The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 49: The Year of Jubilee (2023)

Episode Date: February 18, 2023

Fr. Mike explains why God repeats some of his instructions for worship and lays out the purpose for the year of jubilee. The readings are Exodus 35-36, Leviticus 25, and Psalm 81. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. This is day 49. Let's keep on going. We're reading from two chapters in Exodus. We're getting to the end of Exodus, Exodus chapter

35 and 36. We're also reading from the third to last chapter in the book of Leviticus, Leviticus 25, as well as praying Psalm 81. As always, I am reading both from the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. As always, I'm reading using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your Bible in a Year reading plan, just visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. If you want to buy one of those Great Adventure Bibles, you also can get that at ascensionpress.com. If you haven't yet subscribed in your podcast app, I invite you to do that whenever you get the chance, maybe even like literally right now, just crush that subscribe button. As I said, today we're reading from Exodus chapter 35 and 36.

We're leaving a little bit of the narrative. We visited the narrative for a bit, right? We had a little digression where we talked about the tabernacle, talked about the labor, talked about all these, the elements of temple worship. Then we got back to the story with the golden calf. And we're also going to go back to the story clearly, but also some Sabbath regulations for the tabernacle and for the offerings brought into the tabernacle. Some of this is going to sound familiar. You've already heard this in Exodus and you've heard this in Leviticus.

And that's why God, he was just repeating these instructions, which one of the things that reminds me is not just that, wow, this is kind of repetitive, but that it's important. We repeat the things that are important and we highlight those things that are important by uttering them again. One of the things that my older brother will say is that he's like, dude, whenever you're preaching, you just repeat the same thing over and over. I'm like, yeah, dude, because we remember stuff that when it gets repeated over and over again, and here is the Lord repeating a bit of what he has already said in Leviticus and what he's even

already said some of these things in the book of Exodus. But it's important for us because it is revealing the heart of worship. When it comes to Sabbath, when it comes to the tabernacle, when it comes from the offerings that are brought into the tabernacle, it is all about worship. And there's nothing, there's no greater human act that anyone could do than the act of worship. And that's one of the reasons why the Lord God continues to instruct us in that teaching, teaching of worship. So without anything further, Exodus chapter 35 and 36. Sabbath regulations. Moses assembled all the congregation of the sons of Israel and said to them, these are the things which the Lord has commanded you to do.

Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy Sabbath of solemn rest to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire in all your habitations on the Sabbath day. Preparations for making the tabernacle. Moses said to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, this is the thing which the Lord has commanded. Take from among you an offering to the Lord, whoever is of generous heart. Let him bring the Lord's offering, gold, silver, and bronze, blue and purple and scarlet stuff and fine twined linen,

goat's hair, tanned ram's skins and goat skins, acacia wood, oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, and onyx stones and stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece. And let every able man among you come and make all that the Lord has commanded, the tabernacle, its tent and its covering, its hooks and its frames, its bars, its pillars and its bases, the ark with its poles, the mercy seat and the veil of the screen, the table with its poles and

all its utensils, and the bread of the presence. The lamp stands also for the light with its utensils and its lamps, and the oil for its light, and the altar of incense with its poles, and the anointing oil, and the fragrant incense, and the screen for the door at the door of the tabernacle, the altar of burnt offering with its grating of bronze, its poles and all its utensils, the laver and its base, the hangings of the court, its pillars and its bases, and the screens for the gate of the court, the pegs of the tabernacle and the pegs of the court and their cords, the finely wrought garments for ministering in the holy place, the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and the garments of his sons for their service as priests. Offerings brought for the tabernacle. service, and for the holy garments. So they came, both men and women, all who were of a willing

heart, brought brooches and earrings and signet rings and armlets, all sorts of gold objects, every man dedicating an offering of gold to the Lord. And every man with whom was found blue or purple or scarlet stuff or fine linen or goat's hairs or tanned ram's skins or goat skins brought them. Every one who could make an offering of silver or bronze brought it as the Lord's offering. And every man with whom was found acacia wood of any use in the work brought it. And all the women who had ability spun with their hands

and brought what they had spun in blue and purple and scarlet stuff and fine twined linen. All the women whose hearts were moved with ability spun the goat's hair. And the leaders brought onyx stones and stones to be set for the ephod and for the breastpiece, and spices and oil for the light, and for the anointing oil, and for the fragrant incense. All the men and women, the sons of Israel, whose heart moved them to bring anything for the work which the Lord had commanded by Moses to be done, brought it as a freewill offering to the Lord. Bezalel and Aholiab received the offerings.

And Moses said to the sons of Israel, See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel, son of Uri, son of Hur, and of the tribe of Judah. And he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft. And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Aholiab, the son of Ahesamach, of the tribe of Dan. He has filled them with ability to do every sort of work done by craftsmen or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet stuff and fine twined linen or by a weaver, by any sort of workman or skilled designer. Bezalel and Aholiab

and every able man in whom the Lord has put ability and intelligence to know how to work in the construction of the sanctuary shall work in accordance with all that the Lord has commanded. And Moses called Bezalel and Aholiab and every able man in whose mind the Lord had put ability, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work. And they received from Moses all the freewill offering, which the sons of Israel had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning so that all the able men who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came each from the task that he was doing and said to Moses, the people bring much more than enough for doing the work which the Lord has commanded us to do. So Moses gave command and word was proclaimed throughout the camp, Let neither man nor woman do anything more for the offering for the sanctuary.

So the people were restrained from bringing, for the stuff they had was sufficient to do all the work and more. Construction of the Tabernacle And all the able men among the workmen made the tabernacle with ten curtains. They were made of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet stuff with cherubim skillfully worked. The length of each curtain was twenty-eight cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits. All the curtains had the same measure. And he coupled five curtains to one another, and the other five curtains he coupled to one another.

And he made loops of blue on the edge of the outmost curtain of the first set. Likewise, he made them on the edge of the outmost curtain of the second set. He made fifty loops on the one curtain, and he made fifty loops on the edge of the curtain that was in the second set. The loops were opposite one another. And he made fifty clasps of gold, and coupled the curtains one to the other with clasps, so that the tabernacle was one whole. He also made curtains of goat's hair, for a tent over the tabernacle. He made eleven curtains.

The length of each curtain was thirty cubits, and the breadth of each curtain four cubits. The eleven curtains had the same measure. He coupled five curtains by themselves, and six curtains by themselves. And he made fifty loops on the edge of the outmost curtain of the one set and fifty loops on the edge of the other connecting curtain. And he made fifty clasps of bronze to couple the tent together that it might be one whole. And he made for the tent a covering of tanned ram's skins and goat skins. Then he made the upright frames for the tabernacle of acacia wood. Ten cubits was the length of a frame, and a cubit and a half the breadth of each frame.

Each frame had two tenons for fitting together. He did this for all the frames of the tabernacle. The frames for the tabernacle he made thus, twenty frames for the south side, and he made forty bases of silver under the 20 frames, two bases under one frame for its two tenons, and two bases under another frame for its two tenons. And for the second side of the tabernacle on the north side, he made 20 frames and their 40 bases of silver, two bases under one frame, and two bases under another frame. And for the rear of the tabernacle westward, he made six frames, and he made two for the rear of the tabernacle westward, he made six frames. And he made two frames for corners of the tabernacle in the rear, and they were separate

beneath, but joined at the top, at the first ring. He made two of them thus for the two corners. There were eight frames, with their bases of silver, sixteen bases under every frame, two bases. And he made bars of acacia wood, five for the frames of the one side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the frames of the other side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the frames of the tabernacle at the rear westward. And he made the middle bar to pass from end to end, halfway up the frames. And he overlaid the frames with gold. And he made their rings of gold for holders for the bars, and overlaid the bars with gold. And he made the veil of blue and purple and scarlet stuff and fine twined linen. With cherubim skillfully worked he made it. And for it he made

four pillars of acacia, and overlaid them with gold. Their hooks were of gold, and he cast for them four bases of silver. He also made a screen for the door of the tent, of blue and purple and scarlet stuff and fine twined linen, embroidered with needlework, and its five pillars with their hooks. He overlaid their capitals, and their fillets were of gold, but their five bases were of bronze. The book of Leviticus chapter 25. The sabbatical year. The Lord said to Moses on Mount Sinai, Say to the sons of Israel, When you come into the land which I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the

land a sabbath to the lord you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard what grows of itself in your harvest you shall not reap and the grapes of your undressed vine you shall not gather it shall be a year of solemn rest for the land. The Sabbath of the land shall provide food for you, for yourself and for your male and female slaves, and for your hired servant and the sojourner who lives with you, for your cattle also, and for the beasts that are in the land, and all its yield shall be for food.

The year of Jubilee. And you shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of seven weeks of years shall be to you forty-nine years. Then you shall send abroad the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seven month. On the day of atonement you shall send abroad the trumpet throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty through all the land, in all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his property, and each of you shall return to his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be to you. In it you shall neither sow, nor reap what grows of

itself, nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You shall eat what it yields out of the field. In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. And if you sell to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. According to the number of years after the jubilee you shall buy from your neighbor, and according to the number of years after the jubilee, you shall buy from your neighbor, and according to the number of years for crops, he shall sell to you. If the years are many, you shall increase the price, but if the years are few, you shall diminish the price, for it is the number of crops that he is selling to you. You shall not wrong one another, but you

shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God. Therefore you shall do my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and perform them, so you will dwell in the land securely. The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill, and dwell in it securely. And if you say, What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop? I will command my blessing upon you in the sixth year, so that it will bring forth fruit for three years. When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating old produce until the ninth year. When its produce comes in, you shall eat the old. The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine, for you are strangers and sojourners with me.

And in all the country you possess, you shall grant a redemption of the land. If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, then his next of kin shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. If a man has no one to redeem it, and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, let him reckon the years since he sold it and pay back the overpayment to the man to whom he sold it, and he shall return to his property. But if he has not sufficient means to get it back for himself, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the year of Jubilee. In the year of Jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property. If a man sells a dwelling house in a

walled city, he may redeem it within a whole year after its sale. For a full year he shall have the right of redemption. If it is not redeemed within a full year, then the house that is in the walled city shall be made sure in perpetuity to him who bought it throughout his generations. It shall not be released in the Jubilee. But the houses of the villages which have no wall around them shall be reckoned with the fields of the country. They may be redeemed, and they shall be released in the Jubilee. Nevertheless, the cities of the Levites, the houses in the cities of their possession, the Levites may redeem at any time. And if one of the Levites does not exercise his

right of redemption, then the house that was sold in a city of their possession shall be released in the Jubilee. For the houses in the cities of the Levites are their possession among the sons of Israel. But the fields of common land belonging to their cities may not be sold, for that is their perpetual possession. And if your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall maintain him. As a stranger and a sojourner, he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or increase, but fear your God, that your brother may live beside you. You shall not lend him money at interest, nor give him food for profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you forth from the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God. And if your

brother becomes poor beside you and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a slave. He shall be with you as a hired servant and as a sojourner. He shall serve with you until the year of Jubilee. Then he shall go out from you, he and his children with him, and go back to his own family and return to the possession of his fathers. For they are my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt. They shall not be sold as slaves. You shall not rule over him with harshness, but shall fear your God. As for your male and female slaves whom you may have, you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are round about you.

You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their families that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. Youner with you becomes rich, and your brother beside him becomes poor and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner with you, or to be a member of the stranger's family, then after he is sold he may be redeemed. One of his brothers may redeem him, or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or a near kinsman belonging to his family may redeem him. Or if he grows rich, he may redeem himself. He shall reckon with him who bought him from the year when he sold himself to him until the year of Jubilee. And the price

of his release shall be according to the number of years the time he was with his owner shall be rated as the time of a hired servant. If there are still many years, according to them he shall refund out of the price paid for him the price for his redemption. If there remain but a few years until the year of Jubilee, he shall make a reckoning with him. According to the years of service due from him, he shall refund the money for his redemption. As a servant hired year by year, shall he be with him. He shall not rule with harshness over him in your sight. And if he is not redeemed by these means, then he shall be released in the year of Jubilee,

he and his children with him. For to me, the sons of Israel are servants. They are my servants, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Psalm 81, God's appeal to stubborn Israel, to the choir master, according to the Gitteth, a Psalm of Asaph. Sing aloud to God our strength. Shout for joy to the God of Jacob. Raise a song, sound the timbrel, the sweet lyre with the harp.

Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon on our feast day. For it is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob. He made it a decree in Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt. I hear a voice I had not known. I relieved your shoulder of the burden. Your hands were freed from the basket. In distress you called, and I delivered you. I answered you in the secret place of thunder.

I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Hear, O my people, while I admonish you. O Israel, if you would but listen to me. There shall be no strange god among you. You shall not bow down to a foreign god. I am the Lord, your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. But my people did not listen to my voice.

Israel would have none of me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own counsels. Oh, that my people would listen to me. That Israel would walk in my ways. I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes. Those who hate the Lord would cringe toward him and their fate would last forever. I would feed you with the finest of wheat and with honey from the rock, I would satisfy you. Father in heaven, we give you praise and thank you so much for your word.

We thank you for, we thank you for confounding us. We thank you for confusing us. Lord God, when we hear about slavery, when we hear about these things that have been such a scourge on humanity for so many years, we just ask that you enlighten our minds to be able to understand what is the place that you allowed for this to take place? What is it that you're teaching us in doing this, in allowing this to be a part of the life of the people of Israel, your people? Lord God, help us to not harden our hearts nor to allow our minds to be darkened, but open our hearts and open our minds to not be minds of cynicism or skepticism,

to not have hearts of distrust, but to open our hearts to trusting you. We make this prayer in Jesus' name, amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. So as I mentioned in that little prayer, we get some confusing stuff today when it comes to the book of Leviticus. And yet at the same time, it's not confusing. Sorry, let's rewind. We have Exodus chapter 35 and 36, which might have sounded super duper familiar to you if you have joined us for the

last couple of days, because we even had the story of not just the story, the account of our two skilled workers, Bezalel and Aholiab, in almost the exact same wording earlier on in the book of Exodus. And yet, why is this so important? I mentioned it at the very beginning of this particular episode. It's so important because what we're talking about is worship of God. What we're talking about is the dimensions of the tabernacle. We're talking about the fine jewels and the fine resources that go into creating not only the tabernacle, but also what's inside the tabernacle, what the priests are wearing. All of these things

are super important. Now, they might not be important to us, but one of the things that scripture reveals is that it's important to the Lord for some reason. And it's not important because God needs us to use acacia wood. It's because the worship that God instructs us to offer does something for us. And it has to touch not just the one day we might gather together to offer God worship, it has to touch the rest of our lives. And this is part of why the Lord God repeats himself multiple times in Exodus and Deuteronomy and Numbers and Leviticus when it comes to worship. We're going to come back to this again and again, because getting worship right is so critical. In fact, when we invent worship, we're doing something completely wrong. Like when we create worship, we're doing something so, so backwards from what God is

instructing us to do. And yet that's how a lot of churches are run. A lot of these, it seems like these days, I don't mean to be overly critical, but it seems like in a lot of different places, what we're doing is we're like, I think God wants this. We'll do this. Well, I think we'll sing a song here. Let's sing a song here as opposed to saying, okay, how has God commanded us to worship him? Okay. Well, we know, as he said, here's the New Testament priesthood. That is a fulfillment of the Old Testament priesthood. Here is the New Testament, new and eternal sacrifice, which is the fulfillment of the old sacrifice. And so what we do is we say, okay, God, you said, do this in memory of me.

Take this. All of you can eat of it. This is my body. This is my blood. That's what we do. Because you gave us the instruction to do that. And yet let's move past this to Leviticus. And yet that just can't be one day.

It can't just be one hour of our lives. It has to be at the heart of our lives. In fact, worship, the heart of worship is sacrifice. The heart of religion is worship. The heart of worship is sacrifice. And one of the things we need to do is recognize that that sacrifice is a sacrifice of trust. It's a sacrifice of love. And so what we have in Leviticus today is we have this feast, the sabbatical year. The sabbatical year is what? That on the seventh year, God instructs. He says, okay, you grow crops. You have vines for grapes and wine and whatnot. On the seventh year, just like on every seventh day, you're called to rest.

Every seventh year, you let the earth lay fallow. That you don't harvest on that year. You don't plant crops that year. You don't plant crops that year. You don't harvest that year, that you rest and let the land rest. And there's something about this that's just like, it's so backwards, especially for our, I'm going to say acquisitorial, right? Acquisitorial. We live in such a culture that demands consumerism and demands acquisition, demands all this

work. And yet here is God who says, no, on the seventh year, rest. What is that? It's not just resting. It's not just affirming you're no longer slaves, although that's a massive piece. We're going to come back to that in the next couple of weeks. But it's also affirming, okay, God, I trust you. It's confirming and affirming, okay, God, I know that you are just. And so I have to be like you. I have to be just. That's why you have this, you know, so they have the seventh, seventh, seven, right? So the 49th year, the 50th year after seven, sevens, right? After seven years of seven

times, seven years, they call it seven weeks of years. There's the 49th year and that 50th year is the year of Jubilee. And what we heard, and maybe we understood it, maybe we didn't, but we heard there is that if you had property that you had to let go of because of bad fortune, because of bad decisions, because of whatever, you got your property back. And if you had to sell yourself into slavery because of the same reasons, you were set free. That if you had any debts, those debts were forgiven. And then it's

just this, this year of restoration. And that's what the year of Jubilee is. It's all about like, okay, here is the reality of life. The reality of life is that there is, I mean, back then let's talk about the early world. Slavery was just as much a part of business, just as much part of how you would run the economy as we have contracts right now. So you have this, okay, I need job and someone's willing to hire me as an indentured servant. Someone's willing to hire me as their slave. So I'll sell myself into slavery, but here's the provision. The provision is it's not slavery forever, right? So it's, it's, it's not, it's not the same kind of slavery that we had in this country years and years ago, where it's based off of anything like race, where it's based off of anything like we call cattle

or chattel slavery. It was based off of something like overly domineering. In fact, scripture says in Leviticus today, it says, you shall not lord it over these slaves. You should not abuse them. Why? Because I am the Lord, your God. And God clearly says that.

And who's he talking to? Let's keep this in mind. He's not talking to 21st century Westerners. He's talking to a people that themselves had experienced what it was like to be slaves for 300 to 400 years. The people of Israel were slaves. So they knew what it was like to be under the domineering hand of a ruthless taskmaster. And God is saying, okay, I will tolerate this for now, right? This way of supporting your economy with this way of like, even not just supporting your economy, but this way of like supporting those among you who are poor. If you find yourself in dire straits and you cannot feed yourself, you cannot clothe yourself, you cannot house yourself, you can actually sell yourself to be someone's labor. And what happens then? They will clothe you, they will feed you, they will house

you. But all of this, A, with the provision that those who have purchased you, those who've entered into this contract with you, would not lord it over you because I'm the Lord your God. And secondly, B, that the Jubilee year, you'd be restored to freedom. You'd be restored to freedom. We can look back on this and say, well, that's so backwards and it's so, I don't get it. And that makes sense. But whenever we read the Bible, we have to read it so backwards. And it's so, I don't get it. And that makes sense. But whenever we read the Bible, we have to read it in context. And the context here is, these are people who knew absolutely what it was like to be slaves. Not just like, not slaves where you got your freedom later on. They knew what it was like to have

harsh taskmasters. Because God is saying, okay, I'm helping you grow. I'm allowing this now, but even how I'm allowing this has restrictions. You are not to be harsh taskmasters. People get their freedom on that year of restoration, that year of Jubilee. Gosh, it's just a gift. Again, because why? Because it's the plus one theory of education where God is helping these people move from level two to level three. He's helping them move from level three to level four, from level four to level five. But here we are a lot of times as 21st century Westerners. And we look at this and we think like, that's crazy. Well, that's

because God has already brought us to level 14 or whatever level we're at right now, where we understand that this is problematic. And God is saying, yes, it is, but we have to start somewhere. And with these people who knew what it was like to be slaves, they also have to know what it's like not to be slaves. Therefore, every seventh day, rest, because you're not a slave. Every seventh year, rest, because you're not a slave. And every 50th year, every seven weeks of years, rest and set free, because you're not a slave. Every seventh year, rest because you're not a slave. And every 50th year, every seven weeks of years, rest and set free because you are not meant to be slaves. The Bible is not meant to be straightforward. The Bible is oftentimes an account of reality

and it's not always the best. It's not always the easiest. It's not always the most straightforward, but it is true and it is good. Even if we have to read always the most straightforward, but it is true. And it is good. Even if we have to read between the lines to understand what it is that God is allowing, and what it is that God is saying, and what it is that God is trying to teach us today. Let's keep praying for each other, because sometimes we're going to run into some of these Bible passages that we don't get. And whenever we do that, we just say, okay, Lord, let me be humble before you. Help me to understand this. And if I'm not confused, I'm not clear enough, meaning me, Father Mike, if I'm not clear enough, look it up because I will not have all the answers. We're just doing our best to try to do this podcast every episode in under 30 minutes or so, which

means that I failed today, but we're here, which means we've also succeeded. Let's pray for each other. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.