Quotations on Jubilee
HEBREW SCRIPTURES
Event seventh yea you shall grant a remission
Deuteronomy 15:1
For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, so that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the wild animals may eat. You shall do the same with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.
Exodus 23:10-11
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…
Isaiah 61:1-2a
The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a sabbath for the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord.
Leviticus 25:1-4a
You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives 49 years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month —on the day of atonement — you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And 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 25:8-10
Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land. If a member of your community, whether a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and works for you six years, in the seventh year you shall set that person free.
Deuteronomy 15:11
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If any who are dependent on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you, you shall not make them serve as slaves. They shall remain with you as hired or bound laborers. They shall serve with you until the year of the Jubilee. Then they and their children with them shall be free from your authority; they shall go back to their own family and return to their ancestral property. For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves are sold.
Leviticus 25:39
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As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves.
Leviticus 25:44
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord.., that all should set free their Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should hold another Judean in slavery.
Jeremiah 34:8
For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight.
Psalm 72:12-14
NEW TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Matthew 6:11-12
There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.
Luke 18:22
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
Luke 4:18-21
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:3-10
And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant… His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”
Luke 1:46-48a, 50-53
I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance.
2 Corinthians 8:13-14
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
Luke 6:20b-22
…when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
Luke 14:12b-14
The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed, nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.
Luke 17:20-21
Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.
Matthew 11:5
All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.
Acts 2:44-45
LEADERS, POLITICIANS & COMMENTATORS
Must we starve our children to pay our debts?
Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania
Every child in Africa is born with a financial burden which a lifetime’s work cannot repay. The debt is a new form of slavery as vicious as the slave trade.
All Africa Conference of Churches
In Tanzania, where 40 percent of the population dies before the age of 35, the government spends nine times more on foreign debt repayment than on health care.
Oxfam
It is good when people who do not have enough to eat cry out; the thirst and hunger of those wandering in the wilderness are signs of life. But those who are hungry for justice must cry out, too.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, “Seeing the Face of God,” in The Other Side, July & August 2000
…putting more people in prison and, sadly, more people to death has not given Americans the security we seek… We are all sinners, and our response to sin should not be abandonment and despair, but rather justice, contrition, reparation, and return or reintegration of all into the community. U.S. Catholic Bishops’ statement,
“Responsibility, Rehabilitation and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice”
To each generation there comes a great challenge. You can’t always pick what it’s going to be. To one generation, it was the institution of slavery. To another, it was votes for women. To one generation, it was the civil rights movement. To another, it was Vietnam. But to this generation the call has come to stand in solidarity with those many who have been exploited by the few.
Dave Dyson, Union organizer and Presbyterian pastor, invocation at Steelworkers’ vigil, Wash., D.C., April 2000
For the good of society, the protection of potential victims, and the restoration of the offender, corrections policy must focus on identifying and treating the root causes of crime. We must offer those convicted of crimes the opportunity to improve themselves, and assist in their reintegration into society.
The Catholic Bishops of the State of New York, “A Pastoral Statement on Criminal Justice for the Jubilee Year”
Debt is tearing down schools, clinics, and hospitals. The effects are no less devastating than war.
Adabayo Adedeji, African Center forDevelopment Strategy, Nigeria
The debt burden of poor countries is no longer an economic issue. It is a moral issue. It perpetuates injustice of the few against the many. Over the years, Ugandan women have suffered the brunt of debt repayment and they continue to pay with their lives. We know that it is in your
power to change our situation.
Ugandan Women’s Network, letter to President Clinton
The countries of sub-Saharan Africa spend more each year repaying debt than on all primary education and health care.
Jubilee 2000/USA
In the cool corridors of financial power, the plight of the debt-ridden may be spoken of in terms of capital flows, debt-service ratios, and credit ratings. In the heat and dust of real life, however, debt is about lives, people’s lives and —above all— children’s lives.
UNICEF, “Debt Has a Child’s Face”
Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.
Thomas Jefferson
THEOLOGIANS, SAINTS & SCHOLARS
To do justice is to sort out what belongs to whom and return it.
Walter Brueggemann
The Jubilee year…seems to be an image appropriate for justice in an unjust world. It is an image that captures the two sides of justice emerging from injustice: the liberation that characterizes justice from the perspective of the oppressed, and the restitution that characterizes justice from the perspective of the oppressor. At root, the Jubilee expresses the covenant notion that all are mutually accountable.
Karen Lebacqz, Justice in an Unjust World
We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less than our brothers (and sisters).
Martin Luther King, Jr., Beyond Vietnam: A Prophecy for the ’80s
Can we afford to ignore Marx at a time when it ought to be clear to every attentive observer of the misery of the Third World that capitalism neither can nor will satisfy hunger? Our economic system works for the rich, not for the other two-thirds of the human family. Should we, who stand in the tradition of religion and its anthropological assumptions about human dignity, not at least seek a historical alternative?
Dorothee Soelle, The Window of Vulnerability
…you and I and all of us should as a religious duty, not as a political agenda but as a religious duty, oppose all injustice, oppose all racism, oppose all the nastiness that dehumanizes each one of God’s children.
Desmond Tutu,
“Dream God’s Dream in the New Millennium,”
in The African American Pulpit Millennium Issue
The Jubilee, like the Sabbath, is a safety valve for humanity’s greed and power, a reminder that justice must be regained at least every seventh year for the community, as it must be regained at least every seventh day for the individual.
Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work
Just preach — until the lonely feel loved, the homeless have homes, and the naked are clothed.
Just preach — until everyone everywhere knows that Jesus is love and God is alive.
Teresa L. Fry Brown, “Just Preach!,” in The African American Pulpit Millennium Issue
Any who wish to serve the Lord must not rejoice in the private, but in the common. The earliest Christians made common property of their private goods. Did they lose what was theirs?….It is because of our private possessions that there are disagreements, enmity, dissension, wars…
St. Augustine of Flippo, 354-430
When you give to the poor, you give not of your own, but simply return what is his, for you have usurped that which is common and has been given for the common use of all. The land belongs to all, not to the rich, and yet those who are deprived of its use are many more than those who enjoy it.
St. Ambrose, 4th century
The new moral crusade follows the biblical principle of Jubilee: “All belongs to God.” All debts are forgiven in the Jubilee year…Debtors make a new beginning.
Desmond Tutu
