Jubilee Preaching Aids for June 15, 2025
Psalm 8
Psalm 8 opens and closes with wonder and awe at God’s majestic name:
“O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (v.1, 9)
But between these bookends of praise, we find something astonishing: the God of creation has chosen to honour us: fragile, flawed human beings with dignity and great responsibility. God not only notices us — God entrusts us with the care of all God has created!!
“You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet,” (v.6)
But God’s rule is not like ours. God’s rule is that of love. We are called to be stewards and care for creation. God has placed the world — the animals, the earth, the resources, and the relationships — under our oversight. We are to reflect God’s wisdom, justice, and compassion in how we treat all God has made.
As we observe this year of Jubilee, Psalm 8 reminds us of what we are called to do as God’s people – to ensure that creation’s resources are justly used for all, to redress the ecological damage caused by our materialistic lifestyles (which damage is largely borne by the Global South), and to dismantle oppressive structures that prevent all people from flourishing.
To God, stewardship is not about control; it’s about faithful and just management of what ultimately belongs to God.
Rev. Marianne Emig Carr is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC), serving the two-point Brockville-Caintown Pastoral Charge in Eastern Ontario. Prior to becoming a minister, Marianne was a corporate lawyer for 19 years at General Motors of Canada. Marianne serves on the Steering Committee of KAIROS, is a member of the PCC Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations Committee and has been actively involved in refugee sponsorship efforts.
Romans 5:1-5
“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, knowing that affliction produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
Jubilee is a time for what is lost to be restored and for debts to be forgiven. In this way, Jubilee is a practice that leads to peace and wholeness (shalom) – not only for individuals, but for an entire society.
We all know how, over time, small acts of injustice and exploitation accumulate, gradually building up into a system that holds all participants captive. A glance at the news quickly provides striking examples of the social unrest caused by frustrations about inequality.
Jesus Christ offers us a different path, one that leads away from violence, and that can be truly called “Good News.” Because Jubilee requires all participants, both the creditor and the debtor, to have faith in the goodness and abundance of God and God’s Creation. Faith that there will be enough, and trust in each other. In other words, it requires us to truly believe, as verse 5 reminds us, that the Holy spirit has been given to us – a gift that no one has earned – and that God’s love permeates the entire world.
Jubilee requires a spiritual posture of faith, grace, and hope. It takes faith to believe God’s promise of enough, especially when all around us we see evidence of scarcity. Yet, the deeper truth is that the sources of each of our lives are gifts that we could neither earn nor create for ourselves. And so, there is no longer any room for hoarding more than we need or boasting in our own accomplishments and financial security. Instead, we boast only in the hope that God will continue to share God’s glory as a gift of friendship and peace.
Kevin Guenther Trautwein is a member of KAIROS Prairies North who lives in Edmonton, Alberta, subject to the promises and commitments made in Treaty 6, by the grace of God, by the gifts of the land, and by the faithfulness of the First Peoples who have kept and cared for this land since time immemorial.
