Following the Way of Love and Justice in this New Year
Dear Friend of Renewed Heart Ministries,
Thank You for Your Support of Renewed Heart Ministries in 2025
As 2025 has come to a close, I want to personally thank you for your generous support of Renewed Heart Ministries this year. Your commitment and generosity make our work possible, and we are deeply grateful for the trust you place in this mission.
Because of you, Renewed Heart Ministries continues to challenge injustice, amplify voices too often ignored, and encourage people of faith to follow Jesus in ways that are courageous, compassionate, and transformative. Your support allows us to create resources, foster conversations, and nurture communities committed to love, dignity, and liberation for all, especially those pushed to the margins.
In a time when injustice can feel overwhelming and hope fragile, your partnership reminds us that meaningful change is built together. Every gift, large or small, is a tangible act of solidarity and a powerful statement that justice, mercy, and radical love still matter.
As we look ahead to the coming year, your support gives us the strength to continue this work with clarity and resolve. We are excited about what lies ahead and honored to walk this journey with you.
Thank you for standing with Renewed Heart Ministries in 2025. Your generosity truly makes a difference.
With gratitude and hope,
Herb Montgomery
Director
Renewed Heart Ministries
renewedheartministries.com
Following the Way of Love and Justice in this New Year
Herb Montgomery | January 23, 2026
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:
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter). (John 1:29-42)
As we shared two weeks ago, I have found it deeply healthy in my own interpretations of the Jesus stories to remember that the Gospel of John is distinctive among the four gospels for both its style and its theological focus. John’s gospel doesn’t begin with Jesus’ birth or even his baptism by John. The gospel of John opens with a cosmic prologue that presents Jesus as the pre-existent Word or the Logos of the ancient world. These high claims come into tension when we get to John baptizing Jesus. Unlike the Synoptic Gospels, the Gospel of John notably omits a direct account of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus’ baptism marks the public beginning of his ministry and affirms him as God’s beloved. John’s Gospel, however, shifts the focus away from the act of baptism itself and toward John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus. John identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God and the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. This omission reflects John’s high Christology, emphasizing Jesus’ pre-existence and divine identity rather than a moment of commissioning by John or social repentance through John’s water baptism.
What does it mean to follow Jesus today?
John the Baptist’s ministry defined religious fidelity not as private piety but as concrete social justice rooted in communal responsibility. Preaching in the wilderness, John did not call people to heightened ritual observance or inward spiritual refinement. Instead, he announced a public reckoning: faithfulness to God would be measured by how people treated one another, especially the poor and vulnerable. When crowds asked John what repentance looked like, his answers were unmistakably social. Those with excess clothing were to share with those who had none. Those with surplus food were to do likewise. For John the Baptist, repentance meant redistribution, not introspection.
John’s message was especially pointed toward those with institutional power. Tax collectors were not told to abandon their profession but to stop exploiting their neighbors. Soldiers were instructed to reject extortion and false accusations and to be content with fair wages. These commands exposed the systemic injustice embedded in everyday economic and political practices of John’s society. John’s call to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” located fidelity to God in ethical transformation that disrupted unjust systems rather than in personal moral purity alone.
Baptism, in John’s ministry, functioned as a public sign of alignment with this justice-oriented vision. It marked a break from exploitative patterns and a commitment to a new social order shaped by equity and compassion. John’s critique also confronted socio-political leaders who relied on ancestry or ritual status for legitimacy. It was not enough to claim descent from Abraham; as the Hebrew prophets of old also preached, justice was the true marker of covenant faithfulness. God, John insisted, was impressed not by pedigree but by practice.
By framing repentance as economic sharing, honest labor, and nonviolence, John positioned social justice at the heart of religious life. His ministry announced that devotion to God could not be separated from pursuing justice in the world. People would prove their faithfulness not in prayer alone but in transformed relationships and restructured communities. In this way, John the Baptist laid the groundwork for a prophetic tradition that measured spirituality by its social impact, and prepared the way for Jesus’ movement, where love of God and love of neighbor were inseparable.
Jesus’ ministry emerged out of the movement John the Baptist started, and carried forward its core conviction: faithfulness to God is expressed through concrete love for others. So Jesus did not appear in a religious vacuum. He began his public life by aligning himself with John’s baptism and signaled continuity with John’s call to the kind of repentance that was social transformation rather than private piety. Whereas John announced justice as a way to prepare for God’s reign, Jesus embodied and expanded that vision in word and deed.
At the heart of Jesus’ teaching was the inseparable relationship between love of God and love of neighbor. It was not a sentimental ethic but a radical social demand. Jesus defined love of neighbor through practices that challenged economic inequality, social exclusion, and religious boundary-making. Feeding the hungry, healing the sick, welcoming those labeled unclean, and restoring dignity to women, the poor, and the marginalized were not secondary acts of kindness but the very substance of how Jesus defined devotion to God. In Jesus’ ministry, worship and love of neighbor were one.
Jesus’ parables also redefined neighbor beyond ethnic, religious, and moral boundaries, making compassionate action the true mark of faithfulness. Teachings about wealth exposed systems that enriched a few at the expense of many. Through his parables, Jesus called for generosity, debt release, and mutual care. His proclamation of the “kingdom of God” named an alternative social order where the last are first, power is shared service within a community, and community is structured around equity and mercy.
Like John, Jesus confronted those who relied on religious and political status while neglecting justice. Yet Jesus went further by forming a community that practiced this ethic in daily life: sharing resources, breaking bread across divisions, and embodying God’s love in public, visible ways. In continuity with John the Baptist, Jesus defined true fidelity to God not by religious performance, but by love enacted as social justice, transforming relationships, and challenging unjust structures at every level of society.
And this brings me to this week’s passage. As I read the Gospel of John’s account of the first disciples called to follow Jesus, I’m struck with what it may mean to follow Jesus today. Following Jesus in this new year means more than private belief or personal spirituality; it requires a renewed commitment to social justice. From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus announced good news to the poor, release to the captives, and liberation for the oppressed. To follow him today is to take those words seriously in a world still marked by inequality, violence, and exclusion.
Jesus consistently stood with those pushed to the margins of society. He challenged systems that concentrated wealth and power in the hands of a few while leaving many behind. His teachings confronted economic exploitation, ethical hypocrisy, and political arrangements that benefited elites at the expense of the vulnerable. Following Jesus, then, calls us to examine our individual behavior and also the structures that shape our communities and nations.
In this new year, commitment to societal justice means listening to the voices of those most affected by injustice and allowing their experiences to shape our priorities. Right now, that means advocating for our migrant communities, affordable access to healthcare and education even for the poor, policies that protect, rather than scapegoat, our trans friends and family, dedication to caring for our environment, and so much more. These are not distractions from faith; they are expressions of it. Justice work is sacred work and the needs of people are holy.
Lastly, Jesus’ way of love was costly. Last month’s recommended reading was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship. Jesus’ way of love led him into conflict with powerful interests and ultimately to the cross. To follow him today may likewise involve risk, discomfort, and resistance. Yet it is precisely in this costly solidarity that hope is born. When we stand with those who are being harmed, we participate in the healing and restoration that Jesus envisioned.
As we step into this new year, following Jesus means choosing justice over comfort, compassion over indifference, and action over silence. It means committing ourselves, again and again, to the work of transforming our world so that it more fully reflects the values of love, compassion, and the liberation at the heart of Jesus’ life and message.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How is societal justice work sacred and holy work 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.
If you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 3 Episode 4: Following the Way of Love and Justice in this New Year
John 1:29-42
Jesus’ ministry emerged out of the movement John the Baptist started, and carried forward its core conviction: faithfulness to God is expressed through concrete love for others. So Jesus did not appear in a religious vacuum. He began his public life by aligning himself with John’s baptism and signaled continuity with John’s call to the kind of repentance that was social transformation rather than private piety. Whereas John announced justice as a way to prepare for God’s reign, Jesus embodied and expanded that vision proclaiming that reign had drawn near. Like John, Jesus confronted those who relied on religious and political status while neglecting justice. Yet Jesus went further by forming a community that practiced this ethic in daily life: sharing resources, breaking bread across divisions, and embodying God’s love in public, visible ways. In continuity with John the Baptist, Jesus defined true fidelity to God not by religious performance, but by love enacted as social justice, transforming relationships, and challenging unjust structures at every level of society. As I read the Gospel of John’s account of the first disciples called to follow Jesus, I’m struck with what it may mean to follow Jesus today.
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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Chistmas as Critique of Complicity with Empire
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Chistmas as Critique of Complicity with Empire
Herb Montgomery | December 24, 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 Matthew:
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. (Matthew 1:18-25)
The birth narratives of Jesus found in Matthew and Luke emerge in a world saturated with Roman imperial propaganda. We can read them as intentional counter-stories that rivaled prevailing narratives surrounding the birth of Caesar Augustus. In the early Roman Empire, Augustus’ rise was framed as a divinely orchestrated event. Imperial poets and historians portrayed him as born under auspicious signs, heralded by prophecies, and destined to bring a golden age of peace. They said his birth would fulfill cosmic expectations. Inscriptions such as the Priene Calendar Decree called him a “savior” whose arrival marked the beginning of “good news” (or gospel) for the world. These themes formed a powerful ideological backdrop that shaped public imagination.
In this context, early Christians crafted their own contrary birth narratives. These stories don’t simply tell of Jesus’ origins but also deliberately challenge Rome’s theological claims. Luke’s narrative in particular mirrors and subverts imperial motifs. While Augustus issues a decree that sets the story in motion, the real focus is on a child born not in a palace but among the poor. Angels proclaim “good news” of “peace on earth,” echoing Roman language but redirecting it toward a different kind of rule. Instead of imperial conquest, this peace is grounded in human compassion and justice. Matthew’s story likewise positions Jesus in a prophetic lineage superior to Rome and presents him as the true king threatened by unjust power.
By adopting forms familiar from imperial birth legends and filling them with radically different content, the gospel writers offer a theological critique of empire. They portray Jesus as the genuine bringer of salvation, who saves society not through domination and imperial violence but through love of neighbor and solidarity with the marginalized. The birth narratives that we celebrate at this time of year originally functioned as political statements. They offer an alternative vision of power, challenge Rome’s claims to divine favor, and invite readers to imagine a world ordered not by imperial might but by the values of justice, compassion, and liberation.
Supernatural as these narratives are, I would like us to try and step back from the supernatural elements of the narratives about Jesus’ birth. These claims were made for Caesar as well. So what are these supernatural narratives saying politically, and can they inform our justice work today as we, too, seek to follow that 1st Century Jewish prophet of the poor from Galilee.
The central passage the Matthew chooses to adopt in his birth narrative about Jesus is from a completely different ancient Jewish story. And if we are to understand Isaiah’s story in a life-giving way, we need to start with the history of the original claim in Isaiah 7 that “a virgin would conceive”. Isaiah is a book about prophetic justice. Bear with me as we briefly summarize its history. It will be worth it in the end.
Isaiah 7 is set during the Syro-Ephraimite War (735–732 BCE). This was a major geopolitical crisis where the northern kingdom of Israel (Ephraim) and Aram (Syria) formed an alliance against Assyria and then threatened to invade the southern kingdom of Judah. Their goal was to depose Judah’s king, Ahaz, and force his kingdom to join their anti-Assyrian alliance. Ahaz and his people were terrified of this impending war.
King Rezin of Aram (Syria) and King Pekah of Israel (Ephraim) marched to besiege Jerusalem. They planned to overthrow the Davidic monarchy (Ahaz) and install a puppet ruler, the son of Tabeal. Ahaz and his people “trembled with fear, like the trees of the forest shake with the wind” (Isaiah 7:2). Rather than seeking help from God, however, Ahaz began making secret overtures to Tiglath-Pileser III, the powerful king of Assyria, to become his vassal and gain his military protection.
In Isaiah 7, God sent Isaiah to meet Ahaz and urged him to stay calm and trust in the Lord instead of in a foreign alliance. Isaiah assured the king that the invasion would fail, and he referred to the two enemy kings as “smoldering stubs of firewood” who would soon be extinguished.
Within a few years, Assyria conquered both Syria and Israel, the two nations threatening Judah. Isaiah’s prophecy indicated that before the child Immanuel was old enough to know right from wrong, the threat from Rezin and Pekah would be over.
Because Ahaz chose to rely on Assyria rather than God, Judah became an Assyrian vassal state. Heavy tributes and the introduction of pagan practices set the stage for future conflict and exile.
This is the connection between Isaiah and Matthew’s birth narrative for Jesus and Isaiah. Our culture’s naturalistic worldview means that what catches our attention is the scientific impossibility of a virgin birth, and this has distracted us from the political point that the author of Matthew’s gospel is making.
Let me explain. Just as Ahaz submitted to the powerful king of Assyria, the Temple state elites of Jesus’ society had submitted to being a vassal of Imperial Rome. Their complicity in Rome’s exploitation of the region had brought them both power and wealth, but it was privilege for the few at the expense of the masses.
In Jesus’ world, the Jerusalem Temple was not only a religious center but also the administrative heart of a Temple-State, a political institution deeply entangled with Roman imperial power. After Rome appointed Herod the Great as client king and installed Roman prefects to govern Judea, the Temple leadership—particularly the high-priestly aristocracy—found itself operating within a system designed to maintain stability for Rome and to secure its own privileged status. The high priest was no longer chosen by internal Jewish processes but appointed and removed at the will of Roman authorities. This arrangement created a class of leaders whose power, wealth, and security depended on cooperation with the empire.
The Temple system collected tithes, offerings, and taxes from the people, on top of Rome’s own heavy taxation. Many scholars note that this dual burden intensified economic strain on ordinary people, especially peasants already living close to subsistence. Temple elites, benefiting from control of offerings, land, and commerce, were seen as aligning themselves with Roman economic extraction rather than resisting it. Their collaboration helped stabilize Rome’s rule and reinforced their own authority.
This complicity is a central backdrop to Jesus’ confrontations in the gospels. His overturning tables in the Temple didn’t challenge Jewish worship; it challenged a system that exploited the poor and legitimized imperial violence. By critiquing both economic injustice and elite collaboration with Rome, Jesus exposed how the Temple-State had drifted far from its vocation as a place of liberation and had instead become a partner in imperial domination.
This leads us to parallels in our time. In the United States today, certain sectors of Christianity have become closely aligned with nationalism, blending religious identity with political power and national loyalty. This alignment often frames a nation as uniquely chosen or divinely favored, and so transforms faith into a marker of cultural belonging rather than a call to ethical discipleship that follows the values and teachings actually found in the Jesus story, values such as nonviolence, inclusion of the marginalized, welcoming the migrant, and taking care of the poor. Christian symbols and language are sometimes used to legitimize policies that prioritize dominance, exclusion, or fear of the “other,” especially immigrants, religious minorities, and dissenters. In this framework, loyalty to the nation can eclipse core Christian commitments to peace, justice, and love of neighbor. National success is interpreted as divine blessing, while critique of the state is portrayed as unfaithful. This fusion risks turning Christianity into a tool for preserving power rather than a prophetic voice that challenges injustice. When faith is subordinated to nationalist goals, it loses its capacity to speak truth to power and to stand in solidarity with the vulnerable.
In the light of Isaiah’s critique of a union with Assyria and the gospels’ critique of a union with Rome, today’s Jesus followers are called to put their faith in the way of peace and justice. This holiday season, the birth narratives of Jesus give us cause to pause and assess whether our own faith practices are still in harmony with the stories we hold so dear.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How are the Christmas narratives in the gospels informing your own justice work this year? 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.
If you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 2 Episode 51: Christmas as Critique of Complicity with Empire
Matthew 1:18-25
“Our culture’s naturalistic worldview means that what catches our attention is the scientific impossibility of a virgin birth, and this has distracted us from the political point that the author of Matthew’s gospel is making. That political point has parallels in our time. In the United States today, certain sectors of Christianity have become closely aligned with nationalism, blending religious identity with political power and national loyalty. This alignment often frames a nation as uniquely chosen or divinely favored, and so transforms faith into a marker of cultural belonging rather than a call to ethical discipleship that follows the values and teachings actually found in the Jesus story, values such as nonviolence, inclusion of the marginalized, welcoming the migrant, and taking care of the poor. Christian symbols and language are sometimes used to legitimize policies that prioritize dominance, exclusion, or fear of the ‘other,’ especially immigrants, religious minorities, and dissenters. In this framework, loyalty to the nation can eclipse core Christian commitments to peace, justice, and love of neighbor. National success is interpreted as divine blessing, while critique of the state is portrayed as unfaithful. This fusion risks turning Christianity into a tool for preserving power rather than a prophetic voice that challenges injustice. When faith is subordinated to nationalist goals, it loses its capacity to speak truth to power and to stand in solidarity with the vulnerable.”
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.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
The Christian Normalization of Social Evils
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The Christian Normalization of Social Evils
Herb Montgomery | October 3, 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:
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. Who among you would say to your slave who has just come in from plowing or tending sheep in the field, ‘Come here at once and take your place at the table’? Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, put on your apron and serve me while I eat and drink; later you may eat and drink’? Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’” (Luke 17:5-10)
Right at the start this week, I want to name that this text and others in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian New Testament fail to call out slavery and they treating other human beings as property of other humans as an evil that a just society rejects. Yes, a biblical argument can be made against slavery. But those arugumenst are much more complex requiring someont to know the cultural contexts of certain sections in which our sacred text was written. Abolitionism isn’t taught by any single passage but deduced from principles gleaned from a string of passages.
If Luke was directing this passage at the priests and Sadducees of Jesus’ day, we could read it as Jesus’ attempt to awaken the powerful, propertied, and privileged to their place as slaves of the Roman Empire. But the context doesn’t seem to support that interpretation. Jesus is responding to his disciples, the apostles, who have just asked for him to increase their faith.
So let’s begin with an honest survey of what our sacred text does say about slavery. And, fair warning, our scriptures don’t always say what we wish they would say. Let’s start with a passage in Leviticus:
“As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. You may also acquire them from among the foreigners residing with you, and from their families that are with you, who have been born in your land; and they may be your property. You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness.” (Leviticus 25:44-46)
That people are being permitted to be owned as property and even passed down as property that children can inherit is an astounding failure. In every era, an enslaved person would have objected to their dehumanization. I offer no justification here for enslavers. Nor will I advocate for or soften enslavers’ theology, ancient or modern. Certainly the society in which this passage was written had evolved enough to understand the evil of slavery. This is why it’s not allowed for other Israelites but only for those who are not Israelites: it was an evil enough to not be allowed for fellow citizens, but you could practice owning others, those who were not part of “us.”
I find this passage abhorrent. It’s passages like this one in Leviticus as well our reading in Luke that empowered Moses Stuart of Andover Seminary in Massachusetts, the nation’s most learned biblical scholar in the era leading up to the American Civil War, to publish a major tract on the subject of slavery entitled Conscience and the Constitution. Stuart stated that abolitionists “must give up the New Testament authority, or abandon the fiery course which they are pursuing” (p. 55). In other words, he argued, you can’t hold the abolitionist position that all slavery is evil and the New Testament with both hands. You have to let go of one to hold on to the other.
In The Civil War as a Theological Crisis, Mark Nollwrites of the uphill battle Christian abolitionists faced in using the Bible for their arguments against slavery:
Biblical attacks on American slavery faced rough going precisely because they were nuanced. This position could not simply be read out of any one biblical text; it could not be lifted directly from the page. Rather, it needed patient reflection on the entirety of the Scriptures; it required expert knowledge of the historical circumstances of ancient Near Eastern and Roman slave systems as well as of the actually existing conditions in the slave states; and it demanded that sophisticated interpretative practice replace a commonsensically literal approach to the sacred text. (Mark A. Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis [The Steven and Janice Brose Lectures in the Civil War Era], Kindle Edition. Kindle location 645)
Our reading this week belongs to a series of passages in Luke that don’t speak against slavery but assume it is a permanent part of human society. Other passages in Luke include:
Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. (Luke 12:35-38)
And:
For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. (Luke 22:27)
This week’s reading normalizes slavery. One of the dangers of readings like the one we’re reading this week is that they normalize for Christians behaviors and societal evils that we should react to with much more concern. They desensitize us to just how evil some things really are. The scriptures also have a long history of normalizing things such as genocide of Indigenous populations, viewing and relating to women as inferior to men, rejecting and even being violent toward LGBTQ people and migrants; they normalize xenophobia, exceptionalism, White supremacy, nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, retribution, and more.
This has helped me make sense much of why certain sectors of Christians today have embraced racist, fascist, authoritarian, and misogynistic elements in our society. Christians I have known all my life have embraced things over the last decade that have left me wondering if I really ever knew them. Things that should have been deal-breakers were instead glossed over, mitigated, or explained away. This makes sense because if a Christian’s picture of God includes some of these evils and encourages relating to humanity through an aggressive, destructive, us-versus-them paradigm, then these evils become normalized and fail to evoke the repulsion they should. These evils are accepted as part of the moral fiber of a loving God when they should be a huge red flag instead. If these aren’t a deal-breaker for God, they aren’t going to be deal-breakers for political leaders. This has desensitized a whole sector of Christianity to go along with a host of social evils rather than strenuously opposing them as harmful, horrendous, and destructive of vulnerable people. Beyond that, our own bigotries and prejudices can confirm us in normalizing destructive behaviors and worldviews.
However we hold, read, view, or interpret our sacred texts, we must do so in life-giving ways with a diverse community of others who experience life on this planet differently from us. This enables us to experience how others hear certain passages. It enables us become aware of the harm certain interpretations permit certian people to commit. And it offers us the opportunity to humbly listen to those unlike ourselves, believe their lived experience, and choose the kind of human being we want to be.
On the subject of slavery, I’m thankful that certain Bible authors did see the evils of slavery and sought to move their audiences away from it. As much as I critique the gospel of John over its focus on the afterlife rather than this life, it does get some things right. It focuses its audience on love toward one another, and love is the root of justice. It affirms the equality of women and other communities marginalized within Christianity at that time. And it subtly betrays the evil of slavery when John’s Jesus speaks to his disciples:
“I do not call you slaves any longer, because the slave does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends . . .” (John 15:15)
It’s still a far cry from a robust rejection of slavery. But the fact that Jesus refused to relate to his disciples as slaves in John, whereas in Luke, he tells disciples to say “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!”, sows a seed in the hearts of John’s listeners that could germinate and grow into questions about the institution of slavery itself.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What other things do you feel certain sectors of Christianity have normalized which should be societally rejected? 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.wpcomstaging.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.
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.
Season 3, Episode 27: Luke 17:5-10, Lectionary C, Proper 22
Just Talking is a weekly conversation centered on the upcoming weekend’s Gospel lectionary reading. Each discussion explores the text through the lenses of love, inclusion, and social justice.
Our hope is that these conversations will be more than just talking—they’ll be just talking, rooted in justice. And maybe, they’ll inspire you to go beyond just talking and into action.
Whether you preach from the lectionary or are simply curious about the Jesus story from a more progressive, justice-oriented perspective, we invite you to join us.
Herb Montgomery is speaker/director of Renewed Heart Ministries.
This week’s special guest is Alicia Johnston.
Watch at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 2 Episode 40: The Christian Normalization of Social Evils
Luke 17:5-10
“One of the dangers of readings like the one we’re reading this week is that they normalize for Christians behaviors and societal evils that we should react to with much more concern. They desensitize us to just how evil some things really are. This helps us make sense much of why certain sectors of Christians today have embraced racist, fascist, authoritarian, and misogynistic elements in our society. Christians I have known all my life have embraced things over the last decade that have left me wondering if I really ever knew them. Things that should have been deal-breakers were instead glossed over, mitigated, or explained away. However we hold, read, view, or interpret our sacred texts, we must do so in life-giving ways within a diverse community of others who experience life on this planet differently than ourselves.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/the-christian-normalization-of-social-evils
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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I Have Much More to Say to You
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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I Have Much More to Say to You
Herb Montgomery | June 13, 2025
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this first weekend after Pentecost is from the gospel of John:
“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” (John 16:12-15)
One of the things I believe the gospel of John gets right is its repeated call to take Jesus’ liberation work further than Jesus could in his own lifetime. This challenge doesn’t need to fill us with anxiety, and perfection isn’t the goal. Our justice work today can follow the same trajectory as Jesus’ work, and be in harmony with the values we perceive in Jesus’ gospel. As long as we are endeavoring to do this, sometimes we will get it wrong and sometimes we will get it right. And when we do get it right, healing justice will be the result.
You find this idea echoed in other parts of the gospel of John as well:
Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these . . .” (John 14:12)
More revelations, greater deeds, continuation of the Spirit: all of these narrative elements hint that the Johannine community believed they were to build on Jesus’ initial work. We can do that in for our context, time, and spaces, too!
Jesus built on the justice tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures:
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy. (Proverbs 31:8-9)
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow. (Isaiah 1:17)
Today, we can build on Jesus’ work, with these themes as our foundation too. Literalists among us have often cited passages like this and only been concerned with those who are literally widowed or fatherless. But the principle here is to prioritize and center whomever our society makes vulnerable to harm. In patriarchal societies like the ones both Proverbs and Isaiah were written for, community members not connected to a man (widows were without a husband, while the fatherless were without a present father) were vulnerable to social, political, and economic harm. Today we can mark other differences that make certain people in our communities vulnerable to harm. Today we don’t only use patriarchal biases We also use differences like race, gender, sexuality, education, culture, legal status or citizenship, and more to make community members vulnerable.
Today, we still have poor people, as well as the elderly and children. We must also be cognizant of how differences of race, gender, sexuality, citizenship, and other factors are used to justify cruelty and harm. As Brock and Parker remind us, “The work of justice requires paying attention to how difference is used to justify oppression.” (Rita Nakashima Brock & Rebecca Parker, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, p. 396)
What Brock and Parker call the “work of justice” is essential for creating a safe, just and compassionate society. Today, several areas of society urgently require social justice to ensure that all people, regardless of their differences, experience equity and safety. The apostle James explains it well when he says, our faith without works of social justice is worthless:
Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:15-17)
We must deeply question and reject a gospel that has no social impact toward justice:
If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? (1 John 3:17)
Societal sins are creating an immigration crisis in our nation today. Robert Chao Romero writes, “A five-alarm fire is raging through the Latina/o immigrant community. Millions are impacted. And yet, relatively few outside of our community—and very few within the evangelical community—seem to care. In fact, through their xenophobic rhetoric many are intentionally stoking the flames without regard to the many lives being consumed” (Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity, p. 207. Published in 2020).
Romero continues, “Seeing ourselves in the Exodus narrative, we apply the biblical text to our present experience and declare:
Afterward the Brown Church went to Donald Trump and said, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, so that they may live lives of shalom and abundance in the land that was once theirs.’”
But Donald Trump said, “Who is the LORD that I should heed him and let the Hispanics go? I worship the God of Make America Great Again, Manifest Destiny, and America First. I do not know about the Christianity of which you speak—this Jesus of Galilee and the God of the Oppressed.” . . .
But the president of the United States said to them, “Brown Church, why are you taking the people away from their work? Get to your labors!”
—Exodus 5:1-4, Contemporary Chicana/o Version
(Ibid., pp. 210-211)
Another prominent area in need of reform is the criminal justice system. Racial profiling, disproportionate sentencing, police brutality, and mass incarceration particularly affect marginalized communities. Social justice in this area calls for equitable law enforcement practices, judicial fairness, and rehabilitation over punishment. Ensuring accountability for law enforcement and promoting restorative justice are also crucial steps.
Consider getting involved in our education system to address inequality. Social justice in education means meeting funding gaps and providing support services to meet diverse student needs. Consider getting involved in the battle for everyone to have even basic health care. The US is considered by many to be a “major nation” due to its substantial economic influence, its powerful military presence, and its role in international organizations. Yet we are the only high-income nation in the world not to ensure everyone has healthcare as a basic human right. Justice requires that everyone can access necessary services regardless of income. You could engage social justice in the workplace. Workplace justice means ensuring fair wages, equal hiring practices, and safe, inclusive environments. Labor rights and protections against exploitation are also foundational to workplace justice. Or how about getting involved in environmental justice? Marginalized communities often live in areas with higher vulnerability to pollution, waste, and climate-related risks. Environmental justice involves pushing our elected officials toward regulating the environment and involving the community in decision-making about environmental issues.
And this only scratches the surface. Jesus’ followers today could choose to see so much more in the Jesus story than a call to charity. Hearing Jesus’ words in John’s gospel, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth” invites us to perceive the truth that achieving a world that is safe, compassionate, and a just home for everyone in our time requires systemic change, policy reform, and collective commitment to equity, inclusion, and human dignity that embraces and celebrates all of our differences.
Christianity and social justice have always been deeply connected. Whether Christians have historically been found fighting against social justice movements or supporting and working alongside them, Christianity and social justice are connected first and foremost through the teachings of Jesus Christ, who emphasized love, compassion, and care for the marginalized. Central to our gospel is the belief that all humans are created in the image of God, are objects of God’s love and salvation, and deserve dignity and equality. The Hebrew scriptures, too, repeatedly call for justice, particularly for the poor, oppressed, and vulnerable, as seen in verses like Micah 6:8, which urges believers to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.”
Today, we can find Christians on both sides of the social justice work. Some work for a better world here and now, and others are afraid of change, biased against differences, and opposed to the efforts of more justice-oriented Christians working to address systemic injustice, advocate for peace, and end oppression and marginalization. While the different communities within the early Jesus movement held various interpretations of his teachings, the core principle for all them was that faith must be expressed through action. The book of James defines faith as including actions that strive for justice for the oppressed. Christians today who aim to reflect God’s love and build a more compassionate and safe world are wading out into the deep waters of the “much more” Jesus had to share with us, for such a time as this.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What does expanding on the Jesus story look like for 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
Season 3, Episode 15: John 16.12-15. Lectionary C, Trinity Sunday
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 24: I Have Much More to Say to You
John 16:12-15
“Today, we can build on Jesus’ work, with these themes as our foundation too. Literalists among us have often cited passages like this and only been concerned with those who are literally widowed or fatherless. But the principle here is to prioritize and center whomever our society makes vulnerable to harm. In patriarchal societies like the ones both Proverbs and Isaiah were written for, community members not connected to a man (widows were without a husband, while the fatherless were without a present father) were vulnerable to social, political, and economic harm. Today we can mark other differences that make certain people in our communities vulnerable to harm. Today we don’t only use patriarchal biases We also use differences like race, gender, sexuality, education, culture, legal status or citizenship, and more to make community members vulnerable.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/i-have-much-more-to-say-to-you
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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Jesus, a Greek Woman and a Magical Cure
Thank You!
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Herb Montgomery, September 7, 2024
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 Mark:
Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”
She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis. There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him.
After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it. People were overwhelmed with amazement. “He has done everything well,” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.” (Mark 7:24-36)
Our reading this week contains two stories that inspire a conversation about what it means to make our world a safer, more compassionate, and just home for everyone.
The first story is of a Greek woman who approaches Jesus on behalf of her daughter who is possessed. There’s a lot to unpack in this story.
First, possession in the gospel of Mark is a consistent metaphor for the very real, concrete possession the people of this region experienced from the Roman Empire. In Mark 6, the demon is named “Legion.” This was what the largest unit of the Roman Empire was called. A Legion was often placed in an indigenous people’s territory to keep them from revolting. The Jewish people were not the only ones subjugated by the Roman Empire and their territory taken as Roman possession. The Greeks were subjugated by the Romans, too.
The second thing to notice is the intersection of two different social locations Jesus is standing in simultaneously. As a Jew, Jesus belongs to a people once subjugated and oppressed by the Greeks during the Maccabean era, when the Jewish people were violently oppressed by the Greek emperor Antiochus Epiphanies. This gives us context for why a subjugated, indigenous people (the Jews in this case) would consider their oppressors and subjugators (in this case the Greeks) to be dogs. Many Jewish people also at this time referred to Romans as dogs. Social location here matters and helps us understand context.
The other social location Jesus is standing in is being a man in a patriarchal world that subjugated and oppressed women. Jesus is oppressed and empowered simultaneously. You would be standing on two different streets simultaneously if you stood where those two streets intersected. This is called intersectionality: Jesus is standing in two intersecting social locations in his exchange with this woman. As a Jew, he is in the social location of those who were once oppressed by those he is interacting with. As a man he is in the social location of patriarchal privilege and power in relation to the woman he is interacting with He is simultaneously standing in the privilege of oppressor (as a man) and disadvantage (as a Jew).
Intersectionality is such a rich lens through which to relate to our world as we work for justice. Jesus being Jewish helps us understand why he would call a Greek a dog, while his being a male calling a woman a dog is unacceptable and derogatory. When this woman calls Jesus on it, she ultimately enlarges and expands his experience and understanding. We never see Jesus relating like this to Jewish women. In fact, in a patriarchal culture, Jesus’ relation to Jewish women is remarkably egalitarian. In this story, Jesus learns that Greek woman live in intersecting social locations too. He comes to see that this person before him is more than just a Greek person whose people once persecuted his people. He sees her as a human being, a parent who simply wants something better for her child than Roman oppression. Everyone who is a parent can identify with wanting something better than you’ve experienced for your children.
We all live in intersecting social locations within our own system too. We are all oppressor and oppressed simultaneously depending on which aspect of our identities is privileged or disadvantaged in our society. What this story models is how, in the areas of our life where we are privileged, we can all learn to compassionately listen to those who in those areas of our life are marginalized or excluded. And, in the areas of our identities that others consider less than, this story calls us to push back and hold accountable those who consider us less than, no matter who they are. Even if they are Jesus.
In the second story in this week’s passage, we have the story of a deaf and mute man. This story is omitted in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Some Jesus scholars think it may be because the story sounds too magical for later Jesus communities. Jesus puts his fingers in this man’s ears, spits, touches the mans tongue, and speaks an Aramaic word. It’s a strange healing story, no doubt, and it’s only here in Mark. I understand why later versions of the Jesus story simply leave it out.
But this story in our reading provides us with the opportunity to talk about ableism and considering or treating people with disabilities as inferior.
In Jesus’ society, people with certain disabilities were put in a marginalized and disenfranchised economic, social, and political position. And this week’s story doesn’t challenge that economic system that exploited the vulnerable and excluded the deaf and mute. It also doesn’t center those with disabilities and their right to self-determination and to change a system that practiced discrimination in favor of able-bodied people. Instead, this story makes a person more able-bodied so they could survive and be included in a discriminatory, competitive system. Rather than making the system more fair, this healing simply places the person in an equal place of opportunity to compete. Mark will critique and call for change of the system elsewhere in this version of the Jesus story(Mark 10:17-23). But this is not one of those times. Equal opportunity in a system that creates winners and losers is not the same as creating a system where everyone wins together and there are no more losers.
As Jesus followers seeking ways to make our world a more compassionate and just home for everyone, we can do better than what this story offers. Let me explain.
People who live with disabilities are not “less than.” And we also live in a system that practices discrimination against disabled people in favor of able-bodied people. It’s an ableist system. Ableism characterizes people by their disabilities and classifies disabled people as people who are inferior to non-disabled people. Where medicine and technology can grant people with disabilities with greater ability, people should be able to choose what to use, within their right of self-determination. We also have a long way to go make our world, communities, and larger society more accessible physically, socially, economically, and politically for those in our human family who live with disabilities.
As Jesus followers, we can also practice greater care and intention than those who have told these stories before us. In the Jesus stories, we encounter a Jesus who often (except for in the case of this one Greek woman) practiced a preferential option for people with disabilities. And that is the part of the story we can hold on to. Where we need to be careful is where disabilities in the gospels are used as metaphors for sin, evil, or wickedness. An example of what I’m talking about is where gospel stories use blindness as a pejorative metaphor against people who reject Jesus (Matthew 15:14; Luke 6:39). This denigrates those people who live every day of their lives with actual blindness.
For Christians acculturated to accept the ableism in the gospels, leaving ableism behind will take effort. But the effort is worth it. I used to use the phrase “blind-spots” to describe when I or folks I interacted with had a limited outlook on an intrinsically harmful practice. Today I want to respect those in my life who live with limited vision. Rather than using phrases that harm them or imply villainy, I now just say what I mean: instead of saying a person has a “blind spot” I simply say their understanding and experience is limited and needs to expand. The story about Jesus and his interaction with the Greek woman is a great example.
Today we need more than magical cures that enable people to do better in our economy’s game of Monopoly. We need a world where there are no more winners and losers and we all win together. Others don’t need to lose for us to win. We can all thrive, genuinely, at the same time. And all of this is part of what it means to be be striving in our spheres of influence to make our world we share a safe, compassionate and just home for everyone. It’s a beautifully challenging work. And one I’m thankful to be engaged in.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What are some examples of where you experience the intersectionality of living simultaneously in different social locations in your own life? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 25: Mark 7.1-8, 14-15, 21-23. Lectionary B, Proper 16
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 21: Jesus, a Greek Woman and a Magical Cure
Mark 7:24-36
“Intersectionality is such a rich lens through which to relate to this Jesus story as we consider how it may inform our justice work today. We each occupy intersecting social positions within our own society’s systems, where we can simultaneously be both oppressor and oppressed. Our privilege or disadvantage intersects depending on different aspects of our identities in relation to society. This story illustrates how, in the areas where we hold privilege, we can learn to listen with compassion to those who are marginalized or excluded in those same areas. At the same time, in aspects of our identity where we are deemed “less than” by others, the story encourages us to stand up and hold accountable those who diminish us—no matter who they are, even if it’s Jesus.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/jesus-a-greek-woman-and-a-magical-cure
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Not Spiritualizing the Material
Thank You!
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Herb Montgomery, August 3, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our gospel reading from this lectionary this weekend is from the gospel of John:
Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.
When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
“Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:24-35)
The gospel of John, the Johannine community’s version of the Jesus story, became a text during the second generation of Jesus followers who honored John’s apostleship. This makes it the latest gospel to be written in our scriptural canon. The Johannine community was not distanced from the original Jesus movement’s Jewish roots but the social location of the Jesus movement and Jesus followers had largely changed. Early Jesus followers were largely illiterate and practiced an oral tradition. Being able to read and even write was a privilege that only belonged to the wealthy. So the fact that the Jesus story began being put into written form tells us that wealthy Jesus followers had joined the movement. Many still only heard that story read to them each weekend, but that fact that a house church movement possessed people who could both write down the Jesus story and read it to the congregation demonstrated that the community was changing.
One of the many unique elements we encounter in the gospel of John and not in the other three gospels, is its tendency to convert material things into spiritual ones, and to then emphasize the spiritual as so much more important. This tendency is why so many Jesus scholars associate John’s gospel with early Christian gnosticism. (The patristic church father Iraneaus also associated the gospel of John with the gnostics in his Against Heresies.)
Being so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good means being focused on eternal bliss and the afterlife to the exclusion of being engaged, right now, in what people are materially experiencing in their concrete lives. It means being focused on saving souls while ignoring the suffering bodies. Over and over again in Christian history, this has produced destructive and death dealing fruit.
In one of James Cone’s final books, he warns of emphasizing the spiritual over the material.
And yet the Christian gospel is more than a transcendent reality, more than “going to heaven when I die, to shout salvation as I fly.” It is also an immanent reality—a powerful liberating presence among the poor right now in their midst, “building them up where they are torn down and propping them up on every leaning side.” The gospel is found wherever poor people struggle for justice, fighting for their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Bee Jenkins’s claims that “Jesus won’t fail you” was made in the heat of the struggle for civil rights in Mississippi, and such faith gave her strength and courage to fight for justice against overwhelming odds. Without concrete signs of divine presence in the lives of the poor, the gospel becomes simply an opiate; rather than liberating the powerless from humiliation and suffering, the gospel becomes a drug that helps them adjust to this world by looking for “pie in the sky.” (James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, p. 155)
In the gospel of John, we encounter a version of the Jesus story where Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”
We need to hold this in tension with the versions of Jesus we encounter in the other canonical gospels. In those gospels we encounter a Jesus who wants his followers to work for and pray for our material world to match the heavenly world:
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)
We encounter a Jesus who holds up the material, concrete, and not spiritualized liberation that people were experiencing as a result of his work and that testified of his legitimacy:
“The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Matthew 11:5)
Our daily bread wasn’t spiritualized. That every person would be able to have and eat their actual, material, daily bread was something his followers were to work and pray for:
“Give us today our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11)
Not spiritualizing but alleviating people’s material suffering was also lifted up as the litmus test in these gospels’ descriptions of a final judgement:
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me . . . for whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:34-40)
Caring about our and others’ material needs, especially others who were oppressed, was rooted in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets:
“If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” (Isaiah 58:10)
Again, the picture of a God who was concerned with supplying people’s material needs rather than spiritualizing them away is rooted in the soil of the Jewish wisdom that the Jesus movement grew out of:
“He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.” (Psalm 146:7)
And when we consider the early Jesus movement located in Jerusalem as contrasted with the Jesus moment of the Johannine community two generations later, we see resource-sharing, mutual aid, as well as hunger and poverty elimination as a central characteristic of how the early movement followed Jesus:
“With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 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 4:33-35)
Outside of the gospels, my favorite New Testament book is the book of James. Here too we see the material contrasted with the spiritual. But James explains that if we focus on the spiritual to the exclusion of the material, it makes our focus on spiritual realities absolutely no good.
“Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?” (James 2:15-16)
What can we take away from this? Today, some Christians contrast saving souls with the work of social justice. There is no reason to pit the saving of souls against social justice work. Saving bodies is just as much a part of the Jesus tradition as savings souls is. In fact, in the synoptic gospels, social justice is a requirement for genuinely following Jesus. How is social justice still a requirement for you?
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How is social justice engagement a part of your 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.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 23: John 6.24-35. Lectionary B, Proper 13
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out at:
https://youtu.be/bE8gDo-xEVk?si=wIN4tbmpOquEAfKM
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 16: Not Spiritualizing the Material
John 6:24-35
“There is no reason to pit the saving of souls against social justice work. Saving bodies is just as much a part of the Jesus tradition as savings souls is. In fact, in the synoptic gospels, social justice engagement is a requirement for genuinely following Jesus.”
Available on all major podcast carriers,
Or at this link:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/not-spiritualizing-the-material
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Jesus Following and Social Justice
Thank You!
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Jesus Following and Social Justice
Herb Montgomery, July 13, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading last weekend in the lectionary from the gospels was from Mark:
King Herod heard about this, for Jesus’ name had become well known. Some were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.” Others said, “He is Elijah.” And still others claimed, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.”
But when Herod heard this, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised from the dead!” For Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in prison. He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, whom he had married. For John had been saying to Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” So Herodias nursed a grudge against John and wanted to kill him. But she was not able to, because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man. When Herod heard John, he was greatly puzzled; yet he liked to listen to him. Finally the opportune time came. On his birthday Herod gave a banquet for his high officials and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee. When the daughter of Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, “Ask me for anything you want, and I’ll give it to you.” And he promised her with an oath, “Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom.” She went out and said to her mother, “What shall I ask for?” “The head of John the Baptist,” she answered. At once the girl hurried in to the king with the request: “I want you to give me right now the head of John the Baptist on a platter. The king was greatly distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he did not want to refuse her. So he immediately sent an executioner with orders to bring John’s head. The man went, beheaded John in the prison, and brought back his head on a platter. He presented it to the girl, and she gave it to her mother. On hearing of this, John’s disciples came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. (Mark 6:14-29)
This week’s reading offers us a lot to inform how we follow Jesus’ teachings today. It solidly characterizes that both Jesus and John the Baptist stood in the long Hebrew prophetic justice tradition.
Mark’s gospel seeks to soften Herod’s role in executing John, and this may sound strange to us today. Christianity was an illicit religion in the Roman Empire when Mark was written. Mark’s seeks to characterize Herod as being forced to execute John and doing so somewhat reluctantly.
On the other hand, Josephus’ writings don’t soften Herod’s role:
“Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod’s army came from God, and was a very just punishment for what he did against John called the Baptist. For Herod had him killed, although he was a good man and had urged the Jews to exert themselves to virtue, both as to justice toward one another and reverence towards God, and having done so join together in washing. For immersion in water, it was clear to him, could not be used for the forgiveness of sins, but as a sanctification of the body, and only if the soul was already thoroughly purified by right actions. And when others massed about him, for they were very greatly moved by his words, Herod, who feared that such strong influence over the people might carry to a revolt — for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise — believed it much better to move now than later have it raise a rebellion and engage him in actions he would regret.
And so John, out of Herod’s suspiciousness, was sent in chains to Machaerus, the fort previously mentioned, and there put to death; but it was the opinion of the Jews that out of retribution for John God willed the destruction of the army so as to afflict Herod. (Antiquities 18.5.2 116-119)
According to Josephus, Herod had John arrested and executed because he feared John’s popular influence and feared a possible revolt.
Josephus and the gospels do agree John was one who called his listeners to “justice toward one another and reverence towards God.” Consider how the gospel of Luke describes him:
John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.” (Luke 3:11-14)
In fact, reverence toward God meant practicing justice toward one another.
The gospels don’t paint Jesus as being wholly different from John, but as so similar in calling the people to practice justice toward one another that some even thought John had been raised from the dead. This is important as we understand how Mark’s gospel characterizes Jesus. Mark’s Jesus is deemed by the people to be “a prophet, like one of the prophets of long ago.” We don’t see this Jesus traveling the countryside trying to get people to say a special prayer so they can go to heaven when they die. Instead he works to establish justice here on Earth. In the wake of John the Baptist’s execution, Jesus calls the people to justice and righteousness toward one another in the same way as the Hebrew prophets of old (see Isaiah 9:7).
Consider this small collection of statements from the Hebrew, prophetic, justice tradition. Note their repeated call to the people to practice “justice toward one another.”
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow. (Isaiah 1:17)
This is what the LORD says to you, house of David:
“Administer justice every morning;
rescue from the hand of the oppressor
the one who has been robbed.” (Jeremiah 21:12)
The people of the land practice extortion and commit robbery;
they oppress the poor and needy and mistreat the foreigner,
denying them justice. (Ezekiel 22:29)
But you must return to your God;
maintain love and justice,
and wait for your God always. (Hosea 12:6)
They trample on the heads of the poor
as on the dust of the ground
and deny justice to the oppressed. (Amos 2:7)
But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream! (Amos 5:24)
Then I said, “Listen, you leaders of Jacob,
you rulers of Israel.
Should you not embrace justice. (Micah 3:1)
What does this mean for us today? I think of my own transition in my Jesus following: away from being so heavenly minded that I was no earthly good. When my practice of Christianity transitioned away from a post mortem focus to being concerned with oppression, injustice, and violence against those made vulnerable in our societies, some people accused me of becoming a social justice warrior. As if that’s a pejorative. That being concerned with social justice is somehow a bad thing.
In the gospels, John the Baptist stood within the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition.
In the gospels, Jesus stood within the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition.
Today, we too, as Jesus followers, should also be concerned with social, political, and economy justice in our world around us, seeking to practice justice toward one another.
One of my favorite statements that has helped me make sense of my own journey over the past decade is from Rev. Dr. Emilie M. Townes. She states, “When you start with an understanding that God loves everyone, justice isn’t very far behind” (Dr. Emilie M. Townes, “Journey to Liberation: The Legacy of Womanist Theology”).
When we begin to see everyone around us as those we are connected to, and then add to that connectedness that we are all objects of the Divine love, how can we be unconcerned with what affects each of us, positively and negatively? How can we love others and not be concerned with what materially affects those we love?
Not being concerned with matters of social justice is a failure. It’s a failure to love. It’s a failure in our Jesus-following. It may derided by those who have something to lose from making our world a more just home for everyone. That’s okay. To believe in a gospel of love means to be about justice because justice is what love looks like in public.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does your Jesus following express itself in social justice engagement? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
If you would like to listen to these articles each week in podcast form, you can find The Social Jesus podcast on all major podcast carriers. If you enjoy listening to The Social Jesus Podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if your podcast platform offers this option, consider taking some time to leave us a positive 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.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 71: Mark 6.14-29. Lectionary B, Proper 10
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 14: Jesus Following and Social Justice
Mark 6:14-29
“Rev. Dr. Emilie M. Townes. states, ‘When you start with an understanding that God loves everyone, justice isn’t very far behind.’ For those endeavoring to follow Jesus’ teachings, not being concerned with matters of social justice is a failure. It’s a failure to love. It’s a failure in our Jesus-following. It may derided by those who have something to lose from making our world a more just home for everyone. That’s okay. To believe in a gospel of love means to be about justice because justice is what love looks like in public.”
Available on all major podcast carriers,
Or at this link:
Shttps://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/jesus-following-and-social-justice
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Preferential Options and Patriarchy
Thank You!
A sharp drop in giving is hurting nonprofits everywhere. Religious charities and small nonprofits are suffering the most from a historic dip in philanthropic giving presently in the U.S. We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Herb Montgomery; June 28, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our lectionary reading from the gospels this upcoming weekend is from the gospel of Mark:
When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” So Jesus went with him.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?” Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him.
After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished. He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat. (Mark 5:21-43)
In equity work today, understanding our social locations in the society we have created is important. We first have to realize that if everyone is to have enough, not everyone is going to need the same things. We must understand how social location impacts people before we can arrive at what justice says those in different social locations need. This is where our story helps this week, because in our story we have two social locations contrasted.
The first character is the synagogue leader. It’s troubling that we are given his name when we are not given the name of the woman who shows up next in the story. She will remain nameless, but we all get to know Jairus’ name. This synagogue leader lived in a certain social location within his social system. He possessed privilege, power, and authority.
The woman’s social location was vastly different. First, she was a woman in that society. And while she may have been at one point a wealthy woman (indicated by her spending all of her money on doctors), her present social location is on the edges of society. She may have found community on those margins, but she also may have not. Her medical condition caused her to shunned according to the law:
“When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge, just as in the days of her period. Any bed she lies on while her discharge continues will be unclean, as is her bed during her monthly period, and anything she sits on will be unclean, as during her period. Anyone who touches them will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean. On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting. The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement for her before the LORD for the uncleanness of her discharge. You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean . . . ” (Leviticus 15:25-31)
I find it fascinating that the author of this story spends so much time making the fact that she touched Jesus so significant. This woman, living separately from the rest of her society, took the risk of touching even the hem of Jesus’ garment in hopes that that would not be enough contact to contaminate him. Her own self image and self-loathing here is painful. But her touch doesn’t make Jesus unclean. In fact, in our story, touching Jesus makes her clean instead. There is so much we could make of how the early Markan community viewed Jesus being communicated here. They had encountered something in Jesus that had changed their lives. For them, Jesus was the source for that which had been life-giving.
When we put the synagogue leader and the woman from these two stories together, we begin to see what liberation theologians call the practice of a preferential option for the marginalized. The synagogue leader’s daughter was at the point of death. Yet Jesus pauses in the urgency of reaching her. In our story, Jesus could have looked at this marginalized woman and said he didn’t have time right now, come back later, or even no. Instead Jesus stops and makes time for her.
Practicing a preferential option means prioritizing the well-being of the powerless in society. We typically practice a preferential option for the powerful. In fact, if our story this week was typical, Jesus would have preferred the synagogue leader because of who and what he was. But in our story, Jesus practices a preferential option for the woman. Jesus is standing squarely in the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition here. He stops and puts this woman first: the last shall be first and the first shall be last.
While they wait, the synagogue leader’s daughter does die, and it looks like this story will affirm the social assumption that if we take care of those considered less than in our society then there won’t be enough for everyone else. We assume life is a zero-sum game. But, as the saying goes, justice isn’t like pie. In fact, we are all connected and, as Martin Luther King, Jr. later said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Jesus assures the synagogue leader that it will be okay: just keep believing.
And when Jesus arrives at the synagogue leader’s house, he takes the hand of the daughter and restores her back to life. Stopping to help the woman on the way, in the end, didn’t cost the synagogue leader his daughter. Ultimately, there was enough for both.
These two characters were not just connected by this story, but also in humanity. They were connected to each other the same way we are each connected to each other. The synagogue leader not only regained his daughter, but could also gain restoration of a part of his own humanity as he learned to look differently at those his society was marginalizing. When we share rather than hoard, we find there’s enough for us all. Rather than building bigger piles of hoarded resources we can build community, communities where each of us is committed to taking care of one another. As the saying states, the Earth produces each day enough for every persons’ need but not every person’s greed.
There are multiple layers to this story too. The synagogue leader’s daughter is described as 12 years old. The woman has had an issue of blood for those 12 years. The synagogue leader’s daughter was also on the verge of maturing into a kind of social death within her society. She was about to grow into a body that now placed the Torah’s purity and cleanliness laws upon her shoulders where each month her body would cause her to be considered unclean. In Journeys By Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power, Rita Nakishima Brock writes, “Both females are afflicted with crises associated with the status of women in Greco-Roman and Hebraic society” (p. 83)
This little girl is about to enter into a new relationship with the patriarchy within her society. She is on the verge of death socially. She is embarking on what it means to be a woman in her world. Mark’s gospel places Jesus in life-giving opposition to that. The women of the Jesus community of Mark’s gospel portray Jesus resurrecting and liberating them from, the injustices of their own patriarchal communities.
Placing the synagogue leader next to the woman in this week’s reading teaches us to practice a preferential option for the marginalized of our society. And placing the woman alongside this little girl calls us to reject preferential options practiced within patriarchy, pitting marginalized people against each other. Jesus’ teachings had been life-giving for those in the Markan community who were marginalized within their society. Specifically here, the story zooms in on women’s experiences in Greco-Roman and Hebrew society.
There’s a lot to consider here today. Is our Christian practice patriarchal? Do we practice preference for the socially privileged or the marginalized? Our reading this week calls each of us to asses whether our Jesus following actually looks like the Jesus story and its ethics, values, and practices.
How does this week’s reading define being a Jesus follower in our contexts today? What changes is this week’s story calling each of us to make?
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What communities do you feel equity requires a preferential option for today? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
If you would like to listen to these articles each week in podcast form, you can find The Social Jesus podcast on all major podcast carriers. If you enjoy listening to The Social Jesus Podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if your podcast platform offers this option, consider taking some time to leave us a positive 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.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 19: Mark 5.21-43. Lectionary B, Proper 8
Preferential Options and Patriarchy
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 12: Preferential Options and Patriarchy
Mark 5:21-43
“It initially looks like this story will affirm the social assumption that if we take care of those considered less than in our society then there won’t be enough for everyone else, assuming life is a zero-sum game. But then this story takes a sharp turn. This story ends up teaching us how to practice a preferential option for the marginalized of our society. Placing the synagogue leader next to the woman in this week’s reading affirms practicing a preferential option of the marginalized in general. Then, by placing the woman alongside this little girl too, the story calls us to reject specifically preferences practiced within patriarchy.”
Available on all major podcast carriers,
Or at this link:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/preferential-options-and-patriarchy
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
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When the Wind and Waves Threaten Justice
Thank You!
A sharp drop in giving is hurting nonprofits everywhere. Religious charities and small nonprofits are suffering the most from a historic dip in philanthropic giving presently in the U.S. We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Herb Montgomery, June 21, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our lectionary reading from the gospels this week is a brief story in Mark 4:
That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (Mark 4:35-41)
Mark’s gospel uses multiple boat journeys as literary structural devices for organizing the narrative. Some of these journeys, like the one we are considering this week, can also be taken as metaphors of important acts in Mark’s version of the Jesus story.
Let’s begin with the last question in the passage—“Who is this?”—because it hints at the stories’ original purpose. Then we can explore how this question might inform our justice work today.
Mark 4 closes with the question, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” The story calls to listeners’ minds several layers. First, the Jesus community of Mark defined Jesus as a liberator, and this story affirms that characterization by connecting Jesus to the liberation actions of YHWH in Psalms 107.
In Psalms 107:29-30 we read:
“He [YHWH] stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed.They were glad when it grew calm, and he guided them to their desired haven.”
Repeatedly in this Psalm YHWH is the liberator/deliverer of those in trouble:
Verse 6: Then they cried out to YHWH in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
Verse 13: Then they cried out to YHWH in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
Verse 19: Then they cried to YHWH in their trouble,
and he saved them from their distress
Verse 28: Then they cried out to YHWH in their trouble,
and he brought them out of their distress.
In Mark, Jesus is a liberator of the people who, in the language of the psalmist, can still the storm and even hush the waves of the sea.
Secondly, there is a remarkable similarity between Mark’s story and the Jonah story. Jesus and the disciples are in the boat going to “the other side” of the lake, and headed into Gentile or Gentile-adjacent territory just as Jonah headed to Ninevah. Let’s read the passage from Jonah:
“Then YHWH sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.” (Jonah 1:4-5)
Jesus and Jonah both are sleeping in these stories, but whereas Jonah is running away from his job, Jesus is not. The power to influence wind and waves is attributed to YHWH, just as it is in the Psalms, but in Jonah YHWH causes the storm, while in the Psalms, YHWH calms the storm. Most Jesus scholars see the author(s) of Mark placing Jesus on the same level as others that were revered in that time. Whereas the gospel associates Jesus with the power of YHWH through referring to the Hebrew scriptures, the Greek and Roman world would have associated Jesus with Zeus, Poseidon, Homer’s Odyssey, and Apollonius of Tyana, a contemporary miracle worker of Jesus. All of this speaks to the Markan community’s high reverence for Jesus as a liberator/deliverer.
But what might this story have to teach us today?
This story involves winds and waves after someone has spoken out against what they have felt is not right. This applies to me too. Some years ago, I became aware as a Christian preacher of Jesus’ teachings on various topics and began to speak out on these same subjects: Jesus’ call to not use violence to change our world, for economic justice for the poor, to include those his society had pushed to the margins and excluded, and how to judge the harm Christians have done to the LGBTQ community. I spoke out about how Jesus’ message of loving others as ourselves cuts against the racism still often present in our society. I said that Jesus’ treatment of women in his own patriarchal world should inspire Christians to work toward gender justice today rather than holding on to patriarchy.
As I spoke out, there were moments when the wind and waves of opposition to justice and making our world a safer, compassionate home for everyone rose up and threatened to sink Renewed Heart Ministries’ boat. I’m deeply thankful to those among our supporters who chose to stand by us when others were walking away. You were Christians who cared about making our world a just and safer place for everyone and chose to support this message.
I can only imagine that those in the Markan community endeavoring to follow Jesus were experiencing anxiety from pushback as they attempted to apply the ethical teachings of Jesus to the injustices of their world. This story would have asked them, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” People of faith within disenfranchised communities throughout history have often faced their own winds and waves and yet believed that a way will be made of out of no way.
This month it’s Pride month for our LBGTQ family and friends, and every year this month still evokes winds and waves from certain sectors of our society. It seems like, no matter what area of justice we are working for, whenever we take three steps forward the winds and waves push us two steps back. Working from of a place of love to make our world a more equitable place continues to mean facing winds and waves from those who benefit from an inequitable world.
This week’s reading reminds us that there will be storms, there will be winds, there will be waves that threaten to sink us. This passage doesn’t promise that these won’t be part of our story. In fact, they remind us that they most certainly will. Yet the disciples weren’t alone in the boat. And neither are we.
If you are presently facing winds and waves, take some time to lean into your community this week. Be reminded that you are all in this together. Let the community you are part of encourage you. Take some time if you need to rest. And remember, when you’re working to shape our world into a safer, more just place and the winds and waves rise up, remember that you’re in the right story. Pushback is part of the Jesus story and has always been a part of the stories of those working for positive and life-giving change. Change threatens those who benefit from injustice. Keep going! The disciples’ boat eventually did reach the “other side” and we will too.
I’m reminded of Dr. King’s words to a Memphis, TN, audience on the night before he was assassinated: “I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land”.
Those words directly inspired the US civil rights movement, but I believe they can also apply to all justice work. In times of distress like those our country is in the thick of now, it is helpful to remember to keep choosing love, compassion, and justice. Because even if the present winds and waves threaten a more just world, if we keep choosing the way of love and inclusion, “we, as a people” will get there.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What waves and winds have you faced when you were working for change? How were these obstructions overcome? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
If you would like to listen to these articles each week in podcast form, you can find The Social Jesus podcast on all major podcast carriers. If you enjoy listening to The Social Jesus Podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if your podcast platform offers this option, consider taking some time to leave us a positive 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.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 18: Mark 4.35-41. Lectionary B, Proper 7
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 11: When the Wind and Waves Threaten Justice
Mark 4:35-41
“It seems like, no matter what area of justice we are working for, whenever we take three steps forward the winds and waves push us two steps back. Working from of a place of love to make our world a more equitable place continues to mean facing winds and waves from those who benefit from an inequitable world. This week’s reading is for those presently facing winds and waves. It reminds us that there will be storms, there will be winds, there will be waves that threaten to sink us. This passage doesn’t promise that these won’t be part of our story. In fact, they remind us that they most certainly will. Yet the disciples weren’t alone in the boat. And neither are we. You’re in the right story.”
Available on all major podcast carriers,
Listen at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/when-the-wind-and-waves-threaten-justice
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Hope Despite Appearances
Thank You!
A sharp drop in giving is hurting nonprofits everywhere. Religious charities and small nonprofits are suffering the most from a historic dip in philanthropic giving presently in the U.S. We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Hope Despite Appearances
Herb Montgomery, June 14, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our lectionary reading for this upcoming week is from the gospel of Mark:
He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”
Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.”
With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything. (Mark 4:26-34)
One of the only things scholars agree on about the historical Jesus is that he taught in parables. This version of this parable is only in Mark and is believed to be the earliest version. (Matthew adds the element of the enemy who sows the tares; see Matthew 13:24-30.)
The parable borrows from imagery in the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition and puts a positive spin on it. In Joel, the imagery is used to explain how wickedness or injustice in our world grows:
“Swing the sickle,
for the harvest is ripe.
Come, trample the grapes,
for the winepress is full
and the vats overflow—
so great is their wickedness!” (Joel 3:13)
In the gospels, Jesus repeatedly uses this same imagery, and to illustrate how justice can grow as well. He also borrows other imagery from the Hebrew prophets. Consider this verse used to describe Egypt:
“The waters nourished it,
deep springs made it grow tall;
their streams flowed
all around its base
and sent their channels
to all the trees of the field.
So it towered higher
than all the trees of the field;
its boughs increased
and its branches grew long,
spreading because of abundant waters.
All the birds of the sky
nested in its boughs,
all the animals of the wild
gave birth under its branches;
all the great nations
lived in its shade.” (Ezekiel 31:4-6)
The prophets use this same imagery of Babylon too:
“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)
The book of Ezekiel takes this common imagery and uses it to inspire hope in a promise to restore the nation of Israel:
“‘This is what the Sovereign LORD 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, emphasis added.)
This imagery describes a world where everyone has enough to thrive and feels safe. Micah describes that world as one where:
Everyone will sit under their own vine
and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid. (Micah 4:4)
The gospels take all of this prophetic imagery and apply it to Jesus’ vision for a society (the gospels refer to it as the kingdom or the reign of God) where his justice teachings if followed would create a world where everyone had enough, no one is marginalized, and everyone is safe and thrives. The vision is centered in transforming our present world, not getting to heaven. It’s meant to inspire hope in those who were endeavoring to follow Jesus’ justice teachings when Mark was written for those within the Markan community.
I also love how the seed that causes this growth is a “mustard” seed. Mustard doesn’t grow into large trees where birds inhabit its branches and people sit for shelter. Jesus is using irony by describing a just and safe world being started form the most impossible of sources: a mustard. It’s unexpected, but there is also more.
In Jesus’ world, the mustard plant was not considered a plant but a weed. It was such a pervasive weed that, unless farmers were diligent in removing it from their fields, it would eventually take over the entire space. This nods to the way those in power viewed Jesus’ teachings of equity, justice, inclusion, and wealth redistribution prioritizing the poor as negative and something to be weeded out. Jesus and his teachings were not looked at as good news by this powerful, propertied, and privileged group. They viewed Jesus’s teachings and those who followed those teachings as a threat.
In the story, Jesus is eventually weeded out. He is crucified. But his teaching, like the mustard seed, still continue to grow and spread from the actions of his followers. This reminds me of how the late Peter Gomes described the gospel as not good news for everyone. It was good news to those in a certain social, political, and economic location, but deeply problematic for others.
“When the gospel says, ‘The last will be first, and the first will be last,’ despite the fact that it is counterintuitive to our cultural presuppositions, it is invariably good news to those who are last, and at least problematic news to those who see themselves as first.” (Peter J. Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What’s So Good About the Good News?, p. 42).
Again, this vision is strikingly focused on changing our present world, not escaping it. It illustrates the difference between what is too often a gospel about Jesus and the gospel that Jesus himself actually taught. If Jesus’ gospel was only about obtaining heaven in an afterlife, the hope of one day escaping this world, but being resigned to this world the way it presently is, then Jesus’ gospel would truly have been good news for everyone. If it had only been about grace and faith and heaven, those benefiting from an unjust status quo would have felt no threat.
But what we perceive in these parables is that Jesus’ teachings were about more than grace, faith, and heaven. They were about shaping and transforming our present world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone. This gospel focused on changing our present world and this is why it was so threatening to those benefitting from the unjust shape of their society.
Lastly, what I love about the parable in our reading this week is how the seed grows. How justice grows is often mysterious. Sometimes you can trace the cause and effect, but not always. How seeds became large plants was a mystery to those who lived before science could explain such things. (Although, those who garden today may still acknowledge some mystery, even with science.)
The lesson is that, just as we don’t have to understand how seeds work in order to plant the seeds, we don’t always have to understand how our world is going to be put right to take the first steps in reshaping it. Many times, the road to justice is made as we travel it. How justice is achieved from the modest beginnings of grassroots movements is often a path with twist and turns that surprise us and could not have been predicted. There is mystery in how our combined justice efforts combine with others’ justice efforts to create something that is often greater and more beautiful than the sum of all its parts.
You don’t have to understand how our world is going to put right to be engaged in making our world world right. Just plant the seeds. Just take action and then watch how those actions grow. Sometimes we allow our lack of understanding how something could possible even happen to rob us of the very hope that would inspire us to take the actions that would make that thing possible. But you don’t have to understand how, just do it!
Hope doesn’t require being able to explain the how. Hope can often only exist in the soil of mystery. Yes, there may be mystery about how justice will grow if we invest our efforts, but despite appearances, we can still take action, we can still have hope. Despite appearances, even if our effort is as small as a mustard seed and surrounded by mystery, justice can prevail.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What is giving you hope presently? 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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If you would like to listen to these articles each week in podcast form, you can find The Social Jesus podcast on all major podcast carriers. If you enjoy listening to The Social Jesus Podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if your podcast platform offers this option, consider taking some time to leave us a positive 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.
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 JustTalking!
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 17: Mark 4.26-34. Lectionary B, Proper 6
The Mustard Seed
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out.
Watch at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 10: Hope Despite Appearances
Mark 4:26-34
Just as we don’t have to understand how seeds work in order to plant the seeds, we don’t always have to understand how our world is going to be put right to take the first steps in reshaping it. Many times, the road to justice is made as we travel it. How justice is achieved from the modest beginnings of grassroots movements is often a path with twist and turns that surprise us and could not have been predicted. There is mystery in how our combined justice efforts combine with others’ justice efforts to create something that is often greater and more beautiful than the sum of all its parts.
Available on all major podcast carriers,
And at this link:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/hope-despite-appearances
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
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