A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson – November 5, 2006

Texts: Deut. 15:1-4; Leviticus 25:8-17; Exodus 20:8-11; Deut. 5:12-15

Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts." –Deuteronomy 15:1

You shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property, and every one of you to your family. – Leviticus 25:10

…the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work–you, or your son or your daughter, or your… slave, or the resident alien in your towns… Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt… – Deuteronomy 5:13, 15

This is the third of three sermons on "Stewardship in God’s Radical Economy." "Economy" because that word comes straight from the Greek word oikonomia for "stewardship." A steward cares for a household, and the word oikonomia comes from two Greek words, oikos (household) and nomos (rule). So we’ve looked at some rather radical rules for living in God’s household and ordering our economic lives–in our homes, our church and our world–so as to better reflect God’s care for all of creation. Let’s review…

Rule 1–on not charging interest on loans–is about freedom. It comes from a time when interest on debts drove people into literal slavery. We don’t have debt slavery as such, but our national economy depends on high levels of consumer spending and debt that take away people’s freedom and choice. How do we limit our own and our children’s future by our decisions about spending and borrowing?

Rule 2–a harvest rule on leaving behind gleanings for the poor–is rooted in God’s concern that all people’s needs be met. This rule asks if we really need to strive for every last cent we can earn. When is enough enough for us? For until we decide that, our own grasping for more blinds us to the needs of others.

Rule 3–on tithing–often is abused to get people to dig deeper to pay the church’s bills. Yet this rule about giving 10% of income is really about full and fair participation in communities of joy and thanksgiving. It promotes balance and equity in supporting the community even as it fully includes the poor, who stand outside the workings of the economy. The tithe opens us to seeing God as source of all and asks us if our spending patterns reflect gratitude or greed.

Rule 4–on welcoming strangers and foreigners–is where we left off two weeks ago. Such radically inclusive hospitality is rooted in our own experiences of the grace of God. As we accept and welcome the stranger and alien in our midst, we come to deeper awareness of how God accepts and welcomes us–even those strange and alien parts of ourselves we keep secret. In hospitality, the space we make for others to be who they are is also the space we need for ourselves to be who we are as beloved children of God.

So now we come to two final household rules for stewardship in God’s economy–Rule 5 about Sabbath and Jubilee Years… and Rule 6 on keeping the sabbath day. Both lead us to profound questions about our economic choices.

Rule 5 seems especially radical to us. Every seven years all debts were to be forgiven, wiped off the books. The debts and loans of foreigners were excluded, but debt slavery within the Hebrew community itself could not exceed seven years. Having known bondage in Egypt, the Hebrew people were not to end up enslaving each other. And since agricultural landholdings were the foundation of the people’s freedom, all slaves were to be freed and all property returned to original owners after seven 7-year periods, the fiftieth years to be a grand Jubilee Year.

Such practices seem unthinkable in our market-based, consumer economy. Our entire economic system relies so heavily on readily available credit. Just think of how much you could charge to your VISA card every 6th year and not have to pay it back! No one would make any loans if the Sabbath Year was just around the corner and all debts would be wiped out? And if all land is supposed to go back to original owners every fifty years, just who are the original owners? The first settlers? The Native Americans?

Still, this rule does recognize the inevitable concentration of wealth over time. Without some mechanism for redistribution to level the playing field, the gap between rich and poor grows ever larger as the rich (individuals or nations) get richer and the poor get poorer. Historically, the primary means of redistribution have been war and revolution (level the playing field by destroying it). But these leave a lot to be desired (to put it mildly). Sabbath and Jubilee years were meant to reestablish justice and equity–it being unjust to deprive anyone of their God-given freedom or the means to meet their basic human needs. Every seven years, all loans are to be forgiven. And then "the fiftieth year is sacred," says Leviticus 25:10, "It is a time of freedom and celebration when everyone will receive back their original property, and slaves will return home to their families." Disruptive? Oh yes. But not nearly so disruptive as war or revolution.

Maybe such rules cannot "work" today. But there’s no doubt that this kind of justice is desperately needed in our world. With respect to debt, the Jubilee 2000 Campaign six years ago resulted in the industrialized nations pledging to forgive $100 Billion in foreign debt that was effectively enslaving many "Third World" nations. But this didn’t solve the problem. Paying just the interest on foreign debt still prevents the world’s poorest nations from affording adequate education and health care for their people. So groups like the ONE Campaign (with people like Bono and the Dalai Lama) and the Jubilee USA Network continue to call for debt cancellation for poor countries along with providing humanitarian aid at just 1% of our national budget. With respect to land ownership, how many ethnic groups in our world yearn and struggle and often fight to return to (or retain) traditional homelands? And how many refugees have been forced out of their homes?

The Sabbath and Jubilee Year rules ask us: to whom does everything belong? What do debts and property ownership mean if "the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it," as the psalm declares? The Jubilee rule explicitly values land for the number of harvests it will produce (Lev. 25:16), because no one but the Lord can truly own the land. We are but caretakers of the land, stewards acting on God’s behalf. This household rule for God’s radical economy calls us to examine our own participation in an often unjust economic system that depletes the world’s resources, devastates the land, sea, and air, and divides humanity into haves and have-nots with an ever expanding gulf between the two.

Finally we come to Rule 6 in God’s radical economy: keep the sabbath. Although this is perhaps the most familiar of the six rules, one of the "big Ten" (so to speak), it is no less radical. Those who want it posted along with the other nine of the Ten Commandments rarely want the local Wal-Mart to close one day per week. Yes it’s radical. It claims that not only does the "earth and all that is in it" belong to the Lord, but so does all of time itself, especially the time of rest. In Exodus 20, sabbath observance is rooted in the creation story. The heart of sabbath lies in pausing to remember our dependence on the Creator God. The traditional Jewish sabbath rules forbid doing anything that demonstrates a mastery over creation. For in doing such things we might forget just who is the creature and who the Creator. Keeping sabbath reminds us that we are not God and that God’s world can proceed without our supervision.

Of the six household rules, this one would seem to be most attractive. In the busyness of life, who doesn’t hunger for rest at times? But so much of our world conspires against any kind of sabbath rest. We learn early on to define ourselves by what we do. Our language gives us away–I am a plumber… a salesman… a homemaker… a teacher… a pastor. That’s how we say it. We define our essential worth by how much we get done. The busier we are, the more we feel needed. From 1969 to 2000 the work year for the average American increased by 169 hours (Juliet Schor’s The Overworked American), 21 extra 8-hour days (without any comparable increase in income). One group has named Oct. 24 "Take Back Your time Day" to dramatize how Americans work an average of 9 more weeks each year than do Europeans. But (in their words) "Americans are so insanely busy with their jobs, household chores, and kids’ sports games, that they have little time to chill out, let alone lobby for change." The sabbath is actually a gift, a way to escape from the rat race… but only if we truly observe it.

Most often, however, a "day off" becomes not a sabbath time for focusing on our relationship with God, but just another part of the rat race where we work long hours to make enough to satisfy all the wants we have come to see as needs. That "day off" becomes the "only time we have" to play with the expensive toys we’ve worked so hard to acquire… or to go shopping for yet more toys. I remember when most stores closed on Sundays, but now they need Sunday revenues to survive in a cut-throat marketplace. In many parts of the country, more people go to malls on Sunday than to church. It’s the only time they have to shop, they say. Or… it’s the only time they have to be together as a family. Or… it’s the only time they can go up to the mountains or to the beach. Some of this may indeed be true sabbath rest. Yet so much of recreation seems to require the very toys–the high-definition TVs, iPods, laptops, SUVs, boats, high-performance sports equipment–that people charge to their credit cards and then work like dogs to make payments. So we all end up trapped in the rat-race of feeding the rat. No one ever seems to say, "I won’t be at work Wednesday because it’s the only time I have to be with my family." But Sunday worship is another matter.

Like earlier household rules, the sabbath also raises issues of freedom in a consumer-oriented, debt-ridden society that has little notion of when enough is enough. Exodus’ concern about resting gives way in Deuteronomy to God’s desire for human freedom as the sabbath is to remind the Hebrew people of how God rescued them from slavery in Egypt. No one is to work–not you, your children, your animals, not even foreigners or slaves. This goes beyond recognizing our dependence upon God. It’s a matter of justice. This aspect of sabbath-keeping is harder because it’s not just about me and my time, my rest and my personal relationship with God. The economic decisions we make affect others. The sabbath rule asks us to consider how our economic choices enslave not just us but also all those who must forego a sabbath to serve us as well as to survive.

The six household rules for stewardship in God’s radical economy come to us from a distant time and place. Applying them literally may not be possible. Yet all six ask us some profoundly subversive questions. They call us to pay attention to how we customarily live and make decisions in the world–especially economic decisions. For our economic decisions–how we choose to use our money and our time–inevitably involve us in issues of freedom and justice and responsibility.

These are not rules held over us like a ton of bricks, waiting to crash down upon us at the first misstep. How horribly unfortunate that the church has often turned these rules into burdens… when it has not managed to ignore them completely. For what lies at the heart of these rules is God’s good and gracious will for all of God’s children–including each one of us. The rules themselves point to how we might go about living more fully in response to the freedom and acceptance we find in the grace of God. They teach us how to be better stewards of what belongs to God. And yes, they teach us how to be more generous givers. That’s important! But they also how to transform our very lives so that we might truly glorify God and enjoy God forever. Like all of the laws in the Hebrew Torah, they were given to an Exodus people, a people who knew God as the One who had rescued them from slavery in Egypt and blessed them with freedom. So each of these rules is a gift to be received and opened and enjoyed. For each one comes from the Lord God who loves us and calls each one of us by name. Amen and amen.