Ethics > Optics

God is a God of liberation and salvation. The scriptures make this clear over and over again. God is a God of freedom because he is on the side of the oppressed, the downtrodden, the marginalized, the outcasts, the exploited, the enslaved, the poor, the sojourner, and the captives. I've heard it said this way in former churches — Jesus came for the lost, the least, and the left out.

Often lists like these get the partisan treatment. Like a buffet, one party comes along placing some on their platform plate as if to signal to everybody that these matter to us. Then the other party comes along to place the rest on their plate to communicate what's important to them. It's often an 'us' versus 'them' approach in this arena because optics matter most. Virtue signaling has become the goal of some corporations, churches, and Christians looking to separate themselves from others.

When does doing the right thing become the main thing for everyone to see?

An Old Testament prophet, Jeremiah, and book of the Bible tell a story about how the liberating God valued ethics over optics. In Jeremiah 34, we read:

8 The word came to Jeremiah from the Lord after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to proclaim freedom for the slaves. 9 Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves, both male and female; no one was to hold a fellow Hebrew in bondage. 10 So all the officials and people who entered into this covenant agreed that they would free their male and female slaves and no longer hold them in bondage. They agreed, and set them free. 11 But afterward they changed their minds and took back the slaves they had freed and enslaved them again. 12 Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 13 “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. I said, 14 ‘Every seventh year each of you must free any fellow Hebrews who have sold themselves to you. After they have served you six years, you must let them go free.’ Your ancestors, however, did not listen to me or pay attention to me. 15 Recently you repented and did what is right in my sight: Each of you proclaimed freedom to your own people. You even made a covenant before me in the house that bears my Name. 16 But now you have turned around and profaned my name; each of you has taken back the male and female slaves you had set free to go where they wished. You have forced them to become your slaves again. 17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom to your own people. So I now proclaim ‘freedom’ for you, declares the Lord—‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine. I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth. 18 Those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces. 19 The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf, 20 I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals. 21 “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials into the hands of their enemies who want to kill them, to the army of the king of Babylon, which has withdrawn from you. 22 I am going to give the order, declares the Lord, and I will bring them back to this city. They will fight against it, take it and burn it down. And I will lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there.”

It's important to read the entire narrative to understand several crucial points. First, God has been in the business of liberating hurt and oppressed people. Second, the proclivity to unjustly use someone's body for another's benefit is ancient. Some might even say it's as old as apple pie. Third, God is always sending his people to stand against the evils of captivity in order to bring about freedom in divine ways. Fourth and final, God is the ultimate judge who does judge in the here and now, as well as in the future.

God calls people to himself to give him glory, worship Jesus, be made powerful by the Spirit of the living God to walk it how they talk it, and believe it. And God calls his people to be freedom speakers. The freedom found in the good news of the gospel is what we proclaim to others, those near to us and those far off. God clearly cares more about ethics. The very ethics he set up a long time ago.

Nobody is exempt to follow those ethics, even if they make it look like they're doing the right thing. In verse 11, we see God calling them to account for changing their minds and effectually waving off the commands of God. In verse 15, we see God giving them credit for their optics stunt, and the very next verse we read of God ethically dealing with them for their misdealing. God proclaims freedom in two ways: either release from captivity, or entrance into judgement seen in verse 17 and on.

What does this mean for Jubilee Fellowship? It means that our passion for loving and obeying God needs to be met with faith, and then turned into action. It means that our pursuit of holiness and unity comes at a cost. It means that our continual killing of sin will bring us into conflict with others. It means that our proclaiming freedom must be rooted and grounded in the character and call of God. It means that we have to walk in the Spirit's power to do all of this.

It means freedom for us.