preceding 49 years that needs to be reset and put right. The plumbline for justice, here, is that the land belongs to God (vs 23). God has given each family their fair share in the land and in its bounty to sustain them. But when that land is ‘sold’ to others, or when people sell themselves or each other to work on land given to others, that original gratuity is somehow damaged and broken. If each is given what they need, the sale and acquisition of what is given to others necessarily implies either greed or mismanagement. Those who mismanage the land they are given find they do not have enough to live on, so they sell either themselves or the land to make up the shortfall. Equally, there are those who benefit from the land and labour of others, there are those who become rich by taking advantage of the misfortune of others. The year of Jubilee, whilst recognising that such things happen, seeks to give everyone the opportunity to go back to zero. To return to what was originally given and make a better, and more just, go of things than the last time around. For those who are poor, this is grace to start again. For those who are rich, it is the grace to return to a place of humility by giving back what had been acquired from others. The year of Jubilee, so far as we can tell, rarely happened in Israel during biblical times. What happened, instead, was what always happens. The many were exploited by the few who were shrewd enough to acquire more and more land and exploit it to within an inch of its ecological life. But the idea of the Jubilee is there, in the biblical record, as an example and a plumbline of what true virtue might look like. Jubilee is the most intense and complete form of Sabbath. It is justice for people, but also a fundamental respect for the integrity of creation as a gift all people are called to honour and respect. 85
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