Can we apply God’s Jubilee heart to our lives? To try to answer that question, we need to go to the New Testament, and there we learn that Jesus himself talked about the year of Jubilee.
In Luke 4:18–19, we read that Jesus, very early in his ministry returned to his hometown of Nazareth, where on the sabbath day, he went to the tabernacle like every good Jew, and he was asked to read the Scriptures. He turned to Isaiah 61, and he read a passage about Jubilee. “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.”
Freedom! Jesus locates his mission in the words of Jubilee. What is preaching of good news to the poor? That there is eternal life in heaven? Yes. But what kind news would those who are poor consider to be good news? That they got financial help of some kind. Maybe an inheritance. Maybe a job offer. Maybe a new source of income. In the book of Leviticus, what was the good news to the poor? It was that during the Year of Jubilee, their debts were erased. There was hope of a restart. That’s radical, right? Shouldn’t people repay their debts? What if they can’t? Jubilee has an answer. Forgive the debt. There is hope, in other words, for those in poverty.
Also in Isaiah 61, Jesus quotes the section about freedom for prisoners, recovery of sigh, and release of the oppression, all proclamations of the year of the Lord’s favor, which is another way to talk about Jubilee. In these statements we see taking the principle of Jubilee and stating that his ministry is right in line with Jubilee.
In other words, the mission of Jesus, the inbreaking of the Kingdom of Jesus, is the real, lived experience of the year of Jubilee. But no longer is Jubilee relegated to one year every fifty years. When Jesus gets a hold of our lives, we experience and live Jubilee, freedom, right now.
This is just like the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19. Zacchaeus was a Jewish tax collector. The people in his town rightly think that Zacchaeus is a traitor. Why? He colluded with the Romans, who oversaw the tax collectors. The people in his town believed Zacchaeus turned his back on God, that Zacchaeus is a sinner. And he was a sinner. He profited massively off poor people by charging them excessive tax bills. But when Zacchaeus met Jesus, jubilee did its work in his life. There was no need to wait for year 50. Instead, Zacchaeus embodied Jubilee immediately.
Look at Luke 19 verses 8–10, “Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.’”
Zaccheaus’ action of giving half his possessions to the poor, of paying back four times, is right in line with God’s heart of Jubilee. That kind of divestiture is right and good. Zacchaeus did not need all that wealth. He had far more than what was enough.
What is so striking about Zacchaeus, especially when you read through the Gospel of Luke is something that happened in the previous chapter of Luke. Look at Luke chapter 18, verse 18, where a rich young man asks Jesus “How can I inherit eternal life?”
I wonder if anyone in the crowd was rolling their eyes thinking, “Dude, you probably already inherited wealth. Now you’re also asking to inherit eternal life?” As if inheritance is just normal, just happens to everyone. It’s not normal, in the sense that not everyone gets inheritance.
Jesus gets right to the man’s heart. Verse 22 is intense: “Sell everything you have and give to the poor.” In other words, give up that inheritance. You will then have treasure in heaven. That’s what really matters. The man went away sad; he couldn’t give up his possessions.
How deceptive wealth is. We can put our trust in it. That rich young man does the exact opposite of Zacchaeus. By placing these two strikingly different stories so close to each other, Luke means for us to see the contrast. The rich young man, even though he claims moral rightness, does not have the heart of Jubilee. Zacchaeus cannot claim moral rightness, but he does demonstrate the heart of Jubilee. Jubilee, therefore, must be chosen by our actions.
Live the heart of Jubilee. See others. Recognize that what you have is God’s, not yours. Wealth is not wrong. As long as the wealthy see their wealth as not their own, but as God’s, to be used in a way that honors the mission of God’s Kingdom. But did the Jesus’ followers get this? We find out in the next post.
Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 