HONOLULU (ABP) — Christians are called to join Jesus as “jubilee people,” Australian pastor Allan Demond told participants at the 20th Baptist World Congress in Honolulu July 31.
Allen Demond (PHOTO/Peter Traynham)
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“Imagine if there was a place on Earth where God’s Spirit breathed righteousness and truth into every word, every action, every decision,” encouraged Demond, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Melbourne. “Imagine a place where people feared God more than they loved things, and they cared for others more than themselves.
“Imagine a place where every citizen confronted injustice, and no one was ever complicit with the deep wrongs in our world. Instead of ‘building bigger barns,’ the citizens of this place would share until no one had a need.”
That gets at the biblical concept of jubilee, Demond said.
The idea originates in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, in what he called “God’s social-reform vision.” Every 50th year, the Hebrew people were to celebrate the jubilee year — to let their farmland lay fallow, forgive debts and liberate slaves, he explained.
“Can you imagine the economic and political challenge of such a program? It would be amazing,” he said. “And can you imagine the consequences? Why, it would be like a new Earth and a new heaven. It would be like a new Tokyo or a new Mumbai or a new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven.”
But most scholars agree the jubilee year never happened, he reported.
Still, theologically, it’s is “a big, hope-filled idea,” he said. Jesus referenced it in his first sermon, when he told people from his hometown, Nazareth, he had come “to declare the year of the Lord’s favor.”
“The phrase describes a time when his salvation will be fully experienced and everything transformed,” Demond said. “It is the time when God puts everything right for all eternity.
“It is the moment that every prisoner, every blind woman, every bound man, every broken-hearted child, every needy family eagerly awaits. It is the ultimate exodus from sin and the final return from the exile.”
And although the jubilee year never has been observed, it’s still important today, he insisted.
That’s because, practically, it’s a call to radical discipleship, Demond said, noting Anglican scholar N.T. Wright argues Jesus wanted his followers to practice the jubilee, even if others did not.
“The real power of the jubilee proclamation for you and me is this: Am I willing to live this sermon of Jesus? Are the Christians who form a church together with me … willing to be such a people? Are all of us — Baptists of the world, together with our fellow Christians from many churches around the globe — ready to live lives that say the ‘year of the Lord’s favor’ has come?
“If we say, ‘yes,’ we will act against politics and social norms that look so embedded and unchangeable. Are we ready to practice a new way of life in new communities of hope? Are we ready to be jubilee people?”
The three principles of jubilee “still define radical stewardship in the 21st century,” Demond said. They include:
• Don’t plant your fields. A farmer who does not plant crops could worry if the farm and the family will survive, he explained. But the year of jubilee was designed to remind the Hebrew people of the time when they wandered in the wilderness, when God provided manna for them to eat. The message was direct: God will provide.
“Consider Jesus’ promise to you: ‘Do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his Kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well,’” he reminded.
“So, if we are going to be jubilee people, we will need to trust God — not our capacity to earn or work or be self-sufficient,” he said. “Jubilee people experience the Lord’s favor, because they position themselves to need it.”
• Forgive debts. In his model prayer, Jesus taught his followers to ask God to “forgive us our debts, as we forgive everyone who is indebted to us,” Demond recalled, adding, “The prayer is a celebration of God’s forgiveness and a promise of jubilee attitudes among the followers of Jesus.”
Demond contrasted the negative example of the parable of the merciless servant, who received huge debt forgiveness but refused to waive a small debt, and Barnabas, who sold his own property so he could meet the needs of others.
“If we are going to be jubilee people, we will need to be generous,” he advised. “We will consider others before we consider ourselves and yield our resources to the work of God’s Kingdom. We won’t build bigger barns for our extra stuff; we will build a new world.”
• Liberation of the slaves. In Jesus’ time, Jewish tax collectors collaborated with the Roman occupational forces in order to beat the financial system and gain extravagant wealth, Demond noted. But Jesus praised Zacchaeus, who followed Christ, paid back the taxes he over-charged and gave half his wealth to meet others’ needs.
Like Zacchaeus, “jubilee people confront the system,” he said. “They take practical steps to address their complicity in the wrongs of society. They use fair-trade products, stand up against poverty, confront injustice with their own resources and seek to obey when Jesus confronts them.”
Today’s jubilee people figure out what they can do about slavery and about sweatshop labor, he said.
“Jubilee people don’t get everything right, but they don’t bury their heads in the sand, either. They listen to hear the Spirit, and then they act.”
That action is empowered by the risen Christ, he said. In his death and resurrection, Jesus demonstrated he has the power to make jubilee possible.
“It is his grace that changes people from the inside out,” Demond said. “It is his call to repentance and offer of forgiveness that redefines life. It is his example that inspires. It is his strength that enables. It is his presence that builds up jubilee people and gives us courage. It is his gift of the Holy Spirit that bends the rules of the universe, filling faithful followers with power. It is his resurrection that makes decay and death momentary interruptions in serious jubilee work. It is his name that brings the power brokers and conspirators of the present age to their knees. It is Jesus Christ who makes jubilee possible.”
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Marv Knox is editor of the Texas Baptist Standard.