When Leadership Becomes Self Serving
We want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you who supports the work of Renewed Heart Ministries. Your generosity makes it possible for us to continue our mission of love, justice, and compassion, even in a time when ministries like ours are being called to do more with less.
Your support means the world to us. Whether we’re speaking into the broader society, engaging within our faith communities, or working one on one alongside others endeavoring to follow Jesus’ teachings of love and justice, we remain committed to advocating for a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for all. Your partnership helps keep our work alive.
To all of our supporters, from all of us at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you. We are so deeply grateful for you, and we couldn’t do this work without you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
When Leadership Becomes Self Serving
Herb Montgomery | October 30, 2026
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 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 brothers. 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)
In our reading this week, Jesus confronts a troubling contradiction between religious authorities and their practice of justice. He tells the crowds and his disciples that the teachers of the law and the Pharisees occupy “Moses’ seat,” yet he warns them not to imitate those leaders’ behavior because “they do not practice what they preach.” Jesus then offers a powerful image of religious leaders who “tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders,” while refusing to lift a finger to help them. Beneath this criticism lies a profound message: religion betrays its purpose when it imposes burdens on vulnerable people while those who hold power remain unwilling to share the weight.
Jesus is challenging more than personal inconsistency. He is exposing a system in which religious authority can become a means of control rather than a source of liberation. Religious leaders have the power to interpret sacred traditions, establish expectations, and determine who is considered faithful. This authority was not just religious but social, political, and economic as well, and they interpreted the Torah to encompass every area of social life. Whenever that authority is used to impose exhausting demands on ordinary people without offering them compassion, support, or meaningful assistance, religion becomes another instrument of oppression.
This critique is relevant today whenever religious institutions establish rules that burden people who are already struggling. Communities may preach generosity while protecting wealth, proclaim compassion while withholding assistance, or celebrate human dignity while excluding people who do not conform to their expectations. They may demand that struggling families demonstrate greater faith while ignoring the economic conditions that keep those families struggling. They may condemn people for their circumstances without questioning the social structures that helped produce those circumstances. Jesus exposes the injustice of demanding sacrifice from others while refusing to make sacrifices oneself.
His words also challenge the tendency to interpret justice as a matter of individual responsibility alone. People experiencing poverty, marginalization, or hardship are often told to work harder, exercise greater discipline, make better choices, or carry their burdens with more faith. Yet those offering such advice may remain comfortably removed from the conditions others endure. They prescribe solutions without sharing resources, demand perseverance without addressing injustice, and celebrate personal responsibility while ignoring collective responsibility.
Jesus invites us to ask a different question: Who is carrying the burden, who benefits from the arrangement, and who has the power to change it?
A socially just understanding of Jesus’ teaching recognizes that compassion must involve more than expressing sympathy for people who suffer. Compassion requires participation. It means helping to carry burdens, sharing resources, challenging unfair arrangements, and transforming the conditions that make some people’s lives unnecessarily difficult. Rather than simply telling hungry people to pray, justice helps ensure that they have food. Rather than blaming struggling families, justice examines whether everyone has access to the resources and opportunities necessary to thrive.
This passage also challenges religious communities to examine whether their practices reflect the values they proclaim. The measure of faithful leadership is not how loudly leaders defend tradition or how rigorously they demand obedience. It is whether their leadership produces greater dignity, freedom, compassion, and justice for the people they serve.
Ultimately, Jesus calls his followers away from religion, politics, and economics that make life heavier for the vulnerable and toward a way of living that makes life more humane for everyone. Authentic Jesus-following does not stand above suffering and issue instructions. It draws near, listens, shares, and acts.
The challenge of Jesus’ words is unmistakable: Do not make other people carry burdens you refuse to help lift. If your faith demands sacrifice from the vulnerable but asks nothing of the powerful, it is time to reconsider. The purpose of leadership is not to add weight to people’s shoulders but to participate in building a society where everyone can live with dignity, where burdens are shared, and where no one is abandoned to struggle alone.
Next in our reading, Jesus challenges the leaders who make their faith a public performance: “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.” Beneath these words lies a critique of religious hypocrisy, social hierarchy, and the human desire to use faith as a means of gaining power, prestige, and recognition.
Phylacteries are small containers holding passages from the Torah, while the tassels on garments serve as reminders of God’s commandments. Neither item was or inherently wrong. Jesus’ concern was rather that those symbols could become instruments of public display rather than expressions of genuine commitment to the social justice elements prescribed by the Torah. Outward demonstrations of devotion could replace the deeper work of compassion, justice, and solidarity with people who were suffering. Sacred observance might then become a performance designed to impress others instead of a practice that transformed how people treated their neighbors.
This criticism has profound implications right now. Religious institutions and people can be more concerned with appearing righteous than with confronting the conditions that produce poverty, inequality, and exclusion. Churches may celebrate their generosity while remaining silent about economic systems that exploit workers. Religious leaders may preach love while condemning marginalized communities or defending policies that deprive vulnerable people of safety and dignity. And communities may display symbols of faith while refusing to challenge the injustices happening in their own neighborhoods. Jesus invites us to ask whether our religious practices are helping people flourish or merely helping us maintain a respectable public image.
Jesus’ criticism of leaders’ love for honor and respect exposes another dimension of injustice: the human tendency to organize society around status and privilege. In Jesus’ time, the most important seats at banquets and in synagogues were more than comfortable places to sit. They communicated who mattered, whose voices deserved attention, and who occupied the highest positions in the social order. Such arrangements reinforced distinctions between the honored and the overlooked, the powerful and the powerless.
Here, Jesus challenges systems that assign human worth according to wealth, influence, education, religious/political authority, or social standing. When leaders become preoccupied with protecting their positions, they can lose sight of the people their leadership should serve. Those who are poor, excluded, or marginalized often pay the price when institutions prioritize the preservation of privilege over the pursuit of justice.
Jesus’ words also challenge our motivations for doing good. Acts of charity, advocacy, and service can become opportunities to build reputations rather than expressions of genuine solidarity. The question is not whether our work is visible, but whether recognition has become more important to us than the people we claim to serve. Justice requires us to listen to marginalized communities, share power, confront harmful systems, and pursue meaningful change even when doing so brings neither applause nor public approval.
Ultimately, our story this week calls for a kind of Jesus-following that is measured not by the size of its symbols, the prominence of its leaders, or the respectability of its public image, but by the quality of its relationships and its commitment to human flourishing. Authentic leadership does not seek the highest seat at the table for its own sake but works to ensure that everyone has a place at the table. Leadership can make it possible to expand options for others. It does not demand admiration from the community; it listens to the community, especially those whose voices have been silenced.
The call, then, is to stop elevating ourselves and start embodying an ethic that lifts others. When we become more concerned with recognition than liberation from oppression, more invested in prestige than compassion, and more protective of privilege than committed to justice, we have lost sight of the very transformation Jesus calls us to pursue. True Jesus-following is not a performance for the powerful to applaud. It is a commitment to building a world where dignity, justice, and belonging are available to everyone, a world that is a safe, compassionate, just home for all.
Lastly in our reading this week, Jesus challenges the titles, privileges, and hierarchies that distinguish religious leaders from the people they are called to serve. He declares, “You are not to be called ‘rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers.” He continues, “Do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven.” Jesus concludes with a radical reversal of conventional power: “The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
These words are more than instructions about religious vocabulary. They challenge the social arrangements that allow some people to claim superior authority, status, and privilege over others in the name of God.
In the world of Matthew’s Gospel, titles such as rabbi, father, and teacher could communicate honor, authority, and social standing. Religious leaders occupied influential positions in communities shaped by religious tradition, economic inequality, and Roman imperial rule. Jesus criticizes leaders who enjoy public recognition and elevated status while imposing burdens on others. His concern is not simply that they receive honor, but that their honor becomes a means of reinforcing unequal relationships. When religious authority elevates its possessors above the community, it risks contradicting the very teachings it claims to represent.
Jesus’ prohibition against calling anyone “father” must be understood within this larger critique. In the ancient world, fatherhood carried associations with household authority, inheritance, social identity, and patriarchal power. A father was not merely a biological parent but could also represent the authority of the household. By reserving ultimate fatherhood for God, Jesus challenges the assumption that human beings could occupy unquestionable positions of spiritual superiority. His declaration that his followers are “all brothers” (blinkered as that label is in relation to women) imagines a community in which belonging to God establishes a shared dignity that no religious title can override.
Yet Christianity eventually developed the practice of addressing priests as “father.” Early Christian communities had various ways of describing spiritual leadership, and the New Testament itself occasionally uses familial language for spiritual relationships. Paul, for example, refers to himself as father to communities he has nurtured in faith (1 Corinthians 4:15). Over subsequent centuries, the language of spiritual fatherhood became increasingly established in Christian monasticism and ecclesiastical life. Monastic spiritual guides were addressed as fathers, and the practice eventually became especially prominent among Catholic and Orthodox clergy. Today, the title “father” remains customary in many Catholic, Orthodox, and some Anglican traditions, although its use varies.
This history presents an important interpretive question: Does Jesus prohibit every use of these titles, or does he instead challenge the hierarchical status and unquestioned authority that titles can reinforce? Christians disagree. Some understand Jesus’ words as a direct prohibition against all religious honorifics. Others interpret them as warning against treating any human leader as the ultimate spiritual authority in God’s place.
From a justice perspective, the essential question is whether religious leadership empowers people or subordinates them. A title becomes problematic when it shields leaders from accountability, discourages questions, silences marginalized voices, or allows spiritual authority to be used for exploitation. No title, tradition, or institution should place its representatives beyond criticism and accountability when their actions harm others.
Jesus offers a radically different definition of greatness: service rather than superiority, humility rather than prestige, and solidarity rather than domination. Religious leaders are not called to stand above the community but to participate in its shared work of healing, liberation, and justice. Their authority should be measured not by the honor they receive but by the burdens they help remove and the dignity they help restore.
Ultimately, Jesus’ teaching invites Christianity to examine not merely what it calls its leaders but how those leaders exercise power. If God alone is the ultimate spiritual authority, no human being should use religious status to claim unquestionable control over another. The test of spiritual greatness is not how many people call us “father,” “teacher,” or “leader,” but whether our lives help create a community where everyone is treated with dignity, no one is excluded from belonging, and those who have been burdened by power are finally able to flourish.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does our reading this week inform your own justice work, 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.
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 Bluesky, 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.
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 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 3 Episode 45: When Leadership Becomes Self Serving
Matthew 23:1-12
A socially just understanding of Jesus’ teaching recognizes that compassion must involve more than expressing sympathy for people who suffer. Compassion requires participation. It means helping to carry burdens, sharing resources, challenging unfair arrangements, and transforming the conditions that make some people’s lives unnecessarily difficult. Rather than simply telling hungry people to pray, justice helps ensure that they have food. Rather than blaming struggling families, justice examines whether everyone has access to the resources and opportunities necessary to thrive. Our reading this week challenges religious communities to examine whether their practices reflect the values they proclaim. The measure of faithful leadership is not how loudly leaders defend tradition or how rigorously they demand obedience. It is whether their leadership produces greater dignity, freedom, compassion, and justice for the people they serve.
Available on major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/when-leadership-becomes-self-serving
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
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Questioning Our Confession
We want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you who supports the work of Renewed Heart Ministries. Your generosity makes it possible for us to continue our mission of love, justice, and compassion, even in a time when ministries like ours are being called to do more with less.
Your support means the world to us. Whether we’re speaking into the broader society, engaging within our faith communities, or working one on one alongside others endeavoring to follow Jesus’ teachings of love and justice, we remain committed to advocating for a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for all. Your partnership helps keep our work alive.
To all of our supporters, from all of us at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you. We are so deeply grateful for you, and we couldn’t do this work without you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Questioning Our Confession
Herb Montgomery | October 23, 2026
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 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)
Our reading this week begins with two prominent and powerful Jewish groups in the Jesus story: the Sadducees and the Pharisees. During the time reflected in Matthew’s Gospel, the Sadducees and Pharisees they differed significantly in their beliefs, social position, and relationship to Roman rule.
The Sadducees were closely connected to the Jerusalem Temple and the priestly and wealthy elite. They held considerable political and economic influence and generally favored maintaining stability within the existing order. They accepted the authority of the written Torah but rejected some beliefs that had developed within broader Jewish tradition, including the resurrection of the dead (Matthew 22:23). They were the more theological conservative party, and their leadership was therefore closely tied to the Temple system and its structures of power.
The Pharisees, by contrast, were a religious movement with a broad presence among the Jewish population. They emphasized careful observance of the Torah and traditions of interpreting it. Unlike the Sadducees, they affirmed beliefs in resurrection, angels, and spirits, and they were the more theologically liberal party. Contrary to how they are often portrayed today, the Pharisees were not a group of hypocrites or villains. Many of them were deeply committed to religious faithfulness and preserving Jewish identity under Roman occupation.
Matthew portrays both groups as sometimes opposing Jesus, and they did so for different reasons. Jesus challenges the interpretations of both groups and, more importantly, confronts how religious authority can become entangled with exclusion, status, and power. Jesus’ criticism of these leaders in the Gospel stories is rooted in whether political, economic, social and religious leadership produces justice, mercy, compassion, and liberation for ordinary people.
In last week’s reading, Jesus silences attempted entrapment by the Sadducees. This week our attention points toward the Pharisees. As a test, they ask Jesus which commandment is the greatest. His answer would have been familiar to the Pharisees of the School of Rabbi Hillel, and that answer still has profound justice implications today.
In his answer, Jesus refuses to separate love of God from love of people: the two greatest commandments are inseparable. For Jesus, devotion to the Divine cannot be measured simply by religious belief, worship, or obedience to religious regulations. Genuine love for God becomes visible in how we treat our neighbors, particularly those who are vulnerable, excluded, or pushed to the margins.
This has enormous implications for Christians endeavoring to follow the Jesus of this story. If we claim to love God while tolerating systems that exploit, exclude, impoverish, or dehumanize our neighbors, Jesus challenges the authenticity of that claim. We should not use love of God as an excuse for failing to love people. Religious devotion that produces indifference toward human suffering has missed the heart of the Law and the Prophets.
The phrase “Love your neighbor as yourself” also moves beyond private feelings. In Jesus’ teaching, love is not merely an emotion or an attitude. Love asks what another person needs in order to live, flourish, and experience dignity. To love our neighbors means becoming concerned about the conditions in which those neighbors live. Are people hungry? Are they safe? Do they have adequate housing, healthcare, education, and meaningful opportunities? Are some of them being excluded because of their race, gender, sexuality, economic status, immigration status, disability, or social location? Love does not simply notice when these unjust realities exist. Love seeks to change them.
This is why justice is often understood as love made public. Compassion can become justice when we move beyond feeling sorry for people and begin addressing the structures, institutions, and systems that produce their suffering. Charity may help someone survive an unjust situation, but justice asks why that situation exists in the first place and what must change so that people are no longer forced to depend upon charity simply to survive.
Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees in the story also challenges religious communities to examine their priorities. It is possible to become deeply invested in religious arguments while neglecting the people standing directly in front of us. We can wax eloquent in our apologetics for certain doctrines while ignoring people’s suffering. We can proclaim holiness while participating in exclusion, and we can speak passionately about loving God while remaining indifferent to the neighbor whose life is being diminished by unjust systems.
But Jesus places love at the center of everything. The Law and the Prophets, he says, hang on these two commandments. In other words, every religious practice, doctrine, tradition, and interpretation must ultimately be measured by love of God as expressed through love of neighbor.
The question for us, then, is not simply, “Do we love God?” Jesus invites us to ask a more searching question: “What does our love of God produce in the way we treat our neighbors?” When love produces dignity, solidarity, compassion, equality, liberation, and justice, it reflects the heart of Jesus’ teaching. When it produces exclusion, domination, fear, or indifference, injustice and harm, it contradicts the very commandments upon which Jesus says everything else depends.
Next in our reading, Jesus asks the Pharisees a question that challenges their understanding of the messiah: “Whose son is he?” They answer, “The son of David.” Jesus then quotes Psalm 110, where David refers to the messiah as “lord,” asking how the messiah can be both David’s descendant and his lord. The religious leaders cannot answer him, and Matthew concludes that no one dares to question him further.
Although this passage is often interpreted as a theological discussion about Jesus’ identity, it also carries important social, political, and economic implications. In the first century, the expectation of a messiah descended from David was closely connected to hopes for restored national sovereignty, righteous leadership, and deliverance from oppressive powers. Under Roman occupation, the question of who the messiah would be was inseparable from questions about authority, power, liberation, and the kind of society God desired.
Jesus challenges his listeners to reconsider not only who the messiah could be, but also what messianic leadership should look like.
The title “Son of David” carried royal significance in Jesus’ time. People remembered David as Israel’s great king, and so the promise of a messiah from his lineage could evoke expectations of a restored kingdom. Yet royal power, in both ancient and contemporary societies, became associated with domination, privilege, and preservation of established hierarchies. Jesus’ question about David’s descendants unsettles simplistic assumptions that God’s anointed leader must merely reproduce familiar patterns of political authority.
Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus presents a vision of community and human society rooted in compassion, justice, inclusion and care. In Matthew 20:25–28, he contrasts rulers who dominate others and service: those who wish to become great in Jesus’ eyes must become servants. Jesus does not measure leadership by the ability to command, accumulate wealth, or maintain control. He measures it by a willingness to serve, to give, and to place the well-being of others before personal privilege.
Read through this lens, the question of the messiah becomes a question about the purpose of power. Does authority exist to protect the interests of the powerful, or should it be used to create conditions in which everyone can experience dignity, security, and abundant life? Does leadership preserve unjust arrangements, or does it challenge the structures that leave people impoverished, excluded, and vulnerable?
Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisees also belongs to a larger pattern in Matthew 21–23, where he repeatedly confronts religious leaders over their understanding and exercise of authority. His questions expose the limitations of religious knowledge when it becomes disconnected from justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Knowing Scripture is not the same as embodying its liberating vision. Authority loses its moral credibility when it protects institutional privilege while neglecting the suffering of those institutions are meant to serve.
These implications extend to our own communities. We must ask whether our religious, political, and economic institutions reflect the values we claim to honor. We must examine whether our understanding of God legitimizes existing hierarchies or inspires us to challenge inequality, resist exploitation, and share the resources necessary for everyone to thrive.
Jesus’ final question leaves the leaders of his own society without an answer. It also challenges us today. For Jesus followers, our beliefs about what our society should look like must be tested against the life and teachings of Jesus himself. If we claim to follow Jesus and his teachings while tolerating systems that deny people their dignity, we must reconsider what our confession means.
To follow Jesus is to take seriously the way he taught us to live. It means following a Jesus who calls us away from domination toward service, away from exclusion toward inclusion, justice, and belonging, and away from protecting privilege toward practicing righteousness and equity.
Ultimately, our reading this week invites us to ask a question that reaches beyond religious debate: What kind of world would emerge if we organized our communities around the values of the Jesus we profess to follow? What if we stopped using faith to justify the way things are and began embodying the justice, compassion, love and shared humanity that comprised the gospel Jesus proclaimed?
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does our reading this week inform your own justice work, 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.
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 Bluesky, 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.
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 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 3 Episode 44: Questioning Our Confession
Matthew 22:34-46
In our reading this week, Jesus contrasts rulers who dominate others and service. The gospels do not measure leadership by the ability to command, accumulate wealth, or maintain control. They measure it by a willingness to serve, to give, and to place the well-being of others before personal privilege. Does authority exist to protect the interests of the powerful, or should it be used to create conditions in which everyone can experience dignity, security, and abundant life? Does leadership preserve unjust arrangements, or does it challenge the structures that leave people impoverished, excluded, and vulnerable? Authority loses its moral credibility when it protects institutional privilege while neglecting the suffering of those institutions are meant to serve. We must ask whether our religious, political, and economic institutions reflect the values we claim to honor. We must examine whether our understanding of God legitimizes existing hierarchies or inspires us to challenge inequality, resist exploitation, and share the resources necessary for everyone to thrive. For Jesus followers, our beliefs about what our society should look like must be tested against the life and teachings of Jesus himself. If we claim to follow Jesus and his teachings while tolerating systems of injustice and harm that deny people their dignity, we must reconsider what our confession means.
Available on major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/questioning-our-confession
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Render Unto Caesar
We want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you who supports the work of Renewed Heart Ministries. Your generosity makes it possible for us to continue our mission of love, justice, and compassion, even in a time when ministries like ours are being called to do more with less.
Your support means the world to us. Whether we’re speaking into the broader society, engaging within our faith communities, or working one on one alongside others endeavoring to follow Jesus’ teachings of love and justice, we remain committed to advocating for a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for all. Your partnership helps keep our work alive.
To all of our supporters, from all of us at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you. We are so deeply grateful for you, and we couldn’t do this work without you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Render Unto Caesar
Herb Montgomery | October 16, 2026
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 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)
In our reading this week, Jesus is confronted by people who are trying to trap him with a politically dangerous question about taxation. They ask whether it is lawful to pay the imperial tax. Jesus responds by asking for a denarius. Once one has been handed to him, next Jesus asks, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” The question about the coin becomes more than a question about money. It exposes the relationship between power, ownership, identity, and economic obligation. Let’s unpack this a bit.
The coin bears the image of the emperor. In the Roman world, an emperor’s image was not merely decorative. It communicated the authority and power of the empire. Coins circulated that authority into everyday economic life. Every transaction could become a reminder that people lived within an imperial system that claimed political and economic control over them.
So Jesus doesn’t answer the question with a merely political slogan. Instead, he makes his questioners look directly at the symbol of imperial power: “Whose image is this?” Before deciding what people owe to a political or economic system, Jesus invites them to recognize what that system represents.
This has important implications. Economic systems are never entirely neutral. Money, taxation, property, labor, and political authority are connected to questions of who possesses power and who carries burdens. The people asking Jesus about tax are attempting to reduce a complicated question of justice to a simple question of compliance. Jesus refuses to keep the conversation that simple.
There is also a striking contrast between the image on the coin and the biblical conviction that human beings bear the image of God. The emperor’s image is stamped onto currency, but the image of the Divine is stamped into human beings. The Hebrews were forbidden from making any graven images of the Divine because we are those images. If coins belong to the economic system that produces them, then regardless of the image stamped on their surface, human beings who bear a radically different image from coins cannot be treated as possessions of the imperial system.
People are not fundamentally commodities, statistics, taxpayers, workers, consumers, or economic units. Fundamentally, they are people whose dignity precedes their economic usefulness. This becomes especially significant when economic systems demand sacrifices from those who have the least power. We are meant to ask, “Who is bearing the cost of this system? Who benefits from it? Who has the power to shape its rules? Who is being treated as expendable?” Justice cannot be reduced to whether everyone technically follows the same laws when those laws produce profoundly unequal circumstances.
Jesus’ response also challenges the assumption that political authority deserves unlimited allegiance. The coin carries Caesar’s image, but human beings carry the Divine image, and that distinction limits every empire, government, economy, corporation, and institution. Political and economic systems may exercise legitimate authority, but they do not ultimately own human life. The question “Whose image is this?” can therefore become a question for every age. Before asking what people owe an institution, we should ask what that institution owes the people who live under its power. And before treating anyone as a resource within an economic system, we should remember whose image they bear.
Jesus next response calls us to ask what actually does belong to Caesar? When Jesus says “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s”, his words are often interpreted as a simple command to obey the government and pay taxes due. But within the larger context of Jesus’ ministry, the statement has a much more challenging social and political meaning. Jesus is not simply endorsing Caesar’s authority. He is also exposing the complicated relationship between political power, economic obligation, and the reign of God as represented in Jesus’ kingdom of love, compassion and justice.
The leaders ask whether it is lawful to pay the imperial tax. If Jesus says yes, he risks appearing to support Roman occupation. If he says no, he can be accused of rebellion. Jesus instead asks them to produce the coin, which bears Caesar’s image and inscription. By placing the coin before them, Jesus forces his questioners to confront the reality of their economic and political system.
The crucial point is that Jesus does not stop at Caesar. He says, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” The second half of the statement places a profound limitation on the first. If the coin bears Caesar’s image, then it may belong to Caesar. But human beings bear the image of God. While Caesar has a legitimate claim over a coin, Caesar does not have unlimited claim over human lives, human dignity, conscience, or allegiance.
This distinction matters. Governments can establish laws, collect taxes, maintain public institutions, and exercise legitimate authority. But that political authority is not absolute. When governments demand things that belongs to God such as human dignity, ultimate loyalty, justice, compassion, or the right to determine whose lives matter, Jesus’ teaching provides grounds for resistance.
Jesus’ statement can therefore be understood not as a blanket command to obey political authorities but as a challenge to understand the limits of their authority. Caesar receives the coin; God receives the person. The empire may possess economic and political power, but it does not possess the human being.
This becomes especially significant when political systems use their authority to preserve inequality or oppression. Paying taxes does not require surrendering one’s conscience. Citizenship does not require silence in the face of injustice. Respect for government does not mean treating government as God. Jesus juxtaposing these two statements makes the distinction certain. Caesar and God are not the same thing. Caesar is not divine, no matter how much Roman propaganda told its citizenry that he was. God is God, and Caesar is not.
Jesus’ words also challenge those who use religion to protect political power. Jesus’ opponents attempt to force him into a choice between religious faithfulness and political compliance. Instead, Jesus distinguishes what belongs to Caesar from what belongs to God. Money may circulate through political and economic systems, but that money has moral implications. Human dignity cannot be reduced to a political or economic possession. Governments may claim jurisdiction over territory and taxation, but they cannot legitimately claim ownership of people. To give Caesar what belongs to Caesar is therefore not necessarily to give Caesar everything Caesar wants. And to give God what belongs to God means recognizing that every human being bears God’s image. Any political system that forgets this places itself above the very people it is supposed to serve.
Let’s wrap up this week with another Jesus follower who worked for justice and wrestled with our reading this week. Dorothy Day reflected that “once you give to God what belongs to God, there’s nothing left to give to Caesar.” This offers a radical way of understanding Jesus’ words. For Day, this story was not a lesson about separating of religion from politics. Instead it challenged the claim that governments, economic systems, or political authorities possess ultimate ownership over human lives.
If everything ultimately belongs to God, then human beings cannot surrender their conscience, dignity, compassion, or commitment to justice to Caesar. Governments may demand taxes, obedience, or allegiance, but the image of God is stamped upon every human being more deeply than any political authority can impose its own image upon a coin.
Day’s perspective also challenges Christians to consider what it means to give God what belongs to God. It means giving our lives to love, mercy, solidarity, and justice. It means refusing to treat the poor, the immigrant, the prisoner, or the marginalized as expendable for political or economic convenience.
In this sense, Day’s statement becomes a call to radical discipleship: once our lives belong to God, no earthly power can claim them completely. Faith is a commitment to serve people rather than systems, and to seek justice wherever human beings are denied their dignity.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does our reading this week inform your own justice work, 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.
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 Bluesky, 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.
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 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 3 Episode 43: Render Unto Caesar
Matthew 22:15-22
These words also challenge those who use religion to protect political power. Jesus’ opponents attempt to force him into a choice between religious faithfulness and political compliance. Instead, Jesus distinguishes what belongs to Caesar from what belongs to God. Money may circulate through political and economic systems, but that money has moral implications. Human dignity cannot be reduced to a political or economic possession. Governments may claim jurisdiction over territory and taxation, but they cannot legitimately claim ownership of people. To give Caesar what belongs to Caesar is therefore not necessarily to give Caesar everything Caesar wants. And to give God what belongs to God means recognizing that every human being bears God’s image. Any political system that forgets this places itself above the very people it is supposed to serve. We must not surrender our conscience, dignity, compassion, or commitment to justice to Caesar. Governments may demand taxes, obedience, or allegiance, but the image of God is stamped upon every human being more deeply than any political authority can impose its own image upon a coin.
Available on major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/render-unto-caesar
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
A Wedding Banquet and Participating in Justice
We want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you who supports the work of Renewed Heart Ministries. Your generosity makes it possible for us to continue our mission of love, justice, and compassion, even in a time when ministries like ours are being called to do more with less.
Your support means the world to us. Whether we’re speaking into the broader society, engaging within our faith communities, or working one on one alongside others endeavoring to follow Jesus’ teachings of love and justice, we remain committed to advocating for a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for all. Your partnership helps keep our work alive.
To all of our supporters, from all of us at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you. We are so deeply grateful for you, and we couldn’t do this work without you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
A Wedding Banquet and Participating in Justice
Herb Montgomery | October 9, 2026
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 Matthew.
Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
“But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business.The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
“For many are invited, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:1-14)
Our reading this week can be read in multiple ways. Taken in the context of Jesus ministry of teaching how to love one’s neighbor, this reading is a powerful critique of exclusion, privilege, and the misuse of political and religious power. The banquet represents a vision of the kingdom of love, compassion, and justice Jesus has been so far presenting in Matthew’s Gospel. This story is one in which those who have been invited to receive abundance refuse to participate. Their refusal is interesting. Some are so absorbed in their property and business interests that they cannot recognize or respond to an invitation toward a different kind of community.
In the context of Matthew’s Jesus and his teachings on the kingdom, this parable challenges systems where economic interests take priority over human relationships and communal well-being. The invited guests have access to collective abundance and celebration, yet they choose their own fields and businesses instead. The story exposes the danger of a society in which productivity, property, profit, and personal advancement become more important than sharing life with others.
The response of other invited guests is even more disturbing: they seize, mistreat, and kill the king’s servants. This is a very odd, over-the-top response to a wedding banquet invitation! It doesn’t make sense why they would respond that way unless the story illustrates the violence Jesus followers were encountering when Matthew’s Gospel was being written as they sought to share Jesus’ teachings with others. Violence often becomes the means by which those benefiting from an established order protect their interests. We could understand the servants as prophetic voices who challenge injustice and call people toward a more equitable community. Throughout history, people who confront systems of exploitation have often experienced rejection, intimidation, and violence.
The king’s violent retaliation, however, creates a tension for Jesus followers committed to the nonviolent way of Jesus. The parable reflects judgment imagery in its ancient context, and Matthew connects the destruction of their city with devastating consequences. But Jesus’ broader teaching calls his followers toward enemy-love, nonviolence, mercy, and reconciliation so this ending should not be used to justify violence as a Christian response to injustice.
We can also understand this parable’s ending within Matthew’s historical setting as one explanation of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. That doesn’t necessarily mean Matthew’s author is claiming that Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem. Rather, it may mean that the Gospel, which was written after 70 CE, is using Jesus’ parable to interpret a catastrophe that had already occurred.
Matthew was written in the aftermath of the First Jewish-Roman War, when Jerusalem had been devastated by Roman forces. This war was the direct descendent of the Poor People’s Revolt in Jerusalem. In 70 CE, the Roman army under Titus captured Jerusalem, destroyed much of the city, and burned the Temple. The destruction became one of the defining catastrophes of Jewish history, and this parable’s language of an enraged king sending an army to destroy a city would therefore have resonated strongly with the experiences Matthew’s community had already had.
In the parable, destruction follows people’s repeated rejection of the king’s invitation and their violent treatment of his servants. Matthew may be using this imagery to interpret Jerusalem’s destruction as the consequence of a long conflict between the poor calling for economic relief and Jerusalem’s leadership. That would fit the Gospel’s larger narrative, in which Jesus repeatedly confronted authorities who resisted his proclamation of an alternative kingdom where the poor are blessed, the hungry are fed, and those who weep are comforted.
The phrase “burned their city” is particularly striking because the story shifts from the general destruction of “those murderers” to the destruction of “their city.” For Matthew’s readers, this phrase could evoke Jerusalem itself. The historical event would then become part of the theological interpretation of Jesus’ conflict with the Temple leadership in our story.
But we should not turn this passage into a claim that Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jerusalem’s destruction. Rome destroyed Jerusalem through military force, and Jewish society itself suffered enormously. This parable should not be used to justify violence against religious or political opponents either.
Read historically, this parable may reveal how Matthew’s community made theological sense of the trauma of 70 CE. Their burning city becomes a symbol of what can happen when entrenched systems reject transformation and respond to prophetic challenge with violence. The very first act of the Poor People’s Revolt once they achieved control of the Temple was to inaugurate a kind of jubilee by burning all the records of debt stored in there. In their hubris, they thought, “Why stop our liberation with Jerusalem? Let’s liberate ourselves from the entire Roman Empire.” Thus the First Jewish-Roman War commenced. Again, we should hold the parable’s violent imagery in tension with Jesus’ broader teachings on mercy, enemy-love, and nonviolence.
Our reading this week invites us to examine what happens when those with privilege refuse an invitation to shared abundance and respond violently when challenged. Jesus’ kingdom challenges societies organized around exclusion, accumulation, and domination. The question is ultimately not simply “Who is invited?” but “Who has access to the table, who is being excluded, and what are we willing to change so that everyone can share in the abundance of life?”
The first part of our reading mentions those who refused the invitation outright. Now let’s consider the person who attended but did not respect the event enough to wear the proper attire.
The man who enters without wedding clothes can be read as a powerful challenge to the difference between being invited into a community and genuinely participating in its values. After the king’s original guests refuse the invitation, he opens the banquet to everyone, “both the good and the bad.” Yet when the king confronts a man without wedding clothes, the man is left speechless. Socially and spiritually, this raises an important question: What does it mean to accept an invitation to a community committed to justice?
If the wedding banquet is a metaphor for Jesus kingdom of love, compassion and justice, the wedding garment can be interpreted as a symbol of participating in the Jesus’ kingdom transformation and solidarity. The invitation to the banquet is radically inclusive, and no one is excluded because of social status, wealth, respectability, or previous moral standing. But inclusion is not meant to become passive acceptance of injustice. To enter the banquet is to participate in the kind of community the banquet represents. One cannot claim the benefits of belonging while refusing the responsibilities that belonging carries.
This has significant implications for Jesus followers working toward societal justice today. A person or institution may publicly claim to welcome everyone while continuing to tolerate systems that exclude, exploit, or harm marginalized people. They may use the language of compassion while refusing to change the conditions producing suffering. They may celebrate equality while remaining comfortable with inequality. In this sense, the missing garment represents more than inappropriate clothing; it represents a failure to embody the values of the community one claims to join. We can attend the banquet by words and still not put on the attire appropriate for the occasion through our choices.
The man’s silence is particularly striking. When confronted, he has no response, explanation, defense, or justification. Jesus’ story suggests that there comes a moment when words are no longer enough. Our lives must bear witness to what we claim to believe.
The message, then, is not that some people are inherently unworthy of the banquet. Quite the opposite: the invitation is radically open. But entering the banquet means embracing a way of life shaped by justice, compassion, solidarity, and shared flourishing. Grace opens the door; justice asks us how we live once we walk through it.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does our reading this week inform your own justice work, 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.
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 Bluesky, 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.
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 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 3 Episode 42: A Wedding Banquet and Participating in Justice
Matthew 22:1-14
Our reading this week invites us to examine what happens when those with privilege refuse an invitation to shared abundance and respond violently when challenged. Jesus’ kingdom challenges societies organized around exclusion, accumulation, and domination. The question is ultimately not simply “Who is invited?” but “Who has access to the table, who is being excluded, and what are we willing to change so that everyone can share in the abundance of life?” The first part of our reading mentions those who refused the invitation outright. The last part asks us to consider a person who attended but did not respect the event enough to wear the proper attire.
Available on major podcast carriers and at:
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Who Owns the Vineyard? Jesus and the Politics of Justice
We want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you who supports the work of Renewed Heart Ministries. Your generosity makes it possible for us to continue our mission of love, justice, and compassion, even in a time when ministries like ours are being called to do more with less.
Your support means the world to us. Whether we’re speaking into the broader society, engaging within our faith communities, or working one on one alongside others endeavoring to follow Jesus’ teachings of love and justice, we remain committed to advocating for a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for all. Your partnership helps keep our work alive.
To all of our supporters, from all of us at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you. We are so deeply grateful for you, and we couldn’t do this work without you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Who Owns the Vineyard? Jesus and the Politics of Justice
Herb Montgomery | October 2, 2026
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 Matthew.
“Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
“The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
“But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
“He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet. (Matthew 21:33-46)
Our reading this week is often referred to as the parable of the wicked tenants. The story has traditionally been read as an early Christian story about God, Israel, and the rejection of Jesus. This interpretation has been the soil from which harmful fruits such as supersessionism and antisemitism have grown. I want to offer a different lens this week. When we listen to this parable through the lens of justice, we encounter a powerful critique of any system in which those entrusted with resources become convinced that those resources belong to them. Seen through that lens, the story is about land, labor, power, violence, exploitation, and accountability.
The vineyard represents something valuable. The landowner carefully prepares it, protects it, and establishes the conditions for it to produce fruit. He then places tenants in charge. Their responsibility is not simply to possess the vineyard but to cultivate it and share its harvest. Their authority is therefore stewardship, not ownership.
The tragedy begins when the tenants confuse stewardship with possession. When the harvest comes, they refuse to give the landowner his share and use violence against those sent to collect it. They beat, stone, or kill servant after servant. Finally, the tenants even murder the son because they believe eliminating the heir will allow them to claim the vineyard for themselves.
Socially and politically, this is a story about what happens when people who hold power become accountable to no one. They can begin to believe that their position gives them the right to control the resources, determine who benefits from them, and silence anyone who challenges their authority. Eventually, such exploitation requires violence because maintaining an unjust arrangement depends upon preventing others from questioning it.
This makes the parable especially relevant to the politics of economic justice. The harvest does not belong exclusively to those who happen to control the vineyard. The tenants have a responsibility to return what is owed and participate in a larger relationship of mutual obligation. The story challenges the common assumption that possessing power or controlling property automatically gives someone an unlimited claim to its benefits.
There is also a connection between the vineyard and the concern for land and its produce throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. In that tradition, land is never merely a commodity but is instead connected to community, survival, livelihood, and human flourishing. The prophets repeatedly condemn those who accumulate land and wealth while others suffer. Isaiah, for example, condemned those who “join house to house” and “add field to field” until others have no place to live (see Isaiah 5:8). Jesus’ parable stands within this prophetic tradition.
The tenants’ violence also exposes another reality of injustice: systems of privilege and concentrated power can generate violence when those benefiting from an unjust arrangement refuse accountability. The servants and the son become threats not because they have done something wrong, but because they challenge the tenants’ control.
Yet there is an important tension in the ending of this story. The leaders in Jesus’ community respond to his question by declaring that the wicked tenants deserve a “wretched end.” Jesus uses their answer to expose their own judgment.
People who recognize injustice can easily become convinced that justice requires the destruction of those they identify as the unjust. A justice-oriented reading should resist turning this parable into permission for vengeance. Accountability is necessary, but justice is not simply revenge. The goal of justice is to end exploitation, protect those being harmed, restore what has been taken, and transform relationships and systems so that they no longer produce oppression.
Jesus’ concluding image points toward a transfer of stewardship: the vineyard will be entrusted to tenants who will produce its fruit. The central question, then, is not merely “Who owns the vineyard?” but “Who is willing to use what has been entrusted to them for the flourishing of others?”
The parable ultimately challenges every institution, government, church, economic system, and community that possesses power or resources. What we have is not simply ours to hoard. We are stewards, and resources mean responsibility. The true test of leadership is whether the vineyard produces fruit that is shared rather than concentrated in the hands of a few.
Jesus’ vision of justice calls us away from domination and toward responsible stewardship, away from exploitation and toward shared flourishing, and away from protecting privilege toward creating communities where everyone has a meaningful place at the table.
After telling his story, Jesus shares an adage about a stone rejected by the builders that becomes the cornerstone. Jesus is confronting political authorities who believe that they are the rightful guardians of God’s purposes. His metaphor challenges systems then and now that decide who is valuable, who belongs, whose voice matters, and who gets to determine the future. Let me explain.
A cornerstone is foundational. To say that the rejected stone becomes the cornerstone is to imagine God overturning the judgments of those who hold power. The people dismissed, excluded, marginalized, or treated as expendable can become central to the work of creating a more just community, and what the powerful regard as insignificant may be precisely what God chooses to build upon.
This is one of the recurring patterns of Jesus’ ministry. He repeatedly moves toward people pushed to the edges of society rather than toward those already occupying positions of privilege. He welcomes those considered outsiders, touches those considered untouchable, listens to those whose voices are ignored, and challenges structures that protect status and privilege. The kingdom Jesus spoke of, therefore, cannot be reduced to a private spiritual experience. It has social consequences for how communities distribute dignity, resources, power, belonging, and opportunity.
Jesus declares that “the kingdom” will be taken from those who have failed to produce its fruit and given to a people who will. The “fruit” of this kingdom is not simply religious conformity. Throughout the Gospels, the fruit of the kingdom is revealed through justice, mercy, compassion, liberation, reconciliation, and care for those who are vulnerable.
Jesus’ warning remains relevant whenever institutions become more concerned with preserving their authority than producing the fruit of justice. No institution is entitled to existence simply based on claims of justice. Justification for institutions depend upon whether they actually produce the fruit of justice.
This metaphor calls us to look again at those our societies reject. We might ask “Who belongs at the center?” but could go further to ask “Whose exclusion has helped us maintain the center?” The kingdom Jesus announces begins to emerge when rejected people are no longer pushed to the margins but are recognized as essential participants in building a world characterized by justice, dignity, compassion, and shared flourishing.
Lastly, Jesus’ words about the stone carry a warning about the consequences of resisting justice. The new cornerstone represents the rejected, the vulnerable, excluded, and marginalized people whom systems of power cast aside. Those who build their lives and institutions upon domination may believe they are secure, but eventually their injustice confronts them. To fall upon that stone is to encounter a truth that can no longer be ignored; to have the stone fall upon you is to experience the consequences of maintaining oppressive systems. Jesus’ message challenges communities to stop protecting unjust structures and instead build a just society.
Our reading ends with the political and religious leaders recognizing that Jesus’ parables exposed their abuse of authority, and hesitating to arrest him because they feared the people. Their restraint was not necessarily a change of heart; it was a recognition that public support limited their oppressive overreach. Jesus’ prophetic voice had become a voice that the people valued and defended. Today, too, justice movements depend upon collective power not only from courageous individuals but also from communities willing to stand together.
But we all know Jesus’ story. The leaders plotting against him eventually found a work around, and they did eventually arrest Jesus, in secret, and at night. In this week’s reading, though, we are reminded of how popular Jesus’ prophetic ministry was with the people. The people who recognized Jesus’ “gospel” was for them valued and defended him and created an early obstacle for the elites and in positions of power trying to silencing his voice.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does our reading this week inform your own justice work, 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.
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 Bluesky, 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.
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 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 3 Episode 41: Who Owns the Vineyard? Jesus and the Politics of Justice
Matthew 21:33-46
Socially and politically, this is a story about what happens when people who hold power become accountable to no one. They can begin to believe that their position gives them the right to control the resources, determine who benefits from them, and silence anyone who challenges their authority. Eventually, such exploitation requires violence because maintaining an unjust arrangement depends upon preventing others from questioning it.
Available on major podcast carriers and at:
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Actions Over Words
We want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you who supports the work of Renewed Heart Ministries. Your generosity makes it possible for us to continue our mission of love, justice, and compassion, even in a time when ministries like ours are being called to do more with less.
Your support means the world to us. Whether we’re speaking into the broader society, engaging within our faith communities, or working one on one alongside others endeavoring to follow Jesus’ teachings of love and justice, we remain committed to advocating for a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for all. Your partnership helps keep our work alive.
To all of our supporters, from all of us at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you. We are so deeply grateful for you, and we couldn’t do this work without you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Actions Over Words
Herb Montgomery | September 25, 2026
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 Matthew:
Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”
Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”
They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”
So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”
Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.
“What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
“ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him. (Matthew 21:23-32)
The encounter between Jesus and the chief priests and elders in our reading this week is a deeply political confrontation disguised as a theological question. Jesus has entered Jerusalem, challenged the economic practices of the Temple, and openly taught the people there. The chief priests and elders, the leading authorities within the Temple state, approach him and ask, “By what authority are you doing these things?” Their question is not merely about religious credentials. It is about power: Who gave Jesus permission to challenge the established social, economic, and political order?
In Jesus’ time, the chief priests and elders represented the institutions that governed religious life and exercised significant political and economic influence. The Temple was more than a place of private spirituality. It was a center of wealth, power, sacrifice, taxation, and social hierarchy that answered directly to Rome. But in the Jesus story, Jesus challenges the Temple state’s practices. Those in authority recognized that his message threatened more than theology; it also threatened systems that benefited from inequality and control.
Jesus responds to these leaders by asking them about John the Baptist: “Where did John’s baptism come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?” This question exposes the leaders’ political calculation and concern for authority, but they do not openly answer Jesus. The passage says that if they acknowledged John as a prophet, they would have to explain why they rejected him. If they denied John’s legitimacy, they feared the people’s reaction: the people believed John to be a prophet.
Their silence reveals an important lesson: unjust systems often protect themselves with calculating actions rather than truth. The leaders don’t ask, “What is right?” They instead ask themselves, “What will happen to us if we give this answer?” Their concern is preserving their position.
Jesus exposes that kind of leadership. In Jesus’ social vision, genuine authority is not established simply by holding an office, possessing institutional approval, or maintaining control over others. Authority must be measured by its relationship to truth, justice, and the service of the people most affected by the system. John the Baptist had no Temple office, no institutional power, and no elite credentials. Yet the people recognized his prophetic authority because he spoke truthfully and called people in his society to change their unjust practices.
This passage challenges the assumption that political and religious leaders should automatically be trusted simply because they occupy positions of authority. Jesus doesn’t teach blind obedience to institutions. Instead, he exposes institutions that have become more concerned with protecting themselves than with serving the people.
Ultimately, the chief priests and elders answer, “We do not know.” Jesus in turn refuses to answer their question. Those who refuse to honestly confront injustice are often incapable of recognizing genuine moral authority when it stands before them.
The meaning of this story is therefore profoundly relevant to our time. Jesus confronts a leadership class that has confused institutional power with moral authority. He exposes the way that those in power can become trapped by fear of losing privilege and public support. And he reminds us that true authority is found not in titles or status, but in courage, truth, justice, accountability, and a commitment to the well-being of the people.
Next in this reading, we encounter Jesus’ story of the two sons. This story carries a powerful message because it challenges the tendency of religious and political authorities to judge people according to their social status, reputation, or outward words rather than according to their actual lived transformation. Jesus tells the story as his response to the chief priests and elders, the powerful leaders of the temple state. These leaders were not merely religious figures in the modern sense. They also possessed social, economic, and political influence. Their authority allowed them to define who was righteous, who was sinful, who belonged, and who stood outside the boundaries of respectable society.
In Jesus’ story, the first son initially refuses his father’s request to work in the vineyard. His words are disobedient. Yet he later changes his mind and goes to work. The second son gives the correct answer at first. He says, “I will, sir,” but his words are never followed by action. Jesus asks which son actually did what the father wanted, and the answer is obvious: the one whose actions ultimately answered the father’s request, even though his first response in words was wrong.
The significance becomes unmistakable when Jesus identifies tax collectors and prostitutes as those entering the kingdom of God ahead of the religious authorities. These were people whom the elders and chief priests had labeled as morally inferior. Tax collectors were often associated with exploitation and collaboration with systems of imperial domination. Prostitutes occupied a deeply stigmatized social position and were frequently treated as though their identities could be reduced entirely to their social status. Both groups were marginalized, judged, and excluded by those who considered themselves righteous.
But Jesus’ words radically overturn that social hierarchy. He refuses to accept that social respectability is the same thing as righteousness. Those who have been publicly labeled as sinners are capable of hearing a call to justice and participating in the work of justice. Meanwhile, those with religious authority may speak the language of obedience while refusing to change their behavior.
This story therefore warns against a faith that is satisfied with correct language, public declarations, performance, religious credentials, or moral reputation as ends in themselves. Justice requires more than saying the right things. It also requires actual choices in direction toward justice and away from injustice. So a person or institution may claim to love the poor while supporting systems that keep people poor. They may speak about peace while benefiting from violence. They may proclaim equality while excluding marginalized people. Like the second son, they may say, “I will,” while never entering the vineyard.
The vineyard in the story can be understood as a symbol of the work necessary to create a more just world. We have work to do: feeding people, challenging oppression, repairing harm, dismantling systems of exclusion, and building communities where those who have been pushed aside are welcomed and valued.
The story calls us to actions rather than to mere claims. The first son changed in his choices, not just in his words. The tax collectors and prostitutes labelled sinners by the elite power brokers of Jesus’ society responded to Jesus’ calls to justice. Those whom society deems as “less than” are often the first ones to do so. This story challenges communities today to stop confusing respectability with righteousness and to measure faith not primarily by what people claim to believe but by whether they are willing to change and join the work of love, justice, and liberation.
I want to share one last word regarding one of the two communities that are specifically named in this week’s reading: sex workers. The spirit and example of Jesus in the Gospels should lead us to pursue justice for sex workers by refusing to treat anyone as disposable, morally inferior, or beyond the reach of dignity and compassion. Again and again, Jesus moved toward people pushed to the margins by religious and social systems. Rather than condemning them, he shared tables, restored dignity, and challenged those who used morality to justify exclusion. Following Jesus in this context means listening to sex workers, defending their humanity, and working for their safety and freedom from violence and exploitation. It means challenging poverty, stigma, and systems that deny people meaningful choices. Jesus calls us to stand with those society marginalizes and to build a world where every person is treated with compassion, justice, and sacred worth.
Justice for sex workers begins with recognizing their full and equal humanity. Too often, sex workers are spoken about as problems to be solved, moral failures to be condemned, or victims without agency. When we commit to justice, we reject this dehumanization and insist that no person loses their dignity because of how they survive economically.
Sex workers, like all workers, deserve safety, freedom from violence, access to health care, housing, and legal protection. They should be able to report abuse, exploitation, assault, or theft without fearing humiliation, discrimination, or punishment. Justice also requires confronting the economic conditions that produce poverty, homelessness, inequality, discrimination, and lack of opportunity and so make survival increasingly difficult. A just society should expand people’s options rather than punish them for the options available to them. Justice must also distinguish between respecting the agency of adults and opposing exploitation, coercion, trafficking, and abuse for everyone. Protecting vulnerable people should never require stripping others of their humanity.
At its heart, justice asks us to see sex workers not as disposable people at the margins, but as neighbors. Their safety matters. Their voices matter. Their needs matter. Liberation means creating a world where no one is exploited, criminalized for surviving, or denied dignity, and where every person has the resources, justice, and freedom necessary to flourish.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does our reading this week inform your own justice work, 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.
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 Bluesky, 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.
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 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 3 Episode 40: Actions Over Words
Matthew 21:23-32
This story therefore warns against a faith that is satisfied with correct language, public declarations, performance, religious credentials, or moral reputation as ends in themselves. Justice requires more than saying the right things. It also requires actual choices in direction toward justice and away from injustice. So a person or institution may claim to love the poor while supporting systems that keep people poor. They may speak about peace while benefiting from violence. They may proclaim equality while excluding marginalized people. Like the second son, they may say, “I will,” while never entering the vineyard. The vineyard in the story can be understood as a symbol of the work necessary to create a more just world. We have work to do: feeding people, challenging oppression, repairing harm, dismantling systems of exclusion, and building communities where those who have been pushed aside are welcomed and valued. The story calls us to actions rather than to mere claims.
Available on major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/actions-over-words
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
The Last Shall Be First
We want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you who supports the work of Renewed Heart Ministries. Your generosity makes it possible for us to continue our mission of love, justice, and compassion, even in a time when ministries like ours are being called to do more with less.
Your support means the world to us. Whether we’re speaking into the broader society, engaging within our faith communities, or working one on one alongside others endeavoring to follow Jesus’ teachings of love and justice, we remain committed to advocating for a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for all. Your partnership helps keep our work alive.
To all of our supporters, from all of us at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you. We are so deeply grateful for you, and we couldn’t do this work without you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
The Last Shall Be First
Herb Montgomery | September 18, 2026
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 Matthew:
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’
So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
“‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:1-16)
Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard is traditionally read as a lesson about God’s grace. Those who come late receive the same reward as those who have worked all day. But the parable also raises profound questions about economic justice, human dignity, and the unequal distribution of resources. Jesus tells of a landowner who repeatedly goes into the marketplace to hire workers, some at dawn, others at nine, noon, three, and finally five in the afternoon. At the end of the day, everyone receives the same wage, and those who worked all day complain that those who worked only one hour have been treated as equals.
The crucial detail is that the workers hired later were not necessarily lazy. They had been standing in the marketplace because no one had hired them yet. Their inability to work was not a personal failure; it was the result of an economic system in which their ability to survive depended on someone else giving them an opportunity. For a day laborer, one unemployed day could mean an empty table for the family. So the landowner’s decision to pay them a full day’s wage provides more than mere generosity. It also provides the workers with economic dignity and ensures that their families will have what they need to live.
This parable challenges the idea that justice means giving people exactly what they have earned according to a narrow calculation of productivity. The workers who labored all day believe fairness requires them to receive more than those who worked less. But the landowner responds that they have received the wage they had agreed. His generosity to others doesn’t diminish what they have received. Their sense of injustice arises not because they have been deprived, but because someone else has been given an opportunity to live with dignity.
The story also challenges a deeply rooted social assumption that human worth can be measured by economic contribution. Modern societies often distinguish between the “deserving” and “undeserving,” rewarding people for their productivity while blaming those who cannot find work, cannot work, or have been excluded from economic opportunity in any way. Jesus’ parable turns that logic upside down.
The landowner asks the early workers, “Are you envious because I am generous?” Can justice be reduced to competition over scarce resources? If everyone has enough, must someone else have less?
The parable ultimately imagines an economy organized around human need rather than human competition. It suggests that justice is not simply about rewarding the strongest participants in an economic system but about ensuring that those who have been left standing in the marketplace are not left without bread.
“The last will be first, and the first will be last” is therefore more than a spiritual slogan. It is a challenge to systems that rank human beings according to their wealth, productivity, status, or privilege. Jesus presents a vision of community in which dignity is not earned by being the most productive person in the room but is something every person deserves.
On a related note, fairness is often described as giving everyone an equal opportunity to compete in our economic system. At first glance, this sounds fair: establish the same rules, open the same doors, and allow each person to succeed according to their ability, effort, and choices. But equal opportunity to compete is not the same thing as justice. A race can have the same starting line and still be profoundly unjust if some runners arrive already carrying burdens that others do not.
A society organized primarily around competition inevitably creates winners and losers. When everyone is told that the rules are fair simply because everyone has been given the same opportunity, that puts responsibility for success and failure almost entirely upon each individual. Those who succeed are celebrated as deserving, while those who struggle are often blamed for not trying hard enough. Yet people do not enter life with equal resources, equal health, equal education, equal safety, equal social connections, or equal freedom from discrimination. Treating unequal circumstances as though they were equal does not produce justice. It often disguises injustice.
In our parable this week, justice asks a different question: What does each person need in order to flourish?
This is not an argument for treating people unequally because some are more valuable than others but precisely the opposite. Every person possesses equal worth, and because they do, justice takes their particular needs seriously. Equality says, “Everyone gets the same.” Justice says, “Everyone matters enough to receive what they need.”
A child who comes to school hungry does not only need the same opportunity to learn as a child who has eaten breakfast. They also need food. A person without access to healthcare does not just need the same opportunity to purchase it as someone with abundant resources. They also need care. A community historically denied investment might finally be given the same invitation to compete for resources. But it may also require restoration and repair.
The vision of justice in our reading this week moves us away from being a society obsessed with winners and losers and toward becoming a community concerned with whether everyone has enough. We would not ask, “Who won?” but, “Who was left behind, and what do they need now?”
The gospel’s vision of justice repeatedly moves in this direction: justice isn’t merely the absence of discrimination at the starting line. It is also the active work of removing barriers, repairing harm, sharing resources, protecting the vulnerable, and creating conditions in which every person can flourish. True justice won’t simply make competition fairer. It challenges the assumption that human flourishing should be a competition at all.
Throughout history, human communities have experimented with economic arrangements that challenge the idea that justice requires everyone to receive the same amount or that everyone should simply compete for resources. Although few historical societies perfectly embodied the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” many developed economic practices in which people contributed what they could offer while community resources were distributed according to what members required.
Some of the earliest examples can be found in traditional communal societies. Many Indigenous communities organized significant portions of economic life around reciprocity, communal responsibility, and shared access to essential resources rather than individual accumulation. Hunting, fishing, farming, childcare, and other forms of labor were frequently understood as contributions to the wellbeing of the whole community. Those who were unable to contribute because of age, illness, or disability were not necessarily regarded as economic failures. Community survival depended upon caring for people through the different stages of life.
Early Christian communities also provide an important historical example. The book of Acts describes believers sharing their possessions and distributing resources so that people within the community received what they needed. The point was not that everyone possessed identical property but that material abundance was used to address material need. Wealth was understood relationally, and having more created an obligation toward those who had less.
Monastic communities later developed another form of economic commonality. Benedictine and other religious communities often held property communally, assigned work according to members’ abilities, and provided food, shelter, healthcare, and other necessities. Individual monks did not generally accumulate wealth as independent competitors. Their labor instead supported a shared life in which the community assumed responsibility for its members.
In the modern era, cooperative movements have offered another important example. Worker cooperatives, mutual-aid societies, and various forms of communal ownership have sought to organize economic life around shared responsibility rather than maximizing individual profit. Members contribute labor, skills, or resources while receiving benefits through collectively established arrangements.
The kibbutzim of Israel provide a particularly notable modern example. Many early kibbutzim practiced communal ownership, shared labor, and collective provision of housing, food, education, and other necessities. While these communities changed considerably over time, their early organization deliberately attempted to replace competitive individualism with economic solidarity.
We shouldn’t romanticize these examples. Each community experienced conflicts, inequalities, exclusions, and practical difficulties. Yet they demonstrate something important: the competitive market is not the only way human beings have organized economic life. Across history, communities have repeatedly recognized that people possess different abilities and also different needs.
Justice, therefore, can mean more than giving everyone an equal chance to compete. It can mean creating an economy in which people’s differing abilities, including whether they can work all day or not, contribute to the common good and the necessities of life are treated as responsibilities we share with one another.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does our reading this week inform your own justice work, 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.
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 Bluesky, 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.
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 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 3 Episode 39: The Last Shall Be First
Matthew 20:1-16
Throughout history, human communities have experimented with economic arrangements that challenge the idea that justice requires everyone to receive the same amount or that everyone should simply compete for resources. Although few historical societies perfectly embodied the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” many developed economic practices in which people contributed what they could offer while community resources were distributed according to what members required. Our reading this week challenges the idea that justice means giving people exactly what they have earned according to a narrow calculation of productivity. It doesn’t ask who is deserving or undeserving. It’s asks, “Who got left behind? And what do they need to also thrive?”
Available on major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/the-last-shall-be-first
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Liberation Shared
We want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you who supports the work of Renewed Heart Ministries. Your generosity makes it possible for us to continue our mission of love, justice, and compassion, even in a time when ministries like ours are being called to do more with less.
Your support means the world to us. Whether we’re speaking into the broader society, engaging within our faith communities, or working one on one alongside others endeavoring to follow Jesus’ teachings of love and justice, we remain committed to advocating for a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for all. Your partnership helps keep our work alive.
To all of our supporters, from all of us at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you. We are so deeply grateful for you, and we couldn’t do this work without you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Liberation Shared
Herb Montgomery | September 11, 2026
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 Matthew:
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” (Matthew 18:21-34)
Our reading this week begins with Jesus’ instruction to forgive “seventy-seven times” (sometimes translated “seventy times seven” or 490 times). This teaching is often understood as being about unlimited personal forgiveness. Yet within the larger context of Jesus’ ministry, the command can also be read as a radical challenge to social patterns that allow resentment, retaliation, exclusion, and cycles of violence to define human relationships. Jesus is not simply asking individuals to be more patient with one another; he is imagining a community organized around restoration rather than revenge.
The teaching comes in response to Peter’s question about how many times one should forgive someone who repeatedly sins against them. Peter’s suggestion of seven times already sounds generous, but Jesus dramatically expands the number. His point is not that forgiveness has a mathematical limit. Traditional interpretations of this passage teach that forgiveness is to become our way of life: that we should refuse to keep a ledger of offenses and reject the assumption that every injury must be repaid.
I want to consider this passage instead through the lens of justice work. Societies often preserve injustice through cycles of punishment and retaliation. Individuals and communities remember wounds, inherit grievances, and pass anger from one generation to another. Political and religious systems can even use these grievances to justify exclusion, domination, and violence. Jesus’ teaching has the potential to interrupt that cycle by insisting that the future does not have to be controlled by the injuries of the past.
But, most importantly, forgiveness should never be confused with ignoring injustice, excusing abuse, or demanding that victims simply endure continued harm. We can understand Jesus’ forgiveness instead as refusing to allow wrongdoing to have the final word. We can create possibilities for accountability, reconciliation, and transformation without making vengeance the foundation of communal life.
In this sense, Jesus’ command to forgive seventy-seven times is also profoundly political. It calls communities to imagine justice not as mere punishment for wrongdoing but as restoration of relationships and creation of conditions in which people can change. Forgiveness becomes an act of resistance against cycles of hatred and retaliation, and it includes a commitment to a different kind of social order, one grounded in mercy, dignity, reconciliation, and hope.
A word of caution about forgiveness is necessary here. Forgiveness can be a profound act of healing, but requiring forgiveness and reconciliation from those who have been harmed without first providing restitution, accountability, or reparations can itself become a form of oppression.
When religious communities or even our larger society tell victims to “forgive and move on” while perpetrators retain their power, wealth, status, or privilege, forgiveness is no longer freely chosen. It becomes a demand placed on the wounded for the comfort of those who caused or benefited from their harm.
Reconciliation without justice can preserve the very conditions that produced injustice. If stolen property is not returned, if exploited communities receive no restoration or reparations, if institutions responsible for discrimination face no accountability, and if those who suffered are expected simply to forgive, then reconciliation can become a mechanism for erasing history rather than repairing it. This kind of reconciliation asks the injured to bear the continuing consequences of wrongdoing while relieving the wrongdoer of the responsibility to make things right.
But true reconciliation requires more than an emotional transformation in the victim. It also requires transformation of relationships, structures, and material conditions. Apologies matter, but an apology without changed behavior is empty rhetoric. Confession matters, but confession without accountability is another way of avoiding responsibility. And forgiveness may eventually be possible, but it cannot be demanded as the price of being heard or respected.
There is a profound difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. A person may forgive while still maintaining boundaries, demanding justice, or refusing to restore a relationship that is still unsafe or exploitative. Reconciliation requires mutual participation. It cannot be created unilaterally by asking the harmed person to surrender their legitimate claims.
So justice asks a prior question first: What must be repaired? Restitution, reparations, truth-telling, accountability, institutional change, and the restoration of dignity may all be necessary before reconciliation can become genuine.
Forgiveness should be an act of freedom, not another burden imposed upon the oppressed. When we demand forgiveness without justice, the language of reconciliation can become one more tool by which the powerful ask the wounded to absorb the cost of their wrongdoing.
In our reading, though, Jesus tells a story about a king and a servant who owes an enormous debt. This story is not simply a lesson about personal forgiveness. It is a powerful critique of economic injustice, unequal power, and a social order in which debt can become a weapon against human dignity.
The first servant owes the king an amount so enormous that repayment is essentially impossible. His debt has placed his entire family at risk: the king orders that the servant, his wife, his children, and everything he owns be sold. This is what happens when financial obligation is valued above human life: people become less important than their debts. Jesus’ story exposes the cruelty of an economic system in which poverty is treated as a moral failure and indebted people are punished rather than restored.
The king, however, does something radical. He cancels the man’s debt. He does not merely reduce the payment or extend the deadline. He releases the servant completely from an obligation he could never have realistically repaid. Mercy breaks the power of debt. The king embraces a kind of Jubilee for this debtor.
But the story takes a disturbing turn. The same servant who has been liberated from an un-payable debt encounters someone who owes him a much smaller amount. Instead of extending the mercy he has received, he grabs the man, demands payment from him, and has him imprisoned. The contrast is intentional. The servant has experienced liberation but refuses to become an agent of liberation for anyone else.
Jesus therefore exposes a profound injustice: those who have been forgiven by systems of power can sometimes become defenders of those same systems after gaining a little power themselves. In the story, the servant moves from victim to oppressor. His experience of mercy does not transform him because he understands mercy as something only he deserves, not as something he owes to others.
The outrage of the other servants is equally important. They see the injustice and refuse to remain silent, and they report what happened to the king. Social justice requires more than private compassion; it also requires communities willing to recognize exploitation, name it, and confront it.
The story challenges the idea that forgiveness means allowing injustice to continue. The servant who refuses mercy is held accountable because forgiveness does not erase the responsibility to confront exploitation. Indeed, as the story suggests, mercy and accountability belong together. The king’s cancellation of the first debt creates an expectation that the recipient will participate in a community governed by mercy rather than domination.
Jesus concludes by calling his followers to forgive “from your heart.” In a justice reading, this means refusing to reproduce systems of punishment, humiliation, and exclusion against those who are vulnerable. It means recognizing that human beings are more valuable than what they owe.
The deeper challenge of the parable is therefore not simply, “Can you forgive someone who hurt you?” This parable asks us: What kind of society will you help create because you have experienced mercy? Will you use whatever power you possess to collect debts, enforce punishment, and preserve hierarchy? Or will you use it to release people from burdens they cannot bear?
Jesus’ kingdom is a community where mercy interrupts the machinery of debt, where human dignity is greater than financial obligation, and where liberation received becomes liberation shared.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does our reading this week inform your own justice work, 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.
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 Bluesky, 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.
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 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 3 Episode 38: Liberation Shared
Matthew 18:21-34
The story challenges the idea that forgiveness means allowing injustice to continue. The servant who refuses mercy is held accountable because forgiveness does not erase the responsibility to confront exploitation. Indeed, as the story suggests, mercy and accountability belong together. The king’s cancellation of the first debt creates an expectation that the recipient will participate in a community governed by mercy rather than domination. Jesus’ kingdom is a community where mercy interrupts the machinery of debt, where human dignity is greater than financial obligation, and where liberation received becomes liberation shared.
Available on major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/liberation-shared
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
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Free Sign Up Here
Working Together for Liberation and Justice
We want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you who supports the work of Renewed Heart Ministries. Your generosity makes it possible for us to continue our mission of love, justice, and compassion, even in a time when ministries like ours are being called to do more with less.
Your support means the world to us. Whether we’re speaking into the broader society, engaging within our faith communities, or working one on one alongside others endeavoring to follow Jesus’ teachings of love and justice, we remain committed to advocating for a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for all. Your partnership helps keep our work alive.
To all of our supporters, from all of us at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you. We are so deeply grateful for you, and we couldn’t do this work without you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Working Together for Liberation and Justice
Herb Montgomery | September 4, 2026
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 Matthew:
“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a gentile or a tax collector.
“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” (Matthew 18:15-20)
Our reading this week includes early Christian teaching about confronting someone who has wronged another. It offers insight into this early Jesus community: the community is grounded not primarily in punishment but in accountability, restoration, and community. “If your [sibling] sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you.” The first response to wrongdoing is not public humiliation, gossip, retaliation, or exclusion. It is direct conversation. This establishes an important principle: people should be held accountable for harm, but accountability should seek to restore relationships and human dignity rather than simply punish.
The private nature of the first confrontation is especially significant. Public accusation can become a form of social violence, turning a person’s mistake into a permanent identity. Jesus instead encourages a process that gives the person an opportunity to listen, understand the harm, and change. Justice begins with the possibility of transformation. The goal is explicitly relational: “You have won them over.” The language suggests that justice is not merely about determining who is right and who is wrong; it is about recovering people and repairing community.
If the person refuses to listen, Jesus proposes bringing “one or two others” into the process. This introduces another important dimension of justice: testimony and accountability should not depend solely upon the power or perspective of one individual. Others are brought into the process so that “every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” In a healthy community, truth should be pursued through evidence, multiple perspectives, and responsible discernment rather than through rumor, accusation, or mob judgment.
The final step of bringing the matter before the collective group of Jesus followers makes accountability a communal responsibility. This third step implies that the original wrong was not a private, individual matter. This was a wrongdoing that damaged other people or the integrity of the community. Communities have an obligation to confront injustice rather than protect powerful people, preserve institutional reputation, or remain silent for the sake of comfort. Our reading this week challenges communities to develop structures in which harm can be named and addressed.
The final instruction, “Treat them as you would a gentile or a tax collector” creates a tension within the passage. On one level, it describes excluding someone from the community when they persistently refuses accountability. Social justice sometimes requires boundaries when continued behavior causes harm. Forgiveness does not mean enabling abuse, and reconciliation cannot be genuine without accountability.
At the same time, Matthew’s Gospel complicates any interpretation of exclusion as permanent rejection. Jesus repeatedly associates with tax collectors and outsiders, including those whom respectable society considers morally or socially unacceptable. Consequently, treating someone as an outsider should not mean treating them as less than human. Even in separation, we must hold space for the possibility of change and restoration.
Our reading this week presents collective justice as a process: confrontation before condemnation, testimony before accusation, community discernment before exclusion, and restoration before revenge. It challenges both individuals and institutions to resist the easy satisfactions of shame and punishment. True justice tells the truth about harm while still believing that people can change. It centers victims, protecting those who have been harmed without abandoning the possibility of redemption for those who have caused harm. In this sense, Jesus offers a vision of justice in which accountability and compassion are not opposites but are partners in building a healthier, more just, compassionate, and safe community with the hope of laying the same foundation for larger society as well.
Next, Jesus makes the statement, “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” These words place remarkable responsibility in the hands of the community, and there is a risk they might be coopted. These words are not primarily about supernatural power or individual religious authority. They instead concern communities’ ethical responsibility to decide what relationships, practices, and systems will be upheld or released. Jesus presents the community as an active participant in creating the kind of world that reflects Love’s purposes.
The language of “binding” and “loosing” had important Jewish roots, referring to making authoritative decisions about what was permitted or prohibited and how people should live together. In our reading this week, however, these words occur within Jesus’ teaching about conflict, reconciliation, accountability, forgiveness, and recovering those who have been harmed or excluded. The surrounding context suggests that authority is not given for domination. It is given instead for restoration.
This distinction is essential to restorative justice. “Binding” can mean holding people and communities accountable to standards of justice. It can also mean refusing to tolerate exploitation, abuse, discrimination, or practices that diminish human dignity. A community can bind itself to principles of compassion, equality, truth, and mutual responsibility. Conversely, “loosing” can mean releasing people from conditions that imprison them: shame, exclusion, poverty, oppressive expectations, cycles of retaliation, or systems that deny them a meaningful place within the community.
Jesus is offering an alternative to using authority as a tool to control other people. The purpose of this communal authority is to repair relationships and protect human dignity. Decisions made by a community have consequences, and Jesus insists that such decisions matter before the Divine. This means that “heaven” is not disconnected from the moral choices human beings make here on earth.
These words also include a warning. If human decisions are understood as having heavenly significance, communities must exercise authority with extraordinary humility. This verse cannot legitimately become a blank check for religious leaders to declare their own preferences to be the will of the Divine. When authority becomes a tool for silencing vulnerable people, protecting privilege, or punishing dissent, it contradicts the restorative purpose of Jesus’ teaching.
The significance of “binding and loosing” is therefore found in the community’s responsibility to discern what must be resisted and what must be released. Communities are called to bind themselves to justice and loose themselves from injustice. They are called to bind themselves to solidarity with the vulnerable and loose themselves from indifference, to bind themselves to truth and loose themselves from systems of deception and oppression.
Jesus’ words ultimately suggest that the work of justice is not merely about changing private beliefs. It is also about making concrete decisions about how people will treat one another. What a community permits, prohibits, forgives, confronts, protects, or releases becomes an expression of its understanding of the Divine.
“Whatever you bind” and “whatever you loose” can therefore be heard as a summons to moral responsibility. As humans, we participate in shaping the social world, and our choices matter. Jesus’ “kingdom of God” is not simply something awaited in heaven; it is something communities are called to embody on earth through justice, reconciliation, accountability, compassion, and liberation.
Lastly this week, we read words that I believe the author of Matthew’s Gospel intended to be a source of hope, justice, and transformation. “If two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for” is not simply a promise that we will get whatever we desire. Within the context of the rest of Matthew 18 where Jesus has been speaking about confronting wrongdoing, reconciliation, accountability, and restoring relationships, these words point toward the power of people joining together to seek what is right.
Jesus’ words, “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them,” likely echo a Jewish tradition that emphasized God’s presence when people gathered together to study Torah. Rabbinic tradition later preserved this idea explicitly: when two people sit together and engage with the words of Torah, the Divine presence is understood to be among them. Matthew’s formulation resonates with that cultural world but sharpens its focus toward justice. The significance is therefore communal: sacred authority is not confined to priests, rulers, or institutions. When ordinary people gather in Jesus’ name to discern truth, seek justice, reconcile relationships, and challenge oppression, they become a community where Jesus is present.
Societal justice is not achieved by isolated individuals. But when people come together in solidarity, they can challenge systems of exploitation, discrimination, poverty, and oppression that are too powerful for one person to confront alone. Agreement becomes meaningful when rooted in a shared commitment to human dignity and the common good.
Jesus’ declaration, “Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them”, also challenges the assumption that change happens primarily through powerful institutions or large gatherings. Change can begin with the collective efforts of merely two or three. As the saying goes, usually attributed to Margaret Mead, “Never Doubt That a Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens Can Change the World; Indeed, It’s the Only Thing That Ever Has.”
Our reading this week offers both encouragement and responsibility. When Christians unite around justice, their collective voice matters. Their gathering becomes an expression of Jesus’ presence in our world today. Wherever people today stand together against oppression and work toward reconciliation, they still embody the liberating community that Jesus envisioned and taught his followers to build.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does our reading this week inform your own justice work, 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.
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 Bluesky, 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.
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 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 3 Episode 37: Working Together for Liberation and Justice
Matthew 18:15-20
Our reading this week presents collective justice as a process: confrontation before condemnation, testimony before accusation, community discernment before exclusion, and restoration before revenge. It challenges both individuals and institutions to resist the easy satisfactions of shame and punishment. True justice tells the truth about harm while still believing that people can change. It centers victims, protecting those who have been harmed without abandoning the possibility of redemption for those who have caused harm. In this sense, Jesus offers a vision of justice in which accountability and compassion are not opposites but are partners in building a healthier, more just, compassionate, and safe community with the hope of laying the same foundation for larger society as well.
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/working-together-for-liberation-and-justice
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
When Solidarity Comes with a Personal Cost
We want to take a moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to each and every one of you who supports the work of Renewed Heart Ministries. Your generosity makes it possible for us to continue our mission of love, justice, and compassion, even in a time when ministries like ours are being called to do more with less.
Your support means the world to us. Whether we’re speaking into the broader society, engaging within our faith communities, or working one on one alongside others endeavoring to follow Jesus’ teachings of love and justice, we remain committed to advocating for a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for all. Your partnership helps keep our work alive.
To all of our supporters, from all of us at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you. We are so deeply grateful for you, and we couldn’t do this work without you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
When Solidarity Comes with a Personal Cost
Herb Montgomery | August 28, 2026
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 Matthew:
(Matthew 16:21-28)
From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Matthew 16:21-28)
Our reading this week begins with Jesus telling his disciples that “he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law.” This statement carries a message for Jesus followers today who are working to make our world a more equitable, just, safe home for everyone. Jesus’ statement locates his suffering within structures of religious, economic, and political power. He is not simply predicting a tragic personal fate. He is identifying what can happen when someone challenges institutions that protect their authority at the expense of vulnerable people.
Jerusalem represents the center of religious, economic, and political power. The elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law were among those who possessed significant authority in Jewish society. Matthew’s account portrays Jesus as confronting systems that could become more concerned with maintaining order, status, control, power, privilege, property, and wealth than with justice, equity, compassion, and human dignity. Jesus’ message of the kingdom challenged arrangements in which some people were excluded, burdened, or treated as less important.
Jesus’ willingness to go to Jerusalem therefore represents a commitment to those being hurt by injustice even when that commitment creates a personal cost. He does not turn away simply because speaking truth may provoke opposition. His suffering exposes the violence that can be directed against those who challenge entrenched power. In this sense, the cross becomes much more than a religious symbol. It is also a revelation of what unjust systems can do to people who refuse to remain silent.
The statement that Jesus will be “raised to life” is equally important. However one interprets the resurrection narratives in the Gospels, resurrection itself declares that oppression and violence don’t have the final word. The powers that seek to silence Jesus cannot ultimately destroy the vision of justice and liberation that he embodies.
For Jesus followers today, this passage calls for solidarity with people who experience injustice and with those who risk their comfort, security, or status to confront it. Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem suggests that discipleship is not merely about personal belief or assurance after death. Instead it is about courageously standing for human dignity, challenging systems that harm people, and trusting that love and justice can ultimately overcome the forces that seek to suppress them.
Next in our reading we meet Peter. Peter’s response to Jesus can be understood as more than an expression of personal affection. Peter rejects Jesus’ announcement that he must suffer, be rejected by the powerful, and be killed. His words reflect a very human desire to protect a beloved leader from violence. Yet Jesus responds sharply: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me.” The exchange raises an important question: What happens when our desire to protect ourselves or those we love prevents us from confronting injustice?
Peter appears to imagine that Jesus should overcome suffering because of his solidarity with the oppressed rather than having to endure it. Peter also narratively represents a hope common in Jesus’ society for a liberation figure who would defeat oppressive powers and restore Israel. Jesus, however, presents a different vision of liberation: he doesn’t embrace domination as the answer to domination, and his kingdom doesn’t seek to become another version of imperial power. Instead, Jesus identifies himself with those who suffer under systems of political and religious power and don’t have access to imperial power. Those not in power often have different tools by necessity, and this helps us make better sense of Jesus’ response.
Jesus’ accusation that Peter has “merely human concerns” can be read as a critique of change methods organized around power, privilege, security, and self-preservation. “Human concerns” are not necessarily evil but become problematic when safety and protecting one’s status matter more than justice, compassion, and faithfulness to those who are vulnerable.
The word “Satan,” meaning adversary or accuser, is especially significant. Peter becomes a “stumbling block” to Jesus because his resistance to Jesus’ path could divert Jesus from confronting the structures that produce suffering. Justice work sometimes requires accepting discomfort, risk, and sacrifice rather than choosing the easier path of protecting ourselves from conflict.
So this passage challenges Jesus followers to examine whether they seek a comfortable religion or a transformative faith. Jesus calls his followers beyond the instinct to preserve power and privilege, and his response to Peter insists that genuine discipleship requires solidarity with suffering people and a willingness to confront injustice, even when doing so includes a personal cost.
A critique of harmful traditional interpretations of Jesus’ next words in our reading can challenge the assumption that losing one’s life is necessarily the highest expression of faithfulness: “Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it” has often been interpreted as a call to self-denial, sacrifice, and even death. Yet, such an interpretation deserves careful examination, especially because many people, women specifically, have historically been taught that love means giving themselves away, enduring suffering, putting others first, or sacrificing their own needs for the sake of family, community, or religious ideals.
Jesus’ taking up the cross does not have to mean choosing death. Indeed, the cross represents a system of political and religious violence that sought to destroy life. Jesus does not glorify the violence done to him but confronts it by refusing to surrender the truth, dignity, and life he embodies. His journey toward Jerusalem can be understood not as a desire for death but as a refusal to let oppression determine the meaning of his life.
From this perspective, “losing one’s life” can mean refusing to live according to the values of domination, exploitation, and fear. It does not necessarily mean abandoning the value of one’s self. Faithfulness requires precisely the opposite: holding tightly to the gift of life and refusing to surrender it to those who would diminish, control, or destroy it. Jesus didn’t choose death. He refused to let go of his hold on life even when threatened with death if he did not do so. Death does not bring life. Life brings life.
We do not need more religious messages telling us that our worth is found in self-sacrifice. Love does not require self-erasure. Compassion does not demand surrendering one’s dignity. Caring for others should not mean abandoning oneself. Again, death does not bring life simply because suffering has been endured. Life brings life when people protect it, nurture it, and refuse to let go of it. In the Jesus story, God does not triumph over injustice, violence and death using more violent death, even just one more death. God overcomes death through reversing, undoing, and triumphing over Jesus’ violent death through resurrecting life. Jesus’ words in our reading this week can be understood as an invitation to hold on to the self, to dignity, to justice, and to life itself. To follow Jesus is not necessarily to seek the cross, but to resist the forces that make crosses inevitable. So the cross only becomes a part of following Jesus when unjust systems threaten us with a cross like they threatened Jesus. It is in those moments of threat from unjust systems that we paradoxically find our life through refusing to let go of life and what is right even when there is a risk of consequences for doing so. Sometimes the most courageous act of discipleship is loving oneself enough to refuse to let go of life.
In this context, Jesus’ words, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”, offer a powerful critique of a society that measures success by wealth, power, possessions, and status. Jesus’ words challenge the assumption that gaining more necessarily means living better, and they also ask us, when faced with a kind of bribery to be silent about injustice, at what cost are we choosing to stay silent? We may gain the world but lose touch with our humanity. What does going along to get along cost a person on an inner level? A person may accumulate enormous wealth and influence while becoming spiritually, morally and/or ethically impoverished.
These words also question systems that allow some people to “gain the whole world” while others are deprived of food, housing, dignity, opportunity, and security. Wealth gained through exploitation, oppression, the suffering of others, or even through merely remaining silent about such comes at the cost of the soul. Jesus therefore shifts the question from “How much can I acquire?” to “What kind of person am I becoming, and what is the cost of my success to my inner self and others?”
The “soul” represents more than private spirituality. It points toward the deepest center of human identity, conscience, compassion, and relationship with others. To forfeit one’s soul is to lose the capacity to recognize another person’s humanity and even lose connection with our own. Jesus’ teaching calls us to reject a culture of material gain through injustice, and seek a society shaped by justice, compassion, solidarity, and human dignity instead. The truly valuable life is not the one that possesses the most, but the one that refuses to gain at another person’s expense.
Lastly this week, Jesus’ words, “For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels,” evoke the powerful imagery of Daniel 7, where the “Son of Man” appears as a human figure receiving authority from God after oppressive beasts representing unjust and violent empires parade through the scene. In Jesus’ first-century context, this imagery could resonate with Jewish hopes for liberation from Roman domination and the restoration of justice. The Son of Man represents an alternative to imperial power: authority grounded not in violence, conquest, or exploitation but in justice and compassion. Jesus’ language therefore speaks to hope that unjust empires will not be the final word in Earth’s history. And that is a hope that each of us alive today can lean into.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does our reading this week inform your own justice work, 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.
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 Bluesky, 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.
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 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 3 Episode 36: When Solidarity Comes with a Personal Cost
Matthew 16:21-28
The question has to be asked, “At what cost? What kind of person am I becoming?” This week’s reading points toward the deepest center of human identity, conscience, compassion, and relationship with others. To forfeit one’s soul is to lose the capacity to recognize another person’s humanity and even lose connection with our own. Jesus’ teaching calls us to reject a culture of material gain through injustice, and seek a society shaped by justice, compassion, solidarity, and human dignity instead. The truly valuable life is not the one that possesses the most, but the one that refuses to gain at another person’s expense.
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/when-solidarity-comes-with-a-personal-cost
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
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