We end this series by reflecting on the Law of Jubilee. This Law is found in the 25th Chapter of Leviticus. We read: "You are to count seven weeks of years − seven times seven years, that is to say a period of seven weeks of years, forty-nine years. And on the 10th day of the 7th month, you shall sound the trumpet; on the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout the land. You will declare this 50th year sacred and proclaim the liberation of all the inhabitants of the land. This is to be a Jubilee for you, each of you will return to his ancestral home, each to his own clan. This 50th year is to be a Jubilee for you … the Jubilee is to be a holy thing to you …" (Leviticus 25:8-12)

There is a great deal more in Chapter 25 and I urge you to read all of it when you can. The issue addressed in this Law concerns maintaining the Exodus-liberation. It concerns restoration.

Israelites who fell on hard times would become indentured servants (oftentimes called "slaves" in scripture) in order to repay this debt. This slavery, unlike modern day chattel slavery, was not a permanent status and in the 50th year, debts were forgiven, a clean slate was made manifest, and folk could begin again, for the children of Israel recognized in this law that land belongs to God and could not be sold and that all people were of equal value in God's eyes.

To understand what implications this law has for our time, if any, we need to speak honestly of the context in which we live. In contemporary America, there has been a good deal of talk about the existence of a permanent underclass. Far less often is there any acknowledgement of a permanent overclass. Although we have all been encouraged in the mass media and by our politicians to see ourselves as part of a great sprawling middle class, the truth is otherwise. To understand this, we compare the life cycle of the average affluent-rich and the poor.

Affluent mothers are more likely to get quality prenatal care and enjoy better general health, fitness and nutrition than poorer women. Poor mothers typically seek medical attention in the last month of their pregnancy. Thus, rich babies come into the world healthier and weighing more than poorer babies. Poor babies are more likely to experience lead poisoning from their environment and thus have more learning disabilities.

Rich babies get more time and verbal interaction with their parents and experience higher quality child care when they are not. In schools, they benefit from school districts which spend 2-3 times as much per student than in poorer districts. Poor children are taught in classrooms significantly larger than more affluent children, which leads to higher drop-out rates. When poorer kids are fortunate enough to attend school with more affluent children, studies have repeatedly revealed that teachers expect the affluent kids to have the right answers and are surprised and even disturbed with poorer children do well.

Theodore Sizer, in Horace's Compromise, wrote: "If you are the child of low income parents, the chances are good that you will receive limited and often careless attention from adults in your high school. If you are the child of upper-middle income parents, the chances are good that you will receive substantial and careful attention."

Rich children are more likely to receive coaching in preparation for the S.A.T. in addition to the fact that they are already advantaged because their social background is the same as the test makers. One such firm, the Princeton Review, admits that social class correlates strongly with S.A.T. scores and that further, the S.A.T. is an unreliable predictor of success in college.

After college, rich children get white collar jobs and join organizations which increase their civic power. Poor children get blue collar jobs and watch T.V.

Affluent young adults buy a home and benefit from the single largest tax shelter in our society (the mortgage home deduction). Working class young families rent, live in poor school districts and cannot afford quality child care and so the educational disparity is replicated in the next generation.

More affluent folk, because of their access to better health care, live longer and after retiring, benefit from a high financial transfer system, social security, which disproportionately benefits the affluent while being paid for by all workers.

President Woodrow Wilson said it bluntly: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class of necessity in every society, to forego the privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific, difficult manual tasks." One blatant example of how classism is lived out is the sinking of the Titanic. Of the 143 first class passengers, only 4 were lost. Of the 93 second class passengers, only 15 were lost. Of the 179 third class passengers, fully 81 died. These 81 were, by the way, women and girls. Why? Because the crew of the Titanic held poorer passengers below deck at gunpoint.

The law of Jubilee emphasizes God's continual activity in our human situation and recognizes that all persons are equal in God's eyes. In honoring the spirit of the law of Jubilee, we acknowledge that God seeks for us a new relationship to each other, a relationship of being brothers and sisters as we have one Father God, one Abba. We acknowledge that by the sacrifice of Calvary, Jesus died for all men and women, not just those born into a particular place or specific station in life.

As Christian givers, the Jubilee causes us to re-think our estate planning for giving after our deaths. Whether our resources are vast or modest, our wills or planned gifts, are opportunities for Christian witness. We give so that some restitution can be made to those who have less primarily because they were both into less. The aim − the spirit of the law if you will − of Jubilee-giving is to seek to contribute to a balance among God's people, to level out the difference between the haves and the have-nots. We seek, in Jubilee-giving, to spread God's wealth among others rather than piling it up in a family or a group.

To fail to face the inevitable is to leave this decision to others. For Christians, that is inappropriate. It is also selfish insofar as we don't make the effort to be bothered with something that doesn't benefit ourselves.

In Christian giving, death is an opportunity to witness to God's intent that people help one another, that we share life's burdens with one another and that God is not a respecter of persons but loves us all equally and powerfully and sacrificially.