Sunday 26th January – Eat the Fat and Drink the Wine – Pastor Adrian Kitson

26-01-2025, a time of Jubilee, Eat the fat and drink the wine, Nehemiah 8:1-3 5 6 8-10, pastor adrian kitson

Luke 4:14-21 & Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5, 6, 8-10

Luke 4:14-21

¹⁴Then Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding region. ¹⁵He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

¹⁶When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

²⁰And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Nehemiah 8: 1-3, 5,6,8-10

¹All the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. ²Accordingly, Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. ³He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand, and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

⁵And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people, and when he opened it, all the people stood up. ⁶Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

⁸So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

⁹And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. ¹⁰Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord, and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

It was a grand plan that God had for community.

It was the way in which people would live their lives with freedom from any kind of oppression, which included escaping overwhelming debt, having community and family relationships restored repeatedly. It was a plan that would have a community of people renewing itself and living peaceably with each other and most importantly, at rest and peace in the love and kindness of their God. It was called Jubilee – which literally means Trumpet blast – in ancient terms, ram’s horn blast!

Jubilee: what a plan from a gracious and wise God with a heart for the release from any oppression or burden – spiritual, relational or economic.

In God’s land among his community, all land was to be returned to God every seven years. Just as God had rested on the seventh day, so the land was to rest on the seventh year – a whole year of Sabbath – rest with God – no sowing and reaping and any wild seed that sprouted was to be shared by all – especially those without income or means. There was also to be no buying or selling of land for this seventh year. The best you could do was lease it out.

On the seventh Sabbath year; the seventh cycle of seven year cycles – every 50^th year, amazingly, all land was to be returned to its original tribal/kin group. All debts between people were to be cancelled and those with and without land were given a new beginning; a fresh start in terms of their family and economic relationships. Families could return to their ancestral lands every 50 years. Imagine what that would be like for a minute …

How connected to the land would we be? How much would be committed to caring for the land! We would all live connected to a place and know that this place was to be cared for and managed well because it would always be in the family – a lot like a family farm. How different would our ecology be, our salinity, our clearing a thousand trees a minute in the lungs of the world – our forests.

How connected would our families be if every generation there is a return to original place? There would be so much connection to each other. It would ensure a return to connected extended families. A return to raising children in a connected community … looking after our seniors in the family, sharing the load of life …

How different would our attitude be to wealth and consuming. No need to be self-made, just thankful a lot more!

It is doubtful whether God’s community could ever live in his grand design for community. The decades and centuries of God’s community is laden with enemies of peaceful and just relationships –

the greed of a king, autocratic leader or two, the tyrannical rule of a legalistic religious system which keeps people in fear of God, rather than embracing him and his Word, the idolatry of a whole community, replacing God with self…..
Surely this whole Jubilee gift of God was a long-gone pipe dream for God’s people?

Maybe this is how we feel about those ideals of youth or of earlier times in our life? That goal that inspired us seems out of reach. That deep longing inside for a particular role or relationship or way of overcoming the evil we know … Nothing can be done about that, we think.

Surely the people in the main street of Capernaum would have given this grand scheme of the Lord long ago

But then this local man in his far north home-town hall rises one average Saturday morning worship time to declare that Jubilee is being restored!

So intentionally the local carpenter places the pointer down on the sacred Torah scroll before the hometown congregation. He speaks the words of a hope long gone that everyone probably still longed for, but could never believe could ever happen.

They are words from the prophet Isaiah. They reflect the original communal pattern God intended in Leviticus.

“Jubilee: I have come to announce the year of Jubilee”, says the carpenter’s son.

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,

¹⁹ to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” (The year of Jubilee!)

Maybe the dream is not lost. Maybe the Lord can bring good change.

Families can be re-connected and children can grow up in a new place. Spiralling debt can be arrested. There is hope for families and communities and whole countries that crushing debt and the greedy fights for one upmanship and hording stuff to themselves can be replaced with contentment, a new goal, a new life’s work, a new hope for justice and fairness and above all – compassion.

We know those signs of jubilee Jesus did – all those acts of healing and release from various bondages – physical, emotional, spiritual … He said what he was going to do in Capernaum, and then he did what he said.

And, here he is speaking his jubilee, his favour into our hearts this morning still. Our years of the Lord’s favour were begun in us inn that gift of baptism. There we started out living life in his Spirit. There we were anointed with his power, freed from our chains of self-serving, healed of our terminal blindness to God’s ways and his love, set free from only serving our own desires to receiving new desires and callings.

But, somehow we often find ourselves back in struggle and sadness and struggle, even though we have been set free to be God’s jubilee people.

We long for more of his freedom and his sight and understanding. Jesus’ time of jubilee can seem so far away and we wonder why. Where is your blessing, Lord? Why is it so hard to understand – myself, other people, my task, how to truly love, where you want me to serve and what you are making of me … ?

For what are you longing from God today? Where does this gift of jubilee – of the Lord’s favour and blessing and power need to be more in your life s this year begins? Is there someone or something oppressing you, robbing you of the joy of this gift of jubilee?

But the king has announced his jubilee years and you are still in these years, according to faith.

You have hope. New things are possible in your life because the king of jubilee is alive and active as we gather here now.

The only way the people in Capernaum or anyone else can experience Jesus’ jubilee life is to receive it and enjoy it!

The prophet Nehemiah shows us this too. Nehemiah calls out, “Eat the fat and drink the choice wine!”. Great words to a people who had been totally gutted and were only just now beginning to find their way again.

They had come back from exile and had been given the onerous task of rebuilding Jerusalem to its former glory with no money or protection…. Someone had discovered the lost Book of the Law in the rubble (the very Torah from which Jesus later read) and so, they read it and hope began to rise.

On the day they heard God speak – many for the first time in their lives, they were overwhelmed with their failures and yet, directed to eat the choice meat and drink the wine and enjoy God’s gifts.

That is us. We begin this year with hope for that this jubilee life of faith, hope and love again.

The Lord maybe calling you to trust in his jubilee intentions for you and your relationships.

Jubilee is still underway. Jesus signed, sealed and declared it from that cross and then on that first resurrection morning.

It is in that resurrection life that you live, for another year.

We enjoy today. We enjoy the jubilee of God’s favour and love and invite others to receive the good food and wine as well. 2025 is another jubilee year, no matter how much rebuilding has to go on and how daunted we may feel.

We enjoy freedom and release everyday with the Lord Jesus.

Enjoy your life in him. He is the best food and drink the best wine.

Eat the fat and drink the wine! The ‘Jubilee Jesus’ is here!