Thought for the Week

Sunday 5 February 2012

Jubilee

St Martin-in-the-Fields is known as the “Royal Parish Church” - Buckingham Palace is in the parish, as well as Whitehall and Downing Street.  So it’s very appropriate that this morning’s broadcast service from here marked the 60th anniversary of Elizabeth II to the throne.  Many will be looking forward to the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.  At a time of near-recession it will be interesting to see how local communities respond to this event.  It also gives us opportunity to reflect upon how society has changed in those sixty years.

“Jubilee” is an important concept, found in the Old Testament (Leviticus 25).  Each 50th year was a time for arable land to be rested, for debts to be cancelled, for Jewish slaves to be released.  This reflected God’s goodness to Israel, bringing them out of slavery in Egypt.

These Jubilee policies may seem radical and distant to our present national and international situations.  Yet such thinking lay behind the campaign to cancel the debts of poorer nations in the Millenium Year.  Remember the “Make Poverty History” demonstrations and Christian Aid’s “breaking the chains”?  In a world where the gap between rich and poor grows wider, such generosity of spirit is urgently needed.  Promoting justice and so bringing reason to celebrate are two aims of Jubilee.  The words of the “Magnificat” (Luke 1.46-55) and of Jesus’s “manifesto” at Nazareth (Luke 4.18-19) should inspire us to be equally radical and generous.

“I have come to bring good news to the poor...”

Revd Colin Midlane