Dear colleagues,

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I find myself looking for Biblical parallels. My initial attempts at this were, I confess, not terribly hopeful. But last week a friend suggested an intriguing parallel: jubilee. He was referring to the Year of Jubilee in the Levitical law code. There, we read that after seven cycles of seven years, the people of Israel are to blow the trumpet throughout all the land:

“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, everyone one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you: you shall not sow, or reap the aftergrowth or harvest the unpruned vines.” (Leviticus 25:10-11)

We don’t know that much about the actual practice of Jubilee among the Israelites but it seems to have involved emancipating slaves, returning confiscated land, and cancelling debts. It also seems to have been related to the preservation of Israel’s clan system. Regardless of the actual practice, the idea has been adopted by Christians in various ways. In the late 1990s, many Christians joined a “Jubilee Year 2000” movement in support of debt relief for highly-indebted poor countries. Pope Francis declared 2016 to be a Jubilee of Mercy, focused on universal pardon and God’s forgiveness and mercy.

A Year of Jubilee can be seen as a chance to start again, to wipe the slate clean, to refashion the life of a community or a society in new directions. Is the COVID-19 pandemic a chance to do this? When I read the passage about returning home and spending time with your family, I thought that perhaps Leviticus has hit my present predicament right on the nose. (I am also aware of the way in which this pandemic has resulted in painful and possibly prolonged family separation.)

It may not yet be the time to ask these questions but the pandemic should force us to confront difficult realities about the structure of our communities. Why are our economic structures such that a temporary cessation of work causes great hardship for some people and less so for others? Why are we willing to take extraordinary measures to address the immediate threat of COVID-19 but far less willing to do so in response to climate change, as great a threat though apparently less immediate? No doubt you can think of other questions in this vein as well.

One of my favourite musicians is the singer-songwriter Joe Crookston. I’ve found myself singing this chorus from one of his songs lately:

And so it is and I’ll always be
Singing Hallelujah Jubilee
With sorrow and darkness surrounding me
I’m singing jubilee

These remain difficult, challenging, and unprecedented times. May we all find a way to keep singing jubilee—and asking the searching questions that this moment of jubilee brings to the fore.

Faithfully yours,
Jesse

This message was written by Principal Jesse Zink for this week’s Wingèd Ox, a weekly news digest distributed to the college community.