Jubilee
2004: Honor the Past, Nurture the Present, Plan for the Future
By The Rev. Wm McCord Thigpen
February 1, 2004
As a kid, I loved
spending the weekend with my Grandmother.
We did not have a television at home but she did.
On Sunday morning before going to her church, I would sneak in and turn
on the TV (we were not suppose to watch it before church) hoping to find some
more cartons. But what I remember
from those clandestine viewings was a gospel music show, the “Happy Goodman
Family”. Their theme song was
Jubilee. The show would start and
they would launch into “Jubilee, Jubilee, you’re invited to this happy
Jubilee…” Now, I had no
idea what was a “Jubilee” was but I figured it must be something happy.
At home, I have an
antique sugar bowl that is commemorative of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee
- reigning fifty years.
The Merriam-Webster
Dictionary defines “Jubilee” as “1: a 50th celebration or 2:
a season or occasion of celebration.”
The first service
for St. Bartholomew’s was held fifty years ago, January 31, 1954.
So, this weekend, we are kicking off our Jubilee celebration, a season
of celebrating fifty years. And
come St. Bartholomew’s Day we
will have a great big party.
But the concept of
Jubilee is actually drawn from the book of Leviticus, in which a Year of
Jubilee is celebrated every fifty years.
In the Jubilee year, social inequities are rectified: slaves are freed,
land is returned to its original owners, and debts are canceled.
Now, what scripture
holds up and what actually happened was different.
So, the whole concept of Jubilee became almost kind of a vision, a
hope, a yearning, a way of being held up but yet to be realized.
What is interesting is that the whole notion of Jubilee is really what
Jesus was about. In last week’s
gospel, Jesus stood up in the synagogue in his hometown and read: “The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news
to the poor. He has sent me to
proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let
the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
This is Jubilee - good news, release, recovery, freedom!
Today’s gospel is
a continuation of the story from last week.
After reading the passage from Isaiah, Jesus sits down and tells them,
“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
A natural question is “what would have provoked Jesus’ neighbors,
the folks who have known him since he was a child, to react in this way?”
When you read this,
you sort of wonder “what did I miss?”
What did Jesus say to so enrage them?
And it is not “today this scripture has been fulfilled in your
hearing.” Because at first,
they were all impressed by the hometown boy.
Right after he tells them that the scripture has been fulfilled, the
gospel says, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at his gracious
words.” But very quickly this
delighted audience turns against him and in fact becomes a lynch mob.
What did he say?
The short answer is
that “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.”
But if we stop there we’re left with a cliché and not a particularly
satisfactory answer. The moral of the story is not: don’t start your ministry by
trying to evangelize your family or the people who have known you since you
were a child. That is not the
point. The hometown folks love
Jesus; welcome his presence and his message.
Nothing in their initial response reveals rejection or suspicion on
their part.
But a few words from
Jesus change all this. He tells
his hearers bluntly, “No prophet is accepted in his hometown” - although
up until now he had been accepted - and then he gives two examples.
Examples, not of prophets being rejected but of prophets rejecting.
He reminds them of two stories from the Bible where God intervened
through two different prophets. One
was the case of the widow at Sidon on the Mediterranean coast who was saved
from famine by God. The other
told of a Syrian military commander, representing Israel’s oppressor, who
was cured of leprosy. Both were
non-Jews. They weren’t the
chosen people. In both cases, the
prophet ignored the needs of the Israelites and deliberately sought out
foreigners to save and heal. Jesus
was telling them that they had lost the luxury of despising their pagan
neighbors. God is God of all, not
only for them.
The young
prophet-teacher - called like Jeremiah from his mother’s womb - dashes their
hopes to the ground. He first
raises them up by telling them that the passage from Isaiah is fulfilled in
their hearing - this proclamation of freedom and liberation, the anointed one
in their midst, the days of the Messiah upon them - and then he shatters their
dream.
This message
continues a theme found at the start of this gospel, in the Magnificat, the
song of Mary: “God has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he
has sent away empty.” Just as
in the days of Elijah and Elisha, God saves those outside the people of
Israel. God is free to work in
ways no one expects and almost no one likes. God’s grace does not work according to some principle of
scarce resources, as though there is not enough blessing to go around, as
though, if there is more for them, then there won’t be enough for me. God should love me and bless me, but not them.
Them?!
For you see, God is
free to work where God will work. While
we may feel as though we only have so much love to share, so much of ourselves
to give, this is not the way it is with God.
Divine love is probably the most plentiful, renewable resource in the
entire universe. The problem of
God showering it on strangers is not God’s problem, it’s ours.
Our own tainted vision of divine blessing about who is deserving and
who is not and our own narrow self-interest create the problem.
Jesus comes
proclaiming a message of hope, renewal and the year of the Lord’s favor.
By his own life and presence, he points to the nearness of the kingdom
of God. But he also comes as a
prophet and as a prophet, like Elijah and Elisha, he not only brings good news
but he warns them as well. God
will step beyond our boundaries. Jesus
stepped beyond boundaries and touched and healed and gave hope to the outcast
and the marginal. He reached out
to sinners, first, and worlds collided. Imagine
it! God’s love and grace is
open to all, not just the righteous, not just the ones who have said all the
right prayers and voted the right way and behaved.
God’s love and grace is open to all, first and foremost to those who
need it and recognize that need. Through
his life and ministry, through his death and resurrection, Jesus set the
captives free; and we are set free. And
we who are the church, who are the body of Christ in this place in this time,
are called as well into the business of helping to set others free.
It means repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, restoration and
healing; it means liberation from domination, fear and oppression; and it also
means responsibility in helping to set others free from hunger, poverty, and
homelessness; it is a call to a vision of liberation, justice and compassion.
Bishop Steven
Charleston once said of “Jubilee” that it “reminds us that we have the
authority through God to change our own history.
We can, if we choose, preserve this planet as the garden it was
intended to be. We can feed those who hunger and lift every human being to
dignity. We can free one another
from bondage and allow every person to live in safety and peace.
We can heal the hurt of centuries and build a home for humanity in the
shelter of God’s grace. And we can do all of these things as Jubilee envisions: by
using what we have, by sharing what we need, by giving what we can to
transform the everyday into the sacred.”
What will we do with
Jubilee? No doubt we will celebrate and honor the fifty years and all
who have faithfully carried this ministry forward and we will have great
parties. But might we allow it to
speak to us on a deeper level as well - individually and as a community?
Where might Jubilee find a home within our own consciousness?
What do we need to be set free from and what do we need to set others
free from? We can as Bishop
Charleston said, “leave the dream of God’s jubilee buried in the back
pages of Leviticus, an ideal whose time never seemed to come, or we can take
that ideal and with God’s grace incarnate it into our own time and
history.” St. Bartholomew’s
has had a strong history of making tangible the grace and love of God.
May we continue to live into that vision and may our own commitment
become our proclamation of jubilee.
Let us pray,
O God, who has
wonderfully created us and even more wonderfully brings us new life: grant
that in this year of Jubilee we will continue to be people who spend our lives
following your message of bringing good news to the poor, giving freedom to
those who are captive in some way, and opening the eyes of those who have been
blind to your great and caring love, which is the love that saves us all.
Amen.
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Jubilee
Committee Report to the 2003 Annual Meeting
The
Jubilee Committee has begun to plan events for 2004. Get ready for a year of celebrations as we remember our past
and look forward to our future at St. Bartholomew’s.
Stitchers
Cathy Agel, Pat Curl, and Fran Linz are creating a banner for our
processions throughout the year. The
Vestry has donated this banner with a collection from their own pockets.
It is based on a Jubilee logo created by Cheryl Southern Smith.
We hope this will be ready at the annual meeting.
Commemorative
medallions, which can be used for Christmas tree ornaments, were designed by
Ben Wells. They are available
for purchase at the annual meeting and afterwards.
To
mark how we look right now, Phil Mainor made a photo on last St.
Bartholomew’s Day of thousands of us (it seemed to be thousands) in front
of the bell tower. We’ll be
using this in publications and displays.
Look
for special displays as the months go by, in the halls and in the memorial
display case. Any parishioner who
has some interesting artifacts from our history is invited to share these with
the rest of us in a display.
Another
piece of memorabilia you will want will be the 2004 picture directory.
Be sure to have your picture taken by the visiting photographers in
February so that your copy will be free and so that the directory will be
complete. The book will include
much special material being compiled by Marian Gordin and Margaret Jones.
Babs Douglas will be putting together our portraits.
In
April, you can look for a Parish Cookbook, created by Sharon Campolucci and
Chip Dukes. Of course it will not
happen if you do not submit your best recipes.
Look for more information about this on the website and in brochures
available around the church.
An
enthusiastic group headed up by Cynthia Massey is working on a video or DVD
that will present a picture of our parish.
This will have historical interest for all of us.
Another
group, under the direction of June Henry, is writing a history of St.
Bartholomew’s. This effort has
been underway for some time, and they hope to finish it in the Jubilee year.
Also
on the planning board--tee shirts! It
would not be an occasion without a shirt to bring back the memories.
All
this, in addition to the concert series from Brad Hughley and the Music
Department and the offerings of the Arts Ministry.
Margaret
Jones has agreed to see to our publicity.
She will place news articles in appropriate publications.
We are also considering a street banner, which Peg Lowman has been
researching.
All
of this leads up to August 2004. We
will be ready to party for St. Bartholomew’s Weekend. By then Eleanor Buckholdt and Ken Dukes will have led their
many grounds workers into higher realms of landscaping and we will have a
glorious setting for fun. Stephanie
Ciscel will have printed up the invitations she has designed. Paula Becton, Sandy Souther, Marsha Aughtry, and others will
have assembled a list of former members and priests and sent out invitations.
Our
plans include a Saturday afternoon and evening reprise of the Olde English
Festival. (This will not be a
fund-raising event, just a fun thing for us and our guests.)
The next day, St. Bartholomew’s Day, there will be a special service
and a reception afterwards. We hope that all of our former rectors and many of our former
members can be here.
It
goes without saying, but we will say it anyway. Our young people and children are part of all of this.
Everyone
will enjoy this special year more if everyone takes part.
The Jubilee Committee would especially like to hear from people who
would be willing to chair the party, the reception, or the tee-shirt sales.
The cookbook editors as well as all other chairpersons will be looking
for willing hands.
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