Loving One Another and Distributive Justice
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your support of Renewed Heart Ministry’s work of love, justice, and compassion. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is so deeply appreciated, 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. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
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Loving One Another and Distributive Justice
Herb Montgomery | May 16, 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 John:
When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
(John 13:31-35)
Loving one another was a central value in the Johannine community. We see evidence of this in all their writings in our sacred canon. One example is in 1 John 4:8:
“The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
In the short film Journey to Liberation: The Legacy of Womanist Theology, which I watched last year, Dr. Emile M. Townes states, “When you start with an understanding that God loves everyone, justice isn’t very far behind.” This statement resonated so deeply for me that it brought tears to my eyes.
Before I became an ally to trans people, and before falling out with many of our early followers, I had spent years speaking, writing, and teaching on the universal love of God for everyone (see Finding the Father.) Yet one response I repeatedly heard during our transition as a ministry was that people couldn’t understand what made us shift from God’s love to God’s justice. I spent countless hours trying to help folks understand that love means justice. They aren’t separate! Justice is the fruit of love, and you can’t genuinely have one without the other. As Cornel West famously stated, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”
What do I mean by the term justice?
Justice is distributive. Speaking of how the Hebrew scriptures define justice, John Dominic Crossan writes, “The primary meaning of ‘justice’ is not retributive, but distributive. To be just means to distribute everything fairly” (John Dominic Crossan, The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer, p. 2).
If we believe in universal love in our time, why wouldn’t that belief lead us toward compassion, action, and ensuring a distributive justice for all?
Distributive justice in the early Jesus communities was the outgrowth of Jesus’ teaching of a God that loves all universally:
“Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!” (Luke 12:24)
“Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!” (Luke 12:27-28)
“[God] causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45)
Jesus’ God universally loved even the ravens and lilies, therefore Jesus envisions God as also concerned with distributive justice for us. For Jesus, God’s love was at the root of God’s radical vision for a world in which all had enough.
A God who indiscriminately loves is also a God who indiscriminately and justly sends rain and sunshine on the objects of that love. Jesus is standing firmly in his own Jewish tradition when he connects love and distributive justice. Consider these passages from the Hebrew prophets where love and distributive justice are intrinsically connected:
“In love a throne will be established;
in faithfulness a man will sit on it—
one from the house of David—
one who in judging seeks justice
and speeds the cause of righteousness.” (Isaiah 16:5, emphasis added.)
“But you must return to your God;
maintain love and justice,
and wait for your God always.” (Hosea 12:6, emphasis added.)
Calling for distributive justice was a way in which the Hebrew prophets spoke truth to power:
“For I, the LORD, love justice;
I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
and make an everlasting covenant with them.” (Isaiah 61:8)
“Hate evil, love good;
maintain justice in the courts.
Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy
on the remnant of Joseph.” (Amos 5:15)
“Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.” (Isaiah 1:17)
As we mentioned last week, it is this preoccupation with distributive justice that defines whether someone in the Hebrew culture “knew God.”
“He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?”
declares the LORD (Jeremiah 22:16)
Jeremiah states that someone’s understanding of the Divine should inevitably work its way out in whether they defend the oppressed and vulnerable rather than drive oppression, marginalization, and/or exploitation. According to Jeremiah, to know the Hebrew God accurately is to defend the vulnerable. Gustavo Gutiérrez confirms this interpretation:
“For the prophets this demand was inseparable from the denunciation of social injustice and from the vigorous assertion that God is known only by doing justice. (A Theology of Liberation: 15th Anniversary Edition, p. 134)
Gutiérrez also writes, “To know God is to work for justice. There is no other path to reach God.” (Ibid., p. 156)
The Hebrew sacred text is repeatedly concerned with a societal, distributive justice (see Exodus 21:2; Exodus 22:21-23; Exodus 22:25; Exodus 23:9; Exodus 23:11, Exodus 23:12; Leviticus 19:9-10; Leviticus 19:34; Leviticus 23:22; Leviticus 25:2-7; Leviticus 25:10; Leviticus 25:23; Leviticus 25:35-37; Leviticus 26:13; Leviticus 26:34-35; Deuteronomy 5:14; Deuteronomy 5:15; Deuteronomy 10:19; Deuteronomy 14:28-29; Deuteronomy 15:1-18; Deuteronomy 24:19-21; Deuteronomy 26:12; 2 Kings 23:35; Nehemiah 5:1-5; Job 24.2-12, 14; Isaiah 3:14; Isaiah 5:23; Isaiah 10:1-2; Jeremiah 5:27; Jeremiah 5:28; Jeremiah 6:12; Jeremiah 22:13-17; Ezekiel 22:29; Hosea 12:6-8; Amos 2.6-7; Amos 4:1; Amos 5:7; Amos 5:11-12; Amos 8:5-6; Micah 2:1-3; Micah 3:1-2; Micah 3:9-11; Micah 6:10-11; Micah 6.12; and Habakkuk 2:5-6).
This tradition continues in the more Jewish portions of the New Testament texts (see Luke 6:24-25; Luke 12:13-21; Luke 16:19-31; Luke 18:18-26; and James 2:5-9).
It makes perfect sense, then, that a Jewish prophet of the poor from Galilee who in the 1st Century traversed the region teaching about a God who loved ravens, lilies and all people too would live, teach, minister, protest, and be crucified in profound solidarity with those suffering injustice in his society.
If we define politics as the distribution of resources and power, the gospel has real political implications that we must not hide or hide from. The portions of the New Testament believed to have been written by the Johannine community are the portions of the New Testament most preoccupied with defining God as “Love.” They don’t miss the connection between love and justice either:
“How can the love of God be in anyone who has material goods and sees a sibling in need and yet refuses help? . . . Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” (1 John 3:17-18)
I want to close this week with one more statement by Gustavo Gutiérrez that it would be well for us to spend this coming week contemplating:
“This does not detract from the Gospel news; rather it enriches the political sphere. Moreover, the life and death of Jesus are no less evangelical because of their political connotations. His testimony and his message acquire this political dimension precisely because of the radicalness of their salvific character: to preach the universal love of the Father is inevitably to go against all injustice, privilege, oppression, or narrow nationalism. (A Theology of Liberation: 15th Anniversary Edition, p. 135).
Those who believe they understand God’s love should be the loudest in the room opposing the injustices of classism, racism, misogyny, patriarchy, bigotry to and erasure of our LGBTQ siblings, and more. To believe in universal love is to work for a distributive, societal justice for those who are the objects of that universal love. As James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time, ”If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.”
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How are love and justice instrinsically connected for you? 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.
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!
Lectionary Readings in the context of Love, Inclusion, & Social Justice
New Episodes each week!
Each week, we’ll discuss the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and justice. We hope that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that we’ll be inspired to do more than “just talking” during our brief conversations each week.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking/videos
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 20: Loving One Another and Distributive Justice
John 13:31-35
“Before I became an ally to trans people, and before falling out with many of our early followers, I had spent years speaking, writing, and teaching on the universal love of God for everyone. Yet one response I repeatedly heard during our transition as a ministry was that people couldn’t understand what made us shift from God’s love to God’s justice. I spent countless hours trying to help folks understand that love means justice. They aren’t separate! Justice is the fruit of love, and you can’t genuinely have one without the other. As Cornel West famously stated, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” Those who believe they understand God’s love should be the loudest in the room opposing the injustices of classism, racism, misogyny, patriarchy, bigotry to and erasure of our LGBTQ siblings, and more. To believe in universal love is to work for a distributive, societal justice for those who are the objects of that universal love.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/loving-one-another-and-distributive-justice
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
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A Shepherd Restoring Paradise
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your support of Renewed Heart Ministry’s work of love, justice, and compassion. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is so deeply appreciated, 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. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Image created by Canva
A Shepherd Restoring Paradise
Herb Montgomery | May 9, 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 John:
Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem.
It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade.The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:22-30)
The context of our reading is the Gate and Shepherd image from John 10. Let’s take a moment to understand that context:
“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them. Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (John 10:1-18)
In this chapter, Jesus was not just a gateway, but also the only gateway through which to enter. This was a fitting image for the Johannine community given their proto-gnostic beliefs. It was also meaningful for them to describe Jesus as a shepherd. They used the shepherd imagery like other communities of Jesus-followers (see Matthew 11:28-30). What I appreciate about John’s use is the connection Jesus makes to life and life in its fullest expression. “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” St. Irenaeus, a great second-century theologian, is noted for the phrase, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive!” The late Gustavo Gutiérrez is also remembered for connecting injustice and poverty with death. In his teachings on the gospel’s preferential option for the poor, Gutiérrez often referred to poverty as an early and unjust death. He reportedly said, “To be poor is to be familiar with death. It is very easy to see these things when we are working with poor persons. They speak with familiarity about death, the deaths of children or other persons because it is so frequent. Certainly, death is one aspect of human life, but I am speaking of early and unjust death. Poverty means physical death due to hunger, diseases and other factors. The poor are familiar with these other aspects of death.”
In fact, the economic injustice of poverty is not alone in its connection to death. All injustice falls somewhere on death’s spectrum. To say that Jesus came to show us the path of life so that we might have life and have it to the full also must mean that this same path points toward the way of love and justice.
I appreciate John’s use of the shepherd imagery in connection with Jesus. Where John’s gospel’s uses the shepherd imagery in a more mystical way, with Jesus leading us into knowledge of the way (gnosis), the synoptics’ use of this imagery is more tangible and tied to how this imagery was used in the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition. In Ezekiel for example, this imagery is used to critique those in positions of power who should have taken care of those they were responsible for. Instead, these same leaders were “slaughtering the flock” for their own consumption.
“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.” (Ezekiel 34:2-6)
The good shepherd imagery in the synoptic gospels is referencing verses like these in Ezekiel. In Mark, Matthew, and Luke, likening Jesus to a shepherd meant he would gather those who had been scattered by the injustice of the Temple rulers who were complicit with Rome’s exploitation of the masses.
In Ezekiel we read the promised hope of restoration:
“As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness . . . I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice . . . I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd.” (Ezekiel 34:12, 14, 23)
The early Jesus community held this imagery dear. Jesus, to them, was a shepherd who would restore the flock “with justice” as Ezekiel states. Perhaps the author of our reading this week contemplated this passage in Ezekiel. Regardless, shepherd imagery wasn’t used to describe whisking people away to a distant heaven but to describe restoring justice here “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). It was about restoring paradise, with Earth as an abundant pastureland tended over by a caring and just shepherd.
What does the image of Jesus as shepherd mean for us today? What does it mean for us to be about working to shape our world into a just, safe, compassionate home for everyone, even those who are not like ourselves? As we read last week, we are called to care for those we share our world with, just as a shepherd cares for their sheep. As followers of Jesus, shepherds under the “Chief Shepherd” (1 Peter 5:4), we are to do the same work the Shepherd worked at: restoring paradise. Though this is ancient imagery, today it points to the holy work of seeking distributive justice for everyone, a justice that ensures each of us has what we all need to thrive and that all, regardless of our differences, would have “life and have it to the full.”
In the insightful and well-documented research of their book Saving Paradise, Rebecca Parker and Rita Nakashima Brock remind us of how Christians used this imagery before the church became obsessed with apocalyptic destruction and imperial power. They write: “The prophet linked the work of the shepherd to God’s care for the people. [Ezekiel] said the good shepherd fed people with justice, made a covenant of peace, helped them flourish, and protected them.” (Parker & Brock, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, Kindle location 623)
May shepherding in this way be our work today too.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What does the pastoral imagery of Jesus as shepherd putting our world to right mean to you this week? 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.
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!
Lectionary Readings in the context of Love, Inclusion, & Social Justice
New Episodes each week!
This week:
Season 3, Episode 11: John 10.22-30. Lectionary C, Easter 4
Each week, we’ll discuss the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and justice. We hope that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that we’ll be inspired to do more than “just talking” during our brief conversations each week.
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.
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 19: A Shepherd Restoring Paradise
John 10:22-30
The good shepherd imagery in the synoptic gospels is referencing verses like these in Ezekiel where the leaders were censured for becoming an oligarchy that fed themselves off of the sheep rather than caring for them. In Mark, Matthew, and Luke, likening Jesus to a shepherd meant he would gather those who had been scattered by the injustice of the Temple rulers who were complicit with Rome’s exploitation of the masses. The early Jesus community held this imagery dear. Jesus, to them, was a shepherd who would restore the flock “with justice.” The shepherd imagery wasn’t used to describe whisking people away to a distant heaven but to describe restoring justice here “on earth as it is in heaven.” It was about restoring paradise, with Earth as an abundant pastureland tended over by a caring and just shepherd. Today, we are to do the same work the Shepherd worked at: restoring paradise. Though this is ancient imagery, today it points to the holy work of seeking distributive justice for everyone, a justice that ensures each of us has what we all need to thrive and that all, regardless of our differences, would have “life and have it to the full.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/a-shepherd-restoring-paradise
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Kingdom Parables for Social Change
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. 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.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 23: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52. Lectionary A, Proper 12
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.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at https://youtu.be/oG16JTOGXQ8
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
“Kingdom” Parables for Social Change
Herb Montgomery | July 28, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“When we discover we have been wrong, that’s okay. That’s a good thing. We can make old, death-dealing interpretations give way to new, life-giving interpretations. We can hold on to old, life-giving interpretations too, and adopt new interpretations that we think are more life-giving as new information is discovered. When what we thought was life-giving turns out not to be, we can hold on to the good old, letting go of the bad old, and replace it with the new. The object is not to protect everything that is old, but to ask whether what we are believing and practicing is truly life giving for all.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked. “Yes,” they replied.
He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” (Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52)
There are so many beautiful themes in this week’s reading for us to dive into. First let’s consider the language here that refers to Jesus’ vision for human community as a “kingdom.”
Remember, Jesus’ gospel in these stories was not instructions for nor good news about a pathway to a post mortem heaven. Jesus’ gospel was good news that announced and called people to a new vision for human community in the here and now. A human community where those presently being marginalized and pushed to the undersides of society find a world that is safe, just, and compassionate for all.
Kingdom
The term “kingdom” combined the imperial culture of the Roman empire with the restoration hopes of the indigenous Jewish people of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee living under Roman imperial colonization. It is the language of that time and place. Today we rightly recognize the kingdom language as hierarchical and patriarchal. It is my studied opinion that we would harmonize more with Jesus’ vision of community cast in the gospels if we referred to this community in more democratic terms, in ways reflected in the democratic principles practiced in the book of Acts by early Jesus communities.
I also argue that the cosmic, post resurrection Jesus became the King of the early Jesus communities. Kingdom imagery was intended to help the church replace any earthly “king,” and make way for a more egalitarian community. Consider the following:
“And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah.” (Matthew 23.9-10)
This same principle could be applied: Don’t have kings among yourself, you have one King, Jesus. All of you are to relate to each other non hierarchically as equals:
“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. (Matthew 23:8, emphasis added.)
Again, this language attempts to communicate egalitarian siblinghood and yet even this version only mentions “brothers.” Today, we might say “brothers and sisters,” or more simply “siblings.” We can push this language to be more inclusive of women and nonbinary, gender nonconforming, and other people, and still be in perfect harmony with the trajectory of the intention of the original egalitarian and non-hierarchical passage.
Mustard (See also Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18-19; Gospel of Thomas 20)
The parable of the mustard seed is a political parable, not a botanical one. Botanically, mustard don’t grow into trees at all. They grow into shrubs of average size. This story is meant to be understood in the context of the political hopes of Jesus’ Jewish community. Consider the promise made to this people in Ezekiel:
“This is what the Sovereign God says, ‘I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches.’” (Ezekiel 17:22-23)
A tree being used as a metaphor for a kingdom or empire was common in the scriptures. Consider how Babylon itself was described with the same language.
“Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant, and on it was food for all. Under it the wild animals found shelter, and the birds lived in its branches; from it every creature was fed . . . The tree you saw, which grew large and strong, with its top touching the sky, visible to the whole earth, with beautiful leaves and abundant fruit, providing food for all, giving shelter to the wild animals, and having nesting places in its branches for the birds—Your Majesty, you are that tree! You have become great and strong; your greatness has grown until it reaches the sky, and your dominion extends to distant parts of the earth.” (Daniel 4:12, 20-22)
In saying that Jesus’ vision for human community would ultimately grow from tiny beginnings to the fulfillment of Jewish hopes of restoration and independence, the gospel authors were appealing to the Jewish people’s hopes in the midst of their imperial colonization by Rome.
This can be challenging for contemporary Christians to wrap their minds and hearts around, but the hard work of reading the Jesus story from the perspectives of marginalized and excluded communities is work worth doing.
Calling Jesus’ vision of human community a mustard seed was about more than its small beginnings. Most of the agricultural world at that time deemed the mustard plant a weed. So Jesus’ kingdom vision for human community was being likened in this parable to a weed. This called out how Jesus’ vision for what human community could be was deemed by the elite, powerful, propertied and privileged: a weed that must be speedily eliminated before it took over the imaginations of the masses.
Yeast (Luke 13:20-21; Thomas 96)
In the Passover traditions, leaven was a corrupting influence, and unleavened bread symbolized purity. So in this week’s reading, Jesus’ kingdom vision for human community is being likened to something that corrupted. Again, the elite, powerful, propertied and privileged considered this vision for human community that Jesus was casting a corrupting influence among the masses. If something wasn’t done about it quickly, it would permeate the entire society that the elites were profiting off of.
Historically, democracy was seen as a corrupting influence in societies that practiced monarchy or other forms of hierarchy. Today, even non-authoritarian, more democratic forms of socialism and communism are deemed as a corrupting influence by global capitalists who profit off the masses. (Consider the history of U.S. policy in relation to Vietnam and Cuba.)
Jesus’ love for the poor and his vision of a human community that practiced wealth redistribution, debt cancellation, resource sharing, and mutual aid inspired the poor and marginalized in his society, and benefitted those being exploited. It threatened the elites. Truly Jesus’ preaching was corrupting leaven and a noxious weed to them.
Priority of hidden treasure or a pearl of great price
The next parable characterizes Jesus’ kingdom not as a weed or a corrupting influence but as treasure: a pearl worth a person selling everything they have to obtain it. This language aims squarely at Jesus’ wealthy listeners who had much to lose by embracing Jesus’ vision for human community. Yes, the changes would cost their bottom line, but what they would get in return would be worth so much more. It would result in a world that would be safer, more compassionate, and more just for everyone including themselves. Notice how this language is repeatedly focused toward the wealthy in the Jesus story:
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21)
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21)
Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. (Luke 12:33)
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Luke 18:22)
In the parables of the treasure located in the field and the pearl of great price, those who discovered it sold everything they had to obtain it. And in the book of Acts, wealthy Jesus followers did the same to create the kind of community Jesus’ teachings inspired them toward:
They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. (Acts 2:45)
That there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. (Acts 4:34-35)
A Net
Also in this week’s reading, we bump into a theme repeated in Matthew’s gospel. A wide net gathers all. Some people are labeled as good and some as wicked, and a sorting takes place at the end of the age. That “end” includes a purging or burning metaphor for the wicked. Given how long this week’s discussion is, I want to re-share last week’s critique of that way of viewing the world.
Things Old and New
In Jesus’ time, teachers of the Torah who embraced Jesus‘ kingdom paradigm would rightly be expected to bring out both old, universal truths and new ones. This reminds me today that it’s okay for Jesus followers, even within traditional expressions of Christianity, to present interpretations and teachings that mix old and new.
When we discover we have been wrong, that’s okay. That’s a good thing. We can make old, death-dealing interpretations give way to new, life-giving interpretations. We can hold on to old, life-giving interpretations too, and adopt new interpretations that we think are more life-giving as new information is discovered. When what we thought was life-giving turns out not to be, we can hold on to the good old, letting go of the bad old, and replace it with the new. The object is not to protect everything that is old, but to ask whether what we are believing and practicing is truly life giving for all. If we hold to this standard, it will produce a Jesus follower that isn’t afraid of the new.
Our goal is to be a source of healing and life and change for the better for everyone. And in this way, Jesus followers can, as our reading states, brings out of our storerooms new treasures as well as old.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How do these parables inform your own justice work? Share that 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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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.
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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.
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Transparency and the Vilification of Darkness
“What the passage from John describes is the desire to avoid the light of justice for fear of harmful actions toward others being exposed, actions that benefit some at the expense of others. We read about some hiding in the shadows for fear of being discovered, maybe held accountable, and most definitely being stopped. It’s about them coopting the darkness, which is not inherently evil, and using the darkness not for the life giving purposes of which it is intended, but to hide so they can continue doing harm.”
Herb Montgomery | March 12, 2021
This week’s reading is from the gospel of John,
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” (John 3:14-21)
The phrase in this passage that speaks most to me now is in verse 20: “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” This passage speaks to us of transparency versus hiding. Let’s unpack this a bit with an example from current events.
U.S. President Biden recently released an unclassified version of the National Intelligence report on the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post journalist. The report finds Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved Khashoggi’s killing.
By contrast, the previous administration had refused to release this report. In the language of our passage this week, they had refused to let the report come to light because the deeds it exposed were deeply evil. Bob Woodward reports in his book Rage that Trump even bragged about protecting the Saudi prince. “I saved his ass,” Trump told Woodward, while many in the U.S. were calling for justice after Khashoggi’s murder. Trump continued, “I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop.”
This week’s passage from John’s gospel includes language that has been interpreted to blame Jewish people for Jesus’ death. I reject this anti-semitic interpretation. What the Jesus narrative does demonstrate is a universal dynamic of classism. The elite in Jesus’ society were threatened by his teachings, while most of the people loved his gospel to the poor, oppressed, and marginalized.
In Luke’s version of the Jesus story we read,
“When the scribes and chief priests realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to lay hands on him at that very hour, but they feared the people. (Luke 20:19, emphasis added, cf. Luke 4:18-19)
In much the same way, Miguel A. De La Torre writes, global elites today see liberation theology as a threat:
“I am amazed at the misinformation surrounding liberation theology . . . Why is this theological perspective deemed so dangerous? Why have governments, including that of the United States, committed so many resources to bring about its obliteration? . . . Liberation theology is so dangerous because it disrupts a religious and political worldview that supports social structures that privilege the few at the expense of the many. Ignorance of the causes of oppression is crucial to maintaining this worldview. But as the consciousness of the oppressed begins to be raised, as they begin to see with their own eyes that their repressive conditions are contrary to the will of God, the power and privilege of the few who benefit from the status quo is threatened.” (Miguel A. De La Torre, Liberation Theology for Armchair Theologians, Introduction)
In Jesus’ society it was not the people in general who rejected light for fear of being exposed, but, certain people, the elites, those in positions of power and privilege who “loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”
In my home state of West Virginia, we are now in the midst of our 2021 legislative session. The Republican party won a supermajority in both houses of the West Virginia legislature in last November’s election. Now an alarming trend is developing.
Over half a dozen bills moving through the halls of legislature either remove all requirements for public disclosure of meetings and information, or make agency information private and not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. That’s not how government that claims to derive its power from the consent of those it represents should work. Government should be transparent. Everyone should be able to know what is being done, and be able to keep those who represent them accountable. It makes one wonder what is being hidden, what is being kept out of the light of public consciousness.
I want to offer a word of caution regarding the phrase in our passage about “loving darkness.”
The vilification of darkness in the gospels is problematic today. However innocent the original intent may have been of the gospel authors, equating darkness with evil has been a deep part of White supremacism. White supremacists have used Biblical passages to equate whiteness with goodness and superiority and blackness with evil or inferiority. Equating blackness with evil is how colonists imagined God and holiness as white and therefore, Black and Brown people as something else. This seed has borne deeply harmful and destructive fruit in the lives of all who are not White. (In different ways it has also damaged White people. One cannot advance supremacism and be unscathed.)
I’ve noticed that the Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney uses the language of “gloom” or “shadow” instead of “darkness.” After all, there is nothing inherently evil about darkness and we need a balance of both light and darkness in our lives for health. The darkness of the womb is where we were all given life. Darkness is where we rest and heal, and some forms of life only grow in darkness. Again, it’s about balance: both light and darkness in a dance, so to speak, with neither overcoming the other. We can speak of the goodness of the light without vilifying darkness. Darkness calls us to the goodness of rest and recovery. Light calls us to wake and to get to work. We need both. (For more on this see Rev. Dr. Gafney’s Embracing the Light & the Darkness in the Age of Black Lives Matter and Dark and Light: Wil Gafney on White Supremacy in Biblical Interpretation)
What the passage from John describes is the desire to avoid the light of justice for fear of harmful actions toward others being exposed, actions that benefit some at the expense of others. We read about some hiding in the shadows for fear of being discovered, maybe held accountable, and most definitely being stopped. It’s about them coopting the darkness, which is not inherently evil, and using the darkness not for the life giving purposes of which it is intended, but to hide so they can continue doing harm.
A just society requires accountability, and accountability requires investigation. Those who have something to lose deeply fear investigation. Keep the tax returns hidden, they might say. Don’t set up a committee to investigate January 6, 2021, or broaden an investigation’s scope to dilute its power of discovery and make it more likely that some things stay hidden. Don’t release investigative reports, or at least don’t make them public. Watch for where you see those in positions of power and privilege seeking to keep their actions out of public consciousness in these ways.
In the Jesus story, Jesus emerged as a Galilean prophet of the poor, calling for life giving changes within his own society. He called for the redistribution of wealth, the inclusion of the marginalized, and the politics of compassion and protective justice toward those most vulnerable to being harmed by the then present system. For this reason, the powerful who were benefiting from the harm being done to others tried to hide. After all, when public consciousness is raised, change isn’t very far behind, and change is what those benefiting from the status quo most desperately want to stop.
In John’s story, the powerful elite succeed. Jesus is silenced through execution. Those with too much to lose interrupted his salvific work with a Roman cross, murdering him for earthly, political reasons, not cosmic theological ones. As we near the season of celebrating the resurrection across Christendom, we’ll discuss this further. For now, watch for where you see hiding and obfuscation. Don’t allow the shadows to be used for harm. Call for transparency, and affirm and support it wherever you see it being practiced.
HeartGroup Application
We at RHM are continuing to ask all HeartGroups not to meet together physically at this time. Please stay virtually connected and practice physical distancing. When you do go out, please keep a six-foot distance between you and others, wear a mask, and continue to wash your hands to stop the spread of the virus.
This is also a time where we can practice the resource-sharing and mutual aid found in the gospels. Make sure the others in your group have what they need. This is a time to work together and prioritize protecting those most vulnerable among us.
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Share with the group a story from your own experience that teaches the value of transparency, either within secular society or faith communities.
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
Jesus and Protest
Herb Montgomery | March 5, 2021
This week’s reading is John 2:13-22. I prefer Mark’s version of this story:
“On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. (Mark 11:15-18)
Most scholars believe that out of the four canonical gospels we have today, Mark was written the earliest and John the latest. In the passage for this week, Mark’s author conflates and places in the mouth of Jesus two passages from the Hebrew scriptures, one from Isaiah and the other from Jeremiah:
“These I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.” (Isaiah 56:7)
And:
“Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 7:11)
In Mark’s gospel, the Temple in Jerusalem was the capital building of the Temple state. The Temple state, centered in Jerusalem, was not a purely religious system as we think of Christian churches today: there was no separation of church and state in Jesus’ culture. The Temple state was a religious, political, social, and economic system that governed all aspects of Jewish society. It’s telling that in the revolt leading up to the Jewish-Roman war of 66-69 C.E., when the rebels took over the temple, the scene was not like a church or a synagogue, but rather a banking institution. The rebels found the debt records for the poor and burned them. In one sense, it was a religious act for those who considered faithfulness to the Jubilee [debt cancellation] of the Torah to be faithfulness to the God of the Torah. But it was also an economic and political act too.
By the time John’s gospel was written, the story of Jesus and the Temple has evolved. It has become concerned not with a system that exploits the poor but with one that defiles religious space. The writer’s emphasis is not on the Temple as a building at the center of a system that perpetuates poverty, but on the Temple as a symbol for Jesus’ body which would be crucified and then resurrected (John 2:14, 19-20).
I understand why so many people have focused on John’s version of the story recently. Many Christians have begun their stride toward the Easter holiday and its focus on the death and resurrection of the Christ. I find Mark’s political and economic emphasis on the systemic exploitation of the poor much more helpful at this time in the U.S., however.
It’s important to connect the context of Jesus’ temple protest in Mark with his other acts and statements that day:
“As he taught, Jesus said, ‘Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” (Mark 12:38-40)
Jesus’ concern here is the economic exploitation of the most vulnerable: how widows are being forced into poverty. He is not concerned that something is being done incorrectly in the temple’s worship system.
Mark continues:
“Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
This statement is not praise for the widow as so many Christians interpret it today. No, Jesus is critiquing a system that leaves widows with nothing left to live on!
This story ends with:
“As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!’ ‘Do you see all these great buildings?’ replied Jesus. ‘Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.’ (Mark 12:41-13.2)
In Mark, Jesus is not speaking about his own death and resurrection as he is in John. He is speaking about how exploitative systems are not sustainable and will eventually crumble under the weight of their own injustice.
The present economic system of consumption and massive profit at others’ expense is unsustainable ecologically. Jeff Bezos has once again become the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $191.2 billion in the midst of a pandemic with an economic displacement worse than during the Great Depression. I think, too, of President Biden’s reluctance to cancel student debt even though it was one of his campaign pledges. But what stands out to me most is how immigration in the U.S. has been handled over the last four years and I hope that the next four will bring desperately needed change.
The U.S. immigration system has a long racist history. Rather than America becoming a multiracial democracy, its immigration system is designed to keep it as a country where White people are still the majority and where those White lives matter more than the lives of those who are not White. (For a detailed, yet easy to understand recounting of the racial history of immigration in the U.S. see Kelly Brown Douglass’ Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God.)
Over the past four years, for example, we have seen the immoral crime of the U.S. terrorizing families by ripping children away from their parents just because they sought asylum here. Words from Emma Lazarus’s famous 1883 sonnet “The New Colossus”—“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”—have been eclipsed by White nationalism and White supremacy. If ever there were a setting in which Jesus followers should follow Jesus in flipping the tables of a system that was irreparably harming those who were already vulnerable, family separation was it. Some Christians actually did respond. But not many.
I’m thankful to see the Biden administration moving toward change on this issue. I’m thankful to see it using more inclusive language, such as “noncitizens” and “undocumented noncitizen” instead of “alien” or “illegal alien,” referring to the “integration” of immigrants into society instead of their “assimilation,” and abandoning language that dehumanized immigrants or was racist.
This is undoubtedly a step toward a welcoming America. And while I’m thankful for these beginnings, I want to see more than linguistic changes, too. It’s going to take real policy change, real action to turn around the Trump administration’s hostile stance and inhuman response to immigrants. We have a chance to do something fundamentally different. My hope is that we transition away from the immigration policies of the past that endeavored to protect Whiteness, and instead take genuine steps to affirm the future of America as a multiracial democracy where every voice matters and everyone, regardless of race, religion, net worth, ability, gender, orientation, or gender expression can have a seat at the table. I know these changes don’t ever happen fast enough, and we have the potential at this moment to leap forward.
My favorite part of Mark’s story this week is actually found in Mark 11:
“Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.” (Mark 11:11)
Jesus’ temple protest was supposed happen the first day Jesus entered Jerusalem, but by the time he arrived at the temple courtyard, it was too late in the day and there were not enough people in the temple courtyard for his protest to make much of a difference. So Mark states he goes back to Bethany with his disciples, spends the night, and comes back the following day.
This makes me wonder about the effectiveness of our own protest. When we do protest, how do we make it matter? How do we make it count?
Again, change for those being harmed never happens fast enough. But in each of our circles of influence we have today and all the potential for change today brings. Each day we still can move a more just, safe, compassionate, inclusive future closer.
Let’s do it.
HeartGroup Application
We at RHM are continuing to ask all HeartGroups not to meet together physically at this time. Please stay virtually connected and practice physical distancing. When you do go out, please keep a six-foot distance between you and others, wear a mask, and continue to wash your hands to stop the spread of the virus.
This is also a time where we can practice the resource-sharing and mutual aid found in the gospels. Make sure the others in your group have what they need. This is a time to work together and prioritize protecting those most vulnerable among us.
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Share three characteristics you feel a protest must possess in order to be effective in our social climate, today.
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
Gaining the World, Losing One’s Humanity
Herb Montgomery | February 26, 2021
In Mark’s gospel we read,
“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 8:31-38)
Those controlling an unjust status quo have always used violence to force the silence of those who call for distributively just change and equitable transformation of society. In Jesus’ society, Rome maintained social “peace” by terrorizing inhabitants with the threat of a militarized, heavy handed backlash if any group disrupted the smooth functioning of the Pax Romana.
That is the political or social context in which we must understand the above passage. Jesus was facing two options: remain silent and avoid Rome’s violent response, i.e. crucifixion, or stand in the tradition of past Hebrew prophets and speak his truth to the unjust, exploitative, clients of Rome controlling the temple state. With this context, we can most safely reclaim and understand the “must” language of the passage we read today.
As Jesus saw vulnerable people in his society being harmed, he could not remain silent without losing hold, to some degree, of his own humanity. He must speak out. And speak out he did in the temple courtyard through both rhetoric and flipping the moneychangers’ tables. It is the must that must hold priority in our understanding. The reason Jesus “must suffer” the political consequences of speaking out was that he could not remain silent. I imagine he could not picture any other way. This to me speaks of his courage: he knows the cost of his upcoming temple protest, and he chooses to speak out anyway.
This gives us insight into life-giving ways to interpret the language of “taking up the cross and following” Jesus. Interpreting the cross as self-sacrifice that Jesus modeled and that we must follow too has borne destructive, harmful fruit in multiple vulnerable communities, especially women in Christian circles. In these circles, taking up one’s cross has come to mean remaining silent: Be like Jesus. Take up your cross. Just silently bear the injustice you are suffering. But this is not at all what we see Jesus doing in the story.
In the story, Jesus is refusing to be silent and bear suffering. He is speaking out, despite knowing that a cross may very well be the backlash he receives for doing so. I do not believe that Jesus would have taught the oppressed, whose lives and selves were already being sacrificed by those in power and whose humanity was already being denied, to choose self-sacrifice and denial of their humanity. Jesus instead gave them a way to affirm their humanity, worth, and value; to stand up and speak out, even in the face of the threat of death.
The other phrase in this passage that speaks to me at this moment in American society is “What does it profit a person if they gain the world but lose their self.” At the time of this writing, I was watching the second impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump. Over the last four years, every time I have thought that this is the moment Republican lawmakers will wake from their spell, break from their path, and do what’s right, they have instead sunk to lower depths. But my concern is not partisan politics. My concern is humanity. One party has dug in and placed their own political, re-election aspirations over and against the common good, the good of the country, basic humanity including their own, and even against democracy itself.
Ultimately, Republican Senators voted not to convict the former president, despite how much evidence piled up over. They mis-judged that their own futures would be better if they just buried their heads in the sand . Yet what’s at stake is larger than democracy. As Jesus called his followers, we’re called to find and reclaim our humanity. To Republicans who have kept following Trump down paths that none of them should have followed, this is the moment to turn around. What does it profit a person if they gain the whole world and yet, in doing so, lose their souls?
My heart hurts as I watch the resoluteness of so many refusing to do what is right. In the spirt of our passage from Mark on doing what is right even if one is threatened with a cross, I was moved by two significant moments from the impeachment trial. The first moment was Chaplain Barry Black’s reference in his prayer at beginning of the trial to a hymn that was my favorite when I was a teenager, Once to Every Man and Nation. Second was Representative Jamie Raskin’s adaptation of Thomas Paine’s words in The Crisis at the very end of the prosecution’s case. I’ll end this article this week with both quotes:
“Once to ev’ry man and nation
Comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood,
For the good or evil side.” —James Russell Lowell
“These are the times that try men and women’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will shrink at this moment from the service of their cause and their country; but everyone who stands with us now, will win the love and the favor and affection of every man and every woman for all time. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; but we have this saving consolation: the more difficult the struggle, the more glorious in the end will be our victory.” —Thomas Paine
HeartGroup Application
We at RHM are continuing to ask all HeartGroups not to meet together physically at this time. Please stay virtually connected and practice physical distancing. When you do go out, please keep a six-foot distance between you and others, wear a mask, and continue to wash your hands to stop the spread of the virus.
This is also a time where we can practice the resource-sharing and mutual aid found in the gospels. Make sure the others in your group have what they need. This is a time to work together and prioritize protecting those most vulnerable among us.
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Have you ever had to make a decision between staying silent and speaking out? Share your experience and any possible lessons learned 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
Salt, Light, and Cautious Optimism
Herb Montgomery | February 19, 2021
“But mere diversity is not the goal. A safe and just world for everyone, where everyone can call our world home, is the goal. It will not be enough to see a more diverse neoliberalism in response to the last four years of neo-facism. We will have to see if the inclusion of more diverse voices will allow those included to change the very systems they’re joining. I have hope. But we will see.”
The Salt of the Earth
In Matthew’s sermon on the mount we read,
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. (Matthew 5:13)
Audiences matter. Jesus directed these words to people in his society who faced daily oppression under Rome and marginalization in their own community. Many of them would have been farm workers. In the 1st Century, farmers used salt as fertilizer added to manure to enrich their soil. With this metaphor, Jesus encourages his listeners to more fully engage their world, not to try to escape it. They are to re-enrich the nutrient-depleted soil of this earth, to place their focus on “this world,” not on the next. He directs his audience away from escape and he empowers them to make a difference in the world they live in.
Imagine it this way: Compassion and safety for everyone are just two plants that grow in the soil of a healthy society. When certain voices are marginalized or pushed to the fringes, however, their absence depletes the social soil. Jesus is telling the marginalized and oppressed that they are the salt of the earth. Their inclusion can give back to the soil of a society the nutrients of a wider consciousness and perspective that enables compassion and safety for all to grow again. Including marginalized voices means integrating the many diverse experiences of life into a meaningful and coherent whole: inclusion uproots weeds of fear and insecurity and provides rich soil for a society to produce compassion in the place of those weeds.
We in the U.S. have just going through more than four years of our society enduring the depletion of compassion and safety for those who share this globe with us but whom our systems force to live on the fringes. Today’s passage reminds us that they are the “salt” or fertilizer, and their voices will return to the soil the nutrients that need adding back to our society.
Jesus’ shared table is not homogenous. It’s at a heterogenous table that we can share our unique and different life experiences, form a more beautiful and coherent worldview, and, with others, make this world a safer, more compassionate place for us all. Through this teaching, Jesus is saying that it is the subordinated, oppressed, and marginalized who restore the nutrients of society’s depleted soil. It is the disinherited who are the “salt of the earth.”
But mere diversity is not the goal. A safe and just world for everyone, where everyone can call our world home, is the goal. It will not be enough to see a more diverse neoliberalism in response to the last four years of neo-facism. We will have to see if the inclusion of more diverse voices will allow those included to change the very systems they’re joining. I have hope. But we will see.
The Light of the World
Next in Matthew’s passage, we read:
You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine. (Matthew 5:14-15)
When we understand Jesus’ audience to be disinherited Jews under Rome, those who were pressed down and silenced even among the ones forced to live on Jewish society’s fringes, it becomes empowering to hear Jesus affirm that they are the light of the world. Jesus is investing those around him with value and telling them not to hide their light. They are to “let their light shine!”
Over the last four years, some of you who are reading this article (or listening to it) have been told that your voice is not welcome and you’ve been made to feel you are “other.” To you, first and foremost, Jesus would say, “You are the light this society needs.”
There is also another truth to what Jesus is saying here. Too often, Christians have taken for granted that they are the light of the world when they have in fact called for the exclusion of those unlike them. Whether it be with the banning of Muslims, the silencing of women’s voices, Black voices pushed aside by White supremacy, the poor marginalized by the rich, or those who belong to the LGBTQ community excluded by Christians—yes, there are exceptions, but some Christians have spent the last several years making the loudest calls for certain voices and certain stories to be pushed to the margins.
Again, when anyone’s voice, anyone’s story is shut out from Jesus’ shared table, the absence of those voices will harm us all. The excluded and marginalized in every situation are Jesus’ “light” that must be brought back. When Christians exclude and marginalize, they cease to be “light.” It would be well for those who have historically claimed to be the “light of the world” to listen to Jesus’ words here.
The community to which Jesus is speaking is one whose theism, morality, and ethics had been shaped through the interpretations of the Torah and the social elite. To get through to the people, Jesus must first disturb their confidence in these interpretations. Repeatedly in the sermon on the mount Jesus points out the inadequacy of the approved teachings. In verse 17, Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. ‘Fullfil’in this verse is pleroo, which means to complete or to make more full. In the very next verse Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” The word for “accomplished” is ginomai and also means “to complete.”
In American civil mythology, we often use the phrase, a “more perfect union.” I was struck during the January 21 inauguration by these words in Amanda Gorman’s poem: “It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit, it’s the past we step into and how we repair it.”
We have much to repair, not only from the last four years, but also from the last four hundred years, and reparations is the watch word. From reparations to Earth in the midst of a sixth major extinction event to reparations to the descendants of enslaved people upon whose backs US wealth still grows; reparations to first Americans whose land is still being threatened, and to migrants unjustly treated to preserve a White majority in the U.S.; reparations to poor, rural Americans whose few resources get redistributed, too, to those who already have so much—we have much to repair, and now is the time to begin.
Jesus invites us to step into a way of viewing our own well-being as deeply connected with the well-being of everyone in our society.
If Jesus’ disinherited listeners were to experience liberation, it would be because they overcame injustice together. No more exclusion of those marginalized as other. Jesus’ new social order, God’s just future, or what the text refers to as ‘the kingdom’, is a world where all oppression, injustice, and violence is put right, internally and externally, privately and publicly, individually and collectively.
So now is a moment for us to begin again. We can exhale deep relief from the political transition we have just witnessed. And we can take up the work once again, of pushing a new, diverse administration toward policies and systemic change that help make our world a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone.
We still have work to do, not only to ensure past harms do not repeat, but also to ensure that the future does not return us to the normality of the past.
HeartGroup Application
We at RHM are continuing to ask all HeartGroups not to meet together physically at this time. Please stay virtually connected and practice physical distancing. When you do go out, please keep a six-foot distance between you and others, wear a mask, and continue to wash your hands to stop the spread of the virus.
This is also a time where we can practice the resource-sharing and mutual aid found in the gospels. Make sure the others in your group have what they need. This is a time to work together and prioritize protecting those most vulnerable among us.
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How would you like to see society change over the next four years? What can you do in your sphere of influence to help?
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
Learning to Listen
Herb Montgomery | February 12, 2021
“I’m thankful for a woman who didn’t give up, but persisted in helping Jesus and his disciples see her need beyond their culturally conditioned prejudice. In that moment, she was teacher of the teacher. I’m also thankful for a Jesus who took time to listen.”
In Matthew’s gospel we read:
“Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. (Matthew 7:6)
Dogs and pigs are both scavengers that the Hebrews considered unclean. You may have heard that Jews called any non-Jew “dog,” but this is not correct. According to the IVP Background Commentary of the New Testament, Jewish people reserved the slurs of “dogs” and “pigs” only for Gentile foreigners who oppressed the Jewish people.
I believe that Jesus’ teaching in this passage critiques how Rome was being permitted to co-opt the sacred and valuable Jewish Temple in the name of the empire. Yet I also believe there is something deeper here as well.
Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has been speaking of inward realities—objectifying women in one’s heart, hatred toward one’s enemies—as well as outward ones. So in this passage, Jesus may be speaking about ways that oppressed and disinherited people can allow the sacred and valuable space inside them to be used by their oppressors.
Another passage in Matthew includes similar language. It reads:
“Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.’ Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, ‘Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.’ The woman came and knelt before him. ‘Lord, help me!’ she said. He replied, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.’ ‘Yes it is, Lord,’ she said.’“Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.’ Then Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed at that moment.” (Matthew 15:21-28, emphasis added.)
In Matthew 15:21-28, Jesus had retreated to the two ancient Phoenician cities of Tyre and Sidon for respite. While there, he was met by a woman described as Syro-phoenician: a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia (Mark 7:26). It is the “Syro” part that the gospel authors desire to emphasize. This woman, being from Syria, would have been of Seleucid decent. Syria was the name Rome used for the Seleucid Empire. This matters because these were the ancient oppressors of the Jewish people before Rome. Under the influence of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucids had sought to exterminate the Jewish people, and although Seleucids and Hebrews now shared the same fate under Rome, they had once conquered and occupied the Hebrew people. Jesus’ exchange with this woman happens when this was not yet distant history for the Jewish people.
Syrophoenician Woman
The encounter is set up to prick readers’ sense of justice. Jesus emerged within Jewish society and taught the liberation of the oppressed. But here was someone outside of Jewish society who was associated with Gentile oppressors who was asking him to liberate her daughter too!
What we are encountering in this story today would be called intersectionality. Intersectionality is a way of describing the relationships between systems of oppression, domination, and discrimination. The model, first developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw, describes oppression as an interlocking matrix and helps us to examine how biological, social, and cultural categories such as gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, religion, caste, species and other axes of identity interact on multiple and often simultaneous levels and so contribute to systematic injustice and social inequality. The woman in this story lived in multiple social locations that not only intersected in her oppression but also connected to the oppression of Jewish people.
Using the language of Matthew 7, Jesus questions her, “Is it right to give the children’s bread to the dogs?”
I have heard this explained in two ways. One explanation is that Jesus is merely play-acting to teach the on-looking disciples an important lesson in generosity. The other explanation, which I think is more plausible and more valuable, is that Jesus is growing in his own understanding and experience of intersectionality.
Yes, this woman belonged to a people group who had oppressed the Jewish people, though there is absolutely no indication she felt this way toward the Jewish people herself. And she was also a woman in a patriarchal context. Where is her husband? Why is her husband or father not making this request of Jesus as another father does in Mark 5:22? In a patriarchal world, what does it mean for this woman to be speaking for herself and her daughter as if she were a single mother?
Jesus asks out loud: is it right to help her?
Intersectionality teaches us that every person can live in multiple social locations given the diversity of their identity. Just as the Seleucids had once sought to exterminate the Hebrews, the ancient Hebrews had once engaged in the genocide and colonization of the Canaanites. The Hebrews also participated in cultural patriarchy similar to that in Hellenistic Tyre and Sidon, and though by Jesus’ time they suffered economic poverty under Rome’s high taxes, Hebrews had also oppressed the poor with their own kings (Amos 2:6; 5:7, 11, 24). Yes, this Seleucid woman belonged to a people who had historically oppressed the Hebrews, but that day, she, too, needed liberation. Was there enough mercy in Jesus’ merciful theism for her as well?
In this story, Jesus’ compassion wins out. But we must not fail to see the depth of his struggle between genuinely questioning what was right, and allowing his questions to give way, not to “rightness,” but to compassion itself. Compassion was ultimately the right choice, and Jesus may have not arrived at that choice if he had not first chosen to allow compassion to govern his reasoning.
“Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” (Mark 7:28)
I’m thankful for a woman who didn’t give up, but persisted in helping Jesus and his disciples see her need beyond their culturally conditioned prejudice. In that moment, she was teacher of the teacher. I’m also thankful for a Jesus who took time to listen. Had Jesus sent her away, one could have argued he did the “right” thing, yet a great injustice would have been committed and therefore it would have been wrong no matter how “right.” But he listened to her, and he entered into a fuller experience of his own ethic teachings that day, thanks to this woman.
Henry David Thoreau wrote, “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”
I cannot fault Jesus for asking the question he asked. He faced the same dilemma we we all face when navigating the social realities of each our identities. I’m thankful to see this side of Jesus, and I’m thankful for this woman who helped Jesus answer his own question with compassion and justice.
Jesus and his disciples, I believe, left the region of Tyre and Sidon that day with a fuller experience of the truth that there are no “dogs” or “pigs.” There are only “children.”
We are all siblings of the same Divine Parent. We all walk this earth side-by-side, and as the proverb states, “Before each person there goes an angel announcing, ‘behold the image of God.’” Jesus models listening to those who belong to oppressed communities, and going deeper through that listening. I believe those who follow Jesus today can and must do the same.
HeartGroup Application
We at RHM are continuing to ask all HeartGroups not to meet together physically at this time. Please stay virtually connected and practice physical distancing. When you do go out, please keep a six-foot distance between you and others, wear a mask, and continue to wash your hands to stop the spread of the virus.
This is also a time where we can practice the resource-sharing and mutual aid found in the gospels. Make sure the others in your group have what they need. This is a time to work together and prioritize protecting those most vulnerable among us.
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How can we follow the example of Jesus’ change in this story when we encounter new information, new perspectives, or different experiences other than our own?
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
The Falling and Rising of Many
Herb Montgomery | January 22, 2021
“This is the intrinsic reason why our collective thriving depends on raising up some in society while those who have gained too much power, privilege, property, or profit must fall back down. Ancient societies also knew this.”
In the gospel of Luke, we read these words about the child Jesus:
“Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: ‘This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel.’” (Luke 2:34)
We mentioned this passage briefly in part 9 of our Advent series last month. This small statement offers insights that are worth a closer look.
In physics, we typically speak of things rising first and then falling: what goes up must come down. But this passage isn’t talking about physics. It’s talking about pulling some people downward economically, politically, and socially while raising or lifting up others. It harkens back to the language in Mary’s Magnificat in Luke 1:
“ . . . he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:46-55)
These are passages about wealth disparity, not wealth alone.
Last March, Renewed Heart Ministries’ monthly recommended reading was Kate Pickett’s and Richard Wilkinson’s book The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. In page after page of statistics, Pickett and Wilkinson show that once a society reaches a certain level of wealth, the amount quickly becomes irrelevant. What determines the overall health of that society is the degree of equity or disparity that exists there, whether the distance between the haves and have-nots is great or limited. Inequity disproportionally impacts people in regards to education, health care, crime, substance abuse, mental health, and much, much more.
In a different book, Behave, Robert Sapolsky shows that social economic inequity, over time, even damages individuals and the communities they comprise biologically.
This is the intrinsic reason why our collective thriving depends on raising up some in society while those who have gained too much power, privilege, property, or profit must fall back down. Ancient societies also knew this, and the jubilee in the Torah is just one practice they developed to demonstrate it.
I think of those like Jeff Bezos, who became the world’s first centi-billionaire during a global pandemic where many have suffered losses of unimaginable magnitude. A dear friend of mine, for example, just lost a brother-in-law to COVID. He just had just become a father 11 months ago, and died on Christmas day. We are now over 19 million cases, with many hospitals overrun, and an unnecessarily 333,000 now dead.
What could the “pulling down and raising up of many” mean for us today?
When Everyone Has Enough
Chapter 6 of Luke’s gospel continues the theme of redistribution or balancing of resources in Jesus’ community. This was a society where an elite few had more than they could possibly ever need while a multitude of others were being bled dry economically. Their thriving was impossible, their very survival was being threatened as well, and many who had once had modest means were pushed into poverty, much like America’s shrinking middle class today.
Consider how these words would have been heard in that context:
“Looking at his disciples, he said:
Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
when they exclude you and insult you
and reject your name as evil,
because of the Son of Man.
Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you,
for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets. (Luke 6:20-26)
So much can be said about these words! Notice the parallel to “falling and rising” from Simeon’s words to Mary and Joseph. Here, the poor, the hungry, those whom the present unjust system had reduced to tears, and those labelled trouble-makers for speaking out against injustice are being lifted up in Jesus’ vision for a just community. And those the present system has left rich at others’ expense; those well-fed because others go hungry; those rejoicing because of their great, disproportionate wealth, and those whom the system praised would now be brought back down. All of these groups would experience a fall from their places of privilege as their community came back into balance: no one would have too much while others didn’t have enough.
I was once troubled by the idea of the well-fed going hungry. I want to be careful not to interpret this passage in a way that body shames anyone, including myself. In that context, “well-fed” had a political-economic meaning—similar to the elites being referred to as “fat cats.” But some experience hunger at the beginning of a healthy weight loss journey. Not all hunger is bad. In the same way, the elite will experience temporary hunger whenever society is brought back into balance. They may even weep and morn as they see billions of their net-worth lost on their balance sheets as society itself is rebalanced. A return to social equity always feels like “loss” for those who are privileged and powerful. This is why Jesus’ vision of a just society was so threatening. It also explains why that group felt his voice must be silenced and he must be removed from among the poor, those who hunger and thirsted for things to be put right.
Yet Jesus’ teachings of economic redistribution was part of his Jewish heritage and sacred text.
Economic Falling and Rising in the Torah
In the book of Leviticus we read:
“Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields. In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.” (Leviticus 25:8-13)
This jubilee year, also referred to as the year of the Lord’s favor, was an additional sabbatical year when slaves were released, debts were forgiven, and property/land was restored to the original families of ownership (see Isaiah 61:1-2).
Deuteronomy 15 states, “However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.”
These economic laws were intended to be protective. They limited both extremes, preventing anyone from amassing too much or losing too much and therefore risking poverty. These offered a type of “falling and rising” that pulled those at the top back down and lifted those at the bottom, all to prevent societal disparities and inequities becoming too great. These laws were not utopian by any means. They assumed disparities and inequities as both inevitable and damaging, damaging to the degree that the growing society’s disparities needed to be limited so that its potential for damage and harm would also be limited. Redistribution of amassed wealth in this context mitigated harm. (See Debt jubilee: will our debts be written off?, written last March to wrestle with the concept of jubilee and the pandemic’s economic challenges.)
It’s telling that out of all the passages the author of Luke’s gospel could have chosen from the Hebrew scriptures to summarize Jesus work, they chose Isaiah 62:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19, emphasis added.)
What could limits toward amassing too much wealth look like in our context today?
What could limits on poverty through redistribution of that amassed, superfluous wealth look like?
Could this redistribution, which will be seen as a threat to the elite, be life-giving to the masses?
Do we find support for redistribution in the Jesus story and in the Jewish sacred texts?
These are questions worth wrestling with as we enter this new year.
HeartGroup Application
We at RHM are continuing to ask all HeartGroups not to meet together physically at this time. Please stay virtually connected and practice physical distancing. When you do go out, please keep a six-foot distance between you and others, wear a mask, and continue to wash your hands to stop the spread of the virus.
This is also a time where we can practice the resource-sharing and mutual aid found in the gospels. Make sure the others in your group have what they need. This is a time to work together and prioritize protecting those most vulnerable among us.
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What are some of the subtle differences between equality and equity? Discuss what social, racial, and economic equity would look like in our society.
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
COVID and The Things That Make for Peace
Herb Montgomery | June 12, 2020
“We actually can transition to a society shaped by justice and love. We can imagine a different way of being together again post-COVID, and that way will be determined by the kind of people we choose to be during COVID. In this work of imagining, faith communities have a part to play, right now.”
In Luke’s gospel, we read,
“As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes . . .” (Luke 19:41-44)
This passage has repeatedly been on my heart as we are all watching the systemic failures during the pandemic we’re facing here in the U.S. But before we go any further, I want to remind us of something about the gospels. Most scholars believe the order the canonical gospels were written in is Mark, then Mathew and Luke, and finally John. In each successive gospel, there is a growing tendency toward anti-Semitic references, and that trend climaxes with John.
Today’s gospel passage is part of a group of sayings in which Luke’s Jesus warns of coming devastation in the region of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Many scholars believe Luke’s gospel was written after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., and so, as we discussed last week, the author connects Jesus’ economic teachings of distributive justice, the economic elites’ rejection of those teachings, and the Jewish poor people’s revolt in the late 60s. The poor people’s revolt grew into the Roman Jewish war (66-69 C.E.), which resulted in Rome’s violent leveling of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.
Luke’s gospel tries to make sense of such devastation. But again, Christianity has a long, anti-Semitic history of explaining Jerusalem’s destruction as God’s punishment of the city for rejecting Jesus. I don’t believe that.
Yes, the gospel authors connected Jesus’ rejection with what later happened in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. But they are also making a more organic, intrinsic connection between a society that rejected Jesus’ teachings about redistributing wealth and restructuring the community to prioritize the poor on the one hand and the poor people’s uprising and revolt on the other. The results are not divinely imposed or arbitrary. They are the natural outcome of political, economic, and social causes and effects.
Jesus calls for wealth redistribution, economic distributive justice, and prioritizing those the present system deems “least of these” can offer so much to us during this time. Today, as a result of the pandemic and the systemic responses, we are witnessing a consolidation of wealth rather than a redistribution of it. Jeff Bezos (the owner of Amazon) is on target to becoming the first trillionaire, yet people who need help the most simply aren’t getting it. And those communities our present system has left most vulnerable to COVID-19 are suffering disproportionally while wealthy corporations keep making commercials saying “we’re all in this together.”
All of us are for sure being affected. But not all of us are suffering through this in the same ways. Many are suffering in far greater degrees than others while help seems to keep being funneled elsewhere.
Jesus was warning his society not to ignore the calls for economic distributive justice in a Temple-state system that was supposed to collect surplus from the wealthy and redistribute it to those the poor who needed it most. Will those in our future look back at us today and say, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”
This passage from Luke is gut-wrenching in its full context. It is a violent and graphic depiction that doesn’t even spare children. Again, the fact that it was written after the fact explains that graphic detail. This passage is part of a long Hebrew prophetic tradition of calling for justice and change.
I listened to an interview recently with Rev. William Barber. He describes the “evil” of the President of the United States using the Defense Authorization Act to make meatpackers go to work, but not using that same Defense Authorization Act to make sure they had the PPE, protections, insurance, or sick leave that they needed. The government used the Defense Authorization Act to force vulnerable populations to go back to work in lethal situations. What the “essential” in essential worker really means now is expendable, because they’re essential, but none of the interventions have given these workers the essentials to protect them and lastly, it has failed to give them also the healthcare they and their families they live in contact with need when they will get sick. The entire interview is worth listening to.
Barber shared stories of unnecessary pain, pain that’s a result of how the pandemic has been handled systemically. He tells the story of Polly, a nurse’s aide in New York who said, “I feel like we’re engaged in mass murder. We’re being led to mass murder.” She said, “We have to buy our own garbage bags to try to have some coverage. We don’t have the masks that we need. None of this was done upfront.” Barber goes on to say to these vulnerable communities not being protected, “Don’t you believe these lies these governors are telling us about the time to open back up the society. Stay at home. Stay alive. Organize. Organize.” The Poor People’s Campaign is demanding that the government do all the things it didn’t do upfront for us as a society to move forward and possibly overcome this pandemic.
The day before I caught this interview, Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas (Union Theological Seminary) interviewed Dr. Eddie S. Glaude Jr., chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Their interview on being the Church in time of COVID-19 is a powerful conversation worth sharing. You can listen to the entire interview at https://www.facebook.com/unionseminary/videos/248181253070899/
In this discussion, Douglas and Glaude make clear how COVID-19 is exposing the injustice of racial inequities in the U.S. It is not an aberration of the U.S.’s experiment with a White Supremacist Democracy (as contrasted with an egalitarian democracy) but a reflection of the very nature of this country. COVID-19 has not created new injustices or inequities but is helping people recognize these elements in our society that already existed. Our present crisis is revealing the “fissures and breakages” to those who would rather not know or remain ignorant. And it is confirming what those who have been bearing the brunt of these injustices—Black and Brown communities, poor communities, elderly people, migrant communities—have known by experience all along. Douglas connects how Trump’s executive order that meatpacking industries will be compensated for the loss of their labor to how slave owners were compensated for the loss of their slave labor after the Civil War when they had no intention to care for the human beings producing their products. Glaude calls this the ugliness of capitalism.
It made me think of how indigenous communities have historically suffered and are still suffering as a result of our economic system. Capitalism has always placed profit, product, property, and power over people and the planet, seeing both people and the planet as disposable. We are again seeing its character in the clamor to reopen states while vulnerable people and communities are dying at disproportionate rates. “Essential,” “expendable,” and “disposable” are all being shown to be synonyms. What’s happening is being chosen by those who in charge at the expense of lives they deem disposable.
Next, the interview transitions to the role that faith communities have during this time. And the final part of this interview is the most important. I’ll save it for you to listen to and I cannot recommend it highly enough. You can find it at https://www.facebook.com/unionseminary/videos/248181253070899/
This time asks us all these questions: Who are we going to be? What will the heart and soul of our societies be? Take a moment to imagine us differently.
This week, most of us don’t have the resources at our disposal to make global change. But we do have within our power the ability to create local change. You can start today, wherever this finds you. Within your family, within your circle of friends, within your faith communities, and the larger community outside of your faith community that you also belong to, we can collectively change the world. That change starts right now, with you, with me, with each of us.
Another world is possible. It’s not a world beyond our present material world, but as Dr. Glaude puts it, it’s beyond the present iteration of our material world. A different iteration of our present material world is possible: a different world here and now. Glaude ends the interview with the call to both imagine a different world and voice the notion that we actually can transition to a society shaped by justice and love. We can imagine a different way of being together again post-COVID, and that way will be determined by the kind of people we choose to be during COVID. In this work of imagining, faith communities have a part to play, right now.
HeartGroup Application
We at RHM are continuing to ask all HeartGroups not to meet together physically at this time. Please stay virtually connected and practice physical distancing. When you do go out, please keep a six-foot distance between you and others, wear a mask, and continue to wash your hands to stop the spread of the virus.
This is also a time where we can practice the resource-sharing and mutual aid found in the gospels. Make sure the others in your group have what they need. This is a time to work together and prioritize protecting those most vulnerable among us. How many ways can you take care of each other while we are physically apart?
- Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
- Share something that spoke to you from the interview between Dr. Douglas and Dr. Glaude with your HeartGroup.
- 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 all? Pick something from the discussion to practice this upcoming week.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
Another world is possible if we collectively choose it.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week
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