Honesty Archives - Renewed Heart Ministries

Jacob’s Ladder

Posted on January 12, 2024 by Herb Montgomery

Finding Jesus Second Edition!

I have some exciting news!

I have just signed an agreement with a new book publisher (Quoir), and we are putting together a launch team for the second edition of Finding Jesus, coming out next month!

If you have been blessed by the first edition, and you would like to see this book have greater exposure to reach an even larger audience, I want to invite you to be a part of the launch team. This second edition will be available in paperback, Kindle and an audio book available on Audible. And great news for those who already have a copy of the first edition, the first 25 people to sign up to be part of our launch team will also receive a FREE Audible copy of the audiobook for Finding Jesus.

To join the Finding Jesus launch team, all you need to do is four things:

1) Go to Amazon and pre-order a copy of the second edition when pre-orders become available.

2) Read the pdf copy of the second edition of Finding Jesus that I will send you after your pre-order the book so that you’re ready on launch day.

3) On launch day go back to Amazon and write a review for Finding Jesus. (You’ll be able to do this on day one since you’ve already read the pdf copy.)

4) Share your review of Finding Jesus on your social media pages that day, also.

It’s pretty simple. That’s all. And if you already have copy of the first edition this is a great opportunity to get the audiobook version on Audible as soon as it is available.

If you would like to join our launch team, you can email me at info@renewedheartministries.com and just put in the subject of your email “Launch Team.”

Thank you in advance for being part of this special second edition publishing and ensuring this edition is a success.

New Episode of JustTalking!

Season 1, Episode 46: John 1.43-51. Lectionary B, Epiphany 2

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

Season 1, Episode 46: John 1.43-51. Lectionary B, Epiphany 2

or (@herbandtoddjusttalking)

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

Thanks in advance for watching!

Jacob’s Ladder

Herb Montgomery, January 12, 2024

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

“Are there places in our world where we’re struggling to believe there is hope for change? Where in our world do we need to be reassured that earth and heaven are still connected? Where do we still long for liberation from that which is causing harm? Whether we call it Jacob’s ladder, Jesus’ “kingdom,” God’s just future, or simply the way of justice and love, where are we longing for reassurance that a world of compassion and enough for everyone is still possible and still worth fighting for?”

Our reading this week is from the gospel of John:

The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”

Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.

“Come and see,” said Philip.

When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”

“How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.

Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”

Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” (John 1:43-50)

The first thing I always chuckle at in this passage is how it characterizes Jesus with a slight case of sarcasm. Philip has found Nathanael and told him about Jesus. Nathaniel’s response is “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” No sugar coating, no niceties, just says things as he perceives them to be: no pretense. Jesus, meeting Nathaniel, claims Nathaniel doesn’t mince words just to be polite. Nathaniel’s not socially sensitive and doesn’t attempt to hide how he really thinks or feels about something or someone. He has “no deceit.”

Last semester my daughter had the privilege of playing Célimène in her university’s Creative Arts and Theater department production of Molière’s The Misanthrope. The play makes fun of French social hypocrisies like customs of niceness between members of aristocracy with little regard for what is actually true. The show centers around Célimène and Alceste’s relationship and asks whether Alceste is a hero for his uncompromising honestly devoid of all tact or is just a social fool. Alceste and Nathaniel from our reading this week remind me a lot of each other.

Nathaniel doesn’t think deeply about what he’s saying about Nazareth or people who live there. He simply reveals his bigotry toward those people. It’s not honesty or freedom from deceit as Jesus subtly (sarcastically) points out here, but harmful bias.

This passage also reminds me that the early Jesus followers had no decision to “accept” Jesus as their personal, private “Savior.” Such an individualized approach had not crept into the Jesus community yet. Instead, the call that Jesus makes in all of the gospels is to follow him, not to accept a gift from him.

Consider the following passages from the gospels. I’ve added italics for emphasis:

“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” (Mark 1:17)

As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. (Mark 2:14)

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)

“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” (Matthew 4:19)

But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” (Matthew 8:22)

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. (Matthew 9:9)

Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:38)

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)

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him. (Luke 5:27)

He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” (Luke 9:59)

And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:27)

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)

I share all of these passages so we can really get the impact of what the gospel call was. It was not to mentally assent and then go on living life as you always had. No, it was a radical departure from the status quo. You reordered your life to follow Jesus and his teachings, specifically his teachings about the “kingdom,” a way of being human together that was rooted in the Golden Rule, enemy love, nonviolence, resource-sharing, wealth redistribution as restoration and reparations, and more. It was a social vision where people committed to taking care of one another as the objects of God’s love and making sure each person had what they needed to thrive. It was about love of neighbor and a preferential option for those the present system marginalized.

As this new year begins, this is a good time for all of us to take a little inventory of what it means to be a Jesus follower today. It’s more than worshipping Jesus. It’s more than accepting him. It’s more than trusting Jesus the way we trust an insurance company. It’s about following him and his vision for what life could look like here on earth, and working toward shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone. Love of neighbor means seeing your fellow human, whomever they are, as part of yourself and all of us together as part of the human family. It means committing to be a part of what is best for us all.

Lastly in our reading this week, Jesus speaks to Nathaniel about seeing the heavens open. There is a reference to Jacob’s ladder, and to the apocalyptic Son of Man.

The “heaven opening” language is the same language the synoptic gospel authors used to tell the stories of Jesus’ baptism:

Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. (Mark 1:10, italics added.)

As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. (Matthew 3:16, italics added.)

When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened. (Luke 3:21, italics added.)

The synoptic gospel authors connected Jesus’ baptism to the imagery in Isaiah 42 that describes one who would establish justice in the earth and in whose name, as the Christmas carol “O Holy Night” reminds us, “all oppression would cease.” In undoing our systems of economic extraction, this “chosen one” would end violence and bring “peace on earth.”

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,

my chosen one in whom I delight;

I will put my Spirit on him,

and he will bring justice to the nations.” (Isaiah 42:1)

John’s gospel connects this baptism imagery with imagery from Genesis of Jacob’s ladder:

He [Jacob] had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. (Genesis 28:12)

John’s author conflates the imagery of Jacob’s ladder with Jewish apocalyptic imagery of the Son of Man in Daniel chapter 7. In Daniel 7, the Son of Man would bring liberation from injustice, oppression, and violence of the world’s empires and bring about a new way of shaping human communities:

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed…

As I watched, this horn was waging war against the holy people and defeating them, until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the holy people of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom…

“But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.” (Daniel 7:13-14, 21-22, 26-27, italics added)

These are ancient Jewish liberation texts in which the people long to be delivered from their imperial oppressors.

What John’s Jesus is doing for Nathaniel in this week’s passage is connecting the images of Jacob’s ladder and the Son of Man and telling Nathaniel that he’s going to see it all! Jacob’s ladder assured Jacob, who longed for deliverance from his brother Esau whom he had wronged and from whom he was fleeing for his life. Jacob was on the run, an exile. After Jerusalem and her temple were no more, the people for whom John’s gospel was written felt like exiles too. So this passage offers them the same assurance once given to Jacob: that earth and heaven are still connected. All is not lost and the world can still be made right. Violence can end. Oppression can cease. And injustice can be made right.

This leads me to a possible application for us in this new year, too.

Are there places in our world where we’re struggling to believe there is hope for change? Where in our world do we need to be reassured that earth and heaven are still connected? Where do we still long for liberation from that which is causing harm? Whether we call it Jacob’s ladder, Jesus’ “kingdom,” God’s just future, or simply the way of justice and love, where are we longing for reassurance that a world of compassion and enough for everyone is still possible and still worth fighting for?

As 2024 begins, may we each take a moment to remember that earth and heaven are still part of one another. In this new year, may our daily lives be the lived prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

HeartGroup Application

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

2. What does it mean for you to “follow” Jesus? 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.

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You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.

If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.

And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.

My latest 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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Category: Esights, Liberation Theology Tags: Bias, Bigotry, Ecological Justice, Economic Justice, Feminism, Following Jesus, Honesty, Immigration Justice, Jacob’s Ladder, Lectionary Reading, LGBTQ Justice, Liberation Theology, Nathanael, Racial Justice, Social Justice

The Pain of Unanswered Prayer

Posted on July 22, 2022 by Herb Montgomery

Herb Montgomery | July 22, 2022

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

“When we don’t directly face the anguish caused because some of our most desperately wanted prayers are unanswered, the reality puts us in a state of torment. The conflict between what we think we are supposed to believe and the way things are causes a deep need for resolution that many never find. Some choose to simply live with the torment, and some of them are haunted by it. Others challenge what they have been taught to believe, and find rest.”

Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke.

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

He said to them, “When you pray, say:

‘Father,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come.

Give us each day our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.

And lead us not into temptation.’

Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.

So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:1-13)

For many people, this week’s reading brings up painful memories and deep questions about unanswered prayers.

The first portion of the prayer is believed to have come from the same source as Matthew’s version:

“Father, hallowed by your name, your kingdom come.”

Here, within his own cultural setting, Jesus is praying for a world where resources are justly distributed to all. Where everyone has what they need to thrive. In that patriarchal culture, the father was the householder who had the responsibility of maintaining a just distribution of resources for all within the household. No one was to have too much while others didn’t have enough. (For more on this see God the Father, Exclusive Othering, and a Distributive Justice for All)

I know the language of kingdom is also problematic, being both patriarchal and undemocratic. Today, we live in different social contexts from the audiences for which the gospels were originally written. In our social contexts, we can use better language to describe a just world where everyone has what they need to thrive.

Nonetheless, what this language is attempting to describe is a just world order. This prayer is a patient expression of longing for some other iteration of our present world. It is a prayer that this world, with all its injustice, violence, and hurt, will be put right.

This context helps explain the next phrase that both Matthew’s and Luke’s versions have in common—that we will together all have our daily bread. This means that we will have what we need, not simply to survive but also to thrive. It is not a spiritual prayer but a physical one. It is concerned with the concrete needs of people living their daily lives in the here and now.

From time to time I hear pastors say that saving souls for the afterlife is to be our mission as followers of Jesus. They denounce being concerned with matters of justice and rights and equality in this life and so reveal their own privileged social locations here. Jesus’ prayer calls that gross other-world focus squarely into question.

Luke’s version changes the third prayer request from the debt cancelation Matthew’s version includes to forgiveness for sins. This might represent a shift taking place in the Jesus movement away from calls for economic justice to forgiving sins in general. I’ve written before on my preference for Matthew’s version and why in our context today Matthew’s call for economic justice and plea for reduced inequality and the year of Jubilee is more life-giving. (For more on this, see A Prayer for Debts Cancelled.)

After the prayer, Jesus and the disciples share an anecdote intended to emphasize the importance of persistence in prayer. The story is rooted in Mediterranean shame/honor cultural expectations and the social tensions connected to them. In that region it would be shameful not to show hospitality to a friend who arrives late from a journey, and it would also be shameful for someone to approach their neighbor to help show hospitality very late at night. The person in the story chooses to risk the shame of going to their neighbor late at night over risking the shame of not being hospitable to their unexpected guest.

It’s difficult for us in our contexts today to understand how deep these social expectations of hospitality were in this culture and how strong the sense of shame would be if someone failed to meet them. A host cannot bring themselves to deny sustenance to their guest and must thus ask for help, despite the inconvenience hour. Luke adds that the neighbor finally decides to help because of the host’s persistence.

It’s awkward to use a story about hospitality to teach a different value, persistence in prayer. But Luke’s gospel attempts it nonetheless.

That’s how this reading becomes problematic. Presuming that God is good and that goodness is the only variable in prayers being answered, Luke’s Jesus uses some troublesome absolute language:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

If only it were that simple. If only answered prayers were solely dependent on the variable of an all powerful, good Divine being. Absolutes like this have produced atheists when reality doesn’t line up with the teaching.

Because everyone who asks doesn’t receive.

Sometimes those who seek don’t find.

Sometimes the door remains closed in spite of our persistent knocking.

And it’s okay to admit this!

I don’t claim to know how God, the universe, or prayer work. What I do know is that absolute language like this, used by the author of Luke’s version of the Jesus story, has proven to be more troublesome than helpful when people experience bad things in their lives and the prayers we need answered are not.

In this month’s recommended reading from Renewed Heart Ministries, Nancy Eiesland quotes Nancy Mairs’ book, Carnal Acts: Essays:

“The bodies we inhabit and the lives those bodies carry on need not be perfect to have value. Bad things do happen, we know—to bad and good people alike—but so do good things. Life’s curses, like life’s blessings are always mixed.” (In The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability, p. 13)

I find the expectation that some prayers may not be answered or are even unanswerable to be more life-giving in my own work of endeavoring to shape our world into a safer, more just, more compassionate home for everyone.

I never see the Jesus of the gospels waxing eloquent in Hellenistic philosophical fashion to explain why bad things happen and why some prayers go unanswered. What I do find is a Jesus who calls his followers to keep doing what they have the capacity to do to be the answer to other people’s prayers. Being someone else’s answer is something I can often do (not always). I’m going to have to accept that is enough.

Not all prayers are answered. And they are not all answered for a multitude of reasons.

Yes, we can say that. We must, because it’s true.

When we don’t directly face the anguish caused because some of our most desperately wanted prayers are unanswered, the reality puts us in a state of torment. The conflict between what we think we are supposed to believe and the way things are causes a deep need for resolution that many never find. Some choose to simply live with the torment, and some of them are haunted by it. Others challenge what they have been taught to believe, and find rest.

I believe there is wisdom in facing this pain rather than living in denial.

It is in facing our disappointments that we begin to grieve and in the end our spirits are released.

Believing that everyone who asks receives can impact our personal well-being when we don’t receive. This doesn’t even begin to address how believing the absolutes about answered prayer can often relieve us of our own responsibilities to take action on behalf of others and sometimes even ourselves.

But I believe the path of healing begins not with believing that the door is always opened for those who just knock long enough, nor even with the belief that all prayers are answered, but instead with coming to terms with the reality that, for whatever reason makes the most sense to you and is most life-giving for you, sometimes we pray, and don’t receive.