance
is now given as a principle
to govern how the land itself
is to be treated.

Every 7 years,
the land is to lay fallow--and be restored.

Let us read again Leviticus 25 verses 8-10.

" 'Count off seven sabbaths of years--seven times seven years--so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded... sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you;"

Do you see what is happening?

You might need to pull out the calculator
you brought this morning
to do the math
--but essentially God calls for
a Sabbath of Sabbaths.

After 7 of these 7 year cycles
--7 times 7
there is to be a very special year
a year of Jubilee.

With the blast of a ram's horn
the people entered the 50th year
--just as we are about to do here at St Bride's.

And in that 50th year
3 major things were to happen
and I'll be coming back to these in a moment.

First,
the land was to lay fallow--to rest
for an extra full year.

Second,
all debts were to be cancelled
and all land that was purchased
was to be offered for sale
back to it's original owner.

Third,
all slaves were to be set free.

But before we look at this further
I want to say one more thing
about the context of this Jubilee year.

I want to say a word about
the TIMING of the Jubilee proclamation by God
because the timing is significant.

Verse 1 of Leviticus 25 says
that God gave Moses this command
on Mt Sinai.

You remember what happened on Mt Sinai
--while the people were wandering
in the wilderness
--fleeing slavery in Egypt
and making their way to the Promised Land
--God called Moses to Mt Sinai
where God gave Moses
the 10 Commandments.

Moses then came down the Mountain
and found that the people of God
had built an idol
--a calf made out of gold
and they were worshipping that idol
instead of God.

Moses was enraged
and smashed the tablets
which the 10 Commandments were written on.

Moses then climbed the mountain alone again
and it was during this second trip up Mt Sinai
that the Jubilee Instructions
were given to him.

The timing is important because it means that
the Jubilee was established in the context
of the need for repentance, and restoration
--the need to have a fresh start with God.

In this way,
the Jubilee's meaning is tied
to the forgiveness and restoration
that lies at the center of God's work with Israel,
and with human history in general.

Beyond the Sabbath,
given the first time Moses received the Law,
God now points Israel and the world
to the Sabbath of Sabbaths.

Throughout the Bible
that 7 day, 7 year, 49 year cycle
is significant.

Read the prophecies
of the book of Daniel or Thessalonians
for example
and you will see it occur frequently.

Or flip ahead to the ministry of Jesus...

You will recall that as Jesus started
his own ministry
he began that ministry in a year of Jubilee.

Quoting from the prophet Isaiah
Jesus says:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
...and then Jesus said to them,
"Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

What do you think
"the year of the Lord's favour" means?

It refers to the year of Jubilee
--the year the ram's horn was blasted
and the people of God were called
to restoration, renewal...beginning again.

Jubilee set the stage for Jesus' ministry.

So with that background
let me touch upon
three of the key elements of the year of Jubilee
and see how they might speak
to us at St Bride's in 2008-2009
as we enter our 50th year as a church.
1) The first Jubilee requirement
is this:
RESTORE THE LAND

Look at verse 11 of Leviticus 25.

The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap...
Leviticus 25:11

The created order is such that IT,
--like a person,
needs rest
and renewal
and restoration
and liberation.

Nutrients and goodness and life
must be returned to the soil
if that soil is to continue producing fruit.

We have to jump ahead to verse 23
to discover the fundamental principle
which underlies God's command
regarding the use of land.

In verse 23 God says:
" ...the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants." Leviticus 25:23

We delude ourselves
if we think we truly own anything.

Everything...EVERYTHING
comes from God,
...belongs to God...
and is given to us on temporary loan.

So let me stretch this just a little bit
and connect the renewal of the land
with OUR land--our church and property.

Over the past few years
we have discovered that this property is tired
and it is in real need of restoration.

Our roof needs to be re-shingled
--the parking lot needed to be re-paved
--the organ needed to be replaced
--the boiler is probably on its last legs
--the stained glass windows
throughout the building
are buckling.

All of these things are natural
for a building of this age...

...And that's exactly my point
--as part of the created order
this building and property
need to be given a fresh start.

Any work we do, though,
is done knowing
whose this building is.

We do this work remembering
that St Bride's belongs to God alone.

It doesn't belong to us collectively.

It doesn't belong to the Advisory Board,
or the wardens
or the diocese.

It belongs to God
and it is here to serve God.

This is GOD'S House.

We have started the work
of renewing and restoring
this place of worship
--but more needs to be done.

Wouldn't it be awesome
if we could have our church completely refreshed
as we enter our 51st year?

Maybe that is a pipe dream I don't know.

But what I do know
is that if anything like that were to happen
we would need many very significant gifts
of time, and energy and money.

And for us to be faithful to God in this work
we would need to remember
as we give of ourselves
--as we pull out our cheque books--
that what we are doing
is putting back to right
that which belongs to God.

We would be reminding ourselves
that all we have comes from God
and we return some of those gifts
to honour God
by renewing "the land".

2) A second principle of Jubilee
is found in verses 23 & 24.
--There God says:
RESTORE EQUITY.

Again a brief bit of background is needed.

As the nation of Israel
lived through the course
of this 50 year cycle
some people were able
to amass significant wealth.

For those people,
their land produced abundant crops.

But not everyone was so fortunate.

There were others
whose land produced almost nothing.

This person--the one who was left with very little
would likely have to sell his land
in order to buy enough food from those
with plenty.

But once the land was gone
that man would then have to sell his labour
in order to buy food for the next year.

Soon some acquired much
while others lost their land
and were forced to work as virtual slaves.

The year of Jubilee
was intended to restore a just equality
among people.

This restoration
took several forms
but most significantly
it included the return of sold land
back to the original owner.

Here's what God commanded in verse 23:

" 'land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land." Leviticus 25:23-24

You can read the details of this on your own
if you like.

In essence
this key feature of Jubilee meant
that whenever land was sold
it was only temporarily sold
and ownership expired
at the next Jubilee Year.

Land value was to decrease
depending on the number of years left
until the next Jubilee.

Essentially
this principle was about
restorative justice.

For the wealthy
Jubilee meant it was time to share.

It was time to share generously
and give back land
which is God's land anyway.

For the poor
Jubilee meant liberation
--freedom from a perpetual sentence
of poverty & slavery
and a real opportunity
to start life over again.

One is reminded again
of the connection with Jesus' words
as he began his ministry.

Jesus said
"I have come to set at liberty
those who are oppressed
and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour."

So what might THIS mean
for us at St Bride's
as we enter this year of Jubilee.

Well,
perhaps it means
that we too are called
to engage in meaningful works
of restorative justice.

Perhaps it means
that a part of our jubilee
must involve a significant outreach project.

Again, maybe this is a pipe dream,
but it would seem fully in line with
God's Jubilee
if we were to "give back" in a big way.

We who are the wealthy are called in Jubilee
to share out of our incredible abundance
and to give generously
to those who are the oppressed.

What that might look like
I have no idea.

Maybe it would mean
funding the construction of a house or two
in a third world country --or an AIDS clinic
--or maybe the construction of a church
for those who can't afford to build
a church themselves.

I don't know what it would mean exactly
--that's something for us to consider together.

But I do know that in reality
St Bride's is very capable of a significant act
of Restorative Justice.

Let me very quickly touch
on a third principle of Jubilee.

3) Thirdly God commands the
RELEASE OF CAPTIVES

Verse 39 says:
" 'If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you...he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his ancestors.
Leviticus 25:39-41

In a lot of ways
this too is about restorative justice
--allowing those who have been forced
to work for others
to return to their land
and get a fresh start.

But I want to take a slightly different slant
on this one
because captivity and slavery
take many different forms.

In this case,
Jubilee is referring to a PHYSICAL slavery
--being forced to serve a human master.

But throughout the Bible
a very close parallel is drawn
between physical and spiritual captivity.

St Paul says that without Christ
we are slaves to our human nature.

We serve ourselves
we live according to "the way we are born"
rather than living as servants
of the living God.

Wycliffe College's professor of historical theology
Ephraim Radner
is about to publish a commentary
on the book of Leviticus
and he generously lent me his manuscript
on chapter 25
as I prepared this sermon.

Radner insightfully says
that Jubilee is really about a "Homecoming".

That homecoming
is a homecoming in the here and now
--and it anticipates the ultimate homecoming
of the whole created order to God.

It is about a homecoming for the land
--having its life restored
and then returning to it's original owner.

Ultimately that original owner is God.

But it is also about a homecoming for the CAPTIVE
--returning to his land
but ultimately returning to his Creator
as a child loved and cherished by God.

Jubilee is about anticipating the day
when, to use the words of Ephesians 1
God will "...bring all things in heaven and on
earth together under one head...Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 1:10

It's about coming home.

All of this is to say
that there is a spiritual dimension
to the act of Jubilee.

The blast of the ram's horn
does not merely signify the return of land
and the freedom of slaves.

It ultimately signifies
the healing of a broken relationship
between the whole created order
and God himself.

Jubilee is about
proclaiming the Good News
that God desires his people
to be released from a slavery of sin
and lovingly restored in relationship
with Himself.

Jesus Christ
by the cross of Calvary
made this act of Jubilee supremely possible.

This spiritual dimension of Jubilee
cannot be lost as we celebrate 50 years
at St Bride's.

A part of our Jubilee
must include the proclamation of the Gospel
--the Good News that
the captives can be set free.

A part of our Jubilee
needs to focus on putting down
deeper spiritual roots
making sure our children
and generations yet to come
both hear and are equipped to live
as followers of Jesus
in the world today.

We need to think seriously
about what we are doing
to help children and families
live out and share their faith
so that this church is here
for another 50 yrs
and is even stronger and more vibrant
than it already is.

CONCLUSION

I need to stop there.

I wish I had a ram's horn
--maybe we can dig one up for another time.

But as we come to our 50th year
--with the blast of the ram's horn
we are called to a biblical celebration
of God's Jubilee.

Quite honestly
there are a couple of ways we can celebrate
50 years as a church.

We can do what most do
and have a formal dinner somewhere as a parish
and call it a day.

I like a parish dinner as much as anyone...
--but that hardly seems to me
what it is all about.

Let's dream BIG this year.

Let's do something outlandish
--something never before ventured!

In our abundance as a church
let's take BIG steps
to RESTORE GOD'S HOUSE
to GIVE GENEROUSLY TO THE NEEDY
& to PROCLAIM THE GOOD NEWS
of freedom in Jesus Christ.

"Sound the horn...Consecrate the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout the land...It shall be a Jubilee for you."