Corporations love a theology of Christmas that puts giving at the center. Whether the giving theology of Christmas emphasized the gifts the magi brought to the child, or Jesus as a gift to us from God, both serve all too well the commercial path of giving. The giving theology is exploited by thousands of ads, arousing the sense that we MUST buy something for EVERYONE on “our list.”
Mary sings her solution to the giant inequalities across the Roman Empire in her song of exultation that she’s pregnant. Her solution is redistribution (Luke 1:51-54). It’s far too easy to dismiss her words as visionary and impossible—that they don’t work in current circumstances.
The Jubilee economy has built-in structures of redistribution. These structures ensure that people experience functioning community with economic justice for all. Community “busters” such as land ownership and long-term debt are not permitted in a true Jubilee economy.
Apocalypse! The word fills imaginations with end-of-the-world scenarios—scary, horrific. Monsters violently destroy and use chaos to shove out order, truth, and caring as they destroy everything green and everything that was built to serve civilization. Some current books and movies dramatically tell how civilization ends in apocalypse.
Despite its 12,000-year story, today’s Civilization does not come with the guarantee of its survival. Creation does. Creation’s story predates modern civilization by millions of millennia and, despite Civilization’s attacks on her, Creation continues to generate resources that sustain Civilization.