Sabbath, Creation, and Stewardship

WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
November 12th 2006

Stewardship Season
Rev. Mark R. Bradshaw-Miller
“Sabbath, Creation, and Stewardship”
Deuteronomy 15:1-11
This passage from Deuteronomy is outrageous. The idea of canceling debt every seven years would be disastrous for our economy. In fact, this passage sounds like it could have come from the likes of Karl Marx with all the talk of redistribution of wealth. Fortunately, it does not come from Marx, it comes from God.
Old Testament Professor Walter Brueggemann writes of this passage: “Such a provision is radical, for it shatters the conventional practices of loans, credits, interest, mortgages, and debt management by which any conventional market economy functions.” This leaves me wondering then; what are we, a people wholly attached to free market capitalism, to do with this word from God? After all, not even our fundamentalist brothers and sisters take this passage literally. Should we ignore it as a relic of history lacking any contemporary relevance? Well, before we get to the issue of relevance let us be careful not to miss out on the radical life-giving nature of this passage. Instead of seeking the contemporary “relevance,” let us just examine the text more closely.
At this point in Deuteronomy, the people of God can almost see the Promised Land on the horizon. God has liberated them from the slavery of the Egyptian empire, and is preparing them for a life of freedom. During the forty years in the wilderness God worked to overcome the habits learned and the imaginations stunted by life in the empire. One of the best interpretive lenses for this passage is as an alternative to the practices of empire. It is God’s intent that these former slaves would become living witnesses to their covenantal relationship with God.
Upon entering the land, each one of the families is to receive a parcel of land to call their own. It was a divine mandate for an ancient form of Forty Acers and a Mule. However, even before the land is acquired, God knows that the land will become concentrated into the hands of only a few people. Because God knows that over time some people will incur debt which will cause them to loose their land, a Sabbath Year practice is invoked. Every seven years all debts will be cancelled.
It is important to note that the debt being talked about in this passage is very specific. The debt being spoken about in this passage was the form of debt most often incurred by the poor. For example, it would have included farmers because of crop failure or the city dweller because of unemployment. However, relief from debt did not include such things as: unpaid wages or bills owed to shopkeepers for merchandise. The focus of the debt relief was about freeing up those things which were necessary for one to make a living in the ancient world.
Another important feature of this form of debt was the outcome of unpaid debt. When people came upon hard times and were unable to pay pack the loans they would become bond-servants or slaves until the debt was repaid. The institution of a Sabbath year ensured that the bond-servants or slaves would not become a permanent underclass. A Jewish commentary on this passage explained how this practice was vital to the community because: “Such a condition (the creation of a permanent underclass) would be unfair to human beings, fashioned in God’s image and dangerous to society as a breeding ground for lawlessness and irresponsibility.” As a result, in God’s country or covenant community, loans were investments in a descent, compassionate, and stable society. To maintain this covenant community it was necessary that every seven years, wealth was to be transferred from those who had amassed it to those who had none. In simple terms it is a biblical mandate for the redistribution of wealth and slave emancipation.
The requirement of this Sabbath Year even takes out an obvious loop-hole. For anyone who might decide not to loan money close to the Sabbath year the statue says:
Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, “The seventh year, the year of remission, is near,” and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt (Deuteronomy 15:9).
From this verse it is clear that God does not seem to trust human beings when it comes to money and our needy neighbors. However, this admonition is thick with meaning. In the verses preceding this one, God warns not to become hard-hearted. And now, in this passage there is a command not to cause your neighbor cry out against you. This is no accident. Both passages are meant to send us back to the Exodus and the ways of Pharaoh. When asked to free the slaves, Pharaoh had a hard heart because the loss of the free labor would put a serious strain on the economy. As a result the slaves cry out for help. This deliberate connection to the past calls the people of God not to imitate the ways of the Empire, particularly when they come into positions of power.
The grounding for this Sabbath year, the forgiveness of debts, comes from the Sinai covenant or Ten Commandments. It begins when God tells Moses to ask Pharaoh to free the slaves so they may worship God. The journey to the Promised Land must begin with worship at the mountain of God. Worship, for the people of God, is about turning from the ways of Empire and reordering the community around life-giving practices. The community is continually called to remember how God has redeemed them and claimed them as a community which becomes the alternative to the Egyptian Empire.
For Christians, we become part of this long history through an often misused passage of scripture. It is in Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus has just been anointed by a woman with some very costly oil. The disciples want to chastise her because the oil could have been sold and the money used on the poor. Jesus stops them by saying: “Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me (Matthew 26:10-11). Instead of seeing this passage as an excuse for poverty, we must see it as Jesus tying his followers to this great tradition of Deuteronomy which says: “Since there will never cease to be some need on the earth, I therefore command you, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land” (Deut. 15:11). The call to generosity is undeniably the fabric of our faith.
This powerfully challenging passage cannot be dismissed as a remnant of the past. It can no longer be ignored by the followers of Jesus – conservative or liberal, no matter how much we would like to try. It is a passage which carries a message that is the very fabric of our faith. Even Jesus alludes to its authority. So, if this is true, how are we, as Christians, to respond?
Theologian Robert Linthicum says the book of Deuteronomy has as its vision that worship of God will lead to a political system that establishes justice. Unfortunately, history shows how this has not worked out in practice. And, I am not hopeful that this will change anytime soon. Too often the worship of God has been used as a prop for the very practices used in the Egyptian Empire. However, I believe Robert Bellah points us in a more fruitful direction. Regarding the role and practice of faith communities:
To the extent, however, that real religious communities can retain or recover a sense of being in but not of this world, can live, at least to some extent, in patterns of voluntary simplicity and mutual concern, then they may act as genuine alternatives to the prevailing current… it is more than ever necessary that there be demonstration communities where elementary decencies can be maintained and handed down, humanizing a bad situation as long as it exists, and providing seedbeds for larger amelioration when that becomes possible.
While Robert Bellah’s call or challenge is not grounded in our passage, it does get at the heart of what we modern followers might take from our scripture this morning. Claiming this passage for our modern setting means instead of trying to “Christianize the social order” we are to become a living alternative to any and all practices which dehumanize or which are an insult to the image of God in each person. We may not be able to make major changes in the large systems. However, we can seek to be a living alternative and witness to the God who we know in Jesus Christ, who laid out a very clear plan for a just society.
The challenge before us is no small task. It will require that we, at least in this place, give up some tightly held beliefs. When we join our money together it will no longer be mine or yours or even ours. Instead, we believe and are to give witness, to our belief that it is God’s money, time and talent. Our work then becomes to figure out how to justly distribute it for God’s work in this place. Our challenge is to figure out how we are going to live into the alternative social vision of the God we know in Jesus Christ. So, on this and every day, let us pledge to one another and before God that we will seek to be a witness to the life-giving ways of God with money, time and abilities. Amen.