JUDI RULES

LEVITICUS 25:1-13

 

Life is full of learning experiences. For those who choose to marry, marriage is certainly a major part of life. So it should come as no surprise that rather than a static state, marriage is a dynamic experience from which one constantly learns. It becomes the teacher; the united couple becomes the students. And you never, ever graduate. Sort of the way seminary feels some days!

I want to share with you a lesson that I am learning in my marriage. When Judi initially heard the title she was excited, because she thought I was using "rules" as a verb. She was a little disappointed to learn that I intended for "rules" to be a noun, modified by the unusual adjective "Judi." Even so, she liked my idea and these stories are told with her blessing.

The story is about rules. Specifically it is about games and rules. As I understand them, games have two objectives: to entertain or be fun; and to create a goal or situation toward which all the players strive. Bluntly stated, the second goal in a game is to win. Game rules describe for us how the players must play enroute to winning, how to determine who wins, and by how much the player wins. In some cases, it even has consequences for the loser. The really difficult part comes when we try to combine the two objectives, determining if one has priority over the other or if it is possible to lose but still have fun, even though that means that we have failed to achieve one of the objectives of the game. Balancing the two becomes even more difficult thanks to cliches embedded in our psyches like "Winning may not be everything, but losing is nothing!" That is the background, the mentality, the whole approach to games that I, and many of us, bring into game situations.

Judi and I both love games, though not always the same ones. That is the approach I carried into games with Judi. Little did I know that in order to play games with Judi, one has to enter a dimension similar to the Twilight zone where the game looks familiar but something is amiss. I call it the Judi Rules dimension. Let me give you some samples.

One day Judi decided to accompany me to the basketball court to shoot basketball. We shot around for awhile and eventually began to challenge each other's shots, though we were not keeping score or officially "playing" a game. Once when Judi shot the ball, I tried to block it. I missed the ball, she made the shot, and then called a foul, claiming that I had smacked her on the hand. She proceeded to the foul line. My first inclination was to protest, because since we were not playing a game or keeping score, we were not keeping fouls and therefore there should be no foul shots. At that point, the fun objective kicked in, reminding me that since we were not playing a game, it really did not matter how many fouls she called or where she shot the ball. So I refrained from protesting, at least until she awarded herself TWO, not ONE, foul shots. At that point, my loyalty to the rules of basketball could not be silenced. I tried to explain that if she had not made the shot, she would have received two foul shots, but since she made the basket, theoretically if this were a real game situation, it counted and she only received one shot. I then pointed out that this was still the better of the two scenarios, because it meant potentially three points rather than two. That is when I was introduced to the dimension of Judi rules. According to her, the number of foul shots one receives has absolutely nothing to do with whether the shot is made or not. It has to do with whether or not the foul hurt. My foul had made her hand hurt, therefore she received two foul shots rather than one. Now the really eerie thing is that not long after that, organized basketball installed the flagrant foul rule, which basically means if the ref thinks the foul hurt, the player gets two shots AND the ball. So in some ways, Judi was just ahead of her time.

A second game we play is racquetball. This is something we were able to learn together, play together, and is good exercise. In addition, I entered the game with the usual set of assumptions: have fun and win. Games are played to fifteen points. On services after the 14th point, the server is supposed to call game point. Whenever I served game point, I had had fun for 14 whole points plus however many Judi had scored. At that point, the main objective was to win, right?--serve your best and go for the victory. If you have not had enough fun yet, play another game. Enter the Judi Rules dimension. According to Judi rules, the game point serve has to be a NICE serve, rather than a MEAN one. For her that means a medium to slow speed serve that must come to her forehand rather than backhand side. And, it MUST come right to where she is so that she can hit it without taking more than one step to her right. According to Judi Rules, she has the prerogative to call, "MEAN SERVE" which means I have to serve over. Two mean serves in a row on game point and I lose my serve. I suppose the lesson to learn from that is that at no point in the game should winning obliterate the objective of fun. Regardless of one's eagerness to win and excel, at no point does one forget the feelings of the one who may have worked just as hard to excel, but is now about to not win.

One more quick Judi rule, this time from the world of putt putt. About two or three times a summer we ride to a putt putt course for a couple of games. That basically means we know how to hold our clubs, we know the objective of the game, we even get an occasional hole-in-one, but we do not entertain hopes of breaking par. Every course I have ever played has a stroke limit, usually 5 or 6 strokes. That is how many strokes you have to get the little ball in the hole. I am convinced that rule has two main purposes: help keep the game moving along so that there is not a logjam of players behind your party, and decrease the possibility of undue strain and distress on the friendships and marriages of putt putt participants. According to the rule, if you fail to get the ball in the hole within the stroke limit, you add 5 strokes to your score, pick up your ball and move to the next hole. That sounds simple doesn't it, even though it is not a good score! In the Judi Rules Dimension, forget a stroke limit. They have been replaced by "do-overs." When you reach your stroke limit, instead of moving on, the player picks up the ball, pretends those five strokes never happened, goes back to the tee, and starts over. According to Judi Rules, a person can have three start overs in a game, which is more than enough to cover the number of times she might potentially reach the stroke limit in any one game. Do-overs really are not a bad idea. They make the game more competitive, because they prevent one bad hole from ruining your score and your chance of winning. Perhaps even more importantly, the prevent the person who needs the start over from becoming unduly discouraged.

Each one of these stories, in their own way, is related to the sabbatical and jubilee laws in our Scripture text today. These are different laws, prescriptions, or rules than those to which we are accustomed. In the good old USA we work to gain and earn and prosper. Periodically, we make donations out of our accumulations, but they are ours for as long as we want them and can manage not to lose them. Only in our wildest dreams–and probably not even then-- could we imagine working hard for seven years as in the sabbatical year or fifty years as in Jubilee, and then release a good portion of our accumulated wealth for the explicit purpose of leveling wealth distinctions within our society. That is like playing monopoly, acquiring Boardwalk, Park Place and all the other properties on that side of the board, plus becoming slum lords of Baltic and Mediterranean on the cheap side of GO, and then being told you have to throw in your money, tear down your hotels and give back your land deeds because a brand new game is starting. Jubilee rules say that within the community of people who have gathered around a common religious center, namely the God of Israel who is also the God of our own Christian tradition, we play the game of life with some different objectives in mind. Jubilee is designed to release those people and property taken in the course of playing the game of life by normal rules. It is designed to reunite people with their God-given inheritances that have been lost while playing under the usual rules. It dared to suggest that periodically, the whole society needed a do-over, to level their differences, to equalize the statuses and relationships among them: restructured from rich and poor to comfortable and comfortable; from master and slave to citizen and citizen. In effect, to the ones who are "hurt" so to speak, who are poor to the extent that they have lost their land, sold their family, or even enslaved themselves, the jubilee rule says "you deserve some extra help and attention." To those who are on the low end of the score when game point rolls around, jubilee says "for the duration of this one year period, we will only serve nicely. " To those who find themselves falling further and further behind for various reasons, the Sabbath and Jubilee years provide do-overs. To those who are not hurt, who are serving rather than receiving, or who doing so well that a fresh start is the least of their concerns, these jubilee rules say that in God's community, winning or doing well is only ONE of the objectives in the game of life. Members of that community should be wary of pursuing it to the extent that we forget all the other worthwhile objectives that are included in a God-directed, Spirit-led life. Evaluating our objectives is a real key toward moving from a perspective that says these rules are absurd and unacceptable, to one that says there is no reason why we can not play according to the rules.

I’d like to suggest that this moment early in the semester, and perhaps one’s seminary career would be an appropriate time to reflect on the laws of Jubilee. One of the things that strikes me about the Sabbatical and Jubilee concept is that it evolved and changed over the course of Israelite history. In Exodus, it applies only to a release on the seventh year of those people who have sold themselves into slavery. In Deuteronomy it expands, now canceling all debts and loans every seven years and even encouraging the rich to give to the poor with generosity, trusting that God would bless such benevolence. In Leviticus it expands even more, thinking of new Judi-like rules to add to the game. That type of ongoing development suggests that while the concept remains the same, each community of faith is challenged to see how it applies to their particular situation. Recently, I heard a song entitled "Jesus is Our Jubilee," applying that whole concept of releasing and equalizing to the work that Jesus did for humanity. That singer was making a similar type of expansion.

Given that precedent of reconsideration and re-application, I wonder how Jubilee can speak to us? Even though we do not own debt slaves or other people's property, perhaps there are ways that we can release and return, and equalize and start over in our relationships within our faith community as we play by God's rules. Are there things we have taken from each other that create and reinforce divisions between us? Have we withdrawn our friendship, love or support from any who is here? Have we tried to enslave others, only willing to recognize them as legitimate members of our group after they have satisfied the debt or grudge we hold against them? In doing that, are we depriving them of the things that God says we are all entitled to as members of a faith community? If so, how long can we continue, and still claim to be individuals and a group who seeks to know, to do, and to live the desires of God? And finally, if by chance our self-directed queries give us a clean bill of spiritual health--and even if they do not--can we embrace a vision of God that calls for a dramatic shift of structures and paradigms–not just as they relate to personal practices of devotion and piety–not only as abstract theological constructs–but including the practical ways we extend ourselves in ordering and participating in horizontal relationships with others?

Those are the types of enduring challenges that the Jubilee laws place before us. As persons seeking to be faithful and who have been called to ministry, may we dedicate ourselves to creating a world where Jubilee becomes the rule rather than the exception, all the while trusting that God will be present and involved in our efforts.