Jubilee Action on Wall Street

Friday, February 6, 2026

What does love require of us, and how can we provoke that spirit of Jubilee that God was up to?
—Shane Claiborne, The Francis Factor

At CAC’s 2015 conference The Francis Factor, activist Shane Claiborne told a story about how his community’s study of Jubilee and their unexpected receipt of $10,000 in a legal settlement led to a creative action on Wall Street:

We thought, “Wow, this money isn’t just for our nonprofit. This should go to folks on the street, because we were literally fighting anti-homeless legislation.” We said, “Let’s use that money…. Let’s have a Jubilee party and let’s do it on Wall Street.” We invited a bunch of homeless folks from all over New York, many of them friends, and we said, “Hey, we’re going to go to Wall Street and we’re going to give away the money that we won in a lawsuit. We need to be peaceful, but it’s going to be beautiful.” We didn’t want it to be too crazy, so we broke it up in small change…. We had hundreds of us that had it divvied up everywhere. We had people on bikes and people with backpacks, people with coffee mugs that were filled with money.

When we got to Wall Street, you could see folks from the street trickling in wondering, “Is this really happening?” The police are all already there … and they’re insisting, “This is not happening. If anyone’s here for this money distribution, it’s not happening.” What they didn’t know is we were already there…. As soon as the bell was about to drop on Wall Street, … we announced, “We believe another world is possible, another world where everybody has what they need and there’s not this deep inequity.”

We preached it that morning and then Sister Margaret [a Catholic sister] announced the Jubilee, blew the ram’s horn, and money started pouring out everywhere. I mean, we had people on the balconies with paper money. They start pouring it out…. It was beautiful. They’re singing. This one … street sweeper, he’s got his dustpan filled with money. He’s like, “It is a good day at work. Hallelujah!” Another guy grabs some money off the street and he said, “Now I can get the prescription I needed. Thank you.” We even had folks from inside Wall Street that heard about what was happening. They said, “We heard that there’s more fun happening out here, so we’re here.” One guy just said, “I want to start getting bagels and giving them out,” and he did. It was contagious….

I think that in the end, our goal is not to create enemies but is actually to courageously proclaim the vision of God that is so big that everyone is welcome. But it also means, as Desmond Tutu says, that those who have been oppressed are free from oppression, and those who have done the oppressing are free from being the oppressor, that everyone is set free. [1] That’s the invitation for us.

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5 On Friday John Chaffee

1.

“Love itself is a kind of knowing.”

– Gregory the Great, 6th Century Bishop

The whole of Christian tradition highlights Love as the main virtue and as a description of what God is.  That said, it is fascinating how the tradition also holds that Love is a form of epistemology, it is a way of learning and therefore of knowing.

It is one thing for me to read a book about being married; it is another thing entirely to be taught by the school of love what marriage is supposed to be.

I can read 400 biographies about a person, but I could learn so much more about a person if I were to love them and be loved by them.

For all these reasons and more, as Gregory the Great teaches us, Love is a kind of knowing.

2.

“God leads into the dark night those whom He desires to purify from all these imperfections so that He may bring them farther onward.”

– John of the Cross, Spanish Monk & Reformer

When I first read the Dark Night of the Soul, it did not make sense to me.  Then, after enormous heartbreak and disillusionment with the institutional church, the Dark Night of the Soul made the most sense of all the approaches of Christian spirituality.

Over the years, I have met people at various stages of the Dark Night of the Soul.  Many of them felt a sense of relief to know that their path had been walked before by others, and that rather than being lost, they are on the same old journey of being found.

I think that one of the reasons the Dark Night of the Soul can feel so painful is that it is almost never a chosen path.  It is a path forced upon us, or one that chooses us.

In the wisdom of John of the Cross, the Dark Night of the Soul is God stripping away every single crutch, support, or idol that gets in the way of the Beloved Soul and God…

And that even includes the experience of faith itself.

Think about that.

God allows us to experience a type of “atheism” or “lack of faith” in order to teach us that our experience of faith is not the thing we should be after.  That is very much like being in love with the feeling of being in love without loving the Beloved right in front of us!

3.

“This is the final human knowledge of God: to know that we do not know God.”

– Thomas Aquinas, Dominican Monk

Aquinas wrote the most impressive systematic theology in Church history.  It has towered rather supremely over other works of theology.  It is known as the Summa Theologiae.

Even still…

Despite writing such an impressive tome.

Aquinas still maintained the mystery that God is something beyond our comprehension.

I find that absolutely lovely.

4.

“That which we cannot speak of is the one thing about whom and to whom we must never stop speaking.”

– Pete Rollins, Irish Philosopher

We have a problem, a predicament, a difficulty that we must overcome.

God is utterly beyond human language, symbols, ceremonies, and concepts.  Every potential thought we might have about God is immediately infinitely less than the reality of what God actually is.

And yet…

We can’t not say something.

God is such a profound mystery that encompasses and penetrates everything we say or do to such a degree that we still have to say something.

This paradox could make some people despair, while others might bend the knee before the mystery.

5.

“I pray God rid me of God.”

– Meister Eckhart, 14th Century German Preacher

Years ago, I preached a Good Friday service where the main point of the sermon was this quote from Eckhart.

At some level, we need the help of God to rid us of every smaller, limited, misguided, idolatrous view of God.

It is probably true for each of us that at the end of our ropes, there is an understanding of God that we would rather die than give up.  The strange reality is that that view of God is far less than what God actually is, and therefore, we need God’s help to “cleanse our palate” or “clean the slate” and to help us come to God with as few hindrances as possible.

On the surface, this quote sounds like a preacher requesting to become an atheist.  On a deeper level, it is a prayer of profound insight and devotion to this mystery we all call “God.”

Funny enough, I did not preach a Good Friday service at that church again.  Oh well.  I still think it was a sermon that Meister Eckhart would have approved of.

There Is More Than Enough

Thursday, February 5, 2026

In a homily on the miracle of the loaves and fishes, Father Richard Rohr encourages us to pray for a worldview of abundance instead of scarcity:

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey observed that one of the most universal patterns of highly effective people was that they had a worldview of abundance, while much of the world has a worldview of scarcity.

We tend to get these worldviews very young, and they underlie almost everything. I, myself, tend to have a worldview of scarcity, growing up as I did as a child of parents who were born in the Depression and the Kansas dust storms. A worldview of scarcity tells us to protect what we have, because there’s never enough to go around. It’s a competitive, win/lose worldview. It moves us toward anxiety, toward consumerism, and toward possessiveness, because we don’t want to lose what “little” we have—even if what we have is really more than enough.

But there’s another worldview, the worldview of abundance. Sooner or later, we have to choose it, because it doesn’t come naturally. I’m convinced that it’s the worldview of the gospel. It’s a big world out there. There are a lot of options and opportunities. There’s always another creative way to look at things. Let’s be honest. Do we remember to look at life that way?

Most people are afraid that they don’t have enough. Of course, if we’re dependent upon a finite source—one limited amount of money, one limited intellect, one limited life—it’s easy to look at life in terms of scarcity, convincing ourselves that there isn’t enough. There isn’t enough of goodness. There isn’t even enough of God.

The worldview of abundance depends upon us recognizing that we are in touch with an Infinite Source. If we’ve never made contact with our Infinite Source, we will be stingy, even selfish. We will guard and hoard the portion we have. This affects much of our politics and policies in this country. We’re always afraid that someone else is taking what we have earned, as if we had earned it entirely by ourselves. Most of it has been given to us, yes, by our work, but also by grace and freedom, and the choices of many other people, almost despite ourselves.

Jesus represents the worldview of abundance in every one of his multiplication miracles and stories. There’s always the making of much out of little and there are always baskets left over. That’s the only possible message: There’s plenty! If we learn to be creative, if we learn to be imaginative, if we learn to be a little less selfish, there’s always another way to look at it and another way to make sure all are fed.

Maybe a worldview of abundance is something we’ll only fully experience when we learn to draw upon an Infinite Source. If the Source is Infinite, we are infinite. If our source is finite, of course we are finite too.

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Daily Bread Is Enough
(Adapted from Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey)

“Give us this day our daily bread.”
— Matthew 6:11

We often want bread for the next year, the next decade, the rest of our lives. We want guarantees. We want reserves. We want control.

But Jesus teaches us to ask only for today.

Daily bread is the spiritual discipline of trust. It invites us to believe that what we are given is sufficient — not because it is large, but because it is enough.

Scarcity is not always about lacking resources. Often it is the fear that tomorrow will not come with grace. We hoard because we are afraid. We compete because we are anxious. We grasp because we do not trust the Source.

The prayer for daily bread is a refusal to live in fear of tomorrow.

It is a quiet rebellion against the myth that survival depends solely on accumulation. It reminds us that life flows from gift, not possession.

Those who trust daily bread become generous people. When we believe there is enough for today, we are freed to share today. When we believe tomorrow will come with mercy, we no longer need to clutch what we have.

Abundance is not measured by how much we store, but by how freely we can give.

The miracle is not that we have everything.
The miracle is that what we are given is enough.

Wednesday, February 4, 2026 

The jubilee mandate helps us to imagine what a community living life in all its fullness could look like when living justly, loving compassion and walking humbly.
—Cheryl Haw and Caitlin Collins, Jubilee, God’s Answer to Poverty

Author Kelley Nikondeha describes how Jesus encouraged his disciples to practice jubilee actions in their daily lives: 

Under the Galilean sun Jesus taught his disciples to pray about their most tangible concerns—bread for today, no debts for tomorrow, and the end of violence forevermore. [1] The structure of the prayer itself followed an ancient rubric regarding the worries of the poor. Even under Rome’s heavy hand, the hope of the have-nots was for ample food for their families and debt relief on the horizon. The matters that pressed upon the population most were central to Jesus.…

The prayer Jesus offered his disciples ushered them into the economic work of debt remission in real time. They did not need to wait for this empire, or a subsequent one, to proclaim justice in order for their debts to fall away. As they began to pray this revolutionary prayer day after day, their worldview could shift toward a jubilee-centered reality. And as their sight line changed, so could their own practice. Debt forgiveness in this landscape would begin with the disciples releasing their neighbors from debts owed to them, and vice versa. Releasing one another from debts would begin breaking the cycle of indebtedness that plagued them all.

Maybe a disciple’s prayer for debts to be forgiven would be first answered when a neighbor cancels the debt owed him. Maybe the first surge of economic freedom would happen at a microlevel, among neighbors refusing to accept debt as necessary. Neighborliness meant, among other things, not ensnaring your neighbor into debt….

When Jesus said jubilee begins today, it was not an unrealistic ideal. He intended it to begin with his disciples. Breaking the wheel would start with those with the least structural power as they reached for tools from other nations, and other times. Jesus empowered his followers to enact jubilee now—no need to wait for a king’s proclamation or the sound of the shofar.

Nikondeha points to the good news when we engage in jubilee practices ourselves:

The Lord’s Prayer, with its tangible economic language and intent, has also been called the Jubilee Prayer…. Imagine if all of us who know this prayer by heart took the challenge embedded in it seriously? It would start a groundswell of jubilary motion and economic reform…. This revolutionary prayer is a place to begin, now, wherever you are, whoever you are, in the larger movement of jubilee. 

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From Don Love. Pray Through It. ministries

Testimony of the Month

We all have words we use to help us to downplay our situation. For me, I convince myself that I am not “worried,” but “concerned.” That way, I can continue to view myself as far from the sin of anxiousness or from failing to trust God in times of fear. Once, as I was praying through my fears, I saw my “concerns” as a stone. This stone was so much more than I could handle & I could feel myself struggling to maintain all of the juggling, shifting, weight-bearing, sleep-interrupting weight that I was trying my best to manage.​ And so I prayed:”Lord, what is this stone?’His answer: Future weight.“What am I believing about this?” That If You keep holding it, You are affecting it. That you are actually doing something to solve it.“Lord, is this true?”No. All your worry is just making today heavier. ​This all happened in such a simple exchange but began to unravel my strategies. What could I give the Lord that I had absolutely no control over?  Events or outcomes to happen in the future, mostly to be made by others (which I have NO control over). It was eye-opening just to realize I was trying to control things I have no control over. That is freeing to release to the Lord. It was not meant to be my weight.There was a lie there too in my life strategy I could break up with – wresting with fear is NOT doing something about it or affecting it. It was probably doing the opposite – making me anxious, irritable, controlling of others, & wasting my energy on future problem-solving instead of resting before the Lord.  And the last statement just felt so true. Holding my fear was just making my today heavier. I could then see & feel the foolishness of my thinking & release the lies, strategies, & future concerns to the Lord. The stone was a good visual for me. When I start to feel the weight of that stone, I am reminded not to “…be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:34)I was not actually helping myself as I thought I was. But the relief felt in entrusting Him with these things did help me to deal better with what I could control & make decisions with more peace. And that is more effective.

Tip of the Month 

To uncover any lies or strategies about fear or worry in your life (or with others), work through something like this conversation with the Lord. Write down what you are sensing so you can reflect on it & act upon it. “Lord, what is my fear or worry like in my life? Where is this coming from? Or when did it start? What am I believing about this? Is this true? What is the truth? Can I give You my fear/worry, lie, & strategy to handle it now? What would You give me in exchange to deal with my fear/worry? How do I share this with You instead of carrying it on my own?”

Personal Jubilee Practice: Nikondeha says Jubilee “begins with the disciples” in small, neighborhood-level acts of release. Where in your life right now might you be called to practice “micro-level” freedom—releasing someone from a debt (literal or metaphorical), or being released yourself?

The Weight of Tomorrow: Don Love describes his worries as a “future weight” stone that made “today heavier.” What are you carrying that belongs to tomorrow? What would it look like to release that stone and live in today’s sufficiency—your “daily bread”?

From Prayer to Practice: The Lord’s Prayer asks for daily bread and debt forgiveness. How does praying this “revolutionary prayer” day by day actually begin to change not just our worldview, but our practice toward our neighbors?

Communal Shalom

Tuesday, February 3, 2026 

The consequences of justice and righteousness are shalom, an enduring Sabbath of joy and well-being. But the alternative is injustice and oppression, which leads inevitably to turmoil and anxiety, with no chance of well-being.
—Walter Brueggemann, Peace: Living Toward a Vision

Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley describes God’s vision of shalom, which is the ancient Hebrew vision of communal peace and universal thriving:

Shalom is communal, holistic, and tangible. There is no private or partial shalom. The whole community must have shalom or no one has shalom…. Shalom is not for the many, while a few suffer; nor is it for the few while many suffer. It must be available for everyone. In this way, shalom is everyone’s concern…. Shalom produces change for the good of all….

Shalom is not a utopian destination; it is a constant journey. One does not wait on shalom; one actually sets about the task of shalom. In other words, people need to be going about the business of shalom and living out shalom. This active, persistent effort takes place at every level, from personal relationships to societal and structural transformation. [1]

Woodley writes about Sabbath and Jubilee as practices that support God’s shalom: 

Jubilee was good news for the poor. Sabbath, and especially Jubilee, was the awaited opportunity for new starts among marginalized people. The Acceptable Year of the Lord was the chance the oppressed needed in order to find new hope. Paradoxically, while the Year of Jubilee was good news to the poor, it might have felt like bad news to the rich and prosperous. Jubilee was good news to the oppressed but bad news to the oppressor. Certainly Mary, the mother of Jesus, understood the implications at the announcement of her pregnancy when she sang in Luke 1:51–53…. Mary, and those during Jesus’ time, understood well the radical implications of a Jubilee Year. Why were such radical social measures needed? The answer according to Isaiah 61 was because God “loves justice” and [God] “hates robbery and wrongdoing” [61:8].

God’s will and cosmic design is that no one suffer unjustly, but because human beings create unjust systems, shalom-type social parameters must serve as a social safety net to offset human disobedience. In order to create a shalom system of social harmony, no person could be oppressed for too long without hope of ease and eventual release; no family could remain in poverty for generations; no land could be worked until it was depleted and useless; no animals could go hungry for too long. Any of these violations of shalom that were left unmitigated for too long would upset the natural order of reciprocity fixed in all creation.

The Year of Jubilee ensured God’s sense of justice for everyone, just in case justice was not being enacted by God’s people in the way it was supposed to be done. Put in proper perspective, Sabbath days, Sabbath years, and Jubilee years were simply rehearsals for the real “game day,” and in the understanding of Jesus, who had the final playbook, “game day” was to live out shalom every day.

Story From Our Community

I was blessed to have grown up with parents who lived their faith by making Sundays a quiet celebration. When I left home, I carried the Sunday traditions with me, and when I had children of my own, we created our own ways of practicing the Sabbath. Like Renita J. Weems wrote in her meditation, I learned how necessary it is to have at least one day of freedom from the world’s system. I am surrounded by people who have never known the joy of practicing Sabbath, and I am so grateful to have grown up in a home where the Sabbath was a delight.
—Constance F.

A Hymn to Certainty

ODDS AND ENNS FEB 1

Did you know I was a hymn writer? I’m not, though I did write one once.

I bring this up because many years ago, perhaps when I was no more than 20 or 21, I wrote a hymn for apologist Josh McDowell. I was an avid reader at the time of The Wittenburg Door Magazine (note misspelling), a Christian satire and humor magazine. (Please comment if you’ve ever read it. We can go to therapy together.) Josh was a hot item back in the day and low hanging fruit for satire, so I gave it a shot.

Why am I putting this out in the world? Why not? Also, I’m struck by how 45 or so years ago I was beginning to articulate a brand that has been with me ever since—snark and issues with people who are cocky about their faith–which is to say, I never really had a chance at normalcy.

I was also beginning to read some philosophy, namely the Spanish essayist, novelist, philosopher, etc., Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936), who penned such devotional lines as:

“Orthodoxy is often the grave of living faith.”

“It is not that I resign myself to uncertainty; it is that I live by it.”

“Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.”

“Christ did not come to teach a doctrine, but to awaken souls.”

“The Cross is not a solution; it is a problem.”

“I do not want to die; no, I neither want to die nor do I want to want to die.”

I was hooked.

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Anyway, I digress. So, now, finally, I give you “Hymn for Josh McDowell” (sung to the tune of “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand). And I think we can all agree that I am a little less sarcastic and slightly more mature 45 years later. Right? RIIIIGHT?!

Verse: My hope is built on nothing less

Then pure objective evidence.

I will not trust what others say,

I know I’m right, so what the hay.

Chorus: On intellect alone I stand.

All other ground is sinking sand.

All other ground is sinking sand.

Verse: My books prove God’s eternity,

There is no faith but certainty.

Though I may teach “trust Christ for all,”

I push my books, talks, tapes, et al.

Verse: I’ve only read a book or two,

But still I know much more than you.

These cogent arguments abound,

My reasoning goes round and round.

Verse: I’m so important can’t you see

To present Christianity.

And if you can’t think just as I,

I pray God opens up your eyes.

I know. “Don’t quit your day job.”

Sabbath and Jubilee Economics

The Forgiveness of Debts

Sunday, February 1, 2026 

Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us. —Matthew 6:11–12

Father Richard Rohr points to the economic emphasis present in the prayer of Jesus: 

These phrases in the prayer of Jesus or the “Our Father” on bread and debts are clearly a prayer given to the poor. Bread and debt are the preoccupations of the peasant class. How do I have food for tomorrow and how do I pay my bills? In the Old English of the King James Bible, the word “debts” was rendered as “trespasses.” It seems unchangeable now because we’ve said it for so long, but without doubt, the word in the original text is clearly an economic word.

We have spiritualized this petition, as we did most of the gospel. We made this petition refer to private, individual forgiveness—you trespassing against me. Surely it does have that meaning, but on the first level this petition really refers to economic indebtedness. The power of this petition lies in the Jubilee year, described in Leviticus 25.

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. That fiftieth year shall be a Jubilee for you: you shall not sow or reap the aftergrowth or harvest the unpruned vines. For it is a Jubilee; it shall be holy to you: you shall eat only what the field itself produces. In this year of Jubilee you shall return, every one of you, to your property…. You shall not cheat one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God. You shall observe my statutes and faithfully keep my ordinances, so that you may live on the land securely. The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live on it securely.
—Leviticus 25:10–13; 17–19

In ancient Israel, in the fiftieth year, everything went back to its original owner. Ideally, all debts were forgiven. It was the great equalizer, a sign of the largess and magnanimity of God. This is the teaching Jesus is drawing upon when he quotes from Isaiah in his inaugural address and throughout his ministry (Luke 4:18–19, 21).

If people had lived by the law of Jubilee, communism would never have been necessary, and capitalism would have never been possible. The spirit behind this jubilee thinking lasted for the first 1,000 years of Christianity, when one could be excommunicated for taking an interest on a loan. (They called it the sin of usury.) The prayer of petition Jesus teaches still raises questions about economics: How does the burden of debt—the personal debt people carry in our consumer society, the national debt carried, particularly by Global South countries—keep people imprisoned in their own history?

Justice Requires Rest for All

Monday, February 2, 2026 

Observe the sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. 
—Deuteronomy 5:12–14

Theologian Cindy Lee explains how Moses and the Israelites practiced Sabbath as a liberating rhythm of life:

Work and rest are justice issues that affect our everyday spiritual formation…. We cannot rest well unless we unform our distorted practices of work. We also cannot truly find rest as individuals until all in the community can also find rest. In the Old Testament Scriptures, the commandment to keep the Sabbath was not just an order to rest. Rather, the Sabbath establishes a liberative spiritual practice to address our unjust and unethical systems of work….

The Sabbath laws establish a new rhythm of life for the Israelites after they are freed from Egypt. The Sabbath laws counteract the unjust and abusive economic system of slavery. The way of Sabbath is detailed in the fourth commandment in Deuteronomy 5:12–15….  

In this passage, Moses explains to the Israelites that they can rest now because they’ve been saved from the economic oppression of slavery. They no longer have to live according to that violent rhythm of production. Sabbath breaks the nonstop, violent cycle of production and consumption. It breaks our greed by forcing us to stop continually trying to do more and gain more. The Sabbath system is a just and equal system because all—animals, land, landowners, servants, and foreigners—enjoy the same rest. None of us has ever truly experienced a Sabbath, however, because we still live in a world where foreigners, servants, land, and animals do not get sufficient rest. Imagine a world where we all had equal rest.

The healing power of the Sabbath comes when we embrace it as a collective practice:

The Western church has taught Sabbath keeping as an individual practice of taking a day off and missed the understanding of Sabbath as a collective posture that orients us toward a just society where all can find rest. Therefore, even as our individual rest is important, we also need to help others in our communities to rest. Keeping the Sabbath rhythm requires everyone in the community, including those with privilege and power, to participate so that all can rest. The practice of communal rest is meant to train us into a way of living as a society. As someone who is privileged to take days off and go on retreats, I need to look at my community. These are questions I’ve found helpful to ask myself: Who can I free to rest? Who is exhausted? Who is not getting enough rest? And what little part can I do to help lessen their load so they can rest too?