Jubilee 2009

Our country is in a recession. The obvious and sensible thing for us, as a community, to do would be to cut back and tighten our belts and get through it. That is my default, anyway. It seems as though God has other plans for us. I have really felt Him saying to us that NOW is the time that Southampton needs us most. NOW is the time that the church must step up not step down. NOW is the time for us to really be a light.

Jubilee 2009 is part of this and part of How God is calling us to respond to this challenge and opportunity.

What is jubilee?

For a more detailed teaching, here is Andy's teaching on Jubilee from 9th Nov 2008, but here's a snapshot:

Jubilee is a concept from the Jewish Law. The entire law of Israel was meant to bring life to them and was built around the concept of sabbath. Often we have reduced this concept to a debate about working on Sunday (which was never actually the sabbath) and in so doing we have missed the whole point.

God called his people from oppression, persecution and slavery and brought them into a promised land. He was clear that he did not want them to be like their oppressors, Egypt (where they came from), or like Canaan (where they were going) [Lev 18:2-5]. They were to be unique among the nations because Yahweh was their King. Central to this was sabbath.

• Sabbath meant that every seventh day, they would not work but would rest - something that they could never do under slavery. It meant that their slaves, servants and even their animals would rest for that day.
• In addition to this, every seventh year that would not work - neither would their slaves, servants or animals. But they would not be paid either, and they would not plant their crops and they would have to depend on what the Lord provided for them. They would also set all their Hebrew slaves free and cancel all debts.
• Every fiftieth year, there was a "year of jubilee". This would have followed a 49th year and so would have meant two years of not working and two years of having to trust God for everything. Also, all land was returned to the original owners. (in fact, the value of land was determined by how many years until jubilee).

This entire system was one of justice. It meant that no one would ever be able to get rich at the expense of their brothers and no one could ever be condemned to poverty and crippling debt. In ensured that the playing field was always leveled and that poor were never left behind.

Or it would have done, had the Israelites ever actually done it! There is no record of Israel ever putting jubilee into practice and in fact, probably the sabbath year too. There is a strong argument that the reason for their exile was because of this. Some commentators have argued that the lenght of the exile was the number of sabbath years that Israel did not take!

That's an aside.

The fact is, that upon his arrival on the scene, Jesus, in what is often refered to as the Nazareth manifesto, quoted Isaiah, with these words:

"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 favour."

(Luke 4:18,19)

This is the year of the Lord's favour - Jubilee! The entire story from Jesus until now is one BIG jubilee. At least, it is meant to be. Debts cancelled, slaves set free, poverty ended, the oppressed liberated and justice. This is where we live today.

Isn't it?

So, what is jubilee 2009 going to mean to SOuthampton vineyard?

For a more detailed explanation, here is Matt & Sam's overview from 9th Nov 2008, but here's a summary:

As a leadership team, we have been massively influenced by Shane Claiborne's book, "Jesus for President" and it has left us asking the question, "How do we enact sabbath, today in the UK?"

Where do we start? Well, our plans for 2009 are small steps - perhaps embarrassingly small steps, but also embarrassingly scary!

What is our aim?

• Refocus on mission and particularly on the "poor".
• Refocus on ethical living.
• Learn more about living simply - need not greed!
• Learn more about radical giving - that there are no needy among us..
• Make changes that will last many life times and not just a year.

What are we actually going to do?

This is the basic bottom-line list of stuff we are doing as a church. Our hope is that we will all go much further than this though.

• A call for a day of prayer and fasting every month. This will be the THIRD Monday of each month and will replace the normal prayer meeting for that evening. They will be at the Highfield Church Hall, 8-9pm, Monday, 19th Jan, Mon 16th Feb, Mon 16th March etc etc.
• A call for an ethical "audit" of our lives
  • who do we bank with?
  • where do we shop?
  • what clothes we where?
  • what food we eat?
  • etc.
• A call for more radical giving.
• A call to every housegroup to actively partner with a Christian social action work in the city. Hopefully, by the end of the year, each group will be linked to a work as part of its fundamental DNA.
• A call for every housergroup to actively set about helping one another simplifying their lives from clutter. For instance, for a month at a time choosing one or a few of:
  • No TV
  • No internet
  • No mobile phones
  • Only using public transport
  • No supermarket shopping
  • Living as a vegetarian
  • I am sure that you can think of other things as these are just ideas. The hope is for groups to do this together, corporately and help each other to simplify their lives.
• A call for housegroup members to commit to invited people from the group over once a month for a meal. Hopefully, those who are invited out all the time would be those who have less or who know fewer people or who are most excluded.

Fab feb

Probably the most challenging thing that we've done this year and, in many ways, the centre-piece of all of this, has been February. This is something that the leadership team have undertook to do. We did not ask anyone else to - unless they wanted to. LOTS of people did!

We lived on a very small budget for that month and gave away the rest of our money. Why?

 

• NEED NOT GREED. We live in a society that tells us to live to, or beyond, our means so we always increase our standard of living as we earn more. We don't need to. Things we never had three years ago, we consider essential today.
• RADICAL GIVING. We could really change some lives with the money that is going to be raised by this.
• IDENTIFYING WITH THE "POOR". Do we have any idea what it is like for those in poverty - even those in our own church? Do we have any idea what it is like to have to chose what to sacrifice, rather than whether to sacrifice?

The budget we set was what the government in the UK says is the minimum that someone can live on - and many, many people do. So, we lived for a month on what we would be living on if we were on benefits. (there were expenses not included in this that you would not have were you on benefits, such as mortgage, costs to and from work etc).

After we calculated our income, we took off our budget and give the rest to those in need.

We each calculated the amount that we were going to give, ahead of time, and signed a commitment to this, for the sake of accountibility.

 

Fab Feb details in case you are interested in doing it yourself sometime.

 

 

Practically, we had buckets at the Sunday meetings and people put money into a different bucket, depending on where they wanted their money to go. Here are the totals:

• HOME in Zimbabwe - £5,868
• Bethesda in India - £4,445
• Christians Against Poverty (Southampton) - £3,505
• Basics Bank (Southampton) - £5,474
• Those in need in the church - £3,052
• Other - £1,038
• TOTAL - £23,383

 

jubilee songs

We wanted to sing songs that reflect the heart of jubilee - the compassion of our God for the marginalised and oppressed and justice and the hope of the kingdom. But we couldn't find any. So we wrote some of our own. Two of these songs were written by asking housegroups to submit lines and then putting them all together. Here they are

Please feel free to listen and use them, if you so wish.

 

HOpes and prayers

Its going to be a hard year, but I would rather that we set the bar high and it is too hard than we set it low and miss this chance.

My prayer is that in 2010, this church looks very different from how it looks now and that many lives will have been touched and changed and healed and many people will have been freed and brought into real life; and that we will be have been changed and "ruined" to the point that we just cannot go back to how it is now!

Amen.