Be Free

Recently, there was a story about a Moravian Church who purchased and forgave million of dollars of medical debt. The Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem started the Debt Jubilee Project to help people in the local counties who are burdened by the outrageous medical debt system.

For some background: Healthcare spending per capita in the U.S. was $12,914 in 2021, $5,000 more than any other high-income country. Unregulated costs, complex administrative bureaucracy (often related to sorting out insurances’ coding and billing), and for-profit medical businesses inflate the costs of receiving medical care. There is an estimated $195 billion in U.S. medical debt, larger than the entire economy of Greece.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 19% of households could not afford to pay for medical care upfront in 2017. Four percent of households held high medical debt (more than 20% of annual income). It’s a problem not seen on a such a scale in developed countries that treat healthcare as a public service for the good of the citizens.   

When someone has an outstanding medical bill, the medical office will hire a debt collection agency to collect the payment. The collection agency, if there is still no payment, will bundle and sell debts on to a third-party collection agency, usually for pennies on the dollar so that they can recoup some of the loss ($1 is better than $0, even if the bill was $100). The medical office gets what it can and has to write off the rest. The third-party agency can do whatever they want with the debt. Usually, they try to collect it (make money). But in cases like this church, they forgive the debt. For around $15,000 the Trinity Moravian Church forgave $3.3 million of medical debt this year.

When I first read about the Debt Jubilee Project, I thought, “More churches should be doing this.” And maybe (hopefully) they are. The medical payment/insurance system is abhorrent, and churches should be at forefront of defending those thrust into poverty by medical debt. They should be helping their neighbors and being role models of mercy.

By calling this initiative a jubilee, the church is participating in a form of debt forgiveness and mercy that has existed longer than Christianity. A jubilee is a special year of pardon proscribed in Leviticus. Every 50 years, slaves and prisoners would be freed and debts would be forgiven. The idea of a jubilee is that the land was the possession of God; current occupiers were merely aliens or tenants, and therefore the land could not be held forever. No debt or imprisonment was forever. The jubilee was set at 50 years because it followed seven cycles of sabbatical years (seven times seven).

Leviticus 25:8–13 states: "You shall count off seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven years; and there shall be to you the days of seven Sabbaths of years, even forty-nine years. Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. You shall make the fiftieth year holy, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee to you; and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family. That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee to you. In it you shall not sow, neither reap that which grows of itself, nor gather from the undressed vines. For it is a jubilee; it shall be holy to you. You shall eat of its increase out of the field. In this Year of Jubilee each of you shall return to his property."

The word “jubilee” comes from the Latin iubilo for “shout of joy.” The Greek uses the phrase “a trumpet blast of liberty.” It is not just mercy, but a celebrated mercy. Forgiveness is freedom. Forgiveness is holy.

Pope Boniface VIII called for a jubilee in 1300. Subsequent jubilees followed every 50 years more or less, with tens of thousands of pilgrims travelling to Rome or other holy sites and receiving indulgences. The most recent jubilee was in 2000, which closed with Pope John Paul II’s letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (“Upon Entering the New Millennium”). In 2015, Pope Francis called for a special jubilee year, the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy (extraordinary indicates it takes place outside of the traditional 50-year cycle). Jubilees open with the opening of the “holy door” at basilicas in Rome with a silver hammer; traditionally, these were the churches pilgrims would visit during a jubilee. There are often extra indulgences given in a jubilee year to encourage the faithful to engage in extra prayer, acts of charity, or pilgrimage.

In the Church, a jubilee is more focused on spiritual debt than physical. It has come to be a year focused on the forgiveness of sins, conversion, reconciliation, "...and consequently of solidarity, hope, justice, commitment to serve God with joy and in peace with our brothers and sisters" (according to the 2000 Jubilee declaration).

There is a great need for justice in the world today. But there is a great need for mercy too. Not every debt must be paid to the penny. Not every sentence must be served for life. Not every sin separates you so far from God that there is not a path back. God is merciful, therefore, we are called to show mercy.