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.
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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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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.
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