Bartimaeus and Christians of Privilege
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Bartimaeus and Christians of Privilege
Herb Montgomery, October 25, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”
So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.
The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”
“Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road. (Mark 10:46-52)
Let’s jump right in.
Bartimaeus is a beggar whom Mark places on the road pilgrims took to Jerusalem. Meeting beggars on this road would contrasts a person’s personal piety with any possible commitment to resource-sharing. Today, it would be like passing by someone asking for help on the sidewalk because you were hurrying to get to church.
This story also has social, political, and economic dimensions that are rarely touched on in some sectors of Christianity. Mark’s gospel juxtaposes the story of the rich man in Mark 10 with the story of this beggar. This gospel has presented contrasting stories before. Consider the stories of the woman with the issue of blood and the synagogue leader in Mark 5. Their stories contrast two classes or social locations. And, in the same way that the woman in Mark 5 was “unclean,” the name Bartimaeus also means son of the “unclean.” Mark contrasts class and social location over and over.
There are political meanings as well: Bartimaeus is the first to name Jesus as the Son of David in the gospel of Mark. This title had political meanings tied to liberation and restoration in the time of Jesus.
Bartimaeus contrasts with the rich man in the earlier story, too. Bartimaeus heeds Jesus’ call to “throw his cloak aside.” He would have used this cloak for warmth against the elements, and it is also the cloak he would have spread out to collect alms from passers-by as he sat on the roadside. While the rich man walks away sad because he’s unwilling to give up his many possessions, Bartimaeus throws aside what little he has so he can reach Jesus.
The context around this scene is interesting. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to stand up to injustices being perpetrated by those in power in the Temple State. Whereas the rich young man walks away from Jesus, Bartimaeus joins and follows him, casting his lot for Jesus’ kingdom. Ched Myers comments on what this might mean: “The poor join in the final assault on the dominant idealogical order, and the rich have walked downcast away. The first have become last and the last have become first” (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, p. 282).
As in the story of the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5, the crowd in this story is in the way again. Bartimaeus must overcome all obstructions in persistently gaining Jesus’ attention. Then, once he gains Jesus’ attention, Mark’s gospel contrasts Bartimaeus with Jesus own disciples.
In Mark 10:36, Jesus asked James and John, “What do you want me to do for you?” They want to sit at Jesus’ left and the right hand in the kingdom: positions of status and privilege. That’s not what Jesus is about, however, and so it’s not surprising that this is the same question that he asks Bartimaeus later in the chapter.
In Mark 10:51, Jesus ask Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” Bartimaeus’ answer is very different than the disciples’. He doesn’t ask for status or privilege, he simply wants to see, and Jesus responds, “Your faith has healed you.”
I’m not a fan of when the gospels use disabilities as metaphors for something negative. No matter how we try to explain it, using blindness as a pejorative will always define those who live with physical blindness as “less than.” The gospels are a product of their time. And today, when it comes to ableist narratives we may find in the gospels, we can and must do better.
As I consider the disciples’ request for positions of power, privilege, and status, I can’t help but think of many on the Christian nationalists today who are reaching for the same. I can’t help but see the contrast today the goals of White Christian nationalism and Bartimaeus saying that he just wanted to see.
Do we want status, celebrity, fame, or do we want to see? Do we want power to enforce our dogmas or do we want wisdom? Discernment, perception, and understanding rather than imposing our definitions of morality on others will enable us to work for others’ liberation and achieve a world that is safe, compassionate, and a just home for everyone.
How do we gain this kind of shift in our perception and understanding? For me in my experience, this shift came through a forced shift in proximity. Jim Wallis, in his recent book The False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy, writes that proximity enables us to expand our understanding and empathy:
“I’ve learned it is proximity that changes us, that teaches us white people the work that we must do in our own communities” (Jim Wallis, The False White Gospel, p. 8).
Proximity doesn’t guarantee change. But it does provide the opportunity for change. Crossing lines that we have created and defined by our differences is the doorway to relationship. Our relationships have the potential, if we allow them, to help us understand more of the experiences of others who are different from us. As these relationships grow, we learn how others live in our society and have experiences different from our own. If we choose to respond to this awareness with empathy, we begin to discern, perceive, and understand broader realities. We begin to look at our world differently.
We create so many lines based on social differences that we must learn to step across.
Whether these lines are gender, social class, education, race or culture, or sexuality, when we choose to enter into relationship with those who are different from us, we experience that proximity which has the power to change the way we perceive and act.
For me, as a theologian, my journey began through exploring theological perspectives from communities that experience life differently than I do: from Christian feminist theologians to womanist perspectives, to Black liberation, Latin liberation, Mujerista liberation, and Indigenous liberation perspectives. LGBTQ justice, queer liberation, and disability justice perspectives changed how I look at the world forever.
Today, the work of learning to listen continues.
Evolving our society into a richly diverse and genuinely multi-racial democracy is prophetic work, and it’s work we are all invited to join. As Jesus followers today, we all have choices to make, especially those of us who live in more privileged social locations. Will we, because our privilege and status, walk away sad like the rich man, because we, too, have great possessions? Or will we, like Bartimaeus, simply say, “we just want to see”?
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. If you were asked, “What do you want me to do for you?”, how would you answer? 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.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week 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 social 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.
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.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 33: Mark 10.46-52. Lectionary B, Proper 25
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to 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 at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 28: Bartimaeus and Christians of Privilege
Mark 10:46-52
“We create so many lines based on social differences that we must learn to step across.
Whether these lines are gender, social class, education, race or culture, or sexuality, when we choose to enter into relationship with those who are different from us, we experience that proximity which has the power to change the way we perceive and act. Proximity doesn’t guarantee change. But it does provide the opportunity for change. Crossing lines that we have created and defined by our differences is the doorway to relationship. Our relationships have the potential, if we allow them, to help us understand more of the experiences of others who are different from us. As these relationships grow, we learn how others live in our society and have experiences different from our own. If we choose to respond to this awareness with empathy, we begin to discern, perceive, and understand broader realities. We begin to look at our world differently.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/bartimaeus-and-christians-of-privilege
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
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Free Sign Up Here
Participation Not Substitution
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Participation Not Substitution
Herb Montgomery, October 18, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”
“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”
“We can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”
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, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:35-45)
In our reading this week, we are again encountering themes that repeat multiple times in the gospels of Mark.
James’ and John’s request to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand echoes the scene in Mark 9 where the disciples were competing to be the greatest. (I wrote at length on this when we covered Mark 9; see Servants of the Most Vulnerable).
Jesus’ response promoting servanthood is also the same here as in Mark 9. When this rhetoric is directed at those seeking power and privilege over others, it can be a corrective. Those who were seeking status above others should instead have aspired to serve them. Yet, this passage has historically been directed not at those seeking privilege over others but at those seeking equity and equality with others. Christians have used servanthood to inspire some to passively accept a lower status think their social, political, or economic place held some quality of greater holiness. This passage was also used to defend the institution of slavery.
This passage can be used for life-giving purposes, but it has also been used in death-dealing ways. It is critical that we learn to rightly discern the difference and intentionally understand and apply this passage. Ask who is the target audience of a given interpretation. Is this passage being shared with servants to keep them in their servitude, or is it used to challenge the ambition of those who are seeking to be served?
What I find fascinating about Jesus’ responses in Mark 9 and 10 is that Mark references objects that Christianity has typically viewed through the lens of substitution and atonement, but frames them in terms of participation.
Whether we are discussing a cross (Mark 9) or a cup and a baptism (Mark 10), these did not represent things Jesus was doing instead of us or even in our place on our behalf. These were activities Jesus was inviting his disciples to join him in and to participate in themselves. In Mark, Jesus isn’t doing things for his disciples. He is calling his disciples to do them, too.
Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan remind us that, “For Mark, it is about participation with Jesus and not substitution by Jesus. Mark has those followers recognize enough of that challenge that they change the subject and avoid the issue every time” (Marcus J. Borg, John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem, Kindle location 1582).
But we must be careful here as well, lest we promote the destructive myth of redemptive suffering. Whether we participate in a cross, a cup, or the fiery baptism spoken of in these passage, we must remember that the way of Jesus is not a death cult. It is about our refusal to let go of life, not our embrace of death. As Delores Williams rightly reminds us, Christians who are suffering under oppression “cannot forget the cross, but neither can they glorify it. To do so is to glorify suffering and to render…exploitation sacred. To do so is to glorify the sin of defilement” (Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God Talk, p.132).
A cross is not intrinsic to following Jesus. When we follow Jesus, we are choosing to stand up to injustice and call for a world shaped in justice and love. A cross only enters this scenario if those who benefit form an unjust system become threatened by our calls for change and threaten us with a cross if we don’t become silent. If they don’t choose to impose a cross as a threat, then there would not be one. This is a subtle but important element in our reading this week. Jesus didn’t choose to die. He refused to let go of life even with threatened to do so: “Jesus chose to live a life in opposition to unjust, oppressive cultures. Jesus did not choose the cross but chose integrity and faithfulness, refusing to change course because of threat” (Brown and Parker, For God So Loved the World? Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse, p. 27).
Jesus didn’t choose to suffer. He choose to stay committed to life and those things that are life-giving. We must remember: “It is not the acceptance of suffering that gives life; it is commitment to life that gives life. The question, moreover, is not am I willing to suffer? but do I desire fully to live? This distinction is subtle and, to some, specious, but in the end it makes a great difference in how people interpret and respond to suffering” (Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse, p. 18).
When Jesus invites us to follow him, he invites us to take hold of life in opposition to the death-dealing forces in our world. He calls us to participate with him in shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone. And if those who have privilege and power fear losing those things through our society becoming more just, if they threaten us if we don’t sit down and be silent, then Jesus calls us to not let go of life and to keep calling for change even in the face of threats. This is one of the most compelling elements of the Jesus story for me personally. Jesus was leading a Jewish renewal movement in opposition to the elite class who were complicit with the Romans’ oppression of his people. The Jesus story is a story of a Jesus who stood up to those in power for what was right. He stood in his own Hebrew prophetic justice tradition of speaking truth to power. He called out the injustices of his day in the very heart of the temple state, and was crucified as a result. But the story doesn’t end there. This story isn’t about death or dying. In this story, God doesn’t triumph over death by more death, even one more death, even if it’s Jesus’ death. Death is reversed, overturned, and undone by life, resurrection life.
“The resurrection is God’s definitive victory over crucifying powers of evil . . . The impressive factor is how it [the cross] is defeated. It is defeated by a life-giving rather than a life-negating force. God’s power, unlike human power, is not a ‘master race’ kind of power. That is, it is not a power that diminishes the life of another so that others might live. God’s power respects the integrity of all human bodies and the sanctity of all life. This is a resurrecting power. Therefore, God’s power never expresses itself through the humiliation or denigration of another. It does not triumph over life. It conquers death by resurrecting life. The force of God is a death-negating, life-affirming force.” (Kelly Brown Douglas, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God, pp. 182-183).
I too know something of what it means to stand up for justice and love. I know something of pushback from those who are benefitting from an unjust system, pushback that threatens your own livelihood and ministry. These days, I’m thankful for resurrecting life. My life looks nothing today like I thought it would twenty years ago. But that’s okay. I wouldn’t change the stances I’ve taken or the people being harmed that I’ve stood in solidarity with. I know it’s the same for many of you too.
Standing up for love and justice sometimes involves drinking the same cup Jesus drank and being baptized with the same baptism he was baptized with. In those moments we are participating with Jesus in standing up rather than choosing to be silent. We are in the right story. We must remember, this story doesn’t end in death, dying, or a cross. This story, and our story, ends in resurrection. Love wins.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. Is participation more life giving for you than substitution? In what ways? 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.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week 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 social 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.
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.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 32: Mark 10.35-45. Lectionary B, Proper 24
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to 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 at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 27: Participation Not Substitution
Mark 10:35-45
“I too know something of what it means to stand up for justice and love. I know something of pushback from those who are benefitting from an unjust system, pushback that threatens your own livelihood and ministry. These days, I’m thankful for resurrecting life. My life looks nothing today like I thought it would twenty years ago. But that’s okay. I wouldn’t change the stances I’ve taken or the people being harmed that I’ve stood in solidarity with. I know it’s the same for many of you too. Standing up for love and justice sometimes involves drinking the same cup Jesus drank and being baptized with the same baptism he was baptized with. In those moments we are participating with Jesus in standing up rather than choosing to be silent. We are in the right story. We must remember, this story doesn’t end in death, dying, or a cross. This story, and our story, ends in resurrection. Love wins.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/participation-not-substitution
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
God and Money
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Herb Montgomery, October 13, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark,
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”
“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mark 10:17-31)
This week’s reading gets to the heart of one of the central teachings of Jesus in the synoptic gospels—the gospel Jesus himself teaches in the story. It may be challenging for us today depending on how invested we are in our current economic system. To understand it in its context, let’s go back to an ancient story in the Hebrew scriptures that may have shaped Jesus’ vision of a world where everyone has enough to thrive. This is the story of the manna provided during the Exodus narratives.
According to the Exodus stories, one of the very first lessons the Hebrews learned in their wilderness journey was to trust God to provide for their daily needs to the degree that those who had more than they needed shared with those who had less and everyone was ensured to have enough.
Moses said to them, “It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat. This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’” The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed. Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them. Each morning everyone gathered as much as they needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. (Exodus 16:15-21)
If anyone attempted to hoard rather than share, what they hoarded spoiled and was full of maggots. The point of this was, there will be more manna tomorrow. Everyone could bring what they gathered each day and find it was enough to divide between everyone, an omer per person. There was enough for every person’s need, but not every person’s greed.
Later in the book of Deuteronomy, we encounter an ethic on debt that seems to have shaped Jesus’ teachings on economics. Jesus called for the year of the Lord’s favor the first time he taught (see Luke 4:18-19). The year of the Lord’s favor was a year when all indentured slaves were set free, all lands were returned to their original owner, and all debts were forgiven/cancelled. The goal here seems to have been the same as in the manna story: there need be no poor or needy among their people.
At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the LORD’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed . . . there need be no poor people among you,” (Deuteronomy 15:1-4)
In our reading this week, Jesus is accessing lessons he learned from growing up on these stories: Those who have more than they need are to take care of those who have less than they need.
Years ago, I was deeply moved by how James Robinson describes Jesus’ teachings in the synoptic gospels in his classic book The Gospel of Jesus: In Search of the Original Good News:
“The human dilemma is, in large part, that we are each other’s fate. We become the tool of evil that ruins another person as we look out for ourselves, having long abandoned any youthful idealism we might once have cherished. But if we each would cease and desist from pushing the other down to keep ourselves up, then the vicious cycle would be broken. Society would become mutually supportive rather than self-destructive. This is what Jesus was up to. Jesus’ message was simple, for he wanted to cut straight through to the point: trust God to look out for you by providing people who will care for you, and listen to him when he calls on you to provide for them. God is somebody you can trust, so give it a try.” (James M. Robinson, The Gospel of Jesus: In Search of the Original Good News, Kindle Edition Loc. 58)
On the next page Robinson continues:
“Put in language derived from his sayings: I am hungry because you hoard food. You are cold because I hoard clothing. Our dilemma is that we all hoard supplies in our backpacks and put our trust in our wallets! Such ‘security”’ should be replaced by God reigning, which means both what I trust God to do (to activate you to share food with me) and what I hear God telling me to do (to share clothes with you). We should not carry money while bypassing the poor or wear a backpack with extra clothes and food while ignoring the cold and hungry lying in the gutter. This is why the beggars, the hungry, the depressed are fortunate: God, that is, those in whom God rules, those who hearken to God, will care for them. The needy are called upon to trust that God’s reigning is there for them (‘Theirs is the kingdom of God”’).” (James M. Robinson, The Gospel of Jesus: In Search of the Original Good News, Kindle Edition. Loc 71)
Robinson’s words give us much to think about. Robinson evaluates Jesus’ teachings by what happens in the early church where Christians tried to follow them. Notice the result: “there were no needy persons among them.” They had accomplished the goal of the ancient stories: they had eliminated poverty in the early Jesus movement.
“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.” (Acts 4:32-35)
This explains why Jesus says that whatever we give up to practice these teachings, we get in return over 100 times within the community because everyone is sharing to make sure everyone has enough. They aren’t hoarding against the fear of future need. They created a community where no matter what the future brought, they had each other’s backs. They could face the future as a community where the central ethic was making sure everyone’s needs were taken care of. They would receive “homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields (along with persecutions)” because no one considered any of these only their own. They considered them as belonging to the community as well. Each gave as they were able and each person received according to their need: “They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” (Acts 2:45)
Will Jesus followers today as a community ever return to these practices and teachings? We live in a very individualistic culture. The first step may be to create communities that make our hyper-self reliance obsolete. We have people in all classes in our communities. Some have nothing to give because their needs aren’t even being met. Others are living month-to-month and just barely getting by. Their needs are met, but they have no extra. Some in our communities have a little extra that they are saving for a future emergency. And others have so much extra they couldn’t possibly spend it all in multiple lifetimes, much less their own.
So today as we read Jesus’ call to share our possessions with others, questions of fairness are raised. I encourage you to lean into this tension. Peter Gomes had something to say on this:
“It is interesting to note that those who most frequently call for fair play are those who are advantaged by the play as it currently is, and that only when that position of privilege is endangered are they likely to benefit from the change required to ‘play by the rules.’ What if the ‘rules’ are inherently unfair or simply wrong, or a greater good is to be accomplished by changing them? When the gospel says, ‘The last will be first, and the first will be last,’ despite the fact that it is counterintuitive to our cultural presuppositions, it is invariably good news to those who are last, and at least problematic news to those who see themselves as first.” (Peter J. Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What’s So Good About the Good News?,p. 42)
This helps me understand why Jesus said entering Jesus’ kingdom or community here on earth was difficult for some of us. It calls us to a different set of priorities:
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24)
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What does the phrase, “You cannot serve both God and money” mean to you? 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.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week 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 social 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.
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.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 31: Mark 10.17-31. Lectionary B, Proper 23
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to 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 at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 26: God and Money
Mark 10:17-31
“Will Jesus followers today as a community ever return to these practices and teachings? We live in a very individualistic culture. The first step may be to create communities that make our hyper-self reliance obsolete. We have people in all classes in our communities. Some have nothing to give because their needs aren’t even being met. Others are living month-to-month and just barely getting by. Their needs are met, but they have no extra. Some in our communities have a little extra that they are saving for a future emergency. And others have so much extra they couldn’t possibly spend it all in multiple lifetimes, much less their own. So today as we read Jesus’ call to share our possessions with others, certain questions arise.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/god-and-money
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
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Free Sign Up Here
Divorce Just Ain’t What It Used To Be
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Herb Montgomery, October 4, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
“What did Moses command you?” he replied.
They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”
“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them. (Mark 10:2-16)
So many of us read this week’s passage with cultural presuppositions that we don’t even realize we have. Let’s unpack them.
The Jewish law being debated in our reading this week comes from Deuteronomy 24:1-4:
“If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled.”
The first thing that jumps out at me is the word “indecent.” Indecency has always been a charge used against women throughout history and rarely leveled against men. But this law was not written with the same cultural assumptions about marriage that we practice today. Abraham, Israel, Judah, David, Solomon, and others had multiple wives. Polygamy was perfectly acceptable in their culture. Read Deuteronomy 24 again in the context of polygamy rather than monogamy and see if you don’t begin to see how problematic the passage is. “Displeases?” What does that mean?
The culture when this law was written was predominantly heterosexist and deeply patriarchal. Only men could have multiple wives; there was no egalitarian practice here. And only men could divorce their wives. Under this law, a woman could be divorced by her husband for any reason. Women under this law were vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and they had precious little recourse.
So deeply ingrained was this patriarchal way of practicing divorce that even the otherwise economic justice minded prophet Jeremiah describes Israel’s God as also participating a patriarchal form of divorce (see Jeremiah 3:8).
After the Jewish people began returning from Babylonian exile, monogamy began gaining prominence over polygamy in Jewish society (see Monogamy, Jewish Encyclopedia).
Monogamy later became further reinforced within Jewish culture through both Greek and Roman occupation. Both cultures socially enforced martial monogamy. The Romans defined marital monogamy as policy (sexual monogamy was a separate, personal matter).
While divorce was only permitted for husbands in Jewish society, in Roman law, divorce was more egalitarian. That is, a woman could divorce her husband just as readily as a man could divorce his wife. In telling Salome’s story, Josephus contrasts the Roman and the Jewish practices of divorce:
“But some time afterward, when Salome happened to quarrel with Costobarus, she sent him a bill of divorce and dissolved her marriage with him, though this was not according to the Jewish laws; for with us it is lawful for a husband to do so; but a wife; if she departs from her husband, cannot of herself be married to another, unless her former husband put her away. However, Salome chose to follow not the law of her country, but the law of her authority [Roman], and so renounced her wedlock;” (Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, Delmarva Publications, Kindle Edition, Location 18908)
Josephus also gives us some insight into how a man divorced his wife in his own society and the time in which our reading this week is set:
“He that desires to be divorced from his wife for any cause whatsoever, (and many such causes happen among men,) let him in writing give assurance that he will never use her as his wife any more; for by this means she may be at liberty to marry another husband, although before this bill of divorce be given, she is not to be permitted so to do: but if she be misused by him also, or if, when he is dead, her first husband would marry her again, it shall not be lawful for her to return to him.” (Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, Delmarva Publications, Kindle Edition. Location 5363)
Within Jesus’ society, the Pharisees hotly debated the subject of divorce. Pharisees of the School of Hillel believed that a man could divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever. Within in that patriarchal culture, the economic results of a woman being divorced could be devastating. A woman who could be divorced for any reason would be in a very fragile position socially, politically, and economically. The Pharisees of the School of Shammai strongly opposed the School of Hillel’s view of divorce, however, and stated that a husband could only divorce his wife if there had been infidelity.
Within the context of this debate among the Pharisees, we read our passage this week. Mark’s Jesus takes a hard stance against divorce as practiced in his society. I believe that Mark’s Jesus demonstrates a profound-for-his-time concern with the well-being of women, their survival, and their welfare. Jesus opposes divorce as practiced at that time with his people’s own origin stories (Genesis 1 and 2). And that was the only form of divorce that existed in Jewish society then. The form of divorce we practice today was night-and-day different from the form practiced in Jesus’ time.
We should also note that Mark was written for a more cosmopolitan Jesus-following community made up of both Jews and Gentiles thanks to the evangelistic efforts of Paul and others like him. So although Jesus takes a strong stance against divorce for the protection of women, Mark’s Jesus also applies the same prohibitions to women and men, since in the larger Roman society women could divorce just as men could. Compare this to Matthew’s Jesus on the subject of divorce. Matthew was written primarily for a Jewish Jesus-following community, and it does not account for women divorcing men because wives did not divorce men in that community. Also, in Matthew, Jesus sides with the Shammai Pharisees by stating divorce should not be practiced but was permitted if the woman had been unfaithful:
“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 5:31)
So what are we to make of all of this today?
It is foolish at best and dangerous at worst to build a modern practice of marriage and divorce on any of this. We can use it to inform our decisions, but we can’t use it as the basis for our decisions. Our context is different today. Let me explain.
In our time, not all divorce looks like the kind of divorce being practiced in Jesus’ day and to which the Jesus of Mark’s gospel was so opposed. Divorce that is only concerned with the well being of men in a patriarchal culture should be opposed. But what do we now do in matters of abuse where there has been no sexual infidelity? Or with marriages where both partners come to a mutual, consent that a mistake has been made and they they are better as friends than as marriage partners?
I was raised by a single mother who was married multiple times, sometimes to abusive, narcissistic men. Should my mother have waited for her husband to have a sexual encounter outside of their marriage before she divorced him? In one situation, waiting might have gotten her killed. I take the principle of Jesus’ concern for the wellbeing of women in Mark’s gospel and concern for my mother’s well being as encouraging women in her position to leave rather than suffer violence. This is what I mean by allowing the story to inform us in our practice of marriage and divorce.
Our practice of marriage and divorce in our culture today should be based on the ethics and values of the golden rule, the well being of all parties involved, whether abuse is taking place, and an egalitarian concern for justice for everyone. This is the spirit of the gospels’ teachings. People matter above institutions. Institutions were made for people not people for institutions. Even the institution of marriage.
Justice and that which was life-giving were Jesus’ concerns in Mark. And that which is just and life-giving should be our concern today, too. Marriage and divorce are two sides of the same coin. We are not infallible. And when marriage becomes death-dealing, divorce as a life-giving option should be among the choices available to those seeking to turn things around. Whether people believe that they can work on and change their marriage or that their marriage should be undone, that is strictly up to them. It is not our place to shame or look down on them. It’s our job to life-givingly support them during such difficult choices. People who have been divorced or are going through divorce don’t need our judgement. They need our encouragement and our care.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does the cultural context help you understand the gospels’ teachings on divorce more appropriately for our context today? 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.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week 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 social 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.
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.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 30: Mark 10.2-16. Lectionary B, Proper 22
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to 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 at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 25: Divorce Just Ain’t What It Used To Be
Mark 10:2-16
“Our practice of marriage and divorce in our culture today should be based on the ethics and values of the golden rule, the well being of all parties involved, whether abuse is taking place, and an egalitarian concern for justice for everyone. This is the spirit of the gospels’ teachings. People matter above institutions. Institutions were made for people not people for institutions. Even the institution of marriage.
Justice and that which was life-giving were Jesus’ concerns in Mark. And that which is just and life-giving should be our concern today, too. Marriage and divorce are two sides of the same coin. We are not infallible. And when marriage becomes death-dealing, divorce as a life-giving option should be among the choices available to those seeking to turn things around. Whether people believe that they can work on and change their marriage or that their marriage should be undone, that is strictly up to them. It is not our place to shame or look down on them. It’s our job to life-givingly support them during such difficult choices. People who have been divorced or are going through divorce don’t need our judgement. They need our encouragement and our care.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/divorce-just-aint-what-it-used-to-be
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
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