Ethereal Archives - Renewed Heart Ministries

Obeying What Jesus Taught

Posted on June 2, 2023 by Herb Montgomery

This Week’s Episode of Just Talking Available on YouTube

New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!

Season 1, Episode 16: Matthew 28.16-20. Lectionary A, Proper 4, Trinity Sunday

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.

You can find the latest show on YouTube at https://youtu.be/fW1lToP8HQ0

or (@herbandtoddjusttalking)

Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment

Thanks in advance for watching!

Herb Montgomery | June 2, 2023

To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.

“This is a path where we take responsibility for making sure everyone is taken care of and that each person has enough to thrive. No one has too much while others don’t have enough. It’s a path toward making our world a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone.”

Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20)

Many people refer to our reading this week as the great commission. There are other commission stories in other versions of the Jesus story, in Luke 24:47-48, Acts 1:8, and John 20:22-23, which we’ve read recently. Each commission is unique, and original to each gospel. Each commission also reflects the concerns and situations of the communities for which these gospels were written.

While the Matthean community may have been passionate about spreading Jesus’ ethical teachings and inviting others throughout the entire world to follow them, we must be honest about how this passage has been coopted in Christianity and how Christian complicity with and participation in colonialism that has harmed Indigenous populations around the globe. Christian missions today, when coupled with the economic goals of global capitalism, still do much harm. Historically, Christian missions have served to spread European or Western values, erase Indigenous cultures, and enlarge the territories of Christian empires. So many Indigenous lives hae been negatively impacted or lost. This seems to me to contradict many of the ethics of the Jesus story, ethics like the Golden Rule, loving one’s neighbor as yourself, and sharing resources rather than exploiting them.

This passage in Matthew also seems arrogant. Let me explain. I understand why the disciples thought the teachings of Jesus had changed their lives for the better. I also understand how Jesus and his teachings represented something beautifully novel to them, something that had impacted their own lives in immeasurably positive ways. This excitement can easily translate into feeling like you have something to share with everyone else and assuming they don’t know what you have just learned.

But my guess is that if the Matthean community had been humble enough to listen to others, they would have soon discovered that Jesus’ teachings contained universal truths that other communities outside of Galilean Judaism already also practiced. The disciples’ feelings of exceptionalism, possibly influenced by the exceptionalism found in some sectors of their own tradition, were compounded by their feelings of exceptionalism from being a follower of Jesus.

To be clear, Jesus’ teachings were good news! The ethics and values in the Jesus story had the potential to change the world of others in the same positive way they had changed the disciples. It just seems to me that Jesus’ story can encourage us to listen and learn from others rather than first show up in their worlds to teach them something. Change is a two way street, and those we meet, share with, and listen to leave us forever changed as well.

As a Jesus follower, I often bump into wisdom in other traditions that I feel resonance with. What has moved me about Jesus resonates with the wisdom I find already present in the lives of others. Sometimes their wisdom challenges me to rethink my own ways of considering our world. Sometimes it confirms wisdom I already possessed. And sometimes, I have something to give to them. But it is an exchange of ideas, a practice of listening and learning alongside any sharing we may do that leaves all parties positively impacted for having had their paths cross.

One way we can redeem our reading this week from the way it has been harmfully used through Christian history is that the passages speaks of making disciples, not believers: followers not merely worshipers. It speaks of obeying in our lives everything Jesus had commanded his followers to do. This is not merely religious obedience that merits one a seat in some mystical post-mortem non-smoking section, but a social, political, and economic obedience that has the potential to set our communities on a life-giving path in the here and now. This is a path where we take responsibility for making sure everyone is taken care of and that each person has enough to thrive. No one has too much while others don’t have enough. It’s a path toward making our world a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone, a home where everyone has a place to rest securely and grow and not be afraid.

What are some of these commands that Matthew’s Jesus tells us to obey? The lion share of them are found in Jesus’ sermon on the mount, the centerpiece of Mathew’s gospel. In this sermon we find commands such as:

“Let your light shine before others.”

“If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.”

“Settle matters quickly with your adversary”

“Do not swear an oath at all . . . All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.”

“If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.”

“If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.

“If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.”

“Give to the one who asks you.” (cf. Matthew 19:21, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.”)

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.”

“When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray.”

“Forgive other people.”

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth . . . You cannot serve both God and money.”

“Do not worry about your life.”

“Seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness (i.e. justice.)”

“Do not judge.”

“In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”

“Enter through the narrow gate.”

“Watch out for false prophets . . . By their fruit you will recognize them.”

“Hear these words of mine and put them into practice.” (Matthew 6-7)

And these are just a few. Yet there is enough here already for us to wrestle with. Interpretations of these teachings can also be life-giving or death-dealing. It’s important to listen and learn. We can let go of past interpretations that have proven harmful and we can embrace that are more healthy.

But the Jesus who taught these teachings is the Jesus who the Matthean community was so excited to share with others. As stated at the end of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, “When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching” (Matthew 7:28).

I used to practice a kind of Christianity that focused on themes that the Jesus of the gospels was never passionate about. The values and ethics that the Jesus in the stories was passionate about were things I never focused on. I didn’t understand the value of his ethics at that stage of their journey. I’m in a different place today.

There is so much value in wrestling with the Jesus of the stories, and endeavoring to apply his teachings to the suffering we have created through how we’ve shaped our world today. The systems we have created, which benefit some and harm others, are still challenged by Jesus’ teachings. The status quo may have repeatedly changed over the last two millennia, but wherever we find a status quo where humans are being harmed, there we can apply Jesus’ teachings. And wherever we find humans being cared for and with enough to thrive, then we can find resonance and affirmation of those systems in the Jesus story.

If our reading this week can be redeemed in any way for our world today, I believe it’s going to have to be through not focusing on our religion about Jesus but by focusing on the things that the Jesus of our stories actually taught himself.

HeartGroup Application

1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.

2. What teachings of Jesus in Matthew are especially meaningful to you? Share with your group why.

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.

You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.

Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will 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 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.

My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com

Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.

I love each of you dearly,

I’ll see you next week.

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Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.

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Category: Esights, Indigenous Justice, Liberation Theology Tags: Ecological Justice, Economic Justice, Ethereal, Feminism, Immigration Justice, Lectionary Reading, LGBTQ Justice, Liberation, Liberation Theology, Material, Now, Pentecost, Racial Justice, Social Justice, Spirit

Pentecost and a Spirit of Justice

Posted on May 26, 2023 by Herb Montgomery

This Week’s Episode of Just Talking Available on YouTube

New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!

Season 1, Episode 15: John 7 & 20. Lectionary A, Pentecost

You can find the latest show on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ykqgj9pEP_8

or (@herbandtoddjusttalking)

Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment

Thanks in advance for watching!

Herb Montgomery | May 26, 2023

To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.

“Maybe you, too, still feel the pull to spiritualize that list from Isaiah and Luke, as so many Christians have before us. But what if we lean away from a gnostic response to this list and instead interpret it literally and materially? How could taking this list literally affect us? To actively participate in receiving the Spirit of Acts 2 means to care about the concrete well-being of those who are being harmed in our society today.”

Our lectionary gospel readings this week are both from John’s gospel. We considered the second reading from John 20 a few weeks ago.

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37-39)

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (John 20:19-23)

This coming weekend is Pentecost, the festival commemorating when the Spirit was poured out on the first Jesus followers and they developed the ability to communicate Jesus’ teachings in other languages.

Languages are not the only differences among members of our human family. We also have cultural differences, and political, social, and economic differences, as well. What could it mean today for the Spirit to enable us to understand one another, especially as we listen to those our present systems do the most harm?

Let’s consider the passage in John 7.

The first thing that jumps out at me in this passage is the Johannine community’s proto-Gnostic tendency to devalue the material, concrete, physical realities in which people suffered.

So here, “if anyone is thirsty…” let’s not dig a well or find out who is stopping the community from receiving clean drinking water, but let’s promise them an ethereal spirit instead.

In John, Jesus’ state execution liberated his spirit from his material body. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus was thereby “glorified” or transformed. This was the moment when Jesus’ spirit was freed from concrete, lowly embodiment, and was adorned with its inherent splendor.

At this time the community believed the Spirit was given to proto-Gnostic Jesus followers so they too could follow Jesus on this path, on the way to the same kind of spiritual liberation.

As I’ve said repeatedly over the last few weeks, much of western Christianity today is more gnostic than it realizes when it prioritizes the afterlife over the here and now, or prioritizes the spiritual (i.e. saving a person’s “soul”) over setting them free from material harm they are working to survive from social, political, economic, or interpersonal systems.

I want to contrast this with the Jesus we find in the synoptic gospels. Mark’s, Matthew’s, and Luke’s version of Jesus is much more concerned with the material experience of people in his society.

In Mark 8, for example, when the multitude was hungry, the synoptic Jesus did not offer them spiritual food or use food as a metaphor for his teachings. He stopped teaching and fed them literal loaves and fish. In Mark 10, seeing the wealth disparity in his community and noticing the poor suffer in a system that created winners and losers, he told an affluent man to literally sell his superfluous possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. Jesus didn’t simply point the poor toward the spiritual wealth of knowing him (gnosis).

I believe we don’t have to choose the spiritual over the material. I believe we can and must have a healthy balance of both. We need a holistic, life-giving interpretation of what it means to follow Jesus, one where people’s spiritual wellbeing is connected to their physical, material, emotional, psychological, economic, political, and social wellbeing. We don’t have to emphasize any of these to the exclusion of others. A more Jewish view of Jesus would have preserved his concern with liberating the whole person in whatever aspect of their lives they experienced harm.

As Jesus followers today, we must guard against the notion that only saving a person’s soul for eternity is important. That is not what Jesus teaches in our sacred stories. Yet our Christian history is littered with examples of a religion about Jesus that has cared more about saving people for eternity than creating a better world in the here and now where people are saved from the hell they are already enduring.

But like the water in the story of the woman at the well in John 4, the verses in this week’s reading have a gnostic bent to them. The water of life or of the Spirit is the special gnosis or knowledge that sets the believer on a path that will culminate in their own spirit being glorified once it is released from this fleshly housing at death. I understand where the Johannine community was coming from on this, but today we need a much more balanced understanding of what it means to follow Jesus or live in him.

One way to redeem this passage is, as the lectionary does, to connect it to John 20, where Jesus breathes the Spirit onto the apostles after resurrection. Today we too can inhale this Spirit and exhale justice, liberation, and life. Consider how in Luke’s gospel, the Spirit that Jesus is imparting to his followers in John was manifested on Jesus himself:

“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)

We must be careful here not to spiritualize away the above passage. The poor here are economically poor. In both Isaiah and Luke, the writers spoke of those who were actually poor in the economic systems of their day. The prisoners are those who were literally, not merely metaphorically, in need of liberation and justice. The blind were those who were in a Roman cell, a hole dug in the ground that was so dark they physically could not see their hands in front of their faces. The oppressed are not experiencing mystical, spiritual oppression but marginalization, subjugation, and oppression in their daily lives. And, finally, the year of the Lord’s favor was not someone’s warm and fuzzy assurance deep inside that God liked them. “The year of the Lord’s favor” was a Jewish reference to the literal year of Jubilee, when all economic debts would be forgiven and cancelled.

Maybe you, too, still feel the pull to spiritualize that list from Isaiah and Luke, as so many Christians have before us. But what if we lean away from a gnostic response to the list and instead interpret it literally and materially? How could taking Luke 4’s Spirit literally affect us?

To actively participate in receiving the Spirit of Acts 2 means to care about the concrete well-being of those who are being harmed in our society today. It means to care about LGBTQ people still being marginalized within and outside of our faith-based communities. It means to proclaim in solidarity that Black lives really do matter. That trans kids’ lives matter. That the children in our schools are of greater value to us than our freedom to own an AR-15. That the well-being of people migrating across our borders and coasts is a priority.

Who else would be included if Luke 4 were re-written in our social context today?

On this year’s Pentecost, what can it mean for us in our context to inhale the same Spirit being breathed on disciples in our gospel readings this week? How will that spirit be exhaled? What will it look like for us to breathe in and breathe out Jesus’ gift of the Spirit: a love that manifests itself in a faith that works justice, and an exhaling that is life-giving to those around us.

This Pentecost, may this same Spirit that blew on the primordial waters of our sacred creation stories blow once again today, spawning life and life-giving things into our relationships with ourselves, with others, and with the Divine.