Subversive Narratives of Advent
All Year-End donations are going matched!
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 44: Luke 1.25-38. Lectionary B, Advent 4
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 44: Luke 1.25-38. Lectionary B, Advent 4
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Subversive Narratives of Advent
Herb Montgomery | December 22, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
” The virgin birth narrative was an economic and political critique of Rome’s predation and extraction. It presented Jesus’ alternative social vision, the gospel of the kingdom rooted in the Golden rule, enemy love, nonviolence, resource-sharing, wealth redistribution as restoration and reparations, and more. It was a social vision where people committed to taking care of one another as the objects of God’s love and making sure each person had what they needed to thrive.”
Our reading this last weekend of Advent is found in the gospel of Luke. It is the story of the angel’s visit to Mary:
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her. (Luke 1:26-38)
This is the only version of the Jesus story in our sacred canon where Jesus’ mother Mary is explicitly characterized as a “virgin.” Some translations hint at this status in Matthew, but here in Luke it is explicit. To wrap our heads around this narrative element, we need to first back up and look at the social context in which this story was originally written, and consider the larger themes of the gospel Luke for that audience. In our treatment of Rome this week, I’m deeply indebted to the work of Walter Brueggemann, specifically his book Tenacious Solidarity. If you would like to learn more about Rome’s system than we have space for this week, let me heartily suggest chapter 2 of that work.
In Rome’s economic system, money was extracted from the commoners and funneled into the various strata of the wealthy elite. This created a society in Judea where there was no middle class. The people were reduced to peasants who kept getting squeezed to become poorer, while the rich, wealthy elite continued to become richer. As Walter Brueggemann explains, systems of economic extraction are unsustainable. You can’t continue to squeeze the poor indefinitely. At some point the system breaks and we know that this system broke violently in the late 60s C.E. in Judea.
What we are reading in Luke this week happens while that overtaxation and economic predation was still going strong. The ruling elites of Jesus’ society (Herod, the priesthood, the scribes, the elders—the Temple State) were becoming wealthier and wealthier the more they complied with Rome’s extraction system. Through taxes, loans, and rents, the people became debtors, and then as debtors they were reduced to peasants. They lost their land through their inability to repay debts they’d incurred just to survive, and they became dependent on a system that continued to take from them. It was a downward economic spiral in which many of the people were helpless.
This is the social, economic and political context in which the gospel of Luke was written. And this is why in Luke’s gospel we meet Zacchaeus, a tax collector. Tax collectors were an integral part of this exploitative system, and they become wealthy themselves as a result. Luke introduces a few tax collectors (e.g. Luke 3:12, 5:27–30, 7:29, 34, 15:1, 18:10–13), but the most infamous of them is Zacchaeus. When Zacchaeus encounters Jesus’ teachings, he chooses to reject the system that made him wealthy and embraces a path of restoration and reparations instead (see Luke 19:10).
In Luke’s gospel we learn what moved Zacchaeus to change. It was Jesus’ teaching of “the Kingdom” as contrasted with the Roman Empire. Though the language of Kingdom is complicated and challenges readers today, its original audience would have understood it as a contrast to Rome’s system of imperial predation.
After all, Jesus’ ministry in Luke begins with him calling for all debts to be cancelled in the year of Jubilee, the year of the Lord’s favor (see Luke 4:18-19). Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom called for debts to be cancelled and for the Torah practices of land being given back to its original owner, indentured slaves being set free, and debt cancellation. This debt was how the system kept the masses permanently dependent and the few elites as continual recipients of funneled wealth. Jesus’ solution was simply to cancel all the debts as the Torah had taught. His “kingdom” wasn’t about saying a special prayer so you could go to heaven when you died. It was a life-giving system in the here and now as an alternative to Rome’s system of economic extraction.
In Luke’s gospel, we also encounter what we call today Mary’s Magnificat:
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:52-53)
The words of Simeon are similar:
“This child is destined to cause the falling (elite, rich rulers) and rising (poor and hungry) of many in Israel.” (Luke 2:34)
Repeatedly in Luke, Jesus calls his listeners to reject Rome’s predatory system and embrace the Kingdom instead (see Luke 12:13-31). Jesus says things to those benefitting from Rome’s system like, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” (Luke 12:15)
The word for greed here is pleonexia. Thayer defines this as the covetousness or the desire to have more specifically what others have. It is the insatiable desire for what belongs to another. This is exactly what was happening at that time. The wealthy elite were insatiable, extracting everything the masses had to enrich themselves. The Roman power brokers ran after such things too, but Jesus tells his listeners, “Seek first his kingdom, and all that you need will be given to you” (Luke 12:31). Today we here in the U.S. live in a debt economy with many experiencing only subsistence living. I wonder how Luke’s gospel would read if it was written for us?
Further in Luke’s gospel, Jesus critiques his society. In Luke 14, he gives the parable of the banquet illustrating a preferential option for those societally marginalized. In the parable of the manager who cooked the books when his unsustainable situation ran out, Jesus declares that you can’t serve both God and money (Luke 16:13). This saying makes perfect sense in its social context. Luke 16 also includes the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, which ends by calling the living to listen to the law’s debt forgiveness and the prophets’ critique of economic extraction.
This is the context in which we also need to understand Luke’s virgin birth. Jesus’ alternative vision for human society competed with the Roman system. And as difficult as it may be for post-Enlightenment minds to grapple with, if Jesus’ kingdom was to compete in that world, Jesus had to be put on the same standing as Caesar. Every Caesar around the time of Jesus (Julius, Augustus, Tiberius) was considered to be a son of God, or even divine themselves. In true Hellenistic fashion, they were each born of human mothers who had a one-night stand with one of Rome’s gods. Judaism’s culture at the time that Luke was written was a kind of purity culture. What better way for Jewish Jesus followers living under Rome to place Jesus on the same level of the Caesars, than for Jesus’ mother Mary to be a virgin who gave birth afer conceived miraculously and sexlessly by the Holy Spirit?
In our culture today, it is easy for us to fixate scientifically on the virgin birth story. But the narrative in Luke’s gospel is not a science presentation. Luke’s world was one where the supernatural was taken for granted. In that context, the virgin birth narrative was an economic and political critique of Rome’s predation and extraction. It presented Jesus’ alternative social vision, the gospel of the kingdom rooted in the Golden rule, enemy love, nonviolence, resource-sharing, wealth redistribution as restoration and reparations, and more. It was a social vision where people committed to taking care of one another as the objects of God’s love and making sure each person had what they needed to thrive.
This brings me to our context today. Today we live in an economic system with a wealth gap that’s growing exponentially. It’s a complex system where the little that people have is being extracted from them more and more and channeled into the pockets of those who already have more than they could ever possible use.
This Advent, what is Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom in Luke saying to each of us? How is it calling us to take up the work of making our world a safe, compassionate, just home for all? Each of us is part of one another. Each bears the image of the Divine. And each is the object of a Divine love that Jesus’ kingdom calls us to participate in for them, too.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. As Advent wraps us and we move into Christmas, what beautiful things in our world do you see arriving at the present time? What social changes are you thankful for? What social changes presently taking place inspire you to keep working for change? Discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s new Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Advent and the Joy of Working for a Better World
All Year-End donations are going matched!
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 43: John 1.6-8, 19-28. Lectionary B, Advent 3
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 43: John 1.6-8, 19-28. Lectionary B, Advent 3
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Advent and the Joy of Working for a Better World
Herb Montgomery | December 15, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“As difficult as doing preparation work in the wilderness is at times, there is joy in knowing what it is you are preparing the way for. We are preparing the way for the advent of a world where love is our guiding principle. There is joy in that assurance, and our labors are not in vain.”
Our reading this month is from the gospel of John.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”
They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
Now the Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
“I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. (John 1:6-8, 19-28)
Most scholars agree that John’s gospel was the last gospel in our canon to be written. Mark’s was the earliest, and Matthew and Luke were written between Mark and John. In Mark’s gospel John is a contemporary of Jesus. Jesus begins as one of John’s disciples and part of his Jewish reformation and renewal movement. Once John is imprisoned, Jesus begins his own renewal movement. One gets the impression that John’s followers and Jesus’ followers were in two related but separate movements, contemporaries and occasionally in competition.
John’s gospel presents John the Baptist as Jesus’ forerunner, the one who announced Jesus’ arrival. In Mark, Jesus is baptized by John, but as the gospels progresses, this fact becomes less and less emphasized until John’s gospel, which conveniently leaves out John’s role in Jesus’ baptism. It is cryptic about it, and this may reflect tensions that had developed between John’s followers and Jesus’s. If that’s the case, the Jesus community may not have wanted to see Jesus subordinated to John in any way in the gospels, even if only by implication.
John’s gospel seems to downgrade John the Baptist for the purpose of exalting Jesus. One example is how, in this gospel, John the Baptist rejects attempts to be identified as Messiah, the Prophet, or Elijah.
In Mark, Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, John the Baptist is dramatically associated with Elijah:
Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him.” (Mark 9:12-13)
And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. (Matthew 11:14)
And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:17, cf. Micah 4:5)
But in our reading this week, John the Baptist rejects being associated with any of these figures, including Elijah.
What I appreciate about the picture of John the Baptist that we get in the gospel of John is that it unequivocally locates John’s ministry. Each gospel tells us where John taught.
When John is cornered in our reading by people demanding that he answer their questions about who he was, John’s response is:
“I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
Last week I wrote at length about John’s ministry being in the wilderness as we considered the way John’s ministry is characterized in the gospel of Mark. If you haven’t already read that article, you’ll find it helpful as a foundation for what I’m about to say. (Read that article)
The wilderness in the gospels is contrasted with the central location of power: the temple state, centered in the temple as the capital in Jerusalem. John is characterized as working outside the centers of power, property, and privilege. Here I want to be very clear that this is not imagery that symbolizes some conflict between Christianity and Judaism. Rather, these are symbols of long standing within the Jewish society at that time. They represent Jewish voices in conflict with one another over what fidelity to the God of the Torah looked like in relation to economics, society and politics. These were all deeply religious matters in that culture, and religious fidelity demanded people live in certain economic, social, and political ways.
The symbols being contrasted, then, are those of priest and prophet. The priesthood represented those who had been coopted by Rome and were barely more than puppets of the absentee emperor, Caesar. Whoever held the position of high priest was designated as such by Rome, and the priesthood’s chief responsibility was to ensure that whatever actions took place in the Jewish temple state, those actions did not violate the Pax Romana.
In contrast to this elite class in John’s society was the symbol of a prophet in the wilderness. This symbol stood in a long lineage with Hebrew prophets who continually called those in positions of power back to justice. Again, how the most vulnerable in society was taken care of or exploited was a matter of fidelity to their God. Faithfulness to God implied living justly in relation to one’s neighbor. Those who participated in the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition stood on the margins of their society, calling those at the center and those in positions of power and privilege to return to a path of distributive justice.
This rich heritage of justice prophets is the heritage that John the Baptist is characterized with in each gospel.
What does this say to us today?
For me it tells me to keep my ear to the ground and my eyes not on the establishment; to listen to those outside, on the edges, the margins, the undersides of society, and the calls for justice they are making. It brings to mind such movements today as the Poor People’s Campaign, or the Movement for Black Lives, or movements like we saw at Standing Rock calling for justice for indigenous communities and an end to the extraction and pollution of their lands. It brings to mind the recent Women’s March on Washington and movements for LGBTQ justice and inclusion. It brings to mind those today calling for justice for the thousands of innocent Palestinian lives being taken. Who is in the wilderness today? What justice needs are they raising awareness for? Or, in the language of this week’s passage, what is the “way” that they are preparing for God’s future of love, compassion, justice and safety to arrive, a world that is a safe, compassionate, just home for us all?
Who, in other words, are the John the Baptists of today?
In our story, John was preparing the way for the one whom the synoptic gospel authors borrowed the words of Isaiah to describe:
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.” (Isaiah 42:1, cf. Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22)
Who today are preparing the way for justice to be brought to the nations?
Who are the ones on the edges, working within the grassroots of our communities preparing the way so that when justice is accomplished, it finds rich soil to take root and remain?
In our story, when God’s just future arrived, it was crucified by the powerful, privileged and propertied. We have the ability today to write a different ending to the story, one that stands awake to the resurrection of God’s just future.
But this season is not the season of Easter, yet. This season is advent. And this weekend’s theme is the joy of Advent. As difficult as doing preparation work in the wilderness is at times, there is joy in knowing what it is you are preparing the way for. We are preparing the way for the advent of a world where love is our guiding principle. There is joy in that assurance, and our labors are not in vain.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Advent is that season where we take time again to reflect on the joy of the kind of world we are working toward. What joy are you finding in Advent this year? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on X(Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Advent and Change from the Margins
All Year-End donations made from now
till the end of the year will be matched!
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 42: Mark 1.1-8. Lectionary B, Advent 2
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 42: Mark 1.1-8. Lectionary B, Advent 2
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Advent and Change from the Margins
Herb Montgomery | December 10, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Very rarely has social change ever come from the center or top of a social structure. Social change has most often come from the margins, from the outside in, and from the grassroots, from the bottom up. In the beginning of Mark, this truth is being told again.”
Our reading this second weekend of Advent is from the first chapter of Mark:
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way” —
“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’ ”
And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1:1-8)
Mark’s gospel associates John the Baptist with two passages from the Hebrew passages that are conflated here.
The first is from Malachi: “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple.” (Malachi 3:1)
The second is from Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling:
‘In the wilderness prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.’” (Isaiah 40:3)
Although the text only references Isaiah by name, Mark’s author is doing something interesting by juxtaposing these two passages. The passage combines Hebrew prophetic imagery of God coming to cleanse God’s temple (Malachi) with language that originally referred to liberation from foreign oppression, specifically Babylonian captivity, and a path being made in wilderness for the liberated exiles upon which to return (Isaiah).
To understand this kind of rhetoric we have to look at what was happening in John’s and Jesus’ society when Mark was written. The temple state leadership had become corrupted, little more than a wealthy, elite class that helped maintain Roman oppression in Judea and the surrounding regions. The poor were getting poorer and the wealthy were getting richer through their complicity and cooperation with Rome. Many of the common people were simply trying to scratch out an existence.
Then John appears in the wilderness. This narrative element clues us in to the fact that John will be working outside the establishment. He will be calling for change (repentance) from the edges and undersides of his society, outside of the official channels. Social salvation is not coming from the established center, but from the margins.
Commenting on this imagery and its possible application to our lives today, Ched Myers writes:
“The experience of wilderness is common to the vast majority of people in the world. Their reality is at the margins of almost everything that is defined by the modern Western world as ‘the good life.’ This wilderness has not been created by accident. It is the result of a system stacked against many people and their communities, whose lives and resources are exploited to benefit a very small minority at the centers of power and privilege. It is created by lifestyles that deplete and pollute natural resources. It is created by the forced labor of impoverished farmers who strip steep mountain-sides in order to eke out an existence from infertile terrain while the most arable land produces profit for a few families. Wilderness is the residue of war and greed and injustice . . . One of the first steps of hope for people in such wilderness places is to understand that their situation reflects social and political forces, not the divine will . . . While the margin has a primarily negative political connotation as a place of disenfranchisement, Mark ascribes to it a primarily positive theological value. It is the place where the sovereignty of God is made manifest, where the story of liberation is renewed, where God’s intervention in history occurs.” (Ched Myers, Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, & Stuart Taylor, Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, Orbis Books, p. 11-23)
Luke’s gospel makes this point about John the Baptist even more forcefully by showing that John’s father was part of the temple establishment (see Luke 1:9-10). Luke’s implication is that John the Baptist came from the center of society, and chose to reject that social location with all of its privileges to work for change from the outside.
Very rarely has social change ever come from the center or top of a social structure. Social change has most often come from the margins, from the outside in, and from the grassroots, from the bottom up. In the beginning of Mark, this truth is being told again.
John’s preaching centered on a specific place in the wilderness, the River Jordan. The Jordan provided water that was moving: flowing, “living water” for what grew to be the central ritual associated with John’s preaching, baptism by immersion in “living water.” Historical Jesus scholars today understand John’s baptism to be economic and political as well as religious. All of three categories combined in John’s preaching and baptism, calling the people to return to fidelity to the God of the Torah, especially in regards to the Torah’s economic justice teachings. Again this point would be forcibly made in Luke’s gospel as well:
“‘What should we do then?’ the crowd asked. John answered, ‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.’ Even tax collectors came to be baptized. ‘Teacher,’ they asked, ‘what should we do?’ ‘Don’t collect any more than you are required to,’ he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, ‘And what should we do?’ He replied, ‘Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.’” (Luke 3:10-14)
Many historical Jesus scholars believe that John’s baptism was a form of protest against the temple establishment that had become an extension of oppressive Roman rule. John’s calls for repentance and promise of forgiveness weren’t for personal or individual sins that violated one private piety. In Luke, John rails against economic and social sins, practices that impact a people’s lives together, as a society.
Josephus, who was much more closely located to the characters in these stories than we are, also writes about John, his popularity with people, and the threat the established elites, specifically Herod, came to feel they were:
“John was a good man who had admonished the Jews to practice virtue and to treat each other justly, with due respect to God, and to join in the practice of baptism. John’s view was that correct behavior was a necessary preliminary to baptism, if baptism was to be acceptable to God. Baptism wasn’t not to gain pardon for sins committed but for the purification of the body, which had already been consecrated by righteousness. Herod became alarmed at the crowds that gathered around John, who aroused them to fever pitch with his sermons. Eloquence that had such a powerful effect on people might lead to sedition, since it seemed that the people were prepared to do everything he recommended.” (Josephus, History of the Jews, 18:116-119)
The story of John the Baptist in our reading this week is a story of just change originating from the margins of a society in which both John and Jesus were both figureheads. This is a story that resonates with me today too.
This Advent season, what is God doing right now on the margins? I can’t help but think of movements for change that have formed around concerns for gender justice, racial justice, LGBTQ justice, Indigenous people’s justice, economic justice, and ecological justice. There are so many more areas where justice is needed; these are just the ones that come to my mind first.
Advent announces that something has come: something we have long hoped for is here. Of the many things we hope for, one is a world characterized by distributive justice. A world, here and now, that is a safe, compassionate and just home for everyone, where no one is afraid and, in the words of the Hebrew prophets, “Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree” (Micah 4:4).
This second week of Advent, we read about a time when that world came to us once before. That world would soon be beheaded with John and crucified with Jesus. But when it came in both John and Jesus’s ministries, it began on the margins. This calls to me to pay attention to what’s happening in our time on the edges, the grassroots, and the wildernesses of our own society. For each time that the world we hope for has arrived throughout history, it has most often started there.
Where is that world showing up again for us today? And who can we come alongside to participate in making that world a reality for us all?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How has your own living on the margins or listening to others who do informed how you read the Jesus story? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
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In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
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Advent and the Refusal to Lose Hope
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters.
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 41: Mark 13.24-37. Lectionary B, Advent 1
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 41: Mark 13.24-37. Lectionary B, Advent 1
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Herb Montgomery | December 1, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“When the words of our reading this week were written the world looked, like ours, pretty hopeless. This week’s reading is a reminder to me that, as Mariame Kaba often says, hope is and has always been, a discipline. The arc of our universe can still bend toward justice if we choose. Yes, there are other forces at work for sure. But this advent, I’m renewing my efforts to not give up.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
“But in those days, following that distress,
‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’
“At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
“Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
(Mark 13.24-37, Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™)
Advent begins a new year in the lectionary. Advent is the first season of the Christian church’s calendar year and comes before Christmas. The word “advent” means arrival. Considering Christianity’s claims for what has already arrived alongside what Christians still look forward to arriving in the future is a life-giving way to shape our focus as Jesus followers and renew our commitments to that focus as another year begins.
First let’s consider the imagery used in this week’s reading. Early Jewish Jesus followers would have been familiar with this language because it appeared repeatedly in the Jewish apocalyptic scriptures.
“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14)
“The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.” (Isaiah 13:10)
“I will cover the heavens and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light.” (Ezekiel 32:7)
“Before them the earth shakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars no longer shine.” (Joel 2:10)
“The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.” (Joel 2:31)
Remember the community these scriptures written for was not only trying to make sense of the crucifixion of Jesus, but were also absorbing the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Early Christians appropriated the imagery and repurposed it for their own time:
“I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.” (Acts 2:19, cf. Revelation 6:12 and 8:12)
In none of these Christian passages does the text read, “As Jesus said,” or “As Jesus told us.” Each reference relies directly on the Hebrew scriptures just as much as the gospel authors did.
Next in this week’s reading, we encounter the imagery of the fig tree to represent the changes that the Jesus community was witnessing and being impacted by. These changes were like the buds on a fig tree, signs that the political, economic, religious and social seasons were changing. The Jesus community had just witnessed the stressful events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem and in the wake of the tragic events that followed it. Their whole world was either in the process of being turned upside down or just had been.
It is in this context that Mark’s author encourages their fellow Jesus community to be on watch, alert and ready for what was to come next, and to hope that what would come next would be the return of their Jesus. Consider this passage from Paul:
“Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11)
It is helpful to remember that our reading this week was possibly written as far as two decades after Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. A lot had happened in this region of the world between the era of Jesus ministry and then, and the area looked very different during the late 60s and early 70s C.E. than it did during the late 20s and early 30s C.E. It was important to encourage Jesus followers to hang in there, not to lose hope, and keep following the teachings of Jesus as they looked for the advent God’s just future to arrive any time.
There are also portions of Mark where Jesus announces God’s just future had already arrived as in the very first chapter of Mark:
“The time has come,” Jesus said. “The kingdom of God has come! Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)
But again, that was in the late 20s or early 30s. If Mark was written around Jerusalem’s destruction in the 70s, it would’ve been a hard or even impossible sell to say God’s just future had come. The Jesus community of that era could much more easily attach their hopes on the future than to the tensions and tragedies before their very eyes.
What implications might this forward look of hope offer us today? Just that. The future can contain hope if we choose for it to. Here in the U.S. many are struggling and feeling squeezed economically, even with our economy having narrowly escaped an impending recession three years ago. Things are still tough now. Political circuses continue to inflict stress to varying degrees on parts of our population. Globally we continually witness the violence of war and killing of innocent lives. And ecologically, some say we’ve reached the point of no return when it comes to global capitalist growth and extraction, which have rapidly taxed our planet’s resources to the breaking point, setting us on a course of making our planet uninhabitable.
It’s no wonder we have a generation now that lives with concerning levels of anxiety and/or feelings of helplessness. And in the context of our reading this week, I’m sure the originally intended audience for our reading felt something very similar in response to the challenges of their time and place.
In those anxious moments, the author of the gospel of Mark admonished their listeners not to give up and not to let go. This gospel taught them to keep following the ethics, values and life-giving teachings of their Jesus stories. To keep choosing to love one’s neighbor, and set in motion the Golden Rule so it could change the world. To keep pursuing nonviolence as a means of changing. To keep choosing to stay committed to taking care of each other in community rather than falling into the lies of self-sufficiency and independent self-reliance. And this is what our reading is whispering to me this week, too.
When the words of our reading this week were written the world looked, like ours, pretty hopeless. This week’s reading is a reminder to me that, as Mariame Kaba often says, hope is and has always been, a discipline. The arc of our universe can still bend toward justice if we choose. Yes, there are other forces at work for sure. But this advent, I’m renewing my efforts to not give up. This advent I’m renewing my belief that the advent of a just, safe, compassionate world for all of us is still possible. I choose to continue believing that the future is not fixed but open. And I’m choosing to keep believing that, though I don’t know all our future holds, I know that we can face those challenges together in more life-giving ways than we can on our own.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. In what ways are you choosing to keep holding on to hope this season? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters.
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 40: Matthew 25.31-46. Lectionary A, Proper 29
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 40: Matthew 25.31-46. Lectionary A, Proper 29
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Sheep and Goats
Herb Montgomery | November 24, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Pay close attention when certain sectors of Christianity choose to cherry pick and prioritize the death dealing passages of their sacred text, rather than the humanizing and life-giving passages.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
(Matthew 25:31-46*)
This week’s lectionary reading is one of my favorite passages in the gospel of Matthew. Some sectors of Christianity tend to read this passage individualistically, as if it’s a scene of individual people standing before an apocalyptic judgment seat. I encourage us not to fall into the individualism ditch this week. The passage in Matthew states that it is “the nations,” collective people groups, that are being gathered. This collective view aligns with the use of the phrase “son of man” and a judgment, from the Hebrew apocalyptic book of Daniel. Daniel 7 doesn’t address individuals or their personal, private deeds or misdeeds. It uses rich imagery to address empires, nations, and collective groups, not individuals. It is also telling that no one responds in this passage responds with the question “when did I see you”: they all ask “when did we see you.”
So this parable has a collective nature. It isn’t about how we live our lives as individuals or whether we practice personal charity. It’s about how we choose to structure our collective lives together and who we choose to care for. How do we systemically, as a nation, divide up resources, and how do we collectively distribute power? Do we privilege some above others? Or do we ensure everyone in our society is taken care of? More about this in a moment.
As well as painting a collective image, this passage also divides the nations into “sheep” and “goats.” My brother is a farmer here in Appalachia. He has both sheep and goats along with other livestock. Neither the sheep or the goats are expendable: both have value and worth. But you relate to both very differently. Sheep can be led, whereas goats are stubborn and must often be driven.
This parable is about how nations choose to relate to hunger and thirst, who gets food, shelter or clothing. We know it’s an economic parable because prisons in Jesus’ culture were not used for the crimes we use prisons for today. For example, if someone was guilty of murder, they would be executed, not imprisoned. Prisons were used for economic or political reasons. If someone was in prison, they were most likely in a kind of debtors prison working off a debt after suffering economic hardship. That’s why we need to read this parable in terms of distributive justice.
The parable then states that nations enter into either eternal life or eternal punishment or turmoil. What might this mean? Nations who practice a compassionate system of distributive justice will last a long time. You could say they enter a kind of eternal life. Other nations practice an economic system rooted in extraction, exploitation, privilege (where some are worth more than others), and power (where some have more power than others). These nations intrinsically experience turmoil, conflict, striving, and punishments that are always ongoing, or eternal. Nations learn the hard way that hunger, thirst, nakedness, abuse to foreigners, denying clothing including housing, debtors’ prisons, and other things of this nature are unsustainable. They set in motion endless striving and if not corrected have brought down the most powerful empires in history from the inside out.
As an example, some contemporary Christians cite portions of Leviticus to support their own bigotry against LGBTQ folks but ignore passages like Leviticus 19:33 when it comes to immigration policies or how we treat the “stranger”:
“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” (italics added)
How we choose to shape our nation’s immigration policy matters. Pay close attention when certain sectors of Christianity choose to cherry pick and prioritize the death dealing passages of their sacred text, rather than the humanizing and life-giving passages.
Lastly, I want to briefly address this language of eternal life or eternal punishment. You can read a more in-depth treatment in the appendix of my new book Finding Jesus: A Story of A Fundamentalist Preacher Who Unexpectedly Discovered the Economic, Social, and Political Teachings of the Gospels.
First, the idea of an apocalyptic eternal punishment was taught by the Pharisees in Jesus society:
“They [the Pharisees] say that all souls are imperishable, but that the souls of good men only pass into other bodies while the souls of evil men are subject to eternal punishment*. (Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Vol. II, Chapter 8, Paragraph 14)
It’s important to understand the Greek words used to describe this “eternal punishment” as taught by the Pharisees. Aidios (eternal) was “pertaining to an unlimited duration of time” (Louw and Nida’s Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains). Timoria (punishment) meant “to punish, with the implication of causing people to suffer what they deserve” (Louw and Nida’s Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains). And penal refers to “the satisfaction of him who inflicts” (Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament).
Why is this important? Because there were other words that one could choose to use if you were talking about eternal punishment as we understand that today. Philo, for instance, mentions eternal punishment but uses a different term than aidios timoria:
“It is better not to promise than not to give prompt assistance, for no blame follows in the former case, but in the latter there is dissatisfaction from the weaker class, and a deep hatred and eternal chastisement [aionion kolasis] from such as are more powerful.” (Philo, Fragments)
Philo uses the words aionion kolasis. Aionion is “indeterminate as to duration” (Mounce’s Concise Greek English Dictionary of the New Testament). In Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, the word “gives prominence to the immeasurableness of eternity.”
It’s not that aionion lasts forever, but that linear time is not a constriction. It doesn’t matter if it takes forever for whatever this adjective is describing to accomplish its purpose.
And as it relates to the definition of kolasis, Thayer’s explains, “kolasis is disciplinary and has reference to him who suffers, [while] timoria is penal and has reference to the satisfaction of him who inflicts.” (Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament)
Plato uses kolasis in terms of discipline:
“If you will think, Socrates, of the nature of punishment, you will see at once that in the opinion of mankind virtue may be acquired; no one punishes [kolasis] the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong—only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that manner. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment [kolasis] does not retaliate for a past wrong which cannot be undone; he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished [kolasis], and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again. He punishes for the sake of prevention, thereby clearly implying that virtue is capable of being taught.” (Plato, “Protagoras”)
Whereas timora was punishment that satisfied a need in the punisher to see someone suffer for what they had done, kolasis was discipline or punishment to address the need in the one being punished so that they might learn to make different choices. It was redemptive punishment: restorative justice, not retributive justice.
The words the author of Matthew’s gospel choose to use for the goats in our story this week is not aidious timoria (retribution) but aionion kolasis (restoration). And this makes sense. Goats are of such a nature that they will only learn the hard way. Some nations will have to learn the hard way, too.
But whether a nation is a stubborn goat or a sheep that can be gently led, both goats and sheep only survive when they learn the lessons of distributive justice. I love the words of Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis speaking of social salvation within the context of our collective lives together:
“I know this to be true: The world doesn’t get great unless we all get better. If there is such a thing as salvation, then we are not saved until everyone is saved; our dignity and liberation are bound together.” (in Fierce Love, p. 14)
And that seems to be what our reading this week is hinting at. A nation’s greatness is not measured by its wealth but by its wealth disparity; not by its GDP but how much poverty it creates to produce that GDP; and not by how powerful its elite members are but by how it chooses to collectively take care of those the system deems to be “the least of these.”
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. In what ways do you wish both our small faith communities and larger society and nation practiced more life-giving policies? How could our nation do a better job at taking care of the hungry, those in need of shelter, migrants and whom we choose to imprison? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
(*Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™)
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Sheep and Goats
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters.
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 40: Matthew 25.31-46. Lectionary A, Proper 29
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 40: Matthew 25.31-46. Lectionary A, Proper 29
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Sheep and Goats
Herb Montgomery | November 24, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Pay close attention when certain sectors of Christianity choose to cherry pick and prioritize the death dealing passages of their sacred text, rather than the humanizing and life-giving passages.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
(Matthew 25:31-46*)
This week’s lectionary reading is one of my favorite passages in the gospel of Matthew. Some sectors of Christianity tend to read this passage individualistically, as if it’s a scene of individual people standing before an apocalyptic judgment seat. I encourage us not to fall into the individualism ditch this week. The passage in Matthew states that it is “the nations,” collective people groups, that are being gathered. This collective view aligns with the use of the phrase “son of man” and a judgment, from the Hebrew apocalyptic book of Daniel. Daniel 7 doesn’t address individuals or their personal, private deeds or misdeeds. It uses rich imagery to address empires, nations, and collective groups, not individuals. It is also telling that no one responds in this passage responds with the question “when did I see you”: they all ask “when did we see you.”
So this parable has a collective nature. It isn’t about how we live our lives as individuals or whether we practice personal charity. It’s about how we choose to structure our collective lives together and who we choose to care for. How do we systemically, as a nation, divide up resources, and how do we collectively distribute power? Do we privilege some above others? Or do we ensure everyone in our society is taken care of? More about this in a moment.
As well as painting a collective image, this passage also divides the nations into “sheep” and “goats.” My brother is a farmer here in Appalachia. He has both sheep and goats along with other livestock. Neither the sheep or the goats are expendable: both have value and worth. But you relate to both very differently. Sheep can be led, whereas goats are stubborn and must often be driven.
This parable is about how nations choose to relate to hunger and thirst, who gets food, shelter or clothing. We know it’s an economic parable because prisons in Jesus’ culture were not used for the crimes we use prisons for today. For example, if someone was guilty of murder, they would be executed, not imprisoned. Prisons were used for economic or political reasons. If someone was in prison, they were most likely in a kind of debtors prison working off a debt after suffering economic hardship. That’s why we need to read this parable in terms of distributive justice.
The parable then states that nations enter into either eternal life or eternal punishment or turmoil. What might this mean? Nations who practice a compassionate system of distributive justice will last a long time. You could say they enter a kind of eternal life. Other nations practice an economic system rooted in extraction, exploitation, privilege (where some are worth more than others), and power (where some have more power than others). These nations intrinsically experience turmoil, conflict, striving, and punishments that are always ongoing, or eternal. Nations learn the hard way that hunger, thirst, nakedness, abuse to foreigners, denying clothing including housing, debtors’ prisons, and other things of this nature are unsustainable. They set in motion endless striving and if not corrected have brought down the most powerful empires in history from the inside out.
As an example, some contemporary Christians cite portions of Leviticus to support their own bigotry against LGBTQ folks but ignore passages like Leviticus 19:33 when it comes to immigration policies or how we treat the “stranger”:
“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” (italics added)
How we choose to shape our nation’s immigration policy matters. Pay close attention when certain sectors of Christianity choose to cherry pick and prioritize the death dealing passages of their sacred text, rather than the humanizing and life-giving passages.
Lastly, I want to briefly address this language of eternal life or eternal punishment. You can read a more in-depth treatment in the appendix of my new book Finding Jesus: A Story of A Fundamentalist Preacher Who Unexpectedly Discovered the Economic, Social, and Political Teachings of the Gospels.
First, the idea of an apocalyptic eternal punishment was taught by the Pharisees in Jesus society:
“They [the Pharisees] say that all souls are imperishable, but that the souls of good men only pass into other bodies while the souls of evil men are subject to eternal punishment*. (Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Vol. II, Chapter 8, Paragraph 14)
It’s important to understand the Greek words used to describe this “eternal punishment” as taught by the Pharisees. Aidios (eternal) was “pertaining to an unlimited duration of time” (Louw and Nida’s Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains). Timoria (punishment) meant “to punish, with the implication of causing people to suffer what they deserve” (Louw and Nida’s Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains). And penal refers to “the satisfaction of him who inflicts” (Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament).
Why is this important? Because there were other words that one could choose to use if you were talking about eternal punishment as we understand that today. Philo, for instance, mentions eternal punishment but uses a different term than aidios timoria:
“It is better not to promise than not to give prompt assistance, for no blame follows in the former case, but in the latter there is dissatisfaction from the weaker class, and a deep hatred and eternal chastisement [aionion kolasis] from such as are more powerful.” (Philo, Fragments)
Philo uses the words aionion kolasis. Aionion is “indeterminate as to duration” (Mounce’s Concise Greek English Dictionary of the New Testament). In Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, the word “gives prominence to the immeasurableness of eternity.”
It’s not that aionion lasts forever, but that linear time is not a constriction. It doesn’t matter if it takes forever for whatever this adjective is describing to accomplish its purpose.
And as it relates to the definition of kolasis, Thayer’s explains, “kolasis is disciplinary and has reference to him who suffers, [while] timoria is penal and has reference to the satisfaction of him who inflicts.” (Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament)
Plato uses kolasis in terms of discipline:
“If you will think, Socrates, of the nature of punishment, you will see at once that in the opinion of mankind virtue may be acquired; no one punishes [kolasis] the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong—only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that manner. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment [kolasis] does not retaliate for a past wrong which cannot be undone; he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished [kolasis], and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again. He punishes for the sake of prevention, thereby clearly implying that virtue is capable of being taught.” (Plato, “Protagoras”)
Whereas timora was punishment that satisfied a need in the punisher to see someone suffer for what they had done, kolasis was discipline or punishment to address the need in the one being punished so that they might learn to make different choices. It was redemptive punishment: restorative justice, not retributive justice.
The words the author of Matthew’s gospel choose to use for the goats in our story this week is not aidious timoria (retribution) but aionion kolasis (restoration). And this makes sense. Goats are of such a nature that they will only learn the hard way. Some nations will have to learn the hard way, too.
But whether a nation is a stubborn goat or a sheep that can be gently led, both goats and sheep only survive when they learn the lessons of distributive justice. I love the words of Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis speaking of social salvation within the context of our collective lives together:
“I know this to be true: The world doesn’t get great unless we all get better. If there is such a thing as salvation, then we are not saved until everyone is saved; our dignity and liberation are bound together.” (in Fierce Love, p. 14)
And that seems to be what our reading this week is hinting at. A nation’s greatness is not measured by its wealth but by its wealth disparity; not by its GDP but how much poverty it creates to produce that GDP; and not by how powerful its elite members are but by how it chooses to collectively take care of those the system deems to be “the least of these.”
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. In what ways do you wish both our small faith communities and larger society and nation practiced more life-giving policies? How could our nation do a better job at taking care of the hungry, those in need of shelter, migrants and whom we choose to imprison? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
(*Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™)
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Reaping What Is Sown
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters.
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 39: Matthew 25.14-30. Lectionary A, Proper 28
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 39: Matthew 25.14-30. Lectionary A, Proper 28
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Reaping What Is Sown
Herb Montgomery | November 17, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“If we sow the wind, we will reap the whirlwind. But we can instead sow love, and justice, and compassion, and safety. We get to choose what we set in motion. We get to choose what we sow. What kind of world do we want? However we answer that question, we have the agency in our daily choices, big and small, to set in motion the kind of world we desire. And we aren’t the only ones who get to choose.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
“The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’
“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
“‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
(Matthew 25:14-30, Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™)
Not every truth is for every audience. That’s why it makes a difference whom we perceive this parable was directed to. Most Jesus scholars trace this parable back to the historical Jesus. If Jesus was using this parable to speak to the poor indentured farmer/slaves in his society, then it paints the God of the Torah with the same character and attributes as those farmers’ harsh absentee landlords. This would contrast starkly with how the Jesus of the gospels typically presents God in the stories.
But if we back up and understand this parable as directed to the those harsh absentee landlords whose motives were grounded in profit for a few on the backs of the many, not in economic justice, then this parable takes on a different, justice-flavored meaning.
Let’s unpack this a bit. Earlier in Matthew’s gospel, we read:
“For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1, emphasis added)
Being treated the way one has treated others has a rich history in Jewish wisdom. Injustice is unsustainable for the long term, and Jewish wisdom often reminds its listeners that we intrinsically, eventually reap what we sow. Consider the following sayings:
“A wicked person earns deceptive wages, but the one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.” (Proverbs 11:18)
“Whoever sows injustice reaps calamity, and the rod they wield in fury will be broken.” (Proverbs 22:8)
“They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7)
This wisdom is repeated by the Paul in his letter to the Galatians, although with a slightly different application.
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” (Galatians 6.7-8)
The book of James also repeats this wisdom:
“Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” (James 6:7)
So do the gospels:
“With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more.” (Mark 4:24)
If the intended audience for this week’s reading was the unjust, harsh absentee landlords of Jesus’ society, then Jesus is pronouncing judgment on the elite and wealthy classes who were unjustly exploiting workers through indentured slavery.
It is helpful to remember that Matthew was written after 70 C.E. Much of this section of Matthew is constructed to make sense of Rome’s tragic destruction of the Jewish people. Economic injustice is unsustainable: the poor who had finally had enough revolted and violently took over Jerusalem and the temple, burned the debt records held in the temple, and drove the wealthy elites from the city. In the wake of these events, these revolutionaries then launched the Jewish-Roman war of 66-69. The Jewish poor didn’t stop at their own liberation from the elites in their community. Instead, feeling their efforts had been blessed, they set their sights on an even bigger goal: liberating the Jewish people as a whole from their Roman oppressors too. This ultimately resulted in Rome visiting destruction on Jerusalem in 70 C.E.
The poor indentured farmers of Jesus society were once the owners of the farms they were now working, but had lost their land by defaulting on debt. Jesus called for Jubilee, for all debts to be cancelled, all slaves set free, and all land returned to its original owner. (Luke 4:19) This is where we encounter the multiple layers of this week’s reading. If the poor farmers were the slaves of the elite absentee land owners, the absentee land owners were in a similar relationship to their absentee rulers in Rome. It was Rome that eventually “returned” to Judea, storming in and demanding an account. It was Rome that threw the elites who had failed to govern Judea peacefully into “outer darkness” along with everyone else. If we’ve correctly identified the parable’s intended audience, then God is not the absentee landlord who shows up demanding an account of his servants. Rome was. These actions correctly resemble what Rome did to Jerusalem in response to the poor people’s revolt and war with Rome that wealthy elite’s economic exploitation had intrinsically caused. In the gospels Jesus calls for a voluntary year of Jubilee, and, for Matthew’s author, that Jubilee could have circumvented this revolt.
So what can we derive from this parable in our context today?
The Jewish wisdom this week’s parable is rooted in teaches us that with what measure we use, it will be measured back to us. If we sow the wind, we will reap the whirlwind. But we can instead sow love, and justice, and compassion, and safety.
We get to choose what we set in motion. We get to choose what we sow. What kind of world do we want? However we answer that question, we have the agency in our daily choices, big and small, to set in motion the kind of world we desire. We aren’t the only ones who get to choose. Others are setting in motion the kind of world they want, and those of us who desire a world with no injustice, no oppression, no violence must be vigilant. Sowing love doesn’t guarantee we’ll get all we want, but we most definitely won’t get it if we sit back and sow nothing. I’m reminded of the wise words of Dorothy Day:
“People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.” (Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness)
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What we sow in our communities matter, what would you like to be sowing both in your local community and larger society? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Apocalyptic Passivity
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters.
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 38: Matthew 25.1-13. Lectionary A, Proper 27
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 38: Matthew 25.1-13. Lectionary A, Proper 27
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Apocalyptic Passivity
Herb Montgomery | November 10, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“To be clear, in the gospels, both a here- and-now, the “kingdom has arrived and is among you” Jesus and an apocalyptic, the “kingdom is coming” Jesus are portrayed because both matched an era of the early Jesus community. But a Jesus who taught us that God’s kingdom is already here for our participation seems to me to offer more life-giving options right now. A Jesus who only taught that hope was coming in the near future and that we must patiently, personally prepare for it doesn’t offer much hope for those who are suffering today and simply cannot wait.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten maidens who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all the maidens woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’
“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The maidens who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” (Matthew 25:1-13)
Our reading this week offers me an opportunity to share something that has been on my heart for some time now.
The parable in our reading this week is unique compared to other parables in Matthew’s gospel in both subject and the language it uses. Absent from this parable is Jesus’ usual humor and hyperbole. The parable doesn’t critique those in power in the prophetic way most of his other parables do. There is no plot twist or surprise ending to leave listeners scratching their heads. The lesson is pretty straightforward and obvious: Be prepared. Those who are prepared go in. Those who aren’t prepared are left out.
This lesson repeats common universal wisdom, and it’s also quite apocalyptic. It sounds a lot more like it’s addressing issues existing in the Jesus community when the gospel of Matthew was written down than when the events in the story were taking place. In Mark, for example, when Jesus is approaching his trial and death, he tells his followers he will leave them and calls them to participate with him in the speaking out that will eventually get him killed. In Matthew, these closing parables beginning in chapter 24 are about being ready when Jesus returns after his departure, and it closes with the same words found at the end of the parable in Matthew 24:42:
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” (Matthew 24:42)
This apocalyptic theme reflects more the concerns of the Jesus community after Jesus’ death than it does the teachings of Jesus before his unjust execution. In the rest of the gospels, the writers announce the good news or gospel that the time has come, the “kingdom” is here, and all are invited to join in Jesus’ vision for a just, inclusive, compassionate community. This invitation was deeply attractive to the marginalized and those pushed to the edges and undersides of Jesus’ society, but the calls to justice in Jesus’ typical “kingdom” teachings and parables were not as attractive to those benefiting from the unjust status quo. To these people, Jesus was seen as a threat that must be silenced.
Here at the end of Matthew it’s as if we’ve witnessed a subject change. We are no longer talking about the good news of a concrete salvation that has arrived in the here and now. Now we are discussing being prepared for its arrival at some point in the future. The community is wrestling with how to follow Jesus after Jesus’ death. On top of that, the Jewish members of this community are also wrestling what life looks like after the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple: the temple is no more and Jerusalem has been leveled to the ground. Everything has changed, and in the shadow of such deep trauma and loss, it makes a lot less sense to say God’s just future has arrived than to look to the future and focus on being prepared for when God’s just future will arrive.
This is the context of our parable in this week. It is a lot more apocalyptic or future-looking than the typical here-and-now focus that Matthew’s Jesus has used in preceding portions of this gospel. These two different versions of Jesus in certain parts of the gospels are at the foundation of the debate among Jesus scholars as to whether Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher of a soon-to-come new world or teaching that God’s kingdom was already here and inviting folks to be participate in it here and now. (For detail, see Robert Miller’s The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate.)
I have my own leanings and opinions on this subject. First, I think you can be a genuine Jesus follower regardless of which camp you subscribe to. I also think it’s more difficult and requires more intention and care if you choose to view Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher. You have to be careful not to view his economic teachings (such as selling one’s possessions and wealth redistribution to the poor) as coming from Jesus’ thinking that the world was about to end and there was no need to prepare for the future. You must be careful to see that these teachings are rooted in economic justice and reflect a Jesus who thought the best way to prepare for the future was not in hoarding resources but in investing in community and a commitment to care for one another. We can face whatever the future brings, together, knowing we have each other’s back.
An apocalyptic Jesus offers an excuse to ignore many of Jesus’ teaching on the basis that Jesus supposedly thought the world was about to end. His teaching are not sustainable, in this reasoning, on a long-term ongoing basis. I disagree with that idea. I believe Jesus’ teachings are sustainable and place before us all a path for a safer tomorrow.
Another area of care one has to be intentional about is when someone feels the world is about to end or their hope is rooted in the world ending. These folks are not the best ones to come up with sustainable solutions that prevent the end of our world. In other words, people whose hope rests in the world burning make the worst environmentalists! Their worldview doesn’t enable and prepare them to see long-term solutions to the problems threatening humanity’s survival today.
Simply put, Jesus followers today who believe Jesus’ taught the kingdom has arrived have fewer theological hurdles in their way to making our world a safer, just, more compassionate home for everyone here and now. I wish I had a nickel for every time a Christian has accused me of only arranging deck chairs on the Titanic whenever I speak on social justice or environmental justice issues. Just this past week, a friend of mine was lamenting online how everything in our world seems to be crumbling and coming apart. A Christian friend of theirs who was first to respond, commented, “As in the days of Noah.”
How does that help? Rather than a call to roll up one’s sleeves and go to work relieving the harm and suffering that the most vulnerable in our communities are going through (which would look a lot like the Jesus we encounter in the majority of the gospel stories), there is a sad resignation that world will just keep getting worse and worse and there’s nothing we can really do about it until Jesus shows up.
Really? There’s really nothing we can do? It sounds more like we want the world to get worse and worse when some among us believe Jesus can’t come back until it gets a lot worse. Are we listening to ourselves when we say things like this?
Suffering should move Jesus’ followers to action, like it moved our Jesus. It shouldn’t lead us to a passive, powerless resignation that this has all been foretold and there’s nothing we can do but wait and be prepared ourselves. In the stories, Jesus’ desire for his followers is that they join him in his work of making our world a better place here and now. He said it’s here. “The kingdom of God is in your midst.” (Luke 17:11)
Again, I understand how the Jesus movement became apocalyptic after Jesus’ death. I can see how Paul was apocalyptic. I can even see that John the Baptist was apocalyptic: he was looking for one “to come,” while Paul was looking for Jesus “to return.” But Jesus was announcing God’s just future had arrived! And if we lean into that version of Jesus in the Jesus story, it changes everything. It has for me. It has changed my focus from the future to the here and now. After all, didn’t Jesus say not to worry and be preoccupied about tomorrow, that “tomorrow will worry about itself” (Matthew 6:34)? He called his listeners to focus on today and the good they could do now. He called his followers to do whatever we can, big or small, to make our world a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone, here and now.
When I go back and look at our parable in this light, I understand we must be prepared for the future, whatever it may hold. And the best way Jesus taught us to be prepared is to be about investing in each other, caring about each other, and doing what we can to promote the common good, today, here, now. People matter. The world is on fire. Will we pick up a pail of water to help put it out or will we stand back and simply view it all as unavoidable apocalypse?
To be clear, in the gospels, both a here- and-now, the “kingdom has arrived and is among you” Jesus and an apocalyptic, the “kingdom is coming” Jesus are portrayed because both matched an era of the early Jesus community. But a Jesus who taught us that God’s kingdom is already here for our participation seems to me to offer more life-giving options right now. A Jesus who only taught that hope was coming in the near future and that we must patiently, personally prepare for it doesn’t offer much hope for those who are suffering today and simply cannot wait. And for those who can choose a both/and approach, we must still be careful that our both/and approach doesn’t produce the fruit of apocalyptic passivity that ensures we have our own oil but doesn’t do much to make sure everyone else has the oil they need too.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How does seeing Jesus’ teachings applying to the here and now affect your own Jesus following. Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Ignored Egalitarian Themes of the Gospels
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters.
If you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work, you can do so by clicking “donate” above.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 37: Matthew 23.1-12. Lectionary A, Proper 26
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 37: Matthew 23.1-12. Lectionary A, Proper 26
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Ignored Egalitarian Themes of the Gospels
Herb Montgomery | November 3, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Is there anything life-giving we could take from this section of our reading? I do find it puzzling that these themes starkly contrast with how some Christians today in the U.S. are seeking political power to enforce their own interpretations of morality on society rather than seeking more effective ways to serve and lift the burdens of those who are most harmed by our systems.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.
But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all siblings. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted”. (Matthew 23:1-12)
The first portion of this passage only appears in Matthew and may be simply how this version of the Jesus story introduces the condemnations that follow. Jesus’ critique was about how the Torah (“Moses”) was being interpreted and practiced. He was not critiquing fidelity to Torah itself.
Something else to note in this reading is the phrase sitting in “Moses’ seat” indicating sole or supreme authority. At the time of Jesus, the Pharisees were competing with other groups and among many players and competitors for authority and power in the Temple state system in Jerusalem. But once the temple was destroyed and Jerusalem razed in 70 C.E., there was no longer a Sanhedrin and no longer a temple with a high priesthood aristocracy. The sole and supreme authority after 70 C.E., the “seat of Moses,” was held only by the surviving Pharisees. This phrase suggests that the gospel of Matthew was written down much closer to 70 C.E. than to the lifetime of Jesus or the events the gospel stories are about.
For early Jewish Jesus followers in Galilee, Torah observance (“Moses”) was still of moral, economic and even political significance, and their Jesus still upholds the importance of Torah fidelity. As I’ve often said, Matthew’s Jesus was not starting a new religion. He was leading a Jewish renewal movement, calling his listeners back to the economic justice themes from the Torah and Hebrew prophets that were relevant to the poor and others who were being marginalized and excluded.
Jesus’ critiques should not be interpreted as being against the Torah. They are much more against how those still in whatever positions of power remained after 70 C.E. paid lip service to the Torah but did not lift the burdens of those the Torah socially and economically prioritized. These leaders “honored the Torah with their words,” but their actions were still out of harmony with the Torah’s economic teachings: “They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.”
This is a reoccurring theme in Matthew. In Matthew 5:20 we read, “For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.” It is also found in Luke’s gospel, where Jesus says, “‘And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them’” (Luke 11:46).
This statement reflects much more the Pharisees after 70 C.E. than the Pharisees active during Jesus’ life. The Pharisees’ popularity with the masses at the time of Jesus was rooted in their liberal interpretations of the Torah that lifted the masses’ burdens while the Sadducees, who were the wealthy class, had much more restrictive definitions of Torah fidelity to protect their own positions of power and privilege. (See Solidarity with the Crucified Community.)
As we progress through these initial critiques, we do pick up on a theme that are repeated in other gospels:
“Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces.” (Luke 11:43)
“As he taught, Jesus said, ‘Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets.’” (Mark 12:38-39)
The last half our reading this week builds on this theme with a critique of titles. It’s important to remember the context for that section. Jesus was critiquing those seeking political power and privilege over the people rather than doing the work required to bring about changes that make our present world a safer, more compassionate, just home for all.
So Matthew’s gospel is introducing a powerful theme that I believe was intended to foster a more egalitarian environment in the Jesus followers community in Galilee. By 70 C.E. “Rabbi” had come to be used as an honorific title for great teachers, but with that title came a hierarchy of power and authority. Matthew’s gospel therefore responds with “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all siblings.”
The same egalitarian principle can be seen in the critique of the titles of “father” and “instructor” (see 2 Kings 2:12; 6:21). Again the theme here is opposing a growing trend toward systems of hierarchy within the early Jesus movement. We know that ultimately egalitarianism lost out in Christianity, and systems of hierarchy and harmful abuses resulted. Matthew’s gospel seems to be an early intervention.
Lastly, Matthew’s gospel picks up the theme from Mark that if there is a hierarchy, Jesus followers should be seeking positions of service over positions of rule. It must be noted that Christians in positions of social privilege have used some of these passages against those in more subjugated social locations, encouraging them to accept their social location passively.
Is there anything life-giving we could take from this section of our reading? I do find it puzzling that these themes starkly contrast with how some Christians today in the U.S. are seeking political power to enforce their own interpretations of morality on society rather than seeking more effective ways to serve and lift the burdens of those who are most harmed by our systems.
In Mark’s gospel we read a story that’s relevant here:
“When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.’” (Mark 10:41-45)
Matthew repeats this theme three times:
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” (Matthew 18:1-5)
Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20.24-28)
And here in our reading this week:
“The greatest among you will be your servant.” (Matthew 23:11)
These passages in Matthew have aways made me scratch my head when I consider how so many Jesus communities and institutions are structured today. Why aren’t our Jesus communities more egalitarian? Today we have all manner of escalating positions of authority and titles in our communities, and I wonder:
- What would Christianity look like if we practiced more egalitarianism with each other?
- Would we still argue over who could be pastors and who couldn’t based on gender?
- Would we argue over who could be members or who couldn’t based on their identities and orientations rather than their ethical practices?
- How could taking seriously the egalitarian themes of this week’s readings transform our Jesus communities. Would that bleed through into how we relate to our larger society?
- Would we seek to serve others more than obtain ecclesiastical and civil positions of power and authority?
Again, these passages have always challenged me as I consider the way we structure ourselves as Jesus followers. I have more questions than answers, but these questions have always given me pause as I seek to follow a more egalitarian practice in my work and life.
Matthew ends this section with themes of reversal from ancient Jewish wisdom and I think it may be a great place for us to land this week, too:
“You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.” (Psalms 18:27)
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” (Proverbs 11:2)
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How do you wish our faith communities were more egalitarian today? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
A Case for a Politically Compassionate, Distributive Justice Minded Christianity
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters.
If you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work, you can do so by clicking “donate” above.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 36: Matthew 22.34-46. Lectionary A, Proper 25
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 36: Matthew 22.34-46. Lectionary A, Proper 25
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
A Case for a Politically Compassionate, Distributive Justice Minded Christianity
Herb Montgomery | October 27, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
_________________________________________________________
“In the end, for me, it’s no longer enough to say that God is love. If our ideas of God’s love don’t also address love of neighbor in very real, concrete, material ways, then we are still missing the mark.”
_________________________________________________________
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?” “The son of David,” they replied. He said to them, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’? For he says,
‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your feet.’
If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?”
No one could say a word in reply, and from that day on no one dared to ask him any more questions. (Matthew 22:34-46)
A version of our reading this week is found in each of the synoptic gospels (Mark 12:28-34, Luke 10:25-29). Each quotes two passages from the Hebrew scriptures: Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)
“Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 19:18)
The gospels attest that the early Jesus movement and the historical Jesus both favored this interpretive move of defining fidelity to God as love of neighbor and using this lens to interpret the Torah. Fidelity to the God of the Torah impacted how one concretely and materially related to others. Love to God was expressed through the love of the neighbor believed to be made in the image of God. And that “love of neighbor” meant something specific. Social justice circles today often say that social justice is what love looks like in public. This is similar to how the early Jewish Jesus movement interpreted Torah fidelity as well.
This interpretive lens has lots of history in Jewish wisdom. It is most often attributed to the progressive Pharisee Hillel. The story is that Hillel was approached by a proselyte one day who asked if Hillel could teach the questioner the entire Torah while the student stood on one foot. Hillel responded, “What you find hateful do not do to another. This is the whole of the Law. Everything else is commentary. Go and learn that!” (see Hillel)
For most of the Jesus story, Jesus sides with Hillel’s more progressive interpretive lens of love. There are only two cases where Jesus departs from Hillel. The Pharisaical school of Hillel was not the only school of interpretation in Jesus’ time. Another popular sect of Pharisees was the school of Shammai. Shammai was deeply concerned with protecting Jewish culture, identity, and distinctiveness, and one of the subjects where Jesus departs from Hillel and agrees with Shammai is the subject of divorce.
The school of Hillel taught that a husband could divorce his wife for any reason at all. In a patriarchal society, this led to systemic economic injustice toward wives sent away by their husbands. On this issue, however, Jesus sided with Shammai. In one gospel he states that divorce was simply not allowed. In another, he says that it was allowed but only in the context of infidelity. Again, I believe that this teaching was concerned with the economic hardships that unconditional divorce placed on women who found themselves on the receiving end of this practice in the patriarchal cultures of the 1st Century, trying to survive.
The second area where Jesus disagreed with Hillel was also economic. Hillel was the originator the prozbul exception. A rich creditor could declare a loan “prozbul” and therefore immune to cancelation in years such as the year of Jubilee. Remember that there was no middle class in Jesus’ society. Many people depended on loans to survive. So if a year when debts were to be cancelled was approaching, many rich creditors would simply not make loans they believed they would lose on. This left many others without a means of survival. Out of concern, then, Hillel made an exception available: loans made close to the year of cancellation could be declared “prozbul” and be exempt from being cancelled. Jesus departs from Hillel incalling for a return to the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:19) where all debts would be cancelled and all slaves set free.
Other than these two cases, Jesus interpreted the Torah like a Hillelian Pharisee. The conflicts between Jesus and the Pharisees in the gospels are the same conflicts the Hillelian Pharisees had with the Shammai Pharisees. In those years, the Shammai Pharisees were still in positions of power and influence. But ultimately the more progressive Hillelian Pharisees won the interpretive debates in Judaism: out of Hillelian Pharisaism, Rabbinic Judaism eventually emerged and grew. (See Karen Armstrong’s The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions, Kindle Locations 7507-7540)
Gamaliel, in the book of Acts, was also most likely a Pharisee from the more progressive school of Hillel.
“But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while.” (Acts 5:34)
Acts associates the Apostle Paul with Gamaliel, too:
“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.” (Acts 22:3)
Paul also expresses a very Hillelian way of interpreting the Torah in the book of Galatians:
“For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Galatians 5:14)
All of this taken together makes a strong case for a more progressive form of Christianity that uses love as its interpretive lens. In this form of Christianity, we ensure that our interpretations of love don’t become sentimental or meaningless, and we manifest love through concern for a distributive justice for others. As Dr. Emile Townes so rightly states when you begin with the idea that God loves everyone, justice isn’t very far behind.
This speaks volumes in the context of debates still raging between more fundamentalist and/or conservative sectors of Christianity and more progressive and/or liberal sectors. The early Jesus movement evolved during similar tensions, and the gospels characterize Jesus as siding with the more compassionate Pharisees of his time.
As we shared earlier, there are exceptions to this. The two times Jesus departs from the Hillel Pharisees to side with the Shammai Pharisees was over economic justice issues. This says to me that the highest value was compassion. The highest value is distributive justice, treating one’s neighbor as yourself, as an extension of yourself, as you yourself would like to be treated if you were in the same situation. If we are to follow the Jesus of the gospels, we will find ourselves siding with those calling for a politics of compassion and distributive justice. We will find ourselves doing so because our chief concern is love of neighbor and justice for our neighbor as we would want for ourselves.
Political parties don’t always get justice right because they also are endeavoring to balance the desire to stay in power. One party might most often get it right, but where they fail, we must still choose to stand on the side of distributive justice, remembering the goal is love of neighbor. Following Jesus, we may find ourselves most often in more harmony with political positions of compassion, but there will be times when we may be achieving compassion in one area but will have to be honest when we are still missing the mark in another. There are discussions like this between feminists and womanists. I also think of wealthy LGBTQ people who support systemic harm toward those in their community who are poor; Christians who are concerned for the poor but still deeply patriarchal, homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic And there are movements for economic justice, including within White Christianity, that are still deeply racist.
In the end, for me, it’s no longer enough to say that God is love. If our ideas of God’s love doesn’t also address love of neighbor in very real, concrete, material ways, then we are still missing the mark. In the spirit of the interpretive lens of Hillel and Jesus, as Paul said: “The entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What do politics of compassion look like for you? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Render to Caesar the Things that Are Caesar’s
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters.
If you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work, you can do so by clicking “donate” above.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 35: Matthew 22:15-22. Lectionary A, Proper 24
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 35: Matthew 22:15-22. Lectionary A, Proper 24
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Render to Caesar the Things that Are Caesar’s
Herb Montgomery | October 20, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
___________________________________________
There are times when those teachings call me to lean more deeply into my civic duties because of the demands of love of neighbor and the belief that every person is the object of Divine love. As Dr. Emilie Townes so poignantly says, “If you begin with the idea that God loves everyone, justice isn’t very far behind.” And there are times when the state demands of me actions that opposes my commitment to justice. In moments like these, this story’s wisdom is helpful in navigating a life-giving pathway forward.
__________________________________________
Our reading this week is from the Gospel of Matthew:
Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?”
But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away. (Matthew 22:15-22)
Jesus’ saying in our reading this week appears in all three synoptic gospels and in the gospel of Thomas. It’s one of the sayings of Jesus that’s most misunderstood today, especially by the Christian Right.
If we are going to arrive at a life-giving interpretation of this story, we’re going to have to back up some and consider some historical context.
Archeologists tell us that the most circulated coin in Jesus’ day was a small coin with Tiberius Caesar’s image on one side and a seated woman holding an olive branch and a scepter. On the side with Ceasar’s image were the words, “TI CAESAR DIVI AVG F AUGUSTUS”: Tiberius is both Caesar Augustus (emperor), and the son of the Divine Augustus.
Augustus, Tiberius’ father, had been declared divine by the Roman Senate in 14 C.E. upon his death. During his life, Augustus had circulated coins that referred to him as the son of God. After Julius Caesar’s death, a star (really a comet), had appeared at the summer games dedicated to his honor. Many Romans interpreted this as a symbol of Julius Caesar’s soul ascending to the heavens to dwell with the gods. A year and half later, the Roman Senate declared Julius divine and the star that appeared in the summer began being referred to as the “Julian star.” (I find it fascinating that when Jesus is born, Matthew’s gospel describes a new star appearing in the heavens.)
Because of this tradition, Augustus had coins minted and circulated that had his image with the words “Augustus Ceasar” on one side and, on the back, the Julian Star with the words “Divine Julius,” indicating that Augustus was the Son of God. Each succeeding Caesar after Julius and Augustus also described himself as the Divine Son of God (“God” being the previous Caesar), all the way to Tiberius in Jesus’ time.
As we’ve said, on the back of the coin most likely held up in our story this week was the image of a woman holding both a scepter and an olive branch to symbolize of both the rule and the peace of Rome (or Pax Romana). The woman is most often identified as Tiberius’ mother Livia, the mother.
This gives our story this week a bit more context. When Jesus held up the coin and asked whose “image” was on the coin, there were two images, one of Tiberius Caesar claiming he was the Divine Son of God and the image of his mother Livia, the mother of the Son of God. Keep this imagery and its claims in mind for a moment.
In our reading, Jesus doesn’t tell his followers to pay the Roman tax, nor does Jesus tell them not to pay the tax. What Jesus does tell them, holding this coin with its imagery and claims, is to know the difference between their obligations to Caesar and their obligations to the God of the Torah.
Now, consider those coin images and their claims again. Jesus’ Jewish listeners that day would have heard his reply and remembered the words of the Torah itself:
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.” (Exodus 20:2-5)
On the surface, the words “give to Caesar Caesar’s due” would have sounded like an affirmation of paying taxes to Rome and thus kept Jesus out of trouble with the Romans. But to his Jewish listeners who knew the words of the Torah the following words “given to God what is God’s” would have held a much deeper, subversive message.
According to the Torah, someone could not both honor Caesar’s divine claims and honor the God of the Torah. These two claims were diametrically opposed to each other such that one could not honor one without violating the other. You could not serve both the God of the Torah and Caesar as God. The question that had been given to Jesus was an effort to entrap him before the Romans, yet his response had turned the trap around, indicting the elites and powerful who the poor viewed as serving Rome through their positions in the Temple State.
Honestly, I love how slick this story is in the end. The people questioning Jesus sought to render him guilty of violating the Pax Romana before Rome, and instead, they end up being rendered guilty of infidelity to the God of the Torah in the eyes of the people.
How might we apply the lessons of our story in our context today?
I live in the United States. There are times when the claims of my citizenship here are in perfect harmony with the teachings I believe are in the Jesus story. There are times when those teachings call me to lean more deeply into my civic duties because of the demands of love of neighbor and the belief that every person is the object of Divine love. As Dr. Emilie Townes so poignantly says, “If you begin with the idea that God loves everyone, justice isn’t very far behind.”
And there are times when the state demands of me actions that oppose the teaching I perceive in the Jesus story. I think of times when I’m asked to pledge allegiance to and support the American military-industrial complex. I think of the times when I’m asked to pledge allegiance to the economic exploitative and poverty-creating elements of a global capitalism. I think of when I’m called to pledge allegiance to American policies that still systemically hurt those made vulnerable. I think of the systemic racism and misogyny still baked into how we do things.
Being a Jesus follower who is also an American is complicated. Sometimes I’m proud of this nation and happy to participate in its society and fulfill civic duties. At other times I’m ashamed of our national actions and I participate in our society by speaking out and by obstruction. As someone who both loves the Jesus of the Jesus story and many of America’s democratic aspirations, even when I speak out, it’s because of love. Love of neighbor is my highest call. But I also love this nation, or rather, I love the ideals this nation claims to aspire to. If a human society actually could live up to these high ideals, they would not contradict the ethics and values I read in the Jesus story. What I read in the Jesus story would lead me to lean into those high ideals and my civic duties if those ideals could be realized. And that’s the big “if.”
The values of the Jesus story call me to continually choose to work toward making our world a safe, compassionate, home for everyone. Wherever people are working to make American society a safe, compassionate home for everyone, I can come alongside them and participate in the work. Where they are working to make American society unsafe, lacking in compassion, and unjust, I can come alongside those working to oppose them. My allegiance is to love and justice and compassion first and foremost. My allegiance to America is contingent upon its fidelity to these values. I don’t give my country a blank check when it comes to my allegiance. When I oppose spaces that contradict the values I am most deeply committed to, I oppose them out of love for what we as a society could be if we leaned more deeply into the just demands of love of neighbor.
This is what the gospel teaching render to Caesar those things that are Caesar’s and to God those things that are God’s means for me in my context today. It means to know the difference between the obligations of my civic duties as an American and to understand my higher commitments to love, justice and compassion. It means to hold the former wholly dependent on my fidelity to the latter.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How are your own civic responsibilities contingent on your commitments to love, compassion, and justice? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
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