The Harmful Myth of Redemptive Death
Now Available on Amazon!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 2, Episode 4: John 12.20-33. Lectionary B, Lent 5
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
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Season 2, Episode 4: John 12.20-33. Lectionary B, Lent 5
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The Harmful Myth of Redemptive Death
Herb Montgomery, March 15, 2024
“Truth can overcome falsehood, life can triumph over the death-dealing agents of our world, love can conquer hate, and, in the end, it may look differently than we expected, yet we can choose for justice, love and life to have the last word. No matter how hopeless the present moment, our story isn’t over yet.”
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
Our reading this week is from the gospel of John:
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.
“Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him.
Jesus said, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die. (John 12:20-33)
We continue in the gospel of John this week. Our passage, once again, has a problematic history of justifying death or abuse for those in disadvantaged or marginalized social locations or in predatory personal relationships. We must be careful and intentional not to perpetuate that harm (see God So Loved the World?). We’ll consider this further in a moment.
First, remember this is the last gospel to be written among those in our sacred canon. And it was written very late, almost a century removed from the events it writes about. This version of the Jesus story that was written by the Johannine community is radically different from the others as well. The few stories that it has in common with Mark, Matthew and Luke have different spins, different emphases, and different interpreted lessons (see Differences in John and Why They Matter).
In the other gospels, Jesus is executed by the state for speaking truth to power about the harm being done to the marginalized in his society. His protest culminates in his flipping the tables in the temple courtyard. In John’s gospel, this event has nothing to do with Jesus’ execution. Even the emphasis subtly changes. It’s no longer referred to with the overtones of a imperial execution for politically threatening the Pax Romana. Now its simply a “death” or “dying.” It’s referred to not as being crucified on a Roman cross, but, more opaquely, as being “lifted up.” The emphasis, unlike the synoptics, is not so much on the redemptive resurrection of Jesus as it is undoing, overturning, and reversing everything accomplished through Jesus’ crucifixion. The emphasis is on Jesus’ dying itself, and that death becomes redemptive.
In Mark, the Markan community was trying to make sense out of Jesus’ execution. In their telling, Jesus must be crucified and resurrected. In fact, the only reason Jesus is allowed to be crucified is so that he can be resurrected. By the time we get to John’s telling, though, Jesus must simply die. Everything is accomplished through the dying. The resurrection is simply a mysterious afterward but all redemptive accomplishment is done through his dying.
These are not insignificant theological difference between the gospels. These theologies have produced very different results in the lives of Jesus communities that emphasize one or the other.
I want to say one brief word about this shift in John. Even when Jesus’ death becomes redemptive in the Johaninne Jesus community, this death is never punitive or at the hands of God. Jesus doesn’t die as our substitute in John. Even though Jesus’ death is redemptive in that gospel, it doesn’t fit very easily within Western Christian penal substitutionary theology. It fits more easily in other atonement theories that have been held by Christians throughout history, especially the Christus Victor paradigm (“now the prince of this world will be driven out.”) and the Moral Influence paradigm (when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself). But John’s gospel never says that Jesus’ death is to satisfy justice or a God that needs someone to stand in the gap and be punished for everyone else. That explanation doesn’t show up at all as an explanation to why Jesus (the seed in our reading) must die.
But this doesn’t completely solve the problems. Even if we embrace a different explanation of why Jesus died than penal substitutionary atonement, those other explanations have still produced harmful fruit for people who have subscribed to them.
Let’s talk about the fruit produced by the Christus Victor explanation first. Those who believe Jesus’ death was redemptive too often also interpret their own suffering with similar implications. To explain their own suffering they respond by simply and sometimes lethally being patient in the face of harm. They think something good will come of this rather than see it as an evil that must be stood up to. They then are persuaded to passively endure their suffering and come to believe that God is working through their suffering. Some go so far as to believe that even if they die as a result they are fulfilling some higher divine purpose.
Joanne Brown and Rebecca Parker correctly critique this model:
“Such a theology has devastating effects on human life. The reality is that victimization never leads to triumph. It can lead to extended pain if it is not refused or fought. It can lead to destruction of the human spirit through the death of a person’s sense of power, worth, dignity. or creativity. It can lead to actual death. By denying the reality of suffering and death, the Christus Victor theory of the atonement defames all those who suffer and trivializes tragedy.” (God So Loved the World? p. 5)
The moral influence explanation doesn’t fare much better; it’s just as harmful. Again, from the deep and insightful work of Brown and Parker:
“The moral influence theory is founded on the belief that an innocent, suffering victim and only an innocent, suffering victim for whose suffering we are in some way responsible has the power to confront us with our guilt and move us to a new decision. This belief has subtle and terrifying connections as to how victims of violence can be viewed.” (God So Loved the World? p. 9)
In our work of trying to effect social change in response to social racism, classism, sexism, cis-heterosexism, or other systems, the moral influence theory has too often been peddled as a method: we suffer for the purpose of changing the hearts and minds of our oppressors or abusers. In this paradigm, victimization is “lifted up” as an agent that, if patiently endured, will persuade those responsible for our harm to embrace justice instead. Our suffering, if patiently endured, can change them. This is very destructive. It prioritizes the oppressor’s or abuser’s need for redemption over and above the rights of those who are genuinely, concretely, being harmed, included in losing their most basic right: to simply exist and live.
Viewing Jesus’ death as redemptive, no matter how you explain that redemption, has historically proven harmful for those who apply that theology to their own suffering, abuse, and injustice.
This is my most serious concern with the gospel of John. It is very different from the other gospels, and these differences are not always benign. The shift away from a redemptive resurrection to the salvific agent being Jesus’ cross alone may sound good at an emotionally tugging altar call. But when we try to live this theology, we need something better.
This is why I favor Mark, Matthew’s and Luke’s attempts to explain Jesus’ execution over the Johannine community’s explanation. The goal in John’s gospel is always Jesus getting to the cross. But in the synoptics, the goal of Jesus’ death is getting past the cross to the resurrection. This difference matters to me. For me, it has serious life or death implications for those who are choosing how to relate to their own suffering or how to navigate the injustices they face.
I’ll close this week with words I shared a couple weeks ago, of Dr. Katie Cannon in the foreword of the 20th anniversary edition of Dr. Delores Williams classic Sisters in the Wilderness:
“Theologians need to think seriously about the real-life consequences of redemptive suffering, God-talk that equates the acceptance of pain, misery, and abuse as the way for true believers to live as authentic Christian disciples. Those who spew such false teaching and warped preaching must cease and desist.”
For me, the Jesus story is not a story that glorifies death and suffering. It’s not about the cross. It’s a story that communicates how truth can overcome falsehood, life can triumph over the death-dealing agents of our world, love can conquer hate, and, in the end, justice, love and life will have the last word. No matter how hopeless the present moment, our story isn’t over yet.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How do the gospel stories call you resist suffering and injustice? 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.
I want to also say a special thank you this week to Quoir Publishing, Keith Giles who wrote the foreword to my latest book, all the special people on our launch team, and all of you who made this release a success.
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and soon also on Audible in audio book format.
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You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
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.
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The Personal Cost of Causing Division
Herb Montgomery | August 12, 2022
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Our reading this week calls to mind times when we have also had to make decisions about speaking out against things we feel are unjust or harmful and facing division or controversy as a result. How many times have we found ourselves in a situation where doing what we feel is right or speaking out would involve a personal cost?”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.
He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?” (Luke 12:49-56)
The context of this week’s reading is Jesus looking ahead to his arrival at Jerusalem and the demonstration or protest he will engage in there. He will flip the tables of the moneychangers, that protest will cause an uproar, and he will receive pushback that might cost him his life.
A word about the language Luke uses here. The metaphorical imagery of Jesus as a fire starter held different meanings in different versions of the Jesus story. In the gospel of Thomas, for example, fire is something that Jesus kindles and guards till it blazes. This makes fire a good thing that symbolizes the growing Jesus movement itself.
In Luke, however, this rhetoric conjures a more dangerous connotation: social and political conflict. These are the connotations I want to emphasize this week. Jesus’ internal conflict was not with his own Jewishness or his Jewish tradition. He struggled with the economic, political, and social harm he saw being committed against those his society had made vulnerable, and with what he felt he had to do in response.
The language of baptism (immersion) is also a metaphor for the concrete hardship or distress that Jesus’ protest and speaking out could possibly cause. In this passage we are reading of a Jesus who is in distress on one level but also resolute and embracing the reality that he will cause division and the personal cost that will involve. He doesn’t wish to avoid it but rather wishes that it was already over.
It’s also noteworthy that the divisiveness that Jesus is talking about will thoroughly permeate his society’s social structures, all the way to the family unit. The family unit in 1st Century Judea and Galilee was the central economic and social structure of Jesus’ society.
Our reading this week calls to mind times when we have also had to make decisions about speaking out against things we feel are unjust or harmful and facing division or controversy as a result. How many times have we found ourselves in a situation where doing what we feel is right or speaking out would involve a personal cost?
I think of whistleblowers who have to make these difficult decisions.
I think, too, of social truth tellers in religious and nonreligious contexts who suffer personally because they chose to speak truth rather than silently go along with things they knew were harmful.
I don’t quote Leo Tolstoy very often anymore, but this week’s reading reminds me of a statement that I love:
“And therefore you cannot but reflect on your position as landowner, manufacturer, judge, emperor, president, minister, priest, and soldier, which is bound up with violence, deception, and murder, and recognize its unlawfulness. I do not say that if you are a landowner you are bound to give up your lands immediately to the poor; if a capitalist or manufacturer, your money to your workpeople; or that if you are Tzar, minister, official, judge, or general, you are bound to renounce immediately the advantages of your position; or if a soldier, on whom all the system of violence is based, to refuse immediately to obey in spite of all the dangers of insubordination. If you do so, you will be doing the best thing possible. But it may happen, and it is most likely, that you will not have the strength to do so. You have relations, a family, subordinates and superiors; you are under an influence so powerful that you cannot shake it off; but you can always recognize the truth and refuse to tell a lie about it. You need not declare that you are remaining a landowner, manufacturer, merchant, artist, or writer because it is useful to mankind; that you are governor, prosecutor, or tzar, not because it is agreeable to you, because you are used to it, but for the public good; that you continue to be a soldier, not from fear of punishment, but because you consider the army necessary to society. You can always avoid lying in this way to yourself and to others, and you ought to do so; because the one aim of your life ought to be to purify yourself from falsehood and to confess the truth. And you need only do that and your situation will change directly of itself.” (Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, pp. 263-264)
In this week’s reading, Jesus stands within his own Jewish prophetic tradition, where the prophets speak out against the unjust actions of the centered rich and powerful harming the poor and marginalized.
How many times have we been told not to be divisive in our time? There is a time to push for unity, and there is also a time when division is holy, just, and good.
The Hebrew scriptures remind us:
“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)
Yes: there is a time for unity and there is a time for division.
My burden this week is that each of us will have the wisdom to discern the difference, that we will have the wisdom to recognize where calls for silence are coming from. Is it the privileged who are warning us not to rock the boat? Will division be harmful to those we are trying to help, or is the division simply threatening those who are benefiting from an unjust system.
One last word about Luke’s Jesus.
In this week’s passage, Jesus is engaging in resistance and speaking out, not promoting passive endurance of injustice. He is also not choosing to die, as feminist and womanist theologians have explained. (See Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: A Feminist Critique by Brown and Bohn, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk by Williams, and Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us by Parker and Brock.) He’s rather choosing to hold onto a life-giving ethic even when threatened with an unjust execution. He’s answering not whether he is willing to die but how badly does he want to live. For me, these are not semantics. The difference informs how I myself respond to injustice and abuse.
I desire us to have wisdom and also to have courage in these kinds of moments: courage to bear the personal costs we will suffer when we are called to “instigate” division for the sake of what is right.
Our reading concludes with clouds on the horizon and a coming storm. This could reflect Luke’s (and possibly also Matthew’s) beliefs in a coming eschaton (cf. Matthew 16:2-3). It could also indicate that Jesus saw that injustice is not sustainable and that, eventually, societies that benefit a few by harming the masses will break down. When they do break down, it harms us all.
In the end, it’s harm reduction and mitigation that is moving Jesus to speak out. It is the reality of this harm to everyone that outweighs the personal cost he will suffer for speaking out.
What can this week’s story say to you when you, too, are called to speak out?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Share an experience in your own life where you were faced with similar decisions as we see in this week’s reading. How did things turn out? 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.
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
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Taking Up Our Crosses, Injustice, and Abuse
Herb Montgomery | September 10, 2021
[To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast click Episode 388:Taking Up Our Crosses, Injustice, and Abuse]
“Oppressors throughout history have used the concept of ‘taking up one’s cross’ to prioritize themselves over survivors and to encourage oppressed people to passively and patiently endure violence rather than resist . . . This story is, on the other hand, encouraging Jesus’ followers to resist as he did flipping tables in the temple courtyard, even though it resulted in the state violence of a cross.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “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 and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:27-38)
In this week’s reading, we encounter Jesus’ admonition to his followers that they also “take up their cross.” This saying has a long history of religious abuse, so I want to give a word of caution about it.
Years ago now, I was invited to a conference on nonviolence and the atonement. I chose to speak on the violence of interpreting the cross event itself as salvific—how atonement theories that treat the violent death of Jesus as salvific have borne death dealing fruit to oppressed communities and/or those who belong to marginalized communities. I explained how the atonement theory of penal substitution has historically produced various forms of social abuse, and how abuse has also been the fruit of alternative atonement theories such as moral influence theory and Christus Victor.
Oppressors throughout history have used the concept of “taking up one’s cross” to prioritize themselves over survivors and to encourage oppressed people to passively and patiently endure violence rather than resist. This interpretation has proven very convenient for oppressors and those who don’t want to disrupt the power imbalance of the status quo. It also impacts intimate relationships as well. When one spouse suffers physical or emotional abuse at the hands of another, for example, how many times have Christian pastors counseled the abused spouse to “bear their cross,” be “like Jesus,” and simply “turn the other cheek”? I have written at length on other ways to interpret Jesus’ turning of the other cheek as a call to creative, nonviolent forms of disruption, protest, and resistance (see A Primer on Self-Affirming Nonviolence Parts 1-10). I interpret the turn-the-other-cheek passages as did the late Walter Wink, who understood them to give those pushed to the undersides and edges of Jesus’ society a way to reclaim and affirm themselves despite being dehumanized.
This week, alongside the feminist and womanist scholars who have deeply influenced my thinking, I want to suggest that “taking up one’s cross” is not a call to patiently, passively endure the violence of systemic or relational oppression and abuse, but rather is a call to take hold of life and stand up against injustice even if there is a threat for doing so. This saying is not a call to passively suffer, but to protest even if the status quo threatens suffering if you speak out.
The implications are huge. What we are discussing this week is called the myth of redemptive suffering. I have often repeated Joanne Carlson Brown’s and Rebecca Parker’s statement in their essay God So Loved The World?:
“It is not acceptance of suffering that gives life; it is commitment to life that gives life. The question, moreover, is not, Am I willing to suffer? but Do I desire fully to live? This distinction is subtle and, to some, specious, but in the end it makes a great difference in how people interpret and respond to suffering. If you believe that acceptance of suffering gives life, then your resources for confronting perpetrators of violence and abuse will be numbed.” (also in Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse, p. 18)
So what did Jesus mean, then, when he said “take up your own cross?”
First, Borg and Crossan correctly remind us that Jesus’ cross in the gospels was about participation, not substitution:
“For Mark, it is about participation with Jesus and not substitution by Jesus. Mark has those followers recognize enough of that challenge that they change the subject and avoid the issue every time. (Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan. The Last Week: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem; Kindle Locations 1589-1593)
While I agree with Borg and Crossan about the theme of participation rather than substitution, I disagree with their interpretation that suffering on a cross was intrinsic to following Jesus, and I don’t subscribe to the idea that suffering is an intrinsic precursor to triumph or success. Suffering only enters the story of following Jesus if those benefitting from the status quo feel threatened by changes that Jesus’ new social vision would make, and threaten his followers with a cross. Being willing to take up one’s cross is not a call to be passive in the face of suffering, but a call to protest and resist even in the face of being threatened with a cross.
“Taking up one’s cross” in this context means being willing to endure the results of disrupting, confronting, resisting, and protesting injustice. The cross in the Jesus story is a symbol of the state violence that those in power threaten protestors with to scare them into remaining passive. Remember, as Carlson Brown and Parker wrote, the question is not how much am I willing to suffer, but how badly do I want to live!
If those in power threaten you with a cross, then and only then it becomes necessary for you to “take up a cross” and stand up against injustice. Protesting, for instance, does not always involve being arrested, but if it does, protest anyway!
The goal in scenarios like these is not to suffer, but to refuse to let go of life.
How one interprets taking up one’s cross has deep implications for survivors of relational violence, and for all who are engaging any form of social justice work. When those who feel threatened try to intimidate and silence your voice through fear of an imposed “cross,” this week’s reading calls us to count the cost and refuse to let go of life. Do not be silenced! Though it may sound like an oxymoron on the surface, speaking out in the face of a threat is a form of rejecting death.
Let’s take relational violence as an example. First there is the relational violence itself. Then we have a choice in our response:
Too often, Jesus’ teaching of taking up the cross is interpreted so that the abuse itself is the cross.
But the abuse is not the cross but an initial injustice, and the cross is the threats one receives for standing up to or resisting injustice.
Jesus is encouraging his followers to resist as he did flipping tables in the temple courtyard, even though it resulted in the state violence of a cross.
If a cross comes into the picture, then resist anyway. Jesus’ nonviolence was rooted in resistance, and sometimes change happens before oppressors send a cross. At other times, change happens after the cross. In both cases, suffering may come, but it is not redemptive.
Jesus emerged in his Jewish society as someone calling for the just distribution of food and land and the inclusion of those presently marginalized. His way of structuring human community threatened imperial Roman society and those who most benefited from the Roman system. And the early Jesus movement that grew out of an encounter with this Jesus resulted in a way of doing life together that was also seen as a threat to those in positions of power and privilege.
When those in power choose to threaten crosses for those standing up to systemic injustice, don’t let go. Keep holding on to the hope of change even in the face of impossible odds. Keep holding on to life! For, Jesus says, what does it profit if you gain the whole world by your silence and yet lose your humanity?
Whoever wants to save their life through remaining silent in the face of injustice will actually be letting go of life. But whoever is willing to fight for life, for equity and equality, for love and compassion, for inclusion, for a just and safe world that is home for everyone, even if you’re threatened with death and death-dealing for doing so—all who refuse to let go of life and those things that are life-giving are the ones through whom life is saved, life is found, and another world is not only seen as possible but created in those moments of refusal.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What difference does it make for you to define ‘taking up your cross’ as a possible response to your speaking out and resistance, rather than passively bearing abuse and injustice? 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.
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
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