Stop the world, I want to get off

Today's headline announced the bankruptcy of General Growth Properties.  I understand that some of the upscale shopping malls are included in those properties.  It is said to be the largest real-estate failure in U. S. history.  How many times in recent times have we heard about "the largest bankruptcy" in this or that area of business?  One does get the feeling (at least this one does) that things are spinning out of control.  I really don't think the government, or the economists, really know what to do.  John McCain must be counting his lucky stars that he was not elected!

Obviously I'm no economist and probably not much better at biblical knowledge (I'm getting very good at retirement, however), but I've been thinking about the Year of Jubilee in the Hebrew tradition.  (It's too long and complicated to describe here, but read Leviticus 25 to get a better sense of what it's all about.)   As I understand it, after a period of 49 years (seven periods of seven years), the 50th year was to be a kind of Sabbath for the land and the economy, a Jubilee.  Wikipedia says that "slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest."   Also, any land that had been sold would revert to its original owner, so no Israelite could permanently lose an inheritance.

What if we turned back the calendar some 49 years and and cancelled all debts?  That would take us to 1960.  I graduated from high school that year.  What little I remember, it was a pretty good time in our history.  Let's start over again and go forward from 1960!  I think I remember a seminary professor saying that the Jubilee was in the tradition, but it was never practiced.  If that is true, the reason was probably because it was considered too impractical, if not too simple an idea.  "You just can't do things like that; sort of like loving your enemies -- how impractical is that!?"  

Indeed, most of what Jesus taught is impractical. That's why discipleship is so difficult and leads toward a cross.  So as G. K. Chesterton would conclude,  "It's not that Christianity was tried and found wanting, but that Christianity was found difficult, and left untried."