A Gospel About the Living Rather than the Dead
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A Gospel About the Living Rather than the Dead
Herb Montgomery | Novembrer 7, 2025
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”
Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.” (Luke 20:27-38)
Our reading this week involves a long-standing disagreement between the Pharisees and the Sadducees regarding the resurrection. Luke’s Jesus aligns with the Pharisees in this argument by affirming the idea of a resurrection, but then escapes a Sadducean trap set for those who believed in a resurrection. The style of the story they told Jesus reflects the style of the debates of rabbis at the time Luke’s gospel was written and is consistent with the way Jesus typically responds to tricky questions in Luke’s stories. At that time, Pharisees did not teach that a person went directly to a heavenly abode at death as some Christians would later come to teach. Jesus’ Jewish society was far from univocal on what happens to a person after this life. Luke’s gospel also includes the story of the rich man and Lazarus, a story that reflects a view of the afterlife influenced heavily by Jewish Hellenism. In our story this week, Jesus sides with a Jewish idea that says all dead people, regardless of the type of life they lived, rest at death in Sheol, the inescapable abode where those who have died have no conscious existence. This belief later evolved into a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous on a day in the future when all injustice, oppression, and violence would be put right (see Daniel 12:2).
The phrase that jumps out at me most in our reading is “God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.” The contrast between focusing on the living rather than on death and dying could have many possible applications today. To be sure, managing people’s fear of death has been a significant preoccupation for many religions. In the Christian faith, for example, the promise of heaven is powerful because it can be comforting. But focusing solely on personal salvation and the afterlife can replace focusing on Jesus’ teachings that call us to heal and put right the world around us while we live. Christianity teaches not only about the life to come but also about how Jesus followers are to live here and now. Justice in this life is not a secondary concern, but is central to Jesus’ teachings in the gospel stories.
One of Jesus’ core messages was the importance of loving one’s neighbor and caring for the least among us. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus makes this clear when he says, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 25:40). This passage defines following Jesus as action. It suggests that a genuine embrace of Jesus’ vision for society (“the kingdom”) manifests in acts of compassion, justice, and love toward others. A life focused only on securing a place in heaven or what may happen to us when we are dead risks neglecting Jesus’ call to be salt and light in our world while we are living (Matthew 5:13-16).
Being “salt and light” in our world here and now means Jesus followers are to influence the world positively by reflecting Jesus core ethic—love of neighbor—through their actions. Loving one’s neighbor in this life can express itself in many ways. It can include opposing unjust economic systems that plunge people into and keep them in poverty. It’s unacceptable that anyone should be hungry in the richest country in the world. The U.S. growing wealth disparity continues to worsen every day. Love of neighbor can also include seeking justice, which leads to peace, in other areas, too: justice in regards to racism, xenophobia, ableism, gender disparities, LGBTQ rights, and more. Working to shape our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone is how Jesus followers testify to the power of Jesus’ gospel of love. To be clear, these actions don’t earn our individual salvation, but they are the ways through which we bring social salvation into being.
When Christians focus on doing justice in this world, they embody Jesus’ kingdom of God on earth. Jesus often spoke of the “kingdom of heaven” not as a distant place but as a present reality breaking into our world. Every act of kindness, every instance of compassion, and every effort toward justice manifests God’s just future and invites others into it today. The Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation while we wait for death but in active engagement with the world while we are alive. After all, God is the God of the living and not the dead.
Focusing on our present life also guards against societal complacency and selfishness. A heaven-only paradigm can lead to an inward-looking faith concerned more with personal, individual assurance than community responsibility. But from the very beginning, Christianity has been a communal faith, one where love for God is not in competition with love for neighbor but inseparably connected, one manifesting the other. Following Jesus means working toward justice now as an act of obedience to the love of God, and, in tangible ways that benefit both ourselves and others, loving our neighbors as ourselves.
While the hope of heaven has historically been central to Christian belief, it still should never overshadow Jesus’ call to follow Him in how we relate to our world while we are in this life. Working toward a just world here and now is therefore central to discipleship. Through actions Jesus modeled himself in the gospel stories, Christians not only witness to the truth of Jesus’ love of neighbor but also bring hope, healing, and justice to a world in need. Jesus didn’t live to simply tell us God loved us. He spent his life teaching and modeling for us how to love one another.
“We belong to a mutually beneficial web of connection, well-being, and love. At the root of this connection is empathy; the result is kindness, compassion, respect, and understanding. When religion doesn’t center on this mutuality, it can become one of the toxic narratives that, in the end, dismantles self-love.” (Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Fierce Love, p. 30)
The questions about the afterlife that we encounter in this week’s reading are a distraction from focusing on living just lives while we’re alive. It’s interesting that these questions came from the Sadducees, the wealthy and elite class of Jesus’s society who had the most to lose if the masses embraced Jesus’ economic call for wealth redistribution such as through the Torah’s year of Jubilee (see Luke 4:19). Could this question, part of a debate between the Pharisees and and Sadducees, have been meant to distract from the concrete, economic elements of Jesus’ gospel? Could this have been another example of that age old political tactic of seeking to sow division among the masses over a peripheral topic to divide their support of Jesus?
Jesus’ response that God is the God of the living and not the dead calls each of us today to focus on uniting in our focus on the life in front of us, and shaping our current world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone today rather than on endless metaphysical debates about what may or may not happen to us in an afterlife.
Jesus’ mantra calls to me this week to focusing today. What difference can we make now?
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What difference does focusing on this life make in your own Jesus following and justice work? 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.
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Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of 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 45: A Gospel About the Living Rather than the Dead
Luke 20:27-38
“While the hope of heaven has historically been central to Christian belief, it still should never overshadow Jesus’ call to follow Him in how we relate to our world while we are in this life. Working toward a just world here and now while we are alive is therefore central to discipleship. The questions about the afterlife that we encounter in this week’s reading are a distraction from focusing on living just lives while we’re alive. It’s interesting that these questions came from the wealthy and elite class of Jesus’s society who had the most to lose if the masses embraced Jesus’ economic call for wealth redistribution such as through the Torah’s year of Jubilee? Could this have been another example of that age old political tactic of seeking to sow division among the masses over a peripheral topic to divide their support of justice? Jesus’ response that God is the God of the living and not the dead calls each of us today to focus on uniting in our focus on the life in front of us rather than on endless metaphysical debates about what may or may not happen to us in an afterlife.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
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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Apocalyptic Passivity
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New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 38: Matthew 25.1-13. Lectionary A, Proper 27
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
Season 1, Episode 38: Matthew 25.1-13. Lectionary A, Proper 27
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Apocalyptic Passivity
Herb Montgomery | November 10, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“To be clear, in the gospels, both a here- and-now, the “kingdom has arrived and is among you” Jesus and an apocalyptic, the “kingdom is coming” Jesus are portrayed because both matched an era of the early Jesus community. But a Jesus who taught us that God’s kingdom is already here for our participation seems to me to offer more life-giving options right now. A Jesus who only taught that hope was coming in the near future and that we must patiently, personally prepare for it doesn’t offer much hope for those who are suffering today and simply cannot wait.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten maidens who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all the maidens woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’
“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The maidens who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” (Matthew 25:1-13)
Our reading this week offers me an opportunity to share something that has been on my heart for some time now.
The parable in our reading this week is unique compared to other parables in Matthew’s gospel in both subject and the language it uses. Absent from this parable is Jesus’ usual humor and hyperbole. The parable doesn’t critique those in power in the prophetic way most of his other parables do. There is no plot twist or surprise ending to leave listeners scratching their heads. The lesson is pretty straightforward and obvious: Be prepared. Those who are prepared go in. Those who aren’t prepared are left out.
This lesson repeats common universal wisdom, and it’s also quite apocalyptic. It sounds a lot more like it’s addressing issues existing in the Jesus community when the gospel of Matthew was written down than when the events in the story were taking place. In Mark, for example, when Jesus is approaching his trial and death, he tells his followers he will leave them and calls them to participate with him in the speaking out that will eventually get him killed. In Matthew, these closing parables beginning in chapter 24 are about being ready when Jesus returns after his departure, and it closes with the same words found at the end of the parable in Matthew 24:42:
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” (Matthew 24:42)
This apocalyptic theme reflects more the concerns of the Jesus community after Jesus’ death than it does the teachings of Jesus before his unjust execution. In the rest of the gospels, the writers announce the good news or gospel that the time has come, the “kingdom” is here, and all are invited to join in Jesus’ vision for a just, inclusive, compassionate community. This invitation was deeply attractive to the marginalized and those pushed to the edges and undersides of Jesus’ society, but the calls to justice in Jesus’ typical “kingdom” teachings and parables were not as attractive to those benefiting from the unjust status quo. To these people, Jesus was seen as a threat that must be silenced.
Here at the end of Matthew it’s as if we’ve witnessed a subject change. We are no longer talking about the good news of a concrete salvation that has arrived in the here and now. Now we are discussing being prepared for its arrival at some point in the future. The community is wrestling with how to follow Jesus after Jesus’ death. On top of that, the Jewish members of this community are also wrestling what life looks like after the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple: the temple is no more and Jerusalem has been leveled to the ground. Everything has changed, and in the shadow of such deep trauma and loss, it makes a lot less sense to say God’s just future has arrived than to look to the future and focus on being prepared for when God’s just future will arrive.
This is the context of our parable in this week. It is a lot more apocalyptic or future-looking than the typical here-and-now focus that Matthew’s Jesus has used in preceding portions of this gospel. These two different versions of Jesus in certain parts of the gospels are at the foundation of the debate among Jesus scholars as to whether Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher of a soon-to-come new world or teaching that God’s kingdom was already here and inviting folks to be participate in it here and now. (For detail, see Robert Miller’s The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate.)
I have my own leanings and opinions on this subject. First, I think you can be a genuine Jesus follower regardless of which camp you subscribe to. I also think it’s more difficult and requires more intention and care if you choose to view Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher. You have to be careful not to view his economic teachings (such as selling one’s possessions and wealth redistribution to the poor) as coming from Jesus’ thinking that the world was about to end and there was no need to prepare for the future. You must be careful to see that these teachings are rooted in economic justice and reflect a Jesus who thought the best way to prepare for the future was not in hoarding resources but in investing in community and a commitment to care for one another. We can face whatever the future brings, together, knowing we have each other’s back.
An apocalyptic Jesus offers an excuse to ignore many of Jesus’ teaching on the basis that Jesus supposedly thought the world was about to end. His teaching are not sustainable, in this reasoning, on a long-term ongoing basis. I disagree with that idea. I believe Jesus’ teachings are sustainable and place before us all a path for a safer tomorrow.
Another area of care one has to be intentional about is when someone feels the world is about to end or their hope is rooted in the world ending. These folks are not the best ones to come up with sustainable solutions that prevent the end of our world. In other words, people whose hope rests in the world burning make the worst environmentalists! Their worldview doesn’t enable and prepare them to see long-term solutions to the problems threatening humanity’s survival today.
Simply put, Jesus followers today who believe Jesus’ taught the kingdom has arrived have fewer theological hurdles in their way to making our world a safer, just, more compassionate home for everyone here and now. I wish I had a nickel for every time a Christian has accused me of only arranging deck chairs on the Titanic whenever I speak on social justice or environmental justice issues. Just this past week, a friend of mine was lamenting online how everything in our world seems to be crumbling and coming apart. A Christian friend of theirs who was first to respond, commented, “As in the days of Noah.”
How does that help? Rather than a call to roll up one’s sleeves and go to work relieving the harm and suffering that the most vulnerable in our communities are going through (which would look a lot like the Jesus we encounter in the majority of the gospel stories), there is a sad resignation that world will just keep getting worse and worse and there’s nothing we can really do about it until Jesus shows up.
Really? There’s really nothing we can do? It sounds more like we want the world to get worse and worse when some among us believe Jesus can’t come back until it gets a lot worse. Are we listening to ourselves when we say things like this?
Suffering should move Jesus’ followers to action, like it moved our Jesus. It shouldn’t lead us to a passive, powerless resignation that this has all been foretold and there’s nothing we can do but wait and be prepared ourselves. In the stories, Jesus’ desire for his followers is that they join him in his work of making our world a better place here and now. He said it’s here. “The kingdom of God is in your midst.” (Luke 17:11)
Again, I understand how the Jesus movement became apocalyptic after Jesus’ death. I can see how Paul was apocalyptic. I can even see that John the Baptist was apocalyptic: he was looking for one “to come,” while Paul was looking for Jesus “to return.” But Jesus was announcing God’s just future had arrived! And if we lean into that version of Jesus in the Jesus story, it changes everything. It has for me. It has changed my focus from the future to the here and now. After all, didn’t Jesus say not to worry and be preoccupied about tomorrow, that “tomorrow will worry about itself” (Matthew 6:34)? He called his listeners to focus on today and the good they could do now. He called his followers to do whatever we can, big or small, to make our world a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone, here and now.
When I go back and look at our parable in this light, I understand we must be prepared for the future, whatever it may hold. And the best way Jesus taught us to be prepared is to be about investing in each other, caring about each other, and doing what we can to promote the common good, today, here, now. People matter. The world is on fire. Will we pick up a pail of water to help put it out or will we stand back and simply view it all as unavoidable apocalypse?
To be clear, in the gospels, both a here- and-now, the “kingdom has arrived and is among you” Jesus and an apocalyptic, the “kingdom is coming” Jesus are portrayed because both matched an era of the early Jesus community. But a Jesus who taught us that God’s kingdom is already here for our participation seems to me to offer more life-giving options right now. A Jesus who only taught that hope was coming in the near future and that we must patiently, personally prepare for it doesn’t offer much hope for those who are suffering today and simply cannot wait. And for those who can choose a both/and approach, we must still be careful that our both/and approach doesn’t produce the fruit of apocalyptic passivity that ensures we have our own oil but doesn’t do much to make sure everyone else has the oil they need too.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How does seeing Jesus’ teachings applying to the here and now affect your own Jesus following. 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.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. 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.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
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.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
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In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
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Social Salvation
by Herb Montgomery | May 17, 2019
“Here in the West we are shaped by a deeply individualistic culture, and some Christian communities rarely address Jesus’ social salvation, if ever. The form of Christianity that most people experience focuses heavily on a person’s individual (personal) salvation and leaves the idea of social salvation unspoken. We must also be honest: many of those who lead this form of Christianity are those in privileged social locations and with a degree of power in our society. It’s very convenient for this part of American Christianity to focus on an individual salvation that leaves social injustice untouched and emphasizes attaining heaven after death rather than a more earthly focus of working for things now to be ‘on earth as they are in heaven.’”
“Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.” (Matthew 21:12)
We’ve been getting a lot of questions over the past few weeks about our articles on a more social reading of the gospels. Again, I’m not saying that Jesus never addressed an individual’s personal salvation. In the stories of the gospels, he does. But he also worked toward society’s salvation too.
Here in the West we are shaped by a deeply individualistic culture, and some Christian communities rarely address Jesus’ social salvation, if ever. The form of Christianity that most people experience focuses heavily on a person’s individual (personal) salvation and leaves the idea of social salvation unspoken. We must also be honest: many of those who lead this form of Christianity are those in privileged social locations and with a degree of power in our society. It’s very convenient for this part of American Christianity to focus on an individual salvation that leaves social injustice untouched and emphasizes attaining heaven after death rather than a more earthly focus of working for things now to be “on earth as they are in heaven” (see Matthew 6:10).
So where do we find examples of Jesus working toward social salvation in the gospel stories?
The most familiar story is of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on what we have labeled as Palm Sunday and his Temple protest the following day. Both of these events were public demonstrations calling for social change. His entry into Jerusalem that day competed with Rome’s entry into Jerusalem going on at the same time. (See chapter 1 of Borg’s and Crossan’s The Last Week.) Jesus was protesting Rome’s vision for society, the Pax Romana.
Jesus overturning the tables in the Temple courtyard was an even more pointed social protest. I want to be clear though: Jesus’ actions must be understood within Judaism, not outside or against it. Remember, Jesus was never a Christian. He was a Jew. Jesus was not against Judaism; nor was Judaism against Jesus. Jesus’ voice was one of many Jewish voices in his own society: there was a spectrum of positions among the Essenes, the Zealots, the scribes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. Each of these groups had ideas and interpretations about what it meant for Jewish society to live in faithfulness to the Torah. Christianity grew out of an early group of Jewish Jesus followers who resonated with Jesus’ vision for Jewish society. It was later, when the Jesus movement became populated by more nonJewish adherents and adherents from the upper classes of Gentile society that anti-Semitism enters the telling of the Jesus story. Originally the Jesus story was not read this way.
Let me also say, on the flip side, that the context Jesus was in was also not a uniquely Jewish story. The dynamics and social tensions of that society happen in all societies, Jewish and non-Jewish. When Jesus flipped the tables in the Temple (see Matthew 21:12) at the beginning of his final week, he was not protesting Judaism! Far from it. He was protesting political oppression and exclusion in his society. He was protesting the economic exploitation of the vulnerable in his society. And he was protesting the religious legitimization and complicity of the priests in the Temple. His actions were not against the Temple because it was the Jewish Temple. His actions were in solidarity with the Jewish poor in his Jewish society.
Political oppression and exclusion, economic exploitation, and religious legitimization are not uniquely Jewish by any means. They are universal social evils that take place in all societies. Christians should not rush to point fingers at their Jewish neighbors, because Christianity’s history and present offer many examples of these social sins as well. Elite Christians who benefit from these sins could have just as easily and surely executed a prophet of the poor, and they have. Rome executed Jesus because he threatened an unjust status quo. People have been removed from society in one way or another in every generation when they have stood up to an unjust status quo.
With this in mind, here is one more example of Jesus addressing social evils, not mere personal/individual ones:
“Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?’ He said to them, ‘If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.’ Then he said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.” (Mathew 12:9-14)
Plotting to kill Jesus seems like a pretty extreme response if we only read this story as Jesus healing one individual with a “shriveled hand.” But if we read this story as Jesus attacking a socially unjust power structure—a religious interpretation that was the foundation for a social evil that marginalized the vulnerable, and the authority of those who perpetuated this interpretive foundation—their response of feeling threatened and feeling an immediate need to silence or remove Jesus begins to make sense. Speaking of the healing stories in the gospel of Mark, Ched Myers points out:
“In contrast to Hellenistic literature, in which miracle-workers normally function to maintain the status quo, gospel healings challenge the ordering of power. Because Jesus seeks the root causes of why people are marginalized, there is no case of healing and exorcism in Mark that does not also raise a larger question of social oppression. (Ched Myers, Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 14.)
In the Jesus stories, then, we see a Jesus who continually took a stand with the marginalized sectors of his society even when that stand pitted him against more popular religious teachers and their authority. (See Solidarity with the Crucified Community.) This should give us some pause today when we encounter ways of interpreting our sacred texts that either side with religious institutional positions that harm others or give a sacred foundation for inclusion, compassion, centering the vulnerable, and justice. For example, in Christianity today, there are multiple ways to interpret Biblical texts that have been applied to the LGBTQ community. LGBTQ youth who belong to non-accepting Christian families demonstrate disproportionately higher rates of suicide. It would be far better for these children to belong to a non-Christian family that accepted them than a Christian family whose interpretive lens does them such harm.
This is just one example. Interpretations of the Bible are also used to harm women as well, as we are seeing in the Southern portions of the U.S. presently.
Here not Heaven
Another contrast between personal salvation and social salvation is that personal salvation tends to focus one’s attention on the afterlife, gaining heaven, a pessimistic patience for how things are now, and a hope for change only at some point in the distant future.
However, notice how within the story of Lazarus in John’s gospel Jesus rejects this future focus and calls Martha to the present, now and not later. When Jesus finally arrives to Lazarus’ tomb, he assures Martha that her brother will live again.
“Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’” (John 11:24)
Here Martha exemplifies this far distant future hope. Jesus contradicts her, calling her to focus her hope for change in the present.
“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’” (John 11:25)
Individual salvation places a person’s hope in the future, either at death or in Jesus’ return to this earth. Social salvation says, no, “I am the resurrection and the life” now. Change can take place now. Another world is possible, if we would choose it, now. Jesus taught the meek will inherit the earth, not a post-mortem heaven (see Matthew 5:5).
And this leads me to my third contrast this week.
Today Not Later
Private and personal salvation focuses on a future hope while leaving the present’s social structures largely untouched. In Luke’s gospel, we read the story of Zacchaeus whose personal transformation or salvation came as a result his embracing Jesus’ vision for social salvation from the social evil of wealth disparity. Jesus had been preaching a more distributively just vision for society. Jesus envisioned a society without disparity, where everyone has enough and no one has too much while others are suffering and going without. In Luke, Jesus had also called his followers to sell their surplus possessions, and give them to the poor (Luke 12:18, 33; cf. Acts 2:44-45; Acts 4:33-34).
Zacchaeus embraces Jesus vision and states, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (Luke 19:8).
Jesus responds, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham” (Luke 19:9, emphasis added).
“Today.” Stop and ponder that. Some equate salvation with eternal life. Zacchaeus entered into what makes life eternal in the gospels that day Jesus spoke. He didn’t enter at his death. He entered that day, because eternal life is social. Societies can follow paths that will eventually bring about their own ruin and destruction, or they can follow the path of life. Humanity as a species has to choose between these options as well.
I’m reminded of Brock and Parker’s insight into how eternal life is defined in the gospels:
“The Gospel defines three dimensions of this eternal life: knowing God; receiving the one sent by God to proclaim abundant life to all; and loving each other as he had loved them. Eternal life, in all three meanings, relates to how life is lived on earth. The concrete acts of care Jesus has shown his disciples are the key to eternal life. By following his example of love, the disciples enter eternal life now. Eternal life is thus much more than a hope for postmortem life: it is earthly existence grounded in ethical grace.” (Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, p. 29)
That day Zacchaeus embraced an offer from Jesus, but it was not an offer of post-mortem bliss. Zacchaeus embraced Jesus’ social vision for societal change—Jesus’ social gospel.
Yes, Jesus engaged a person’s personal salvation, always in the context of that person embracing Jesus social teachings. This means that divorcing a person’s private salvation from their larger participation in Jesus’ vision for social salvation is being unfaithful to the story. Jesus didn’t just change individual lives. He changed individual lives when they chose to participate in Jesus’ challenge to the status quo and his call for social change.
“Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.” (Matthew 21:12)
A Special Request
If you have been blessed by our work here at Renewed Heart Ministries, I want to take the opportunity this month to reach out to you and ask you to support our work.
This is a time of the year when the need for your support is keenly felt as well as deeply appreciated.
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I believe another Christianity is possible.
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Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Wherever you are today, choose to keep living in love. Choose compassion. Take action. Seek justice. Till the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Wherever you are today, choose to keep living in love. Choose compassion. Take action. Seek justice. Till the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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