Day 73 Rolling Jubilee

The Occupy movement is kicking off a new campaign this month they're calling Rolling Jubilee taken from the practice of Jubilee in Leviticus. The basic idea is that they raise money and use it to buy up “distressed debt” at pennies on the dollar--and then forgive it. (I LOVE this idea--I'm so envious that I didn't think of it first, or at least the name "Rolling Jubilee." Argh!) They estimate that for their goal amount of $50,000, they can forgive $1 million in debts.

The idea reflects God’s economy: The name is drawn from the debt forgiveness mandated by God himself in the OT, and Jesus used the cancellation of debt as a parable for forgiveness of sins.

Not only that, but the way these debts are bundled, the forgiveness is indiscriminate and random. One commentator from Slate Magazine says, “Given two struggling families, one of which is indebted and one of which isn't, it's not clear why you'd think that the family that's borrowed heavily in the past is more worthy of assistance.” But, this randomness is another way the idea reflects the awesome unfairness of God’s grace: God offers it to all of us, no matter how bad our track record, no matter how likely we are to do bad things again, no matter how “worthy” we’ve been.


Then there's this aspect: some of these debts probably resulted from irresponsible choices--buying a house that was way too big, running up creditcard debt on unsavory activities, or buying too many toys. Or maybe someone was deceived into taking a high interest loan for education, medical debt, unemployment. The way the system Rolling Jubilee works is that you can’t just buy sympathetic debt, or even one person’s particular debt--you have to buy a whole bundle, good or bad.

Rolling Jubilee, like Jesus’ parables, reveals the amazing, unfair truth about grace: it’s offered freely to everyone, and it’s not deserved by anyone.

Grace always unfair, in your favor.

Isn't that profound and marvelous?

I LOVE this! Rolling Jubilee is also a satisfying, poetic way to redeem the shadowy debt resale market that contributed to the economic crash in 2007. By taking the very system that made some of this mess possible, we can release people from the weight of debt it got them into.

Rolling Jubilee isn't the penultimate solution to the financial problems of the 99%, but it's one beautiful step! Amen. (I'll get off my soapbox now! ;)