The Redemptive Economics of Jesus

When Jesus preached His first sermon in His hometown, Nazareth, He drew on the contents of Isaiah 58:6 and 60:1-61:7. However, He omitted all references to the following:

• All foreign rulers and nations coming to worship in Jerusalem (60:1-2)
• Jews who lived in foreign nations returning to Israel (60:4)
• The wealth of the nations being brought to Israel on ships and camels (60:5-7)
• Gentiles rebuilding ruined Jewish cities and towns (60:10)
• The destruction of nations that refuse to serve the Jewish people (60:12)
• Jewish people sucking up the wealth of surrounding nations (60:6)
• The Jewish people possessing the Promised Land forever (60:21)
• God taking vengeance on Gentiles who trouble His people (61:2)
• Gentiles serving as farmers and shepherds for the Jews (61:5-6)

But there is more. We need to see the events in Nazareth against the backdrop of the ancient year-long festival called Jubilee (Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15). For the Israelites, the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath, was the sign of the covenant that God made with them at Sinai. In addition, every seventh year was a Sabbath year (from which we get the term sabbatical). After a series of seven Sabbath years (a total of 49 years), the next year, the fiftieth, was to be a year-long festival of joy (jubilation) and celebration (Leviticus 25:10)---the Sabbath of Sabbaths of Sabbaths.

Moses gave the people special social legislation that was to be enacted during the Jubilee year:

• All debts were to be cancelled.
• All slaves were to be freed.
• All patrimonial land (inheritance) was to be returned to the family who originally owned the land.

Just as God had liberated Israel from slavery in Egypt and enriched them while they were experiencing poverty, so too Israel was to do the same for the poor and needy in its midst. However, when Jesus preached that sermon in Nazareth, His hearers became so angry with Him that they gave serious thought to throwing Him to His death off a cliff (Luke 4:28-29).

How would you like to have all your debts cancelled---all of them, including college loans, credit card balances, car payments, and your mortgage? You would celebrate with great passion! However, those to whom you owed all that money would become furious---very furious. But there is more. In His parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:13-21), Jesus teaches us that we own nothing--not even the body in which we live or the land or house or car that we claim to own.

A crucially important question: Are our people hearing or being taught these radically profound truths? If not, what are we going to do about that situation? Are we here to teach people how to feel good, or are we here to teach them how to be good---to reflect Jesus’ servant mind and manner in all that we think, say, and do?