The jubilee mandate helps us to imagine what a community living life in all its fullness could look like when living justly, loving compassion and walking humbly.
—Cheryl Haw and Caitlin Collins, Jubilee, God’s Answer to Poverty
Author Kelley Nikondeha describes how Jesus encouraged his disciples to practice jubilee actions in their daily lives:
Under the Galilean sun Jesus taught his disciples to pray about their most tangible concerns—bread for today, no debts for tomorrow, and the end of violence forevermore. [1] The structure of the prayer itself followed an ancient rubric regarding the worries of the poor. Even under Rome’s heavy hand, the hope of the have-nots was for ample food for their families and debt relief on the horizon. The matters that pressed upon the population most were central to Jesus.…
The prayer Jesus offered his disciples ushered them into the economic work of debt remission in real time. They did not need to wait for this empire, or a subsequent one, to proclaim justice in order for their debts to fall away. As they began to pray this revolutionary prayer day after day, their worldview could shift toward a jubilee-centered reality. And as their sight line changed, so could their own practice. Debt forgiveness in this landscape would begin with the disciples releasing their neighbors from debts owed to them, and vice versa. Releasing one another from debts would begin breaking the cycle of indebtedness that plagued them all.
Maybe a disciple’s prayer for debts to be forgiven would be first answered when a neighbor cancels the debt owed him. Maybe the first surge of economic freedom would happen at a microlevel, among neighbors refusing to accept debt as necessary. Neighborliness meant, among other things, not ensnaring your neighbor into debt….
When Jesus said jubilee begins today, it was not an unrealistic ideal. He intended it to begin with his disciples. Breaking the wheel would start with those with the least structural power as they reached for tools from other nations, and other times. Jesus empowered his followers to enact jubilee now—no need to wait for a king’s proclamation or the sound of the shofar.
Nikondeha points to the good news when we engage in jubilee practices ourselves:
The Lord’s Prayer, with its tangible economic language and intent, has also been called the Jubilee Prayer…. Imagine if all of us who know this prayer by heart took the challenge embedded in it seriously? It would start a groundswell of jubilary motion and economic reform…. This revolutionary prayer is a place to begin, now, wherever you are, whoever you are, in the larger movement of jubilee.
References:
[1] The Lord’s Prayer is found in both Matthew 6:9–14 and Luke 11:1–4.
Kelley Nikondeha, Jubilee Economics: The Purpose, Practices, and Possibilities for a Better Future (Orbis Books, 2025), 53, 54, 55.
Image credit and inspiration: Wei Feng, untitled (detail), 2025, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like this person in the field, arms unbound and outstretched, we explore the freedom that rises when we support economic justice, no longer tethered to endless and oppressive debt relationships.
Story from Our Community:
I was blessed to have grown up with parents who lived their faith by making Sundays a quiet celebration. When I left home, I carried the Sunday traditions with me, and when I had children of my own, we created our own ways of practicing the Sabbath. Like Renita J. Weems wrote in her meditation, I learned how necessary it is to have at least one day of freedom from the world’s system. I am surrounded by people who have never known the joy of practicing Sabbath, and I am so grateful to have grown up in a home where the Sabbath was a delight.
—Constance F.
