“Jubilee.” I love the word. It conjures up scenes of festivity and celebration … a warm, generous feel of people gathered on manicured lawns under stately oak trees in small town America relaxing, enjoying each other’s company, and having reason to smile.

It’s nostalgic, I admit – and naive – but the mention of jubilee makes me think of men socializing in straw hats, suspenders, rolled up sleeves, and bow ties; a band playing slightly off-key under a central gazebo; women promenading with parasols and bright bonnets; children racing toward the ice cream vendor’s cart, nickel in hand… and no one chatting on a cell phone or in a hurry to get somewhere else.

My Webster’s dictionary encourages such happy visions. I looked up jubilee and its various relations, and found words like: joy, triumph, and elation.

Jubilee applies also to Christmas. You’ll hear it in the next carol we sing –

That’s based on a Latin root, which means to shout with gladness. If shouting seems un-Presbyterian, at least we can relate to those “joyous strains.” I mean, for many of us, Christmas is “joyous” … but also full of “strains”!

Our national origin contains a dose of jubilee too. The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia is probably the second most important symbol of American freedom, trailing only the Declaration of Independence. On the rim of that bell is a quote about jubilee from Leviticus 25 (our first reading today). It says, “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land, unto all the Inhabitants thereof.”

Whoever chose that inscription knew what he (or she) was doing. In biblical terms, jubilee is more than a social gathering on the town green or shout of gladness from meandering shepherds. In ancient Israel and colonial America, jubilee stood for the overthrow of tyranny and dismantling of injustice. Then and now, it involved leveling societal inequalities … so “all the inhabitants thereof” could come together.

Isaiah knew that. Jesus repeated it at Nazareth when he read from Isaiah’s scroll and preached his first sermon. He told the Nazarenes he was sent by God to enact jubilee and inaugurate broad, sweeping reforms – bringing good news for the poor, release to captives, the end of slavery and economic insecurity, healing for the sick, pardon for sins, and the close of state-sponsored oppression.

I tell you all this about jubilee for two reasons. First, jubilee fits us and this congregation today like a pair of hand-knit mittens under the Christmas tree, tagged with our name. Leviticus prescribes that every fiftieth year shall be a year of jubilee. And, here we are marking our fifty years in this beautiful sanctuary and with this fine organ.   So the timing is perfect.

Second, and more urgently, on a national (and global) scale: jubilee provides a bold and imaginative alternative to the way things presently stand. Consider:

·         30-50 million Americans lack access to medical care, yet Jesus announces a jubilee for the blind to see and the sick to receiving healing.

·         10 percent of our work force is unemployed. One child in every seven lives with food insecurity (meaning parents don’t know if there’ll be enough food to last through the week). Yet Jesus proclaims a jubilee of good news for the poor, which might sound like, “You’re hired. And, yes, the job pays a living wage and puts food on your table.”

·         Additionally, our prison population stands at 1.6 million and growing, causing a terrible burden on taxpayers. Yet Jesus declares release for prisoners and homecoming for captives as another jubilee.

Clearly then, jubilee is not just a nostalgic glance over our shoulders to the last 50 years. In the words of Leviticus and the mouth of Jesus, jubilee becomes a daring approach to the future. Jubilee is a way to look forward – God’s way, in Christ, of saying that the future can be better and it will look different.

In short, jubilee is a bold act of creative imagination.

But when I say “imagination,” I don’t mean “imaginary.” It’s not false or fanciful dreaming, as some would portray it.

Imaginary is make-believe. But Imagination is the concrete and crucial first step in establishing a future. Without imagination, things stay the same. Imagination opens doors on creativity and builds roads through uncharted places. It sets an agenda, considers options and establishes a plan. It snaps the first girders in place on a bridge spanning the gap between God’s will and human need. And it doesn’t quit until all the work is completed.

Ever hear the old saying, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”?

Imagination is the opposite of that. It looks ahead, beyond what human eyes can see. Then it sets a course, and goes there.

When jubilee is blended with forward-leaning imagination, it pays less heed to the past, and more to priorities. It draws on the former things, yes, but mostly to remember why God put us here, what God has done through us and for us, and how we have been led consistently by the gracious power of the Holy Spirit. But the overall trajectory is always forward and ahead.

So I suggest that this Jubilee Sunday in this church, marking 50 years of this organ and sanctuary, is not an occasion to pat ourselves on the back and feel smug for what used to be. Rather, it is a time to rededicate ourselves to the responsibility – and joy – of being forward-looking Christians.

Martha Brown told us during the Power Point presentation what the Rev. Gilbert Boyd said at the first dedication of this instrument and room. “The building itself is but a tool.” Rather, in dedicating this sanctuary, “We really have dedicated ourselves.” That’s still true today.

Besides, why would we want to go back? When we take off rose-colored glasses, we see that the past wasn’t all that great. Would anyone really want to still be there? The choir was pushed back out of sight – and out of earshot. The organ was not nearly what it is now, and a heavy blanket over the pipes muffled the sound. Overhead lighting was dim, stained-glass windows were lacking. The chancel area (up here) was walled off. Pews had no cushions for your comfort and there was no air conditioning in summer. A lot has changed around us – in the church and world.

We’ve changed too. But we’re still here. So we pause to rededicate ourselves. Pause to re-pledge ourselves to that which endures.

We rededicate ourselves today to works of daring, ethical imagination, rooted in God’s promises to care for the poor, the weak, and the needy that brings hope to all people. We pledge ourselves to faithful worship and joyous music, and full inclusion of all people whom God invites, and more.

No one really knows how often the jubilee commandment was practiced in Old Testament times. There’s been much debate. Maybe it was wishful thinking and “just a dream” even then.

But we know for a fact that every time God’s people are urged to be faithful, jubilee is near. The commitment remains, even when the commandment is hard to fulfill.

We also know that Jesus not only preached jubilee in Nazareth with his first sermon, but he practiced it daily, as he traveled.

·         The parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, where all the laborers are paid the same wage, no matter when they arrived? That’s a jubilee parable.

·         And his command to “love your neighbor as yourself”? It’s a jubilee command. 

·         And the prayer he taught his disciples to pray in his name? That too is an expression of jubilee, calling for the same values and practices “on earth as in heaven” – bread for each day, debts forgiven and deliverance from evil.

Jesus lived jubilee in thought, word and deed – even when others weren’t ready for it. Initially, his sermon at Nazareth produced gladness and praise. All spoke well of him and nodded approval. But before he finished, they wanted to throw him off a cliff outside town. Why? Because he had reminded them how much jubilee required of them, and that it wasn’t exclusively for them. He escaped that day, but a few years later they hung him on a cross for it.

So, maybe jubilee isn’t something you can practice every day. It may have to be limited to every fifty years, even once in a lifetime. And it may take incredibly brave and faithful people to embark on it.

But this is where we are, poised at a fifty-year moment. And this is who we are, as people formed and gathered in the image and likeness of Christ – who was and is the perfect embodiment of jubilee.

He died trying to achieve it, yet he rose triumphant. His act of bold imagination succeeded, giving us Easter, a day of joy and elation – the best “jubilee” ever.

Therefore, with all the concrete imagination and courage he inspires, I invite you in Christ’s name to dedicate this sanctuary, that organ and your self once more to the cause and the kingdom of God’s jubilee.