Take a moment and think about those things in your life that most occupy your time, energy and mental space. What things prevent you from falling asleep when your head hits the pillow or from falling back to sleep when you wake up in the middle of the night? There are many bad things in this world that seek to enslave us (substance abuse, toxic relationships, an unhealthy sense of guilt or inadequacy). But can good things enslave?

Leviticus 25 contains laws about the sabbatical year (resting and allowing the land to rest one year every seven years) and about the Jubilee year (a year when debts are cancelled, and slaves are liberated). Ultimately, it is nudging us to think about good things that if not properly put in their place can ensnare and enslave us. It contributes to a vision of a radically new way of life under a new “slave master” — the Redeemer-God who revealed himself time and again as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). 

Leviticus focuses on three areas of human life that the Israelites needed to reimagine in light of their relationship with their Redeemer-God: time, work and finances. The fact that these three areas are targeted suggest that the Old Testament people of God are not so different from the people of God today — we too share their tendency to become enslaved in these areas.

Reimagining Time

With the sabbatical year and the year of Jubilee, Leviticus 25 brings to completion all the festivals and holy days in the Israelite calendar. Leviticus 23 sets apart one day in seven, a time of rest and feasting every month or two (Passover, feast of firstfruits, weeks, trumpets, booths, day of atonement), and Leviticus 25 now adds to that one year of rest in seven and one year every fifty years (the sabbatical and Jubilee years). If we add to that the morning and evening sacrifices, the Israelites would be sacrificing, resting and celebrating: 

• morning and evening every day

• one day every week

• a day or several days every other month (or so)

• one year every seven years

• one year every fifty years.

These holy days provided a rhythm to the lives of God’s people. We might be tempted to think that they were the times they gave attention to God and the rest of the time was their own, to do with as they saw fit. Not so. These special times of focus on God provided a regular reminder and a framework for a life in which all of their time belongs to God. How can we think about our daily/weekly/yearly rhythms, special times that we focus on God so that we are reorienting every waking hour as our proper service to God? Practising Lent is one such way! These rhythms can be powerful reminders that we serve a good and gracious master.

Reimagining Work

Work is a good gift from God. But work can enslave us (the evidence is all around us). The sabbatical day and year, and the year of Jubilee suggest that work and rest are important. God wants us to maximize in our work the gifts he’s given us, to work hard and with excellence. But like his rhythm of work and rest, established in Genesis 1, he desires revitalizing rest as part of a balanced way of living. That rest is not just for us, but also for others who work for us, for animals and for creation itself. Leviticus 25 is nudging us to reimagine how we think about the balance between work and rest — it helps us to see that work is important but not ultimate and should not enslave us.

Reimagining Finances

The bulk of Leviticus 25 is about the Jubilee year — a year when debt is forgiven, and slaves are set free. Christians today might be tempted to spiritualize these laws: in Jesus our sins are forgiven and we are set free from slavery to sin. Jesus’ victory does accomplish these things (thank God!), but this is not the takeaway from Leviticus 25. All these detailed laws are teaching something important today: God despises crushing, multigenerational debt, and these laws would prevent a society in which someone could be enslaved to this kind of debt. To be sure, someone might have to work for someone else or work off their debt for a long time, but once in a lifetime the financial reset button would be hit. With God as master, people should not be enslaved by debt.

A Different Life under a Different Master

The laws about the sabbatical year and the Jubilee year are setting God’s vision for a world against the vision of life under Pharoah (no rest and perpetual slavery). God knew that it would be harder to get Israel out of Egypt than getting “Egypt” out of Israel, but through his instruction he offers them a vision of a new way — a way of life and life in abundance. Jesus talked in this way. As our king and master, he too offers a counter-cultural way of abundant life (John 10:10), that should have us reimagining things like time, work and finances (among many other things).