wfn.org | WCC 8th Assembly: Feature 2 (part 2 & end)

[Sheila MESA <smm@wcc-coe.org>]

Feature 2 (continued)

Inclusive Hope

This hope to which we are called is an inclusive hope. Biblically it is
rooted in the vision of Christ as the one who will "gather up all things in
him, things in heaven and things on earth" (Eph.1:10).

This inclusive hope insists that all persons are within the scope of God's
love and care and within the scope of Christ's concern (Luke 14:15-35;
14-13).  Certainly the Church itself is called to live out an inclusive love
that values all persons and welcomes their gifts. And if indeed it is the
body of Christ - Christ who reached out to all - how can the Church
exclude any of those for whom Christ died, that is: any human being?

This inclusive love should embrace all those in need.  It should embrace
even the "other", even the offensively and threateningly other. It must
reach out both to our victims and to our enemies, to those linked to us
through the memories of wrongs done, and hurts inflicted, on one side or
the other.

Expectant Hope

The vision of God "gathering up all things" into Christ looks to a time
when God shall inaugurate "a new heaven and a new earth" (Rev.
21:5). We live in the "time between": the promised age has entered
history but it is not presently experienced in its fullness (Acts 2:17; 1Cor.
13:12).

That is an understatement. For make no mistake about it: redemption is
necessary, for human beings and for all the rest of creation. Humanity is
marked by sin, as any newspaper's woeful catalogue of social
catastrophes makes clear. And for all its unfathomable joy and beauty,
the natural order is a also place of waste and great suffering, where life
exists from life, where animals kill and eat one other - must kill and eat
one another - in order to survive.

The measure of our Christian hope is that it was born, and has
flourished, in the face of rejection and death. This was possible because
hope knows to whom it - to whom we - belong, to the God who has
acted in Christ Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, and who has
promised that we will not finally be abandoned nor given over to
destruction.
(1,897 words)

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Sidebar

The Jubilee Year
An impulse for justice and renewal

"You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years,
so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years... And
you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout
the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return,
every one of you, to your property and every one of you to
your family. (Lev. 25:8,10)

In the 50th year of its foundation, the WCC will have the theme of Jubilee
as an underlying motif for its Eighth Assembly.  Tom Best's original article
(see main feature) reflects on this.  Here are the main points:

The biblical tradition of the Jubilee proclaims that not only space ("the
earth is the Lord's", Ps. 24:1) but also time belongs to God, and to signify
this God's people should set apart a time when normal activities would
cease, in particular when commerce and trade should stop in order that
more ultimate values can take centre stage.

To rest, to refrain from busyness, to let ourselves be refreshed, to
regard not acting as something positive -- these ideas are strange to
societies based upon the acquisition of goods, where even "leisure"
activities are pursued with such grim seriousness that they
become work.

The Jubilee Year should bring with it "releases" of radical consequence:
of  persons who are in servitude - including the financial servitude of
debt -- to others (Lev. 25:39-42), of land from the control of new owners
(Lev. 25:13-17,25-28). Both actions are understood as the restoration of
something which, through misfortune or aggressive behaviour by others,
has been lost. 

The Jubilee Year tradition echoes many aspects of the assembly theme.
It speaks about the God to whom we turn.  The Jubilee prescriptions for
social justice through restoration tell us who God is, and what kind of
people can best serve God.

The Jubilee Year speaks about our response in active love to God's
saving acts. "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine;
with me you are but aliens and tenants" (Lev. 25:23).  We must identify
ourselves with others in need and limit our own self-interested claims:
"you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of
Egypt: I am the Lord your God" (Lev. 19:34).

The Jubilee speaks also about the  impulse to rejoice in hope. For it looks
beyond the present world order to a state of coherence and prosperous
harmony. By its commitment to social transformation it gives hope to the
oppressed and to the land.

The Jubilee hope was prominent in the ministry of Jesus, who early in his
Galilean ministry announced the breaking in of "the year of the Lord's
favour" (Luke 4:19), and proclaimed "release to the captives". He also
incorporated the challenge for the cancellation of debts into the prayer
which he taught his disciples: "... and forgive us our debts, as we also
have forgiven our debtors" (Matt. 6:12). 

As far we can tell historically, the Jubilee was never actually put into
practice. Thus in restoring this restoration tradition, Jesus was making a
sharp critique of a society and system which had never dared to take
the demands of God's Jubilee seriously. 

Surely Jesus' "Jubilee critique" needs to be heard clearly today, and not
least within the churches.

(563 words)
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Rev. Dr Thomas F. Best is a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of
Christ) in the USA. He is available for further comment and interview.
Radio journalists please note that for interview purposes we have an
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