Jubilee Women – Biblical Advice

⁸ ” Count off seven sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. ⁹ Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. ¹⁰ Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan. ¹¹ The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. ¹² For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields. ¹³ In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property.” (Leviticus 25:8-13 NIV)

Leviticus has advice for the Jubilee Woman.

• Day of Atonement – Forgive others’ debts to you. Forgive yourself. Ask for other’s forgiveness.
• Sound the trumpet – Rejoice! Celebrate!
• Consecrate the fiftieth year – Declare or set apart sacred time, a year to discover the better life God offers you.
• Proclaim liberty throughout the land– Commit to release for all (yourself included) from the shackles of injustice, addiction, dependence, negative habits, and attitudes.
• A jubilee for you – Focus on yourself, for others.
• Return to your family property – Return to your homeland. Go home again and see what home can teach you about yourself, now that you are a woman who has earned her wisdom.
• Each to her own clan – Reunite with family, reconnect, reassert your roots.
• Do not sow, reap, or harvest – Refuse to worry. Trust in God’s provision and even abundance.
• Eat only what is taken directly from the fields – Subsist or simplify, so you can ponder.
• A jubilee holy – Where is God in your life? First? What does holy mean to you?
• For you – Realize what a gift God offers us in rest. A whole day set aside for our renewal each week, a whole year every seven years, and an extra year every seventh set of seven years.

Could we really set a year apart to rest, contemplate justice, and discover God? How often do we take even one day a week off? Let a commitment to rest and renewal be part of your Jubilee wisdom.

We must start simply, with one day each week. Work hard for six days, but rest hard on the seventh.

    “I am more and more sure by experience that the reason for the observance of the Sabbath lies deep in the everlasting necessities of human nature, and that as long as man is man the blessedness of keeping it, not as a day of rest only, but as a day of spiritual rest, will never be annulled. I certainly do feel by experience the eternal obligation, because of the eternal necessity, of the Sabbath. The soul withers without it. It thrives in proportion to its observance. The Sabbath was made for man. God made it for men in a certain spiritual state because they needed it. The need, therefore, is deeply hidden in human nature. He who can dispense with it must be holy and spiritual indeed. And he who, still unholy and unspiritual, would yet dispense with it is a man that would fain be wiser than his Maker.”^1]
 

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^[1](F. W. Robertson). Found in dictionary definition of Sabbath Source: Easton’s 1897 Bible Dictionary

Betty’s Jubilee Celebration

“Count off seven sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to her family property and each to her own clan.” (Leviticus 25:8-10 NIV)^[1] 

At forty-nine, I had been pondering what it would feel like to turn fifty. When I read this passage, I toyed with the possibility of applying the reading to myself. The combined ideas of celebrating, consecrating to God, taking time to rest, forgiving and being forgiven, and returning to homeland and family all appealed to me. I could be a Jubilee Woman! As part of returning to my clan, I began to write about the women in my family who had influenced me. That grew to a booklet about fifty women who blessed my fifty years. I wanted to thank the ladies who taught me, through their example, how to be a friend, a woman, a mother, a writer, a neighbor, and a child of God.

The idea grew to fruition as, shortly before my fiftieth birthday, I invited the local women to my home for a tea in their honor. I had a wonderful time preparing. I printed copies of my Fifty Years – Fifty Women booklet, complete with two homemade bookmarks. One repeated the Jubilee quote from above, and the other quipped, “A Woman is like tea. You’ll never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water. — Eleanor Roosevelt.” I crocheted tiny teapots and glued them to magnets. I made nametags, added teacup stickers and a word depicting the gift each women had taught me—words like graciousness, involvement, and hospitality. I nestled tea samples, chocolates, and a demitasse spoon into a teacup for each lady to take home.

The day before the party, my daughters and mother flew through the final preparations with me; we set tables (three sets of china), cut roses to float in crystal bowls, mixed ice tea, and washed teapots. My good husband had already added leaves to the tables and hurried to get my website functional. (www.BettyArrigotti.com or www.JubileeWomen.com)

Then the big day and the ladies arrived! Old friends reconnected and conversation between strangers bounced from what their nametag might mean to how they met me. Ninety-degree weather didn’t deter us; we simply began with ice tea until the air conditioning cooled us enough to try new hot flavors. Tea sandwiches and scones disappeared, followed by cookies and chocolate dipped strawberries, fresh from the refrigerator. I gave a quick talk to thank the women for the gift of their examples and explain how I wanted to mark my jubilee year by letting them know how important each of them is to me.

Of course, it was over too soon, but I smiled through the next day, enjoying the afterglow and phone calls from many who attended. One auntie said she didn’t remember ever having more fun with a group of women. A friend told me I had changed the course of her life with a phone call I didn’t remember making. One said she felt like she had visited Europe for a day. Another was delighted to meet my daughters, who made the event flow smoothly as they refilled pitchers and teapots, while watching for anyone who needed to be drawn into conversation. Again and again, I heard that this party wouldn’t be the last of its kind.

 

How about it, Jubilee Women?

I encourage you to remember the women who have influenced you and imagine how many others your unique lives have blessed. If each of us is formed by fifty others, and leaves our touch on the soul of fifty more, imagine the heartstrings that weave the women of this world together.

Whom will you thank for their influence on you? How soon?

4 Minutes 4 Hard Times – Trust like Jesus

            Welcome back to 4 Minutes 4 Hard Times. Over the last few weeks we’ve looked at aspects of difficult times: worry, fear, gratitude, necessary losses, and money concerns.

 (1 minute version)

            In this  final Lenten post I’d like to consider Holy Week and what we can learn from studying Jesus as he faced his own “hard times.” We start with his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey and being hailed as “King of the Jews.” The crowd and the apostles held high expectations for this king, that he would overthrow the Roman conquerors and lead the people to wealth and power. Only a few days later those expectations were crushed, their hope crucified.

            During the final hours before his death, Jesus wept in the garden, pled with his Father to let there be another way, suffered betrayal by a loved one, was wrongly accused, was abandoned by all his followers, and felt forsaken by God. He was stripped, beaten, and humiliated.

             He responded to these challenges with trust when he committed to follow his Father’s will rather than his own, accepted his abuse without retaliation, confirmed his identity, promised redemption to the criminal who testified to his innocence, gave his mother into a friend’s care, forgave us all, and—demonstrating his unending love—commended his spirit into his Father’s hands.

            Let’s look at that final act. He commended himself into his Father’s care. Even while suffering to the point of death, he trusted his Father. Isn’t that the ultimate answer to how we need to respond to difficult times? His trust enabled him to follow, accept, forgive, and love. Placing our trust in God will do the same for us.

             “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

 

(3 minutes more)

             It all comes down to how we answer some “meaning of life” questions:

•  Do you really believe God loves you, and is in fact Love itself?
•  Do you believe God is all-powerful? (Including able to forgive anything?)
•   Do you trust God?

            If we profess God’s love and power, why don’t we trust him completely, even when things go bad? I think we expect God to keep things going as we want them to go. When our expectations (like the Jerusalem crowd’s) are not met, we are tempted to doubt his love and doubt that he wants what is best for us. We become angry with God. We forget that God knows, better than we do, what is best. When Jerusalem wanted power in this world, Jesus was offering them an heir’s inheritance in the next. When we want health and happiness, he may be helping us grow in depth and holiness.

             God longs for us to trust him. Not a problem in good times. Not so easy when challenges crush our spirits. But he treasures our trust in those times, especially. Much of the Bible (if not all) is written to encourage us to trust in God.

             We read about Abraham’s willingness to trust God, “And he believed the Lord, and God counted it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6)

             Jeremiah, the prophet, writes, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:7-8)

            David, the psalmist, knew all the rewards that come from trusting God: “In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them”. (Psalm 22:4)

 “The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him. (Psalm 28:7)

 “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” (Psalm 37:5)

“In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?” (Psalm 56:4)

            The entire New Testament is an account from Jesus of how much our Heavenly Father loves us and is anxious to forgive us. How even the sparrow doesn’t fall without God knowing and caring. The night Jesus would be betrayed he said to his apostles, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.” (John 14:1) He continued, “I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid. (John 14:27)

             Jesus knew what was coming and his final words before his arrest were words of comfort for his apostles and for us. He didn’t want us to be troubled by things of this world. He wanted us to trust him and his Father. To trust the way he trusted.

             Even recent saints received messages from God, reminding us to trust in him. The Sunday after Easter is celebrated as the Feast of Divine Mercy. St. Faustina began this special devotion to Jesus’ message, “that His Love and Forgiveness is greater than our sins. All He asks is that we trust in Him, ask for and accept His Mercy, and then let Mercy work through us to help others. He also wants us to be merciful, loving, compassionate, and forgiving to others.”

             Like the gospel command, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful,” this demand that we show mercy to our neighbors “always and everywhere” seems impossible to fulfill. But the Lord assures us that it is possible. “When a soul approaches Me with trust,” He explains, “I fill it with such an abundance of graces that it cannot contain them within itself, but radiates them to other souls.“ (St. Faustina’s Diary, 1074).

             None of us want to hear platitudes when we are troubled. Yet, saying “In God we trust,” is not a cliché. Those words hold the depth of wisdom.

             Trust your troubles to God. Each night give your cares to him. He loves you and will be with you through every evil time. He promised he will cause all things to work together for good, for you who love him.

Blessings on your Holy Week.

Betty Arrigotti