Justice Lessons From Being Expelled
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Justice Lessons From Being Expelled
Herb Montgomery | March 13, 2026
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this fourth weekend of Lent is from the gospel of John, here is only beginning portion of it:
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know . . . ” (For full text see, John 9:1-41)
I don’t like when writers use people’s differences as metaphors for inferiority. Darkness as metaphor for evil has historically hurt those whose skin is darker than those with light or white skin. God is too often gendered as male and the fallen, redeemed church is gendered as female. In this week’s passage, a person’s real, lived-in disability, blindness, is used as a symbol of those opposed to Jesus and his gospel.
We can do better than this. We don’t have to throw some of our human siblings under the bus to lift up the intrinsic value and beauty of the justice ethics in the teachings of Jesus.
A translation challenge meets us in the very beginning of our reading this week. Verse 3 is one of the most debated translations in the New Testament. In many English versions, Jesus appears to say of the man born blind, “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” Read straightforwardly, this implies divine causation: the blindness exists for the purpose of a later miraculous display. This reading has troubled interpreters pastorally and theologically over the years, since it seems to portray God as inflicting suffering to stage a sign.
The difficulty arises from how translators handle the Greek clause that begins “hina” (“so that”). In Johannine Greek, “hina” can express purpose, and it can also introduce a result, an explanation, or function as a loose connective word rather than a strict causal marker. Greek manuscripts lacked punctuation, so translators must decide where sentences begin and end.
An alternative rendering breaks the assumed cause-and-effect link: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. But that the works of God might be revealed in him, we must work the works of the one who sent me.” Here the blindness is not explained; it is simply the occasion or opportunity for divine action.
This alternate interpretation shifts the focus away from why the man was born blind to what God does in response to human suffering. The translation problem, then, is not merely grammatical but also theological: whether the text teaches a God who causes disability for display or revelation or a God who confronts suffering with healing and change.
What jumps out to me most this week was that the healing of the man was an act of compassion that immediately became a controversy because it took place on the Sabbath. The Pharisees in this story are less concerned with the man’s restored sight than with the violation of a sacred rule. John’s narrative exposes a deep tension between rigid fidelity to ritual and life-giving justice, a tension that is all too familiar to Christians who engage social justice work today.
For Jesus, the Sabbath is not an end in itself but a means to human flourishing. When challenged, he insists that the work of God cannot be postponed by systems that prioritize order over mercy. This healing story confronts a worldview that explains away suffering as divine punishment or personal failure. By rejecting the assumption that the man’s blindness resulted from his or others’ sin, Jesus dismantles a theology that blames the oppressed for their own condition. Instead, he centers the humanity and agency of the marginalized by restoring this man’s social standing.
The Pharisees’ reaction is telling. They interrogate, shame, and ultimately expel the healed man from the community. His exclusion mirrors how institutions today often respond to those who challenge unjust norms: whistleblowers, activists, allies, and marginalized voices themselves are frequently discredited or silenced for disrupting the status quo. Yet the man’s testimony in its simplicity, honesty, and connection to his lived experience, becomes a powerful witness. He knows only what he has experienced: “I was blind, now I see.” This declaration is not an abstract theological argument in favor of his healing. It is a simply declaration of his own story that cannot be denied.
John 9 calls communities of faith who work for justice today to ask whether their traditions serve liberation or preserve control. Sabbath-breaking becomes a metaphor in our reading this week for necessary disruption. This story calls us to contemplate moments when justice requires bending or reinterpreting rules that protect privilege, power, or belonging. Jesus’ act reminds us that faithfulness is measured not by strict compliance to community norms but by solidarity with the disenfranchised, those denied inclusion, and the marginalized, those pushed to the edges. True Jesus-following, our reading suggests, is found where liberation, humanity, and justice take precedence over the comfort of being approved by institutions. And this kind of focus takes courage. There will always be pushback.
Lastly this week, I want to address the Johannine community’s transition away from an adversarial relationship with certain sects of the Pharisees to the Gospel of John’s universal use of the phrase “the Jews.” The phrase “the Jews” in the Gospel of John, including here in John 9, has a long and troubling history of antisemitic misuse, even though such readings distort the text’s original context and intent.
It is vitally important when we read the gospel of John to interpret John’s usage of “the Jews” (Greek “hoi Ioudaioi”) not as a blanket reference to the Jewish people as a whole. (Here we are encountering the seeds that led to the Holocaust.) Rather, we should interpret John as pointing to specific Judean authorities (particularly Temple leaders in complicity with Rome) who are portrayed as opposing Jesus. Tragically, later readers collapsed this narrow, contextual meaning into a totalizing indictment of all Jews, fueling centuries of Christian antisemitism.
The Gospel of John emerged from a late first-century Jewish context shaped by conflict within Judaism itself. Jesus, his disciples, and the Gospel’s author were all Jewish. Their sharp language reflects intra-Jewish debate following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (70 CE), when different Jewish groups struggled over identity and authority. John’s community, likely marginalized and expelled from some synagogues, articulated its pain through polemic. What was originally a family argument was later weaponized by Christians as an accusation against an entire people.
When removed from its historical setting, then, John’s language was used to justify social exclusion, violence, and theological contempt. Church leaders and preachers repeatedly cited John’s references to “the Jews” to portray Judaism as willfully blinkered or malicious, and that culture culminated in deadly consequences from medieval pogroms to modern racial antisemitism. Such readings contradict both the ethical vision of Jesus found in the Synoptic Gospels and the historical reality that Christianity itself emerged from Judaism. Jesus, remember, was never a Christian. Jesus was a Jewish man in the first century speaking from the Hebrew prophetic wisdom he had gained from his own tradition.
Responsible interpretation today requires rejecting any reading that essentializes or demonizes Jewish people. Interpreters must clarify that John critiques specific power structures, not an ethnicity or religion. For communities committed to justice, this work is not optional. Naming and resisting antisemitic interpretations of scripture is part of repairing the harm Christians have committed against Jewish communities. It means honoring historical truth and practicing a faith that refuses to scapegoat marginalized communities.
This week’s reading presents to us a story of standing up to the status quo and the risks involved in standing with the marginalized when doing so contradicts religious and political institutions. This kind of action is not abstract sentiment. It is costly. It demands we move from private belief to public solidarity, to love our world and those who are being harmed, even when that harm is supported by religiosity. Following the Jesus of our story this week also calls us to confront systems that crush life and stand where solidarity and harm mitigation is risky. Our story calls us to step out of our comfort zones and redirect our loyalties, resist injustice, and commit to transformative action alongside the marginalized, for the flourishing and thriving of all as we work to shape our world into a just, compassionate, just home for everyone.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. When was a time that you experienced exclusion for standing in solidarity with the marginalized for justice? 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 12: Justice Lessons From Being Expelled
John 9:1-41
This week’s reading presents to us a story of standing up to the status quo and the risks involved in standing with the marginalized when doing so contradicts religious and political institutions. This kind of action is not abstract sentiment. It is costly. It demands we move from private belief to public solidarity, to love our world and those in it who are being harmed, even when that harm is supported by religiosity. Following the Jesus of our story this week also calls us to confront systems that crush life and stand where solidarity and harm mitigation is risky. Our story calls us to step out of our comfort zones and redirect our loyalties, resist injustice, and commit to transformative action alongside the marginalized, for the flourishing and thriving of all as we work to shape our world into a just, compassionate, safe home for everyone.
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/justice-lessons-from-being-expelled
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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The Bread of Life
Thank You!
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
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Herb Montgomery, August 10, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our lectionary reading from the gospels this week is from the gospel of John:
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”
“Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus answered. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:35, 41-51)
Any responsible commentary on the gospel of John must repeatedly correct the way the Jews as a whole are repeatedly villainized over and over again in the gospel of John. During the years this gospel was written, this was a debate on the inside of the Jewish community between varying Jewish voices. Christianity was separating from its Jewish roots and seeking to distinguish itself for political reasons. As benign as some commentators say that separation may have been originally, John Dominic Crossan rightly demonstrates that the rhetoric by Christians against the Jewish community would become lethal once Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.
As long as Christians were the marginalized and disenfranchised ones, such passion fiction about Jewish responsibility and Roman innocence did nobody much harm. But, once the Roman Empire became Christian, that fiction turned lethal . . . Externally, records of pagan contempt and records of pagan respect for Judaism started as soon as Greek culture and Roman power integrated in eastern Mediterranean into a somewhat united whole. Internally, divergent groups within Judaism opposed to one another in those same centuries with everything from armed opposition through rhetorical attacks to nasty name calling. Read, for example, Josephus on any other Jews he dislikes, or read the Qumran Essenes of Dead Sea Scrolls fame on those other Jews they opposed. Christianity began as a sect within Judaism and, here slowly, there swiftly, separated itself to become eventually a distinct religion. If all this had stayed on the religious level, each side could have accused and denigrated the other quite safely forever. But, by fourth century, Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire, and with the dawn of Christian Europe, anti-Judaism moved from theological debate to lethal possibility. (John Dominic Crossan, Who Killed Jesus?)
Especially when reading John, we must be honest about the narratives of Jewish rejection and Roman innocence found in this gospel. John’s version of the Jesus story has led to untold harm from Christians to the Jewish community throughout the centuries. In the synoptic gospels, Jesus is opposed by the powerful, propertied, and privileged within the Jewish Temple State and loved and embraced by the poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised Jewish populace. In John, the story becomes flattened and Jesus is opposed by the Jewish community as a whole. In the synoptics, Jesus debates with other Jewish voices within Judaism, a Jewish voice arguing with Jewish voices. In John, his debates move outside of Judaism, a debate of Christians versus Jews. And once we add the later backing of the Roman Empire and later European countries, John’s gospel sows the seeds that would grow into full blown anti-semitism and eventually the Holocaust of six million European Jews and eleven million others in the 20th century. Supremacism never stays where it starts. The myth of Jewish rejection and Roman innocence must be rejected by responsible Jesus followers today.
What can we glean from this week’s reading in John?
This week’s reading is a reminder of how John’s gospel tends to spiritualize the material, minimize the material, and lift up Jesus—not as an agent of change in our material world but as the means whereby we can escape or transcend our material world including death:
“Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die.”
What this week’s reading draws our focus to once again is how important it is that our Jesus following is more than a way to manage the end of our lives or reconcile us to the fact that we will die. Jesus following that has become mere death management is, ironically, death-dealing. Jesus following should call us to consider how we live while we are alive! Jesus following focused only on navigating our dying intrinsically and negatively affects by omission how we live our lives, shape our communities, create societies, and the larger world each of us lives in. When our Jesus following is only about saving souls in an effort to manage our fear of dying, too often we become oblivious to the marginalization and material injustice, oppression, and violence many are suffering today. We become disengaged from the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone and our insipid focus becomes only about getting to heaven. This way of following Jesus is almost wholly unrecognizable from the Jesus story we read about in Mark, Matthew, and Luke where Jesus is much more engaged with people’s lives. Yes, John’s gospel is all about how Jesus transforms death into a portal to life. But the synoptics’ Jesus is all about saving people from the hell they are enduring right now!
The kind of Jesus following that is only about managing fear of death is also convenient for those in positions of power who benefit and are privileged by unjust systems and ways of shaping our societies. Death-management-only Christianity leaves unjust systems unchallenged, unchanged, and thus untouched. This is why a heaven-focused version of Christianity is often promoted by people in power. They know that a Christianity that is other-world-focused leaves this world, their world, unchanged. I’m reminded of the words of Howard Thurman: “The opposition to those who work for social change does not come only from those who are the guarantors of the status quo. Again and again it has been demonstrated that the lines are held by those whose hold on security is sure only as long as the status quo remains intact.” (Jesus and the Disinherited, p. 14)
We would do well to remember that people don’t get beheaded like John for only showing people a path to heaven. People don’t get crucified like Jesus for only passing out tickets to heaven. People meet those ends when they become a threat to the powerful within the status quo.
All of this reminds me that a gospel of love must be engaged in our material world. A gospel of love calls us not to minimize the importance of our material world, but, rooted and grounded in our gospel of love, to work to shape our world into a just place for everyone. Believing in a gospel of love summons us to the work of compassion, not just pulling people out of the harm our society too often plunges them in, but reshaping our society in ways that also mitigate or entirely remove that harm to begin with.
I’ll close this week with the words of Walter Rauschenbusch, a key figure in the Social Gospel movement of early 20th centuries, for your consideration. Though the Social Gospel movement was woefully silent on matters of racial justice, today we can choose to engage justice work much more inclusively, including issues of race, women’s rights, LGBTQ justice, and more.
Rauschenbusch reminds us that when we allow our Jesus following and our belief in a gospel of love to move us to engage our material world around us, this is simply “the old message of salvation, but enlarged and intensified. The individualistic gospel has taught us to see the sinfulness of every human heart and has inspired us with faith in the willingness and power of God to save every soul that comes to him. But it has not given us an adequate understanding of the sinfulness of the social order and its share in the sins of all individuals within it. It has not evoked faith in the will and power of God to redeem the permanent institutions of human society from their inherited guilt of oppression and extortion. Both our sense of sin and our faith in salvation have fallen short of the realities under its teaching. The social gospel seeks to bring humans under repentance for their collective sins and to create a more sensitive and more modern conscience. It calls on us for the faith of the old prophets who believed in the salvation of nations” (Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel, p. 5-6)
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How is your following Jesus about more than what happens to us in an afterlife? How does your Jesus following define how you show up in our world here and now? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 23: John 6.35, 41-51. Lectionary B, Proper 14
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 17: The Bread of Life
John 6:35, 41-51
“The kind of Jesus following that is only about managing fear of death is also convenient for those in positions of power who benefit and are privileged by unjust systems and ways of shaping our societies. Death-management-only Christianity leaves unjust systems unchallenged, unchanged, and thus untouched. This is why a heaven-focused version of Christianity is often promoted by people in power. They know that a Christianity that is other-world-focused leaves this world, their world, unchanged. Faith that has become mere death management is, ironically, death-dealing. Faith should first do no harm. It should call us to consider how we show up in our world while we are alive and inspire us to shape our shared world into a compassionate, safe home for everyone.”
Available on all major podcast carriers,
Or at this link:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/the-bread-of-life
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
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Excluded by Exclusion
Herb Montgomery | March 25, 2022
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“This week’s parable calls us to question whom we are excluding and the basis for our exclusion. And it’s calling us to question the practice of marginalizing and excluding others regardless of the basis . . . There is no conclusion. The elder brother who would exclude his younger brother is left alone by himself in the night, outside the party going on inside, not because he himself wasn’t welcome, but because he could not affirm the one being celebrated. And maybe that’s the point.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Then Jesus told them this parable . . . Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ (Luke 15:1-3, 11–32)
In this week’s story, Jesus is not answering his listeners’ questions about who gets to heaven or not. The context of the narrative isn’t about an afterlife at all. It’s about social and political dynamics in this life, in Jesus’ society. Within that context, the narrative addresses the exclusion of certain ones, tax collectors and those labelled as “sinners”, by those privileged in their society.
I want to note that I do not believe this story accurately represents the Pharisees or Jewish scholars of that time. It might represent some leaders within those social groups, such as the Pharisees of the school of Shammai. But this story does not rightly characterize the more inclusive Pharisees of the school of Hillel. Lumping all Pharisaical and later Rabbinical schools into a monolith and then to use that group perjoratively is deeply antisemitic and has an long history. (See https://truah.org/antisemitism/)
We must also address the label of “sinner.” I’ve written at length about this before:
“The term ‘sinner’ is used in the gospels in a very particular sense. It’s not used in the universal ‘everyone’s a sinner’ sense. We see this in Jesus’ socio-political context. Imagine a circle. Those at the center controlled and made the decisions for the circle while those pushed from the center toward the edges had less and less say the further away from the center they found themselves. What determined how close to the center someone operated was an idea that we now have a difficult time understanding: this was the idea of purity. Those on the edges were pushed there by labelling them ‘sinners.’ Those on the edges of the circle had no power, privilege, or voice.” (See The Lost Coin)
It would help us in our context today to read “marginalized” where the text reads “sinner.” Sinner was the pejorative religious label that those at the center of Jesus society used to marginalize whomever they chose.
This all leads us to the central point, I believe, of this week’s reading. Jesus’ parable was originally aimed at those who excluded or marginalized others and then disparaged Jesus because of the people he embraced, affirmed, and included.
Within Christian faith communities today, many exclude and marginalize LGBTQ people of faith, and then label and exclude as dangerous allies who embrace, affirm and include them. I have firsthand experience with this.
I’m also reminded of patriarchal traditions that exclude women from certain ministerial roles or credentials and then label those who don’t exclude them as dangerous. White churches have practiced similar exclusion over matters of race and multiracial diversity, not only in their congregations, but in who is allowed and supported to take on certain leadership roles.
In our larger society, there are inclusions and exclusions, too. We at Renewed Heart Ministries have condemned Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine and our hearts are with all being harmed by this action. We continue to maintain that the road to peace is not war, but distributive justice, safety and compassion, and we affirm Ukraine’s rights of self-determination and self-defense.
I also notice the disparity in the global support for Ukraine now compared to other humanitarian crises. Journalists have even compared Putin’s problems with Ukraine to the U.S’ historical treatment of other countries. I wondered if they realized what they’re admitting about imperialism, because that is a level of truth-telling I don’t think we in the U.S. are willing to embrace. News reporters have betrayed their own racism when speaking of this conflict and their surprise at the plight of Ukrainian refugees. They use rhetoric as “relatively civilized,” “relatively European,” “blue eyes,” “blonde hair,” “not a developing, third-world nation, but Europe,” “well-dressed people.”
We should care about our Ukrainian siblings and other people living in that country as part of our human family, but we shouldn’t care about them or base our involvement or help on whether we perceive them to be White or European. Refugees from other parts of the world deserve our care and concern just as much.
The U.S. shows these patterns, too. Those who are working toward this country’s high ideals for an inclusive, multi-racial democracy or those working to transform society into a place of equity for women are characterized as dangerous. There are hundreds of legislative attacks against trans people and lesbian, gay, and bisexual people in states like Texas and Florida right now, including efforts to exclude children who belong to the LGBTQ community or have parents who do. Children this age are often asked by grandparents, aunts and uncles, and others, “Do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend yet?” Or their teachers ask them at school to “Share about your family.” But some of those children are being excluded now.
This week’s parable calls us to question whom we are excluding and the basis for our exclusion. And it’s calling us to question the practice of marginalizing and excluding others regardless of the basis.
Jesus’ story ends open-endedly. There is no conclusion. The elder brother who would exclude his younger brother is left alone by himself in the night, outside the party going on inside, not because he himself wasn’t welcome, but because he could not affirm the one being celebrated. And maybe that’s the point. As we are working toward a more inclusive, safe, compassionate, just society for everyone, if any are left out in the end, it won’t because they themselves aren’t welcome, but because they can’t accept other people.
As we consider our own practices of exclusion, this week’s story warns each of us that those we exclude may end up enjoying God’s party, while we, because of our exclusionary practices, may find ourselves outside the party, alone, in the night.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. We have many examples today of folks who have been excluded because of whom they include. Share some examples of how people or communities, today, are being, excluded because of their own exclusion? 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
March is Donor Appreciation Month at RHM
During the month of March, we want to do something special to thank you for supporting the work of Renewed Heart Ministries.
Renewed Heart Ministries provides deeply needed resources that help enable Christians to discover the intersection of their love for Jesus and their work of healing our world through actions of love, justice and compassion; actions Jesus modeled and called us to follow.
Engaging our communities in ways that shape our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone is often hard work and its worth it. We appreciate the actions, big and small, each of you take each day to engage this work.
This month, we are partnering with Watchfire Media to offer a free thank you gift, shipping included. We want to offer you Watchfire Media’s absolutely beautiful Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints 2022 Wall Calendar to everyone who makes a special one-time donation of $50 or more through the following special link during the month of March to support RHM’s work.
The online donation link to use is https://bit.ly/RHMCalendar.
(Or you donate by mail by sending your donation to
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
*If donating by mail, simply make sure that your donation is specially marked indicating you would like a HolyTroublemakers & Unconventional Saints 2022 Wall Calendar as a thank you.)
If you are unfamiliar with this special calendar, The Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints 2022 Wall Calendar features 12 “holy troublemakers,” people of faith from different faiths and different eras who worked for more love, kindness, and justice in their corner of the world. Each of them did the right thing even when it was the hard thing, and even when it rocked the religious boat.
Like the book Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints, this calendar centers holy troublemakers who are women, LGBTQ, Black, Indigenous, and other people of color who have too often been written out of religious narratives. Their stories inspire, educate, challenge, encourage, and move us all towards more love and a faith that works for the common good of everyone.
Packed with original artwork, short bios, and inspiring quotes, the calendar also includes important holidays from diverse faith traditions, social justice movement anniversaries, and dates that help us remember that joy is an essential part of holy troublemaking.
Thank you in advance for supporting the work of Renewed Heart Ministries. Together we will continue being a voice for change. And thank you to Watchfire Media, as well, for partnering with RHM this month to be able to share this special thank you gift with our supporters. We appreciate all you do, too!
Product details:
2022 Wall Calendar: 24 pages
Publisher: Watchfire Media
Language: English
Product Dimensions: 12” x 13”
Shipping Weight: 1 lb.
ISBN: 978-1-7340895-1-6
Encouragement When the Work is Lonely and Hard
Herb Montgomery | February 25, 2022
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“In this story, the early Jesus followers are trying earnestly to make sense of Jesus’ execution at the hands of the Roman empire. Their association of both Elijah and Moses with Jesus pointed Jesus followers to the claim that although Jesus ministry and work of salvation had been interrupted by a Roman cross, God had overturned, reversed, and undone that act of unjust state violence and raised Jesus from the dead, which meant his salvific work lived on. In the Hebrew tradition, Elijah and Moses are figures for whom death did not have the final say.”
Our reading this week is from the book of Luke:
“About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem. Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, ‘Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.’ (He did not know what he was saying.) While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud, saying, ‘This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.’ When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.” (Luke 9:28-36)
The first version of this story is found in the gospel of Mark (Mark 9:1-8). Matthew’s gospel elaborates on the story, adding parallels for Jesus that Matthew’s audience would have associated with Moses (cf. Matthew 17:1-8; and Exodus 24:1,15-18; 34:29-35). Matthew also added another association between his version of Jesus’ baptism and the words found in Isaiah 42:1. Luke later adds versus 31-34 and 36, and changes the six days Mark describes at the beginning of the story to eight.
Unfortunately, Christianity has become filled with antisemitic interpretations of the transfiguration, usually contrasting Moses and Elijah with Jesus. With a kind of Christian supremacy, or supercessionism (replacing Judaism with Christianity), some Christians compare Moses and Elijah with “the law and the prophets” and claim Jesus is superior to both.
I want to offer an interpretation of this story that honors Judaism instead of contrasting with it. Jesus was a Jewish man after all. His was a 1st Century Jewish voice among many other Jewish voices, rooted in interpretations of the Torah and other Hebrew wisdom. Jesus, even in these stories, did not envision himself as beginning a new religion: he and his teachings were deeply influenced by the Judaism he was raised within. So when we read the gospels, I find it much more helpful to read the synoptic gospels as a debate within Judaism among Jewish voices on what it means to be faithful to the God of the Torah rather than as an anachronistic debate between Christianity and Judaism as world religions. (I feel the gospel of John breaks from this pattern.) As I’ve said recently, we don’t have to disparage Judaism to value the ethical teachings of Jesus.
What purpose might the gospel authors, who wrote for both Jewish and Gentile Jesus followers, have had in associating Moses and Elijah with Jesus in this story?
First, Jewish tradition held that Moses and Elijah had both talked directly with God (Deuteronomy 34:10; 2 Kings 19:9-13). When they are introduced in the gospels, Jesus has begun his final trek to Jerusalem where he will confront the economic injustices of the Temple state (flipping the tables), and that confrontation will most likely result in state violence against him. Before the week is over, Jesus will be crucified on a Roman cross.
But in this story, the early Jesus followers are trying earnestly to make sense of Jesus’ execution at the hands of the Roman empire. Their association of both Elijah and Moses with Jesus pointed Jesus followers to the claim that although Jesus ministry and work of salvation had been interrupted by a Roman cross, God had overturned, reversed, and undone that act of unjust state violence and raised Jesus from the dead, which meant his salvific work lived on.
In the Hebrew tradition, Elijah and Moses are figures for whom death did not have the final say. Elijah was taken directly to heaven not seeing death (2 Kings 2:11), and Moses’ death was also surrounded with mystery, his burial place of being unknown and several traditions believing that he was taken into the presence of the Divine after death (Deuteronomy 34:6; Jude 9).
Again, early Jesus followers are trying to find a life-giving framing for Jesus’ murder by the system because of his call for change. They are trying to strengthen the claim that he’s been resurrected.
There are other associations, as well. Moses was the law giver and deeply associated with themes of liberation from oppression. Jesus’ early followers, Jewish and Gentile, understood him as another great teacher whose message was of liberation from oppression (see Luke 4:18-19).
The last association is the most meaningful to me: the association of Jesus with Elijah. In the Jewish stories, Elijah’s mountaintop experience in 1 Kings 19 was one of epiphany as his life was threatened for speaking truth to power and while he was deeply discouraged about his mission. I can identify with moments of discouragement while considering one’s life work. I can also imagine Jesus, too, wrestling similarly to Elijah during the last days of his life before the cross.
“He [Elijah] traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the Sovereign One came to him: ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He replied, ‘I have been very zealous for the Sovereign One God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.’ The Sovereign One said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Sovereign One, for the Sovereign One is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Sovereign One, but the Sovereign One was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Sovereign One was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Sovereign One was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He replied, ‘I have been very zealous for the Sovereign One God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.’ The Sovereign One said to him, ‘Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.’”
In our story this week, both Elijah and Moses appear, possibly to encourage Jesus during his own time of discouragement as his own life is in jeopardy. Even the Divine shows up in the story, with words of encouragement, of filial approval repeated from Jesus’ baptism, and the admonishment for Peter, James and John to listen to Jesus.
I can see why the early Jewish Jesus followers would have found solace and encouragement through these associations.
I, too, think of those who I’ve journeyed with along the way who have been an encouragement to me when I’ve had difficult decisions to make. I’m thankful for each of them.
Have you had moments when you, also, have had to make some pretty difficult decisions? Moments where doing the right thing was not the easy choice? Who in your life were your Moses and Elijah? Who was there to encourage you? And lastly, who do you know who is engaging the work necessary for a better iteration of our present world, working to shape our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for us all, who right now could use your encouragement?
Take a moment this week and reach out. You never know what difference your just showing up could make. It doesn’t have to be a blinding light with radiant clouds and big voices from the sky. It could just be a text, or a phone call. However you choose to show up, take some time this week to let someone know that, in this work, they are not alone.
Here’s to a better world.
And here’s to all who right now are working toward it.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Share a story with your group from your own experience when someone was your Elijah or Moses and encouraged you when you had a difficult decision to make in a context of justice, liberation, or compassion.
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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