Social Repentance Not Private Piety
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Social Repentance Not Private Piety
Herb Montgomery; March 22, 2025
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 Luke:
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’” (Luke 13:1-9)
This time of year is the season of Lent for many Christians. Lent centers on the theme of repentance, and our reading this week is one where Jesus is calling his listeners to repentance. This year, I’d like to offer a broader way to consider Jesus’ teachings on repentance in Luke.
First, Jesus isn’t speaking about personal, individual, or private repentance for individual misdeeds in this reading. He’s speaking, like the Hebrew prophets of old, of social repentance.
The context of our reading this week is that Jesus has been critiquing the elites and powerful for their complicity with the Roman Empire. Rome’s way of extracting loyalty and resources from client regions like Galilee and Judea had a devastating economic effect on Jesus’ society. A few who were already rich but were also well connected became even richer, at the expense of the masses. Some of the wealthy who weren’t so well connected lost their wealth, and became indentured servants on the land they used to own. As those who were wealthy became richer, the poor, as is often the case, became poorer.
In our reading this week, some objected to Jesus’ critique of complicity with the Roman Empire. After all, who can stand up to Rome? Rome’s response to any noncooperation or rebellion was brutal. A little background history about resistance movements before and after Jesus is necessary here.
One insurrectionist, Judas the Galilean (Acts 5:27), led a insurrection in 6 C.E. To prepare for whatever rebellious action they were going to attempt, those involved would often reject Roman allegiance by gathering to offer sacrifices to God and God alone. Judas the Galilean proclaimed the Jewish state, independent, recognizing God alone as their king and ruler and the Torah as first and foremost. He led a rebellion in Sepphoris that the Roman army put down with harsh brutality, crucifying over 2,000 Jewish rebels in the streets. The army then burned Sepphoris to the ground and enslaved the remaining residents.
Rome didn’t slaughter these people simply because they were offering sacrifices. They were slaughtered because their sacrifices were in preparation for an insurrection against the empire. In Luke, this case from Galilee is raised to object to Jesus’ call to embrace his “kingdom of God” rather than the empire of Rome. In the face of such brutality, what can we do?
The second case in this passage is about Judea, specifically Jerusalem and the tower of Siloam. This example is much more cryptic. We have no historical accounts about the falling of this tower, but do know that it was connected to aqueducts that fed the pool of Siloam (John 9:7). We also know that there were many Roman soldiers stationed in Jerusalem at that time. Were the people the tower fell on using the aqueducts to stage a rebellion? We know that some insurrectionists tried to use the aqueducts that way during the siege of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. Or was the tower a storage place for military weapons? Was this case another insurrection gone horrible wrong with the tower collapsing on top of them? Honestly, we do not know, we may never know, and I’m always reluctant to make arguments from silence. What we do know is that Luke’s Jesus connects the falling of this tower to the insurrection named in Galilee for some reason. The tower in Siloam was connected thematically somehow.
In the wake of every insurrectionist attempt, Rome’s propaganda machine was quick to defend the Pax Romana. It always presented a narrative where those slaughtered were enemies of the republic. Their death was necessary and a brutal warning to anyone considering the same.
This may be why Jesus asks whether the people who died were really worse “sinners?” No, he explains. They were just like everyone else. They simply had had enough and were attempting to liberate themselves from oppression. They were just as innocent as others Rome had massacred. But then Jesus turns the focus back on those raising the examples.
Rome’s violence was indiscriminate. Rome could and would to do the same to others, to them, unless they made a social course correction. Remember, Luke was written after the events of 70 C.E. It was an effort to explain how things could have escalated to such deep levels of devastation for the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Luke is working backwards in this passage. Rome razed the Temple to the ground in 70 C.E. in response to the Jewish Roman War (66-69 C.E.). The Jewish Roman war had evolved out of the success of Poor People’s Revolt in Jerusalem in the late 60s, and the Poor People’s Revolt was a response to the systemic economic exploitation that Jesus called the elites of his day to repent of.
The point of all of this is that simply that systems of injustice are never sustainable for the long term. At some point, there is whiplash and too often that whiplash is violent and innocent people suffer as a result.
How might this apply to us today?
Here in the U.S., we are witnessing the gutting of programs that help our society’s most vulnerable. All of this is so that, under the guise of concern for the national deficit, those in power can grant tax cuts to the billionaire class who are already wealthy beyond their ability to use their wealth in one lifetime. This is compounded by the fact that all of these new budget proposals will still increase the national deficit by trillions of dollars. For the common person in our communities, prices on daily needs continue to rise, wages remain low, and thousands upon thousands of people are losing their jobs through massive firings and layoffs, with new firings being announced almost every day. Where will our breaking point be?
Our reading this week calls us to pause during our season of repentance in this year’s Lent. Lenten repentance can be superficial and temporary or long-lasting, deep, and life-giving.
What our reading this week is calling us to consider is the concrete reality that many are experiencing right now around us. Our seasons of repentance should not be limited to personal piety that leaves those whom our system is harming still hurting. Repentance is about course correction. This year, our season of repentance should be more broadly themed than private, personal, or individual course corrections. What about a social course correction? What about an about-face where we pursue a society where everyone is taken care of and there are no more losers so someone else wins, but we instead have a society where everyone benefits and everyone wins? Let’s shape a society that becomes a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone, where the last are first and the first are last because everyone has what they need to thrive.
Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke? (Isaiah 58:5-6)
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. From your perspective, what are some examples of social repentance we are in desperate need of 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.
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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.
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You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking.
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Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 3, Episode 6: LukeSeason 3, Episode 7: Luke 13.1-9. Lectionary C, Lent 313.31-35. Lectionary C, Lent 2
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 2 Episode 12: Social Repentance Not Private Piety
Luke 13:1-9
Here in the U.S., we are witnessing the gutting of programs that help our society’s most vulnerable. All of this is so that, under the guise of concern for the national deficit, those in power can grant tax cuts to the billionaire class who are already wealthy beyond their ability to use their wealth in one lifetime. This is compounded by the fact that all of these new budget proposals will still increase the national deficit by trillions of dollars. For the common person in our communities, prices on daily needs continue to rise, wages remain low, and thousands upon thousands of people are losing their jobs through massive firings and layoffs, with new firings being announced almost every day. Where will our breaking point be? Our reading this week calls us to pause during our season of repentance in this year’s Lent. Lenten repentance can be superficial and temporary or long-lasting, deep, and life-giving.
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/social-repentance-not-private-piety
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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