Jubilee Sprituality

by Susan S. Keller

In the last year, Jubilee has become a familiar word for millions of Christians around the world. As an African American, I recognize Jubilee as a central thread woven into the fabric of African-American spirituality. Jubilee is a biblical reality grounded in the will of God for justice and liberation.

The thread was spun ( two strands) and dyed during the time of slavery. This was the time of the "invisible church," when slaves met in secret to worship God, praise Jesus and rejoice in the power of the Spirit. The Spirituals of this period are Jubilee songs. As Gwendolyn Sims Warren relates in Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit (Henry Holt, 1997), these songs of the enslaved are Jubilee songs because in the midst of despair they found faith in God, fortitude and hope. Many spirituals had double meanings ( such as "Steal Away to Jesus") for use in escape to freedom. Not only music, but stories and craft work as well. Quilts were created with different designs used in an intricate system of the underground railroad. The wagon wheel pattern was used to indicate the start of a journey. I can imagine women, working late in slave cabins, stitching a wagon wheel pattern while singing, "Ezekiel saw the wheel, way up in the middle of the air ..." For me the wheel affirms the presence and providence of God and the wheels of justice rolling to freedom.

African-American Jubilee spirituality understands liberation as a communal event. Salvation is the gift to individuals, for the life and health of community, that the community may live as a witness to power of God. Therefore individuals have the moral obligation to live in harmony, that the community may survive and thrive as a Jubilee people.

During slavery times Jubilee offered the affirmation of blacks as a people of worth. After Emancipation and during Jim Crow, the Jubilee emphasis was for social uplift, education and striving for excellence in all enterprises. Despite segregation and violence, Jubilee spirituality strengthened the people for survival and progress. And during the Civil Rights era, Jubilee spirituality empowered the people to awaken a nation to unjust practices while empowering the poor and oppressed to be agents of change.

Enduring aspects of Jubilee spirituality

Individualism is a strong current in American culture. Jubilee spirituality, however, understands the individual person primarily in relation to kinfolk and the wider community. A good person is one who contributes to the life of the community. Community life, in turn, provides individuals with encouragement, a sense of identity and boundaries of right and wrong. Community practices of celebration, physical health, economic health, political participation and education give individuals a sense of participation, honor and destiny. Measures of community health, according to Joyce A. Ladner in The Ties That Bind: Timeless Values for African American Families (John Wiley, 1998), are the way the community treats its children, its elderly and its outlaws.

Flowing from this emphasis on kinship and community, Jubilee spirituality's moral virtues are beneficence, forbearance, practical wisdom, improvisation and forgiveness. Beneficence is the art of hospitality, love and service. It is the quality of living for the well-being of others.

Forbearance is the art of patience -- of biding until the proper time for action. Forbearance includes reflection and waiting. Forbearance strengthens the art of non-violent resistance and is not to be confused with submission or capitulation. It is the art of standing in place at the crossroads in order not to act impulsively or unjustly.

Practical wisdom is the art of creative, proverbial thinking that guides good actions. It is the advice, given from the experience of elders and the wise. Practical wisdom should be nurtured in children through mentoring and teaching in intergenerational settings.

Improvisation is the art of creative expression. It is invention in the face of poverty. It is art in the face of despair. It is the unpredictable variation on a theme that widens our perception to embrace a wider unity. Improvisation is multi-rhythmic expression that enhances our senses to experience beauty.

Forgiveness is essential for the ongoing life of community because hatred takes a greater toll. Accepting and giving forgiveness in appropriate channels opens the mind and heart and gives life to our spirit. Our moral responsibility is to build relationships, so forgiveness is an important spiritual tool to bring healing, restoration and balance within the community.

Celebrating liberation, remembering history

Jubilee celebrates liberation, liberation understood in the context of community. As persons, our destinies are intertwined. The Leviticus scriptures also state that Jubilee is a time for return; each to their own property and to their own family. Jubilee spirituality thus calls us to "know where we come from; to reach back to our ancestors and roots." To explore the Jubilee traditions, culture and values is in itself a time of return and restoration. In returning we can honor and improve our relationships with extended family, we can lift up the values that helped us to survive and excel. We can celebrate the lives of women and men. In returning we can reflect upon what was meant by justice and emancipation then, in order to inform our acts of justice and hope for freedom now.

I am reminded of an experience with Christian college students a few years ago. In a discussion between African-American and Anglo students, the question was asked why it seemed blacks focused on slavery. One student remarked, "We tell the story not to enrage, but that we might never forget and that it not ever occur again." The Anglo students viewed the discussion from an individualistic viewpoint, with the remembering seen as an accusation of current individual racist practices. The African-American students viewed the discussion from a communal viewpoint -- for them the healing included the remembering in order to guard against continuing systematic practices.

Jubilee spirituality remembers that we were once enslaved. It keeps in our hearts that our lives today are due to people who were poor and oppressed. In times of economic prosperity, to ignore injustice and oppression would be to cut us loose from our past and heritage.

Affirming connections between communities

One of our greatest contemporary challenges is the issue of diversity and multiculturalism. Jubilee spirituality affirms God as the creator of all life and all peoples. Jubilee affirms each person's dignity and worth and each community's value and responsibility. Relations between different communities start from the affirmation of the creative impulse of God that produces a variety of languages, cultures and skin tones. Jubilee spirituality affirms the earth and the multiplicity of peoples as good, because God has so proclaimed. In a Jubilee context, justice between communities begins first with God and continues through our understanding of responsibilities, forgiveness, mutuality, common points and reconciliation. As injustice occurs between groups, communities need agreement on common points to be able to act with justice and healing restoration. #Jubilee spirituality wraps us in a mantle of both freedom and responsibility.

One of my favorite spirituals says, "Over my head, Over my head, I hear music in the air, Over my head I hear music in the air, Over my head I hear music in the air, there must be a God somewhere." Jubilee spirituality's most basic affirmation is the presence and providence of God. That is the essence of the motto for the urban youth program I work with on Sunday evenings: "A Godless Life is a Hopeless Life." And so, in a spirit of Jubilee, we are attempting to give these young people what every person needs to survive and thrive: a community that affirms their worth, that provides a safe place, that anchors them in a Jubilee heritage, that teaches them values and life skills and celebrates Jesus' liberating word. l

Susan S. Keller is an Episcopal priest and director of Program and Education Ministries for the Diocese of Southern Virginia, <sskeller@southernvirginia.anglican.org>.