A Green Olive Tree

A Green Olive Tree

A Green Olive Tree

Jubilee Preaching Aid for July 20, 2025

“The idea of Jubilee is the climax of biblical law,” Dr. Silvia Keesmaat taught at the Canadian Jubilee 2025 launch earlier this year. “It sums up a thread that has been running throughout the narrative, right from the beginning. And that thread is Sabbath.” This idea has intrigued me ever since I heard it back in February. Jubilee, Dr. Keesmaat continues, is about so much more than debt cancellation alone; it is about rest and reconciliation – ultimate, radical, equitable rest and freedom for all.

Global debt has reached an unprecedented level, warns the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and is continuing to rise. The IMF and World Bank estimate that 60% of low-income countries are at or near the point of “debt distress,” where they cannot meet their repayment obligations. More than 3.3 billion people live in countries where governments spend more on debt repayments than on essential services like health or education. The crisis unduly oppresses some more than others where predatory lending sees developing countries face borrowing rates that are 2 to 12 times higher than those of wealthy nations, trapping them in a cycle of debt.[1]

[1]     https://turndebtintohope.caritas.org/10-campaign-facts/ Accessed June 13, 2025.

The current debt crisis is pretty overwhelming. How could we possibly change that? The successes of Jubilee 2000 gives us some hope, but our real hope is in God. Christ came to make a path for us. Let’s take a look at the Colossians passage to see that path of reconciliation to God, to each other and to the Earth.

Kimberly Wagner explains Colossians 1:15-28 in three distinct parts. “This text invites [us] to consider the intersection of God’s work, our communal response, and our personal faith commitments.”

Through [Christ] God was pleased to reconcile to [God]self all things,
whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. (Col 1:20)

Not only humans, but ‘all things’ are reconciled – this includes the land. Land left to rest and returned to its original owner in the time of Jubilee. This reconciliation requires secure and steadfast faith from the follower. The author of the letter, Paul, tells of his guidance and his warnings to all. Knowing the life that God calls us to is very much part of the reconciliation followers are privileged to receive. A faithful response is essential.

We can turn to some of this week’s First Testament texts to learn more about the faithful life God expects. Amos 8, Psalm 15, and Psalm 52, like many other passages in the prophets and the Psalms, contrast the life God calls us to with a life outside of God’s teachings.

Perhaps the best-known verse from the book of Amos is 5:24, “Let justice roll down like waters.” This epitomizes the social justice emphasis of his prophesies. Note the economic concern in the warnings in chapter 8, especially verses 4-7, warnings to those who “trample on the needy” and “bring to ruin the poor of the land.”

Jubilee is the culmination of the Sabbath, but the townspeople Amos has in mind are just waiting for the Sabbath to be over so they can go back to cheating the poor and needy, to make more profit. Money lenders in our current context don’t even have that pretext of restraint; trading loans as hedge funds in opaque dealings that not even the governments of borrowing countries are privy to, let alone their citizens. There is little evidence of concern for the welfare of the people in the lending and banking world and much evidence of disastrous financial abuse.

Likewise, the contrast is stark in Psalm 15 between the positive actions such as to “walk blamelessly and “do what is right” and “speak the truth” (15:2) to the things that the righteous don’t do such as to “lend money at interest” or “take a bribe against the innocent.” Usually we think of it being just good business to have a reasonable interest rate, but this passage claims those who fear God do not lend money at any interest. Oh that the international lenders would heed this call for the countries that are facing unjust or unsustainable debts.

As we strive in the Jubilee movement to connect more deeply with ecology, I relish the ecological imagery in Psalm 52. The deceitful are “uprooted from the land” and the righteous one who trusts in the steadfast love of God forever is “like a green olive tree.” The warnings are most stark for the one who “trusted in abundant riches and sought refuge in wealth.” Where are we complicit in the incessant growth of colonial capitalism? How can we be more like a green olive tree, rooted in the steadfast love of God offering a faithful response in our world?

Shannon Neufeldt received an MDiv from Emmanuel College and is a member of Toronto United Mennonite Church. Her work as the Member Relations and Network Coordinator has her organizing the Jubilee work at KAIROS this year.