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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So Send I 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.”
Image created by Canva
So Send I You
Herb Montgomery; April 25, 2025
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this second week of Easter is from the gospel of John:
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20:19-31)
The post crucifixion/resurrection appearance stories of the Jesus tradition were very important to the early church, and they serve a purpose. The story in our reading this week is about the bestowal of the Holy Spirit on the initial group of disciples, and it carefully includes Thomas. Each time an early church leader is named in the gospels, they are named for the purpose of legitimizing their leadership. This is true whether it be James, Peter, John the beloved, Mary Magdalene, or, as in this case, Thomas.
Each gospel has its own version of these stories. In Luke’s version, the disciples don’t receive the Holy Spirit until Pentecost, while here in John’s version, the disciples receive the Holy Spirit on Resurrection Day. It’s important to let each version of the Jesus story stand on its own rather than trying to force them all to say the same thing. This allows the authors to present the points they were attempting to promote and gives us a more honest picture of the diverse, many-voiced nature of the Jesus community at that time.
Matthew’s gospel places the disciples’ commission in its last scene:
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
Luke’s gospel tells its version of the disciples’ commission in Luke 24 and Acts 1:
“You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. (Luke 24:48-51)
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
Again, in the Luke/Acts narrative story, this takes place on the day of Pentecost in the upper Room.
In John’s version, Jesus commissions the disciples earlier and closer to Jesus’ crucifixion when the disciples are locked behind doors for fear of the same elites who crucified their leader.
In John, the commissioning of the disciples includes their authority to bind and release, to forgive or not forgive. Consider what John’s gospel actually says:
Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. . . . If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
This is a tremendous amount of authority that we have no other evidence of than simply the word of the very disciples who claim to have this level of authority. These disciples of Jesus would now be “Jesus” in the world, being sent just by Jesus, just as the Father had sent Jesus himself.
I love how Luke defines the purpose for which the spirit was poured out on Jesus:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
But we are not in Luke’s gospel in this week’s reading. We are in John’s, and John’s gospel has its own take on why Jesus was sent:
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17)
For John, Jesus’ focus was not to condemn, but to save. Yet I can’t ignore the strong words in John’s commission that if the disciples forgave anyone’s sins, they would be forgiven. And if they chose not to forgive, that person’s sins would not be forgiven.
The power of condemnation and forgiveness has both blessed people and also been a source of abuse from Christian leaders. I can’t help but think of how many times tortured souls have received peace from hearing from a church leader that where sin abounds grace does much more abound. I also can’t help but think of all those who have been hurt and think God hates them because of the way they were shunned, censored, abused, or excommunicated by the church. And I’m thinking of those who have deeply betrayed, defrauded, or abused others in the church and then stood by church leaders who prioritized oppressors and abusers rather than victims and survivors. Would that these words in John did not exist. But they do.
The reality is that those who bear Jesus’ name in the world often represent him to those around them whether they want this burden or not. Over the last four decades, so many evangelicals have embraced a politics of harm rather than one of diversity and inclusion and a politics of retribution rather than a politics of compassion in the public sphere. (I know it goes back much much further but I’ve only been cognizant of it for that long.) Today some people can’t stomach even hearing the name Jesus, and it’s not because of the Jesus in the story was so horrible. The Jesus in the story was awesome. He was all about diversity, equity, and inclusion in his time and culture. He was about justice and standing up for the marginalized, outcast, and oppressed. People recoil even at the sound of Jesus because of the meanings Christians have associated with Jesus today.
As Jesus was sent into our world, so we Christians have been sent too. But our sending hasn’t born the same fruit. Rather than standing up to the injustices of the elite and powerful in solidarity with the marginalized, we have too often allowed our religion, like others, to be coopted by those standing behind the wheels of injustice and abuse of rights. How any Christian could support the things we are witnessing transpiring every day around us here in the U.S., I will never understand. And yet, this is our reality.
This Easter season, let’s take a moment to reflect, to take some personal inventory. As the Father has sent Jesus, Jesus said, “So send I you.” What is the fruit our presence bears in our world? Is our presence life giving or death dealing? Are we part of the movement in our time toward a safer, more compassionate, just society or away from it? Are we working to ensure our world is a safe home for everyone, or just those who are like ourselves?
We may have been sent by Jesus as he was sent. But it’s up to us to make sure we are following Jesus’ example in the kind of impact we have in our world.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What does being a source of life, justice, and healing in your own sphere of influence look like for you? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking.
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Lectionary Readings in the context of Love, Inclusion, & Social Justice
New Episodes each week!
Each week, we’ll discuss the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and justice. We hope that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that we’ll be inspired to do more than “just talking” during our brief conversations each week.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out.
https://www.youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking
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 17: So Send I You
John 20:19-31
“The reality is that those who bear Jesus’ name in the world often represent him to those around them whether they want this burden or not. Over the last four decades so many evangelicals have embraced a politic of harm rather than one of diversity and inclusion and a politic of retribution rather than a politic of compassion in the public sphere. (I know it goes back much much further but I’ve only been cognizant of it for that long.) Today some people can’t stomach even hearing the name Jesus, and it’s not because of the Jesus in the story was so horrible. The Jesus in the story was awesome. He was all about diversity, equity, and inclusion in his time and culture. He was about justice and standing up for the marginalized, outcast, and oppressed. People recoil even at the sound of Jesus because of the meanings Christians have associated with Jesus, today. As Jesus was sent into our world, so we Christians have been sent too. But our sending hasn’t born the same fruit. Rather than standing up to the injustices of the elite and powerful in solidarity with the marginalized, we have too often allowed our religion, like others, to be coopted by those standing behind the wheels of injustice and abuse of rights. How any Christian could support the things we are witnessing transpiring every day around us here in the U.S., I will never understand. And yet, this is our reality. This Easter season, let’s take a moment to reflect, to take some personal inventory. As the Father has sent Jesus, Jesus said, “So send I you.” What is the fruit our presence bears in our world? Is our presence life giving or death dealing? Are we part of the movement in our time toward a safer, more compassionate, just society or away from it? Are we working to ensure our world is a safe home for everyone, or just those who are like ourselves? We may have been sent by Jesus as he was sent. But it’s up to us to make sure we are following Jesus’ example in the kind of impact we have in our world.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/so-send-i-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.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Right Now Matters
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 24, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
This is our last reading from the lectionary this month from chapter 6 of John:
“Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” [Jesus] said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”
Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:56-69)
This is our last lectionary week in John for a while. Next week, the lectionary returns to the gospel of Mark. We have spent the last four weeks not simply in the gospel of John, but specifically in one chapter, John 6. This final passage sums up the four messages of that chapter.
The first message is a prescription to eat Jesus’ flesh and drink his blood. The second denigrates physically feeding the multitude or meeting people’s material, concrete needs: “Your ancestors ate the manna and died.” The third exalts the Spirit over our material existence. And the fourth emphasizes that our flesh, body, and material existence in this world “counts for nothing.”
We have spent the last four weeks contrasting this way of characterizing Jesus and his ministry with the way Mark, Matthew and Luke characterize them. The Jewish Jesus of Mark, Matthew, and Luke would not have used the language of eating his flesh and drinking his or any blood. Consider the following cultural prohibitions against ingesting blood:
“This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live: ‘You must not eat any fat or any blood.’” (Leviticus 3:17)
“And wherever you live, you must not eat the blood of any bird or animal. Anyone who eats blood must be cut off from their people.” (Leviticus 7:26)
“I will set my face against any Israelite or any foreigner residing among them who eats blood, and I will cut them off from the people. For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. Therefore I say to the Israelites, ‘None of you may eat blood, nor may any foreigner residing among you eat blood.’ . . . You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.” (Leviticus 17:10-14)
Drinking or eating blood, even drinking blood “that makes atonement,” was a foreign idea.
It’s also problematic to devalue the work of meeting people’s material needs like Moses did by feeding a multitude of people with manna during the exodus, Jesus did with loaves and fish, or as many today do through soup kitchens today. This is the tension that exists between the present and future. Some people say our lives don’t matter because we are all going to end up dead. Others, even those who are non-religious, say that ultimately dying doesn’t negate how meaningful present realities are. These things may or may not have meaning in the future, but they all still have meaning right now. In the present, we are alive, and what what we are experiencing means much to each one of us. It betrays a deep lack of compassion to say someone’s experience of hunger right now doesn’t matter because it may or may not matter in the future.
The choices we make today also affect what other people are experiencing right now, and can spill over into generations to come after we are gone. Over the last hundred years alone, so many who are no longer living made discoveries and choices that benefit all of us today. To say that our present realities don’t matter because we will one day die (or that one day billions of years from now the sun is going to burn out) is a very stunted way of looking at our existence. What we are encountering in John is simply a Christianized version of this way of looking at our material existence.
I grew up in churches that would put on charity programs, not in the liberation spirit of the Jesus of Mark, Matthew, and Luke but more in the spirit of the Jesus we find in John 6. This kind of charity work was only temporary and only for the purpose of harvesting leads for upcoming evangelistic events. Saving souls was much more important than saving bodies, and that logic was rooted in the thinking we find in John 6. In the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke), we don’t see a Jesus who is only concerned with people’s eternal well-being but one who was also deeply troubled with concern for people’s present, material, concrete well being. The multitudes who ate the loaves and fish still died! But this didn’t stop Jesus from feeling compassion for their hunger and desiring to feed them. The Jesus of the synoptics is different from the Jesus of John. John’s Jesus is all about getting people connected with the Spirit so they can have eternal life, while the synoptic Jesus is deeply concerned with liberating people, especially marginalized people, from lives in which they lacked things essential for well-being like food and warmth.
Stop and contemplate Luke’s Jesus for a moment. Luke’s author could have characterized Jesus’ ministry in so many ways but chose a passage from Isaiah and the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
The poor, the imprisoned, the disabled, the oppressed—these were who Luke’s gospel was for. The Jesus of Luke doesn’t just offer them eternal life as an opiate that enables them to patiently endure their present experience. He doesn’t tell them that their present experience in the big scheme of things “counted for nothing.” What Luke’s gospel offered these people was proclamation of the “year of the Lord’s favor,” the year of jubilee when all debts were forgiven and wealth was redistributed, emancipation was given to those enslaved, and all those who had been oppressed were liberated.
I understand that the Johannine community was estimating the worth of the eternal life they believed could be found in Jesus. But we don’t need to say our material experience counts for nothing in order to do that. Dualistically dividing our existence into categories of things of the spirit and things of the flesh and then saying the fleshy stuff counts for nothing has produced untold harm throughout Christian history. Our bodies matter. Our present moments matter. Today we can do better.
Today, in the spirit of the Jesus of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, we can say that what we are experiencing right now does matter. Here and now matters. The kind of society we are choosing to form right now matters for all who are alive right now. We are not just passing through! We cannot allow ourselves to become so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good, or to put it in John’s language, so eternity minded that we are not presently any good.
Christianity that is only concerned with the future and not concerned with the present is not only insipid, but also become vulnerable to being coopted by those who use Christianity to harm people today while passing out tickets for eternal life.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. Why does right now matter to 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 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: John 6.56-69. 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 19: Right Now Matters
John 6:56-69
“These things may or may not have meaning in the future, but they all still have meaning right now. In the present, we are alive, and what we are experiencing right now means much to each of us. It betrays a deep lack of compassion to say someone’s experience of hunger, for example, right now doesn’t matter because it may or may not matter in the future. What we are encountering in John is simply a Christianized version of this way of looking at our material existence. The future will come. But right now, we are alive. We live in this moment. Our material existence does matter. Injustice, oppression, violence, and suffering matter. Love for those who are experiencing these realities demands that they matter.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/right-now-matters
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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The Evolution of the Eucharist
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 17, 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 John:
I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” (John 6:51-58)
Our reading this week is the Johannine’s community’s nod to the Eucharist. In John’s gospel, Jesus’ last supper (John 13) is quite unique from Mark’s, Matthew’s and Luke’s descriptions.
There is no blessing of a cup. There is no breaking of bread. There is only a story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. This foot washing does not appear any of the other gospels’ accounts of the last supper, and only in our reading this week in John is Jesus’ body and blood something to be consumed.
I appreciate the work of Jesus scholars who point out the evolution that the Eucharist went through in the early Jesus movement. One example is John Dominic Crossan’s book, The Historical Jesus The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant. In this book, Crossan puts forward five possible evolutionary stages the Eucharist went through in the early Jesus moment.
In the Greco-Roman culture of Jesus’ time, “bread and wine” was short-hand, a colloquial term for a formal meal. And when formal meals were eaten as a group, they conveyed meaning and a social structure, showing the group boundaries for who was part of the group and who wasn’t, and defining identity, mutuality, and relationships within the group.
The second stage is the way Jesus practiced table fellowship. The Jesus of the synoptics practiced open, radical, social egalitarianism in his table fellowship. This practice by Jesus is where the early Jesus movement derived its approach to shared meals. We see an early form of these shared meals by the Jesus community in the Didache where, at this stage of the meal’s evolution, it was a communal meal shared in thankfulness. Take note of the words and meaning associated with the bread and the cup:
“First concerning the Cup. “We give thanks to thee, our Father, for the Holy Vine of David thy child, which thou didst make known to us through Jesus thy child; to thee be glory for ever.” And concerning the broken Bread: “We give thee thanks, our Father, for the life and knowledge which thou didst make known to us through Jesus thy child. To thee be glory for ever.” (Didache 9:2–3)
In this stage, the cup represented the fruit of the vine, the community that Jesus had grafted followers into and all the blessing this community brought into their lives. The bread was a symbol of the knowledge and life they had gained through Jesus’ teachings and life.
This was a communal meal where those who had food shared with those who didn’t and everyone had enough. This resonates with what we find being practiced in the book of Acts where:
“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.” (Acts 2:44-46)
This ultimately created the kind of community where “there were no needy persons among them” (Acts 4:34).
At these stages, this “bread and wine” shared meal was still about mutuality and resource-sharing, using community to alleviate need and materially save the marginalized and disenfranchised. As a church instructional document, the Didache does not define the bread and wine as symbols of Jesus’ death or dying but as what Jesus followers gain by practicing Jesus’ teachings together as a community.
In 1 Corinthians 10-11, we encounter the earliest reference in our canon to the Eucharist meal. Unlike the Didache, Paul’s letter mentions another way of practicing this meal among the early Jesus communities. This practice, for better or worse, was more ritualized, and it appropriated the Greco-Roman phrase “bread and wine” to represent Jesus’ body and blood:
“The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26)
This is the description most Christians are familiar with today, but we should acknowledge how different this is from how the Didache speaks of the bread and wine. The early Jesus community was far from monolithic and what we see here is two ways of understanding and eating the Eucharist meal that coexisted alongside each other. Even in Paul’s letter, we encounter the strong sense of egalitarianism that should be practiced in this way of participating in the sacred supper. Paul describes how the Corinthians were failing this standard:
“So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk.” (1 Corinthians 11:20-21)
Note that Paul teaches not that they return to a practice of resource-sharing as we encounter in Acts, but rather “you should all eat together, and anyone who is hungry should eat something at home” (1 Corinthians 11:33-34). This is very different from both the Didache and the book of Acts. Paul’s correction is not that that the meal should be shared so that no one is hungry but that if anyone is hungry they should eat before showing up. We have now moved from an open, common meal (bread and wine) as a practice of resource-sharing and eliminating need within the community during the lifetime of Jesus to a meal practiced as a religious ritual where the Greco-Roman bread and wine are ritual memorial symbols of Jesus’ broken body (bread) and spilt blood (wine).
The gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke were all written after Paul’s letters and express this later ritualized meaning of Jesus’ last supper with his apostles, although even in Luke we see variations ways of practicing the ritual among some Jesus followers being represented.
The early Jesus community’s shared meal evolved away from a meal of real bread and fish among a hungry crowd of Jewish Jesus followers where open mutuality and sharing resulted in baskets of food left over. It became a ritualized meal appropriating the Greco-Roman “bread and wine” and symbolizing Jesus’ death among Christians. This evolution happened as Jesus followers’ social locations changed. What had begun as a Jewish peasant movement became more affluent by the time the gospels were written down. And as the church’s social location continued to transition toward prosperity, privilege, and power there would be many other changes in the Jesus movement as well. This may give us insight as to why so many expressions of Christianity today are strangely silent on matters of economic justice while engaged only in acts of philanthropic charity.
What can we glean from all of this today? Social location matters. How would it transform Christianity today for us to interpret the Jesus story once again from the perspective of communities that are marginalized and disenfranchised. I think of Jesus followers today who live their lives on the margins of their society and how differently they interpret the Jesus stories from those in more economically and socially privileged social locations. As I consider how the Eucharist changed over two millennia of Christian tradition and arguments still waged over bread and wine, body and blood, and theologies of the meaning of Jesus death, I still believe all of this distracts us from practicing the actual teachings of the Jesus of our stories. These practices that eliminated need among the early community (Acts 4:34). I can’t help but wonder, in a world so filled with need today, what would happen if we Jesus followers de-evolved our Jesus story and returned back to the interpretations of those living on the edges and margins? Could Jesus’ teachings once again return to the intrinsic, life-giving relevancy once encountered by those who first listened to the words of this Jewish prophet of the poor from Galilee?
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does the ritual of Eucharist shape your own Jesus following and social engagement 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.
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 24: John 6.51-58. Lectionary B, Proper 15
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/FCHmsbosSxc?si=3sLHd_r7I3cOVuMl
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 18: The Evolution of the Eucharist
John 6:51-58
“The early Jesus community’s shared meal evolved away from a meal of real bread and fish among a hungry crowd of Jewish Jesus followers where open mutuality and sharing resulted in baskets of food left over. It became a ritualized meal appropriating the Greco-Roman “bread and wine” and symbolizing Jesus’ death among Christians. This evolution happened as Jesus followers’ social locations changed. What had begun as a Jewish peasant movement became more affluent by the time the gospels were written down. And as the church’s social location continued to transition toward prosperity, privilege, and power there would be many other changes in the Jesus movement as well.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
Ecological Justice, Economic Justice, Feminism, Immigration Justice, Racial Justice, LGBTQ Justice,
Liberation Theology, Lectionary Reading, Social Justice, Bread and Cup, Eucharist, Johnhttps://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/the-evolution-of-the-eucharist
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
Sent to be Socially Life-Giving
Thank You!
To All of Our Supporters, We want to express our heartfelt gratitude 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 efforts to promote love and justice. It empowers us to offer connection and inspiration to individuals as we collaboratively strive for justice in today’s world. 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. Your support is integral to our work. From all of us at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters. And if you’d like to join them in supporting our work, we need your support now more than ever.
Please consider making a donation today at renewedheartministries.com and clicking on
“Donate.”
Herb Montgomery | May 10, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our lectionary reading this seventh weekend of Easter is again from the gospel of John:
I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. (John 17:6-19)
John 17 is referred to as Jesus’ “farewell” prayer in the Johannine community’s gospel. In the Christian faith tradition, this chapter in John has some history. This chapter, more than any other, influenced the church’s orthodox position on Jesus’ divinity in the 4th and 5th centuries.
This chapter also gives us a window into how the Johannine community defined Jesus and his life work. At this time, the Johannine community was a generation removed from the historical Jesus. Those who wrote this version of the Jesus story were second-generation Jesus/John followers. They believed the first generation’s reports about Jesus and they took up the torch to promote this version of Jesus and his life work (see John 17:20-23) This gospel will take its place alongside the synoptic gospels as early as the end of the second century (Irenaeus groups together the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, that we are most familiar today in his Against Heresies).
Yet Jesus and his life work are subtly different in the Johannine community’s version of the Jesus story. In Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Jesus’ life work is liberating those on the edges and undersides of his society, healing those who are oppressed by sickness and disease, and calling those responsible for the economic exploitation of the poor to abandon their complicity and participation in the status quo and join his movement to make the world a compassionate, safe, and just home for everyone. This is a movement that the synoptic Jesus in those gospels refers to as “the kingdom.”
In the gospel of John “the kingdom” is wholly absent. John’s gospel pays lip service to the synoptics’ “kingdom” twice. But in both cases, it spiritualizes the kingdom as transcending Jesus followers’ concrete and material experiences or describes it as concerned primarily with matters of “another place.” John’s kingdom has nothing to do with threatening the privileged and exploitive power structures of this world or injustice.
“Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.’” (John 3:5, emphasis mine.)
Jesus said [to Pilate], “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18:36, emphasis mine.)
In John, Jesus’ purpose is to open death, transform it into a portal, and show us how we can follow him through death and resurrection into the higher, post mortem bliss of being rejoined and reunited with “the Father.” We see John’s gospels influence today in expressions of Christianity that are focused on getting to heaven in an afterlife while being oblivious to or unobservant of suffering and harm people around them experience on earth in the here and now. This focus looks nothing like the Jesus of the synoptic gospels.
There are a couple things in our reading this week that I think the Johannine gospel gets right. First is the concern for unity. I don’t mean unity at any price, though. At the time of this gospel’s writing, the early church was in jeopardy of splintering apart with conflicts over power and control and different definitions of what it meant to follow Jesus. Various Jesus communities, some more egalitarian and others more patriarchal were in conflict. Communities that recognized the apostleship of Peter, Mary, Thomas, John, and the other apostles found themselves having to justify their validity in a larger community where some defined themselves as the only true Jesus-following group and sought to delegitimize the others. It is in this context that we read Jesus’ farewell prayer that his followers “may be one” as he and the Father were one. The Johannine community was calling for a richly diverse but still unified Jesus community as opposed to one defined by oneness as “sameness.” It’s ironic given that Christianity today is an internally diverse and divided religion. But diversity doesn’t have to mean division. And unity doesn’t have to mean homogeneity.
We can learn a lot from the Johannine community here. Today some in our larger society are holding on to a past era in American history where power and privilege were based on the sameness of being white, male, straight, and cisgender. Those holding on to this way of shaping the world are deeply opposed to the life-giving, diverse, multicultural, multiracial, egalitarian, radical form of democracy where power is genuinely shared and everyone has what they need to feel safe and to thrive regardless of race, gender, orientation, and gender identity. Many Christians are among those who are obstructing this more diverse way of shaping our world. Yet when we apply the principle held by the Johannine community to our world today, we remember that our diversity is something beautifully rich, something to be celebrated and embraced. John’s gospel reminds us that although we may be different, we belong to each other. What affects one affects us all. And we either thrive together or decline and wither together. Humanity is far from homogeneous, but we are all still part of each other. Like it or not, our shared humanity connects us all.
Another life-giving value we can glean from this week’s reading as Jesus followers is found in the next-to-last sentence of this week’s passage, “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” The gospel has already used a phrase like this: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” Are we to be sent into the world in the same way?
I’m reminded of both the writing of Delores Williams and the gospel of Luke here. Notice how Williams defines what it meant for Jesus to save the world: not from a post mortem hell, but from a hell many are enduring right now:
“Redemption had to do with God, through the ministerial vision, giving humankind the ethical thought and practice upon which to build positive, productive quality of life. Hence, the kingdom of God theme in the ministerial vision of Jesus does not point to death; it is not something one has to die to reach. Rather, the kingdom of God is a metaphor of hope God gives those attempting to right the relations between self and self, between self and others, between self and God as prescribed in the sermon on the mount, in the golden rule and in the commandment to show love above all else. (Delores S. Williams, Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk, pp. 146-147)
The gospel of Luke also defines Jesus’ saving work this same way, as concerned with the very real concrete and material realities that those around him were suffering at that time:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
As we look around us at our larger world today, what does it mean for us to be sent the same way Jesus was? To be sent in the same life-giving, healing way we see demonstrated in Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John? To be sent as a source of love, compassion, justice, and safety for all, but especially for those presently striving to endure systemic harm?
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What does being sent as Jesus was sent mean for you in the context of societal 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.
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 5: Sent to be Socially Life-Giving
John 17:6-19
“Although we may be different, we belong to each other. What affects one affects us all. We either thrive together or decline and wither together. Humanity is far from homogeneous, but we are all still part of each other. Like it or not, our shared humanity connects us all.”
Available on all major podcast carriers.
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/sent-to-be-socially-life-giving
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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Love and Social Justice
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To All of Our Supporters, We want to express our heartfelt gratitude 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 efforts to promote love and justice. It empowers us to offer connection and inspiration to individuals as we collaboratively strive for justice in today’s world. 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. Your support is integral to our work. From all of us at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters. And if you’d like to join them in supporting our work, we need your support now more than ever.
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Love and Social Justice
Herb Montgomery; May 3, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
This weekend our gospel reading is again from the gospel of John:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other. (John 15:9-17)
As much as I compare and contrast John with the other synoptic gospels, there’s one difference in John that I appreciate. The Johannine gospel, more than any of the other gospels, emphasizes and centers on love. But how we understand what this looks like makes a huge difference. John emphasizes our learning to love one another. As I’ve said before, it’s easy to preach a gospel about Jesus that only speaks about how God loves us. It’s much more difficult to preach the gospel th at the Jesus in the stories preached, the gospel that teaches us how to love each other.
There is a way to take this theme of love into a way of life that looks nothing like Jesus. In that kind of life, the focus on love, God’s love, is inward focused, with goals that are inward experiences of spiritual ecstasy or bliss. God’s love is an escape from our present world, either to drown out what is happening to us or in a way that leaves us oblivious to and unconcerned about what is going on for others around us.
It is vital, whatever we say about love, the Jesus of the gospels, and the Divine, that these beliefs about love transform us into more loving human beings. We can teach, preach, and believe in love, and still not let those beliefs become anything more than mental assent to ideas. We must choose to apply our beliefs about love not just to how we imagine God relates to us, but also to how we relate to one another! In fact, it is by applying our beliefs that we test our ideas of what love is and discover which of our ideas about love are life-giving and which are instead harmful.
John’s gospel, which emerged out of the Johannine community, emphasizes loving one another more than the other gospels, even more than the gospels that emerged out of the Markan, Matthean, or Lukan communities. We know that at that time there was division and strife in the Jesus community as some groups in the early church competed for power while other groups claimed their own validity and contesting others’. John’s gospel approaches these conflicts by casting a big tent, especially in its final chapters. By naming Peter, Mary Magdalene, Thomas, as well as John in these post-resurrection stories, each community that honored each of these apostles was legitimized, making room for them at the Jesus movement’s table, so to speak.
The community that would later gain the most power and orthodoxy was the group that recognized the apostleship of Peter. At the time John was written, though, the Johannine community was writing to a Jesus movement they hoped was big enough to also include those who recognized the apostleship of Mary Magdalene, Thomas, and John. The Johannine community’s gospel was calling this wider Jesus movement that practiced love for their neighbors and enemies (the synoptics) to also extend that love to “one another,” to their fellow Jesus followers in other groups. Even though some Jesus followers interpreted some of their community’s cherished sayings of Jesus and stories about him differently, they could all agree on the importance of Jesus and his teachings showing us how to go about shaping our world into a loving, just, and safe home for everyone.
I often critique the gospel of John because of the differences between it and the other gospels. I feel these differences have at times led to harmful practices by Christians today who honor John above the synoptics. But with this week’s reading, I could not be more supportive of the Johannine community’s gospel. In this specific area, I feel they got it spot on. We agree on too much to foster divisions over the few things we see and interpret differently. The Christian religion today is very divided. And if we are ever going to become relevant to a world continually at war, we are first going have to learn how to be less combative within our own faith communities.
What might we also learn from the Johannine community’s call to, above all else, remember to love one another?
In our justice work today, love must be the foundation of justice. When I say “love,” I don’t mean sentimental feelings or emotional availability. Take enemy love for example. Enemy love doesn’t mean you actually feel something positive or warm for your enemies. You may genuinely and justifiably not like them. It does mean you refuse to remove them from the human race. It means you still recognize their humanity. We may be obstructing their intention to do harm, or standing up to them and telling them “no,” or calling for them to be held accountable for the choices they have made, but we still acknowledge that we are connected to them through our shared humanity. We hold space for them to choose to make better decisions. And, until they get there, we still hold out the option that they can experience change.
As we work toward making our world a safe and just home for everyone, love of neighbor calls us to love those neighbors who may be different from us, too. This is a central theme Jesus taught when he defined “neighbor” in his own social and political context as a Samaritan.
As a Christian, you can’t love your neighbor and not care about the things they suffer from because of the way our society is shaped. You can’t love them and vote for policies or politicians who seek to do them harm. During this election season here in the U.S., pay close attention to which vulnerable groups are being scapegoated or who we are being encouraged to feel fear toward as one political party seeks to one-up or out-do the other. I’m thinking of my dear trans friends and my children’s trans school friends, who are all much more at risk of hurting themselves than hurting anyone else around them. I’m thinking of political commercial after commercial on my local television stations where each politician is trying prove they are more anti-trans than the other guy. As they reach toward being elected to office do they realize how precious these kids are that they are throwing under the bus to achieve their political goals?
Years ago, I was involved in our town expanding our non-discrimination laws to include housing, employment and public services for our LGBTQ neighbors. I remember speaking with a city council woman after one of the public hearings and will never forget her words: “Do you want your child to have a place to live? Do you want your child to have employment? Do you want your child excluded from eating at a local restaurant? Well every LGBTQ person you meet is somebody’s child.” I was already an ally when she said this to me, but as, tears filled my eyes, every fiber of my being said “Amen.” She is now our mayor.
Our reading this week reminds us of the central command of Jesus’ teachings, that we love each other as Jesus loved us. And in the end, by this everyone will know that we are Jesus’ disciples, “if you love one another.” (John 13:35)
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does understanding social justice as a practice of Jesus’ loving one another inform your own 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.
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 4: Loving One Another and Social Justice
John 15:9-17
“Whatever we say about love, the Jesus of the gospels, and the Divine, these beliefs about love must transform us into more loving human beings. We can teach, preach, and believe in love, and still not let those beliefs become anything more than mental assent to ideas. We must choose to apply our beliefs about love not just to how we imagine God relates to us, but also to how we relate to one another! And we can’t love one another and not care about the things each of us suffers as a result of the way our society is shaped.”
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/loving-one-another-and-social-justice
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 2, Episode 11: John 15.9-17. Lectionary B, Easter 6
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at:
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
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
Differences in John and Why They Matter
#1 New Release on Amazon!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb MontgomeryAvailable now on Amazon.
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.New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 2, Episode 2: John 2.13-22. Lectionary B, Lent 3.
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 2, Episode 2: John 2.13-22. Lectionary B, Lent 3.
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Differences in John and Why They Matter
Herb Montgomery | March 1, 2024
“Are we defining our humanity as broken and salvation as when we’re set free from our humanity? Or have we lost touch with our humanity ourselves or because others are attempting to dehumanize us? If so, salvation is our reclaiming our humanity!”
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
Our reading this week is from the gospel of John:
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. (John 2:13-22)
If you’re familiar with our Social Jesus Blog, Weekly eSights, Jesus for Everyone podcast, or weekly YouTube show Just Talking, you won’t be surprised by the stark differences between this version of the Jesus story, which emerged out of the Johannine community, and the earlier gospels in our sacred canon, the synoptics Mark, Matthew, and Luke.
In the synoptic gospels, Jesus’ protest in the temple state’s courtyard comes at the end of the the story and is the reason the state executes Jesus on a Roman cross. John was written much later than any of the other canonical gospels, and by that time, Jesus’ death on the cross was far removed from his protest in the temple. The protest happens at the very beginning of the story and the crucifixion comes at the end. These events have nothing to do with each other in the Johannine community’s gospel.
It’s not only the narrative location of this story that is different between these gospels. Jesus’ motive is vastly different as well. In Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Jesus’ protest is rooted in zeal for the masses who are being marginalized and crushed by the Temple State’s complicity with the Roman empire. Consider Mark’s version of the story:
On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of crooks.’” (Mark 11:15-17)
Jesus’ words in Mark’s story combine two passages from the Hebrew scriptures, the first from Isaiah and the later from Jeremiah.
“These I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.” (Isaiah 56:7)
“If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you
do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent
blood in this place, Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of crooks to
you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.” (Jeremiah 7:5-11)
What we must pay attention to in Jeremiah is where the phrase “den of crooks” comes from. A den of thieves and robbers is not where theft is taking place but where the thieves retreat, thinking they are safe after their theft has been committed. The temple functioned in exactly this fashion for the elites and powerful in the temple state. They could oppress the “foreigner, the fatherless or the widow” while practicing their religious piety and claiming they were still in good standing with the God of the Torah because they were still practicing the ritual ceremonies of the temple:
“Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury . . . and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, ‘We are safe;—safe to do all these detestable things?” (Jeremiah 7:9-10)
“Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!” (Jeremiah 7:4)
Consider how this theme appears in the book of Isaiah, another Hebrew prophet:
“The multitude of your sacrifices—
what are they to me?” says the LORD.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow. (Isaiah 1:11-17)
For the prophets, God is much more concerned with social justice than with all the people’s religious ritual observances. It’s this Hebrew, prophetic justice tradition that Jesus is standing squarely in in the gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke.
But in John’s gospel, this tradition is wholly erased and Jesus’ motive is the exact opposite.
“Zeal for your house will consume me.”
John’s Jesus is no longer zealous for the oppressed. Now, in this late gospel, Jesus is consumed by zeal for the purity of the temple and maintaining the purity of religious ritual observances there.
Another significant difference between the gospels is the overt antisemitism held in the Johannine community by the time John’s gospel was written. In the synoptics, rejection of Jesus is a matter of classism. The Jews loved Jesus and hung on his every word. Why wouldn’t they? Jesus’ message was a populist message that resonated deeply with the people who were suffering at the hands of those in power. It was the powerful, propertied, and privileged responsible for crushing the masses through complicity with Rome and who created enormous wealth for themselves who rejected Jesus’ calls for a return to the economic justice teaching of the Torah.
Notice this difference in Luke:
“Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders [these were political positions] among the people were trying to kill him. Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people hung on his words. (Luke 19:47-48)
In John’s gospel, however, there is no distinction between the rich and poor, the powerful and the marginalized, or the elites and the masses within Jesus’ Jewish society. In John, the opposition is all wrapped up in one simple, antisemitic designation: “the Jews.”
Lastly, the gospels switch from critiquing the injustice of the temple state, with its physical capital in the temple, to spiritualizing the temple as a symbol of Jesus’ body.
The presence of proto-Gnostic tendencies in the writings of the Johannine community is well-documented by scholars. Christian Gnosticism would come to teach a dualistic way of looking at our world through the lens of separating our bodies from our spirit. Later, Gnosticism would teach that the material world was evil and spiritual was good. It therefore defined salvation as the point at which our spirits are finally set free from imprisonment in our material bodies and material world. (This sounds a lot like many of the sectors of Christianity today, which is why I say that much of Christianity today is more gnostic like the Johannine community than the Jesus of the synoptic gospels.)
In the synoptics, Jesus prioritizes setting people free from material, concrete, very tangible suffering. but not from the material, concrete, and tangible itself.
What are we to make of these differences? Both teachings are in our sacred texts. Both are biblical. And both are ways of viewing and defining Jesus. For those who want the Bible to make all of their decisions for them, it’s not that simple when the Bible offers two different options. We have to take some personal responsibility. We have to actually decide which way of practicing Christianity today in our context is more life-giving.
We have to choose how we practice our own Christianity. Both options are biblical. And they each produce radically different fruit. Are we focused on postmortem destinations or saving people from what they are suffering in this life? Are we defining salvation as celestial, heavenly bliss in another life, or do we define salvation as the synoptics do, as being set free from death-dealing oppression, injustice, violence, and marginalization in this life? Are we defining our humanity as broken and salvation as when we’re set free from our humanity? Or have we lost touch with our humanity ourselves or because others are attempting to dehumanize us? If so, salvation is our reclaiming our humanity! (Jesus defines salvation in Luke’s story of Zacchaeus in this way.)
I find it escapist and defeatist to separate Jesus’ gospel from this life and transform it into being solely about spiritual realities in preparation for a next life. For myself, I find the focus of the synoptic gospels in our present social context to be much more relevant and much more life-giving.
Group Discussion Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How do the differences in the different versions of the Jesus story in our New Testament impact your own social just work today as a Jesus follower? 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.
I want to also say a special thank you this week to Quoir Publishing, Keith Giles who wrote the foreword to my latest book, all the special people on our launch team, and all of you who made this release a success.
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and soon 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 new Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
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.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Advent and the Joy of Working for a Better World
All Year-End donations are going matched!
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 43: John 1.6-8, 19-28. Lectionary B, Advent 3
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 43: John 1.6-8, 19-28. Lectionary B, Advent 3
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Advent and the Joy of Working for a Better World
Herb Montgomery | December 15, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“As difficult as doing preparation work in the wilderness is at times, there is joy in knowing what it is you are preparing the way for. We are preparing the way for the advent of a world where love is our guiding principle. There is joy in that assurance, and our labors are not in vain.”
Our reading this month is from the gospel of John.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”
They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
Now the Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
“I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. (John 1:6-8, 19-28)
Most scholars agree that John’s gospel was the last gospel in our canon to be written. Mark’s was the earliest, and Matthew and Luke were written between Mark and John. In Mark’s gospel John is a contemporary of Jesus. Jesus begins as one of John’s disciples and part of his Jewish reformation and renewal movement. Once John is imprisoned, Jesus begins his own renewal movement. One gets the impression that John’s followers and Jesus’ followers were in two related but separate movements, contemporaries and occasionally in competition.
John’s gospel presents John the Baptist as Jesus’ forerunner, the one who announced Jesus’ arrival. In Mark, Jesus is baptized by John, but as the gospels progresses, this fact becomes less and less emphasized until John’s gospel, which conveniently leaves out John’s role in Jesus’ baptism. It is cryptic about it, and this may reflect tensions that had developed between John’s followers and Jesus’s. If that’s the case, the Jesus community may not have wanted to see Jesus subordinated to John in any way in the gospels, even if only by implication.
John’s gospel seems to downgrade John the Baptist for the purpose of exalting Jesus. One example is how, in this gospel, John the Baptist rejects attempts to be identified as Messiah, the Prophet, or Elijah.
In Mark, Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, John the Baptist is dramatically associated with Elijah:
Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him.” (Mark 9:12-13)
And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. (Matthew 11:14)
And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:17, cf. Micah 4:5)
But in our reading this week, John the Baptist rejects being associated with any of these figures, including Elijah.
What I appreciate about the picture of John the Baptist that we get in the gospel of John is that it unequivocally locates John’s ministry. Each gospel tells us where John taught.
When John is cornered in our reading by people demanding that he answer their questions about who he was, John’s response is:
“I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
Last week I wrote at length about John’s ministry being in the wilderness as we considered the way John’s ministry is characterized in the gospel of Mark. If you haven’t already read that article, you’ll find it helpful as a foundation for what I’m about to say. (Read that article)
The wilderness in the gospels is contrasted with the central location of power: the temple state, centered in the temple as the capital in Jerusalem. John is characterized as working outside the centers of power, property, and privilege. Here I want to be very clear that this is not imagery that symbolizes some conflict between Christianity and Judaism. Rather, these are symbols of long standing within the Jewish society at that time. They represent Jewish voices in conflict with one another over what fidelity to the God of the Torah looked like in relation to economics, society and politics. These were all deeply religious matters in that culture, and religious fidelity demanded people live in certain economic, social, and political ways.
The symbols being contrasted, then, are those of priest and prophet. The priesthood represented those who had been coopted by Rome and were barely more than puppets of the absentee emperor, Caesar. Whoever held the position of high priest was designated as such by Rome, and the priesthood’s chief responsibility was to ensure that whatever actions took place in the Jewish temple state, those actions did not violate the Pax Romana.
In contrast to this elite class in John’s society was the symbol of a prophet in the wilderness. This symbol stood in a long lineage with Hebrew prophets who continually called those in positions of power back to justice. Again, how the most vulnerable in society was taken care of or exploited was a matter of fidelity to their God. Faithfulness to God implied living justly in relation to one’s neighbor. Those who participated in the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition stood on the margins of their society, calling those at the center and those in positions of power and privilege to return to a path of distributive justice.
This rich heritage of justice prophets is the heritage that John the Baptist is characterized with in each gospel.
What does this say to us today?
For me it tells me to keep my ear to the ground and my eyes not on the establishment; to listen to those outside, on the edges, the margins, the undersides of society, and the calls for justice they are making. It brings to mind such movements today as the Poor People’s Campaign, or the Movement for Black Lives, or movements like we saw at Standing Rock calling for justice for indigenous communities and an end to the extraction and pollution of their lands. It brings to mind the recent Women’s March on Washington and movements for LGBTQ justice and inclusion. It brings to mind those today calling for justice for the thousands of innocent Palestinian lives being taken. Who is in the wilderness today? What justice needs are they raising awareness for? Or, in the language of this week’s passage, what is the “way” that they are preparing for God’s future of love, compassion, justice and safety to arrive, a world that is a safe, compassionate, just home for us all?
Who, in other words, are the John the Baptists of today?
In our story, John was preparing the way for the one whom the synoptic gospel authors borrowed the words of Isaiah to describe:
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.” (Isaiah 42:1, cf. Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22)
Who today are preparing the way for justice to be brought to the nations?
Who are the ones on the edges, working within the grassroots of our communities preparing the way so that when justice is accomplished, it finds rich soil to take root and remain?
In our story, when God’s just future arrived, it was crucified by the powerful, privileged and propertied. We have the ability today to write a different ending to the story, one that stands awake to the resurrection of God’s just future.
But this season is not the season of Easter, yet. This season is advent. And this weekend’s theme is the joy of Advent. As difficult as doing preparation work in the wilderness is at times, there is joy in knowing what it is you are preparing the way for. We are preparing the way for the advent of a world where love is our guiding principle. There is joy in that assurance, and our labors are not in vain.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Advent is that season where we take time again to reflect on the joy of the kind of world we are working toward. What joy are you finding in Advent 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.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on X(Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Advent and Change from the Margins
All Year-End donations made from now
till the end of the year will be matched!
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 42: Mark 1.1-8. Lectionary B, Advent 2
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 42: Mark 1.1-8. Lectionary B, Advent 2
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Advent and Change from the Margins
Herb Montgomery | December 10, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Very rarely has social change ever come from the center or top of a social structure. Social change has most often come from the margins, from the outside in, and from the grassroots, from the bottom up. In the beginning of Mark, this truth is being told again.”
Our reading this second weekend of Advent is from the first chapter of Mark:
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way” —
“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’ ”
And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1:1-8)
Mark’s gospel associates John the Baptist with two passages from the Hebrew passages that are conflated here.
The first is from Malachi: “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple.” (Malachi 3:1)
The second is from Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling:
‘In the wilderness prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.’” (Isaiah 40:3)
Although the text only references Isaiah by name, Mark’s author is doing something interesting by juxtaposing these two passages. The passage combines Hebrew prophetic imagery of God coming to cleanse God’s temple (Malachi) with language that originally referred to liberation from foreign oppression, specifically Babylonian captivity, and a path being made in wilderness for the liberated exiles upon which to return (Isaiah).
To understand this kind of rhetoric we have to look at what was happening in John’s and Jesus’ society when Mark was written. The temple state leadership had become corrupted, little more than a wealthy, elite class that helped maintain Roman oppression in Judea and the surrounding regions. The poor were getting poorer and the wealthy were getting richer through their complicity and cooperation with Rome. Many of the common people were simply trying to scratch out an existence.
Then John appears in the wilderness. This narrative element clues us in to the fact that John will be working outside the establishment. He will be calling for change (repentance) from the edges and undersides of his society, outside of the official channels. Social salvation is not coming from the established center, but from the margins.
Commenting on this imagery and its possible application to our lives today, Ched Myers writes:
“The experience of wilderness is common to the vast majority of people in the world. Their reality is at the margins of almost everything that is defined by the modern Western world as ‘the good life.’ This wilderness has not been created by accident. It is the result of a system stacked against many people and their communities, whose lives and resources are exploited to benefit a very small minority at the centers of power and privilege. It is created by lifestyles that deplete and pollute natural resources. It is created by the forced labor of impoverished farmers who strip steep mountain-sides in order to eke out an existence from infertile terrain while the most arable land produces profit for a few families. Wilderness is the residue of war and greed and injustice . . . One of the first steps of hope for people in such wilderness places is to understand that their situation reflects social and political forces, not the divine will . . . While the margin has a primarily negative political connotation as a place of disenfranchisement, Mark ascribes to it a primarily positive theological value. It is the place where the sovereignty of God is made manifest, where the story of liberation is renewed, where God’s intervention in history occurs.” (Ched Myers, Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, & Stuart Taylor, Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, Orbis Books, p. 11-23)
Luke’s gospel makes this point about John the Baptist even more forcefully by showing that John’s father was part of the temple establishment (see Luke 1:9-10). Luke’s implication is that John the Baptist came from the center of society, and chose to reject that social location with all of its privileges to work for change from the outside.
Very rarely has social change ever come from the center or top of a social structure. Social change has most often come from the margins, from the outside in, and from the grassroots, from the bottom up. In the beginning of Mark, this truth is being told again.
John’s preaching centered on a specific place in the wilderness, the River Jordan. The Jordan provided water that was moving: flowing, “living water” for what grew to be the central ritual associated with John’s preaching, baptism by immersion in “living water.” Historical Jesus scholars today understand John’s baptism to be economic and political as well as religious. All of three categories combined in John’s preaching and baptism, calling the people to return to fidelity to the God of the Torah, especially in regards to the Torah’s economic justice teachings. Again this point would be forcibly made in Luke’s gospel as well:
“‘What should we do then?’ the crowd asked. 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 3:10-14)
Many historical Jesus scholars believe that John’s baptism was a form of protest against the temple establishment that had become an extension of oppressive Roman rule. John’s calls for repentance and promise of forgiveness weren’t for personal or individual sins that violated one private piety. In Luke, John rails against economic and social sins, practices that impact a people’s lives together, as a society.
Josephus, who was much more closely located to the characters in these stories than we are, also writes about John, his popularity with people, and the threat the established elites, specifically Herod, came to feel they were:
“John was a good man who had admonished the Jews to practice virtue and to treat each other justly, with due respect to God, and to join in the practice of baptism. John’s view was that correct behavior was a necessary preliminary to baptism, if baptism was to be acceptable to God. Baptism wasn’t not to gain pardon for sins committed but for the purification of the body, which had already been consecrated by righteousness. Herod became alarmed at the crowds that gathered around John, who aroused them to fever pitch with his sermons. Eloquence that had such a powerful effect on people might lead to sedition, since it seemed that the people were prepared to do everything he recommended.” (Josephus, History of the Jews, 18:116-119)
The story of John the Baptist in our reading this week is a story of just change originating from the margins of a society in which both John and Jesus were both figureheads. This is a story that resonates with me today too.
This Advent season, what is God doing right now on the margins? I can’t help but think of movements for change that have formed around concerns for gender justice, racial justice, LGBTQ justice, Indigenous people’s justice, economic justice, and ecological justice. There are so many more areas where justice is needed; these are just the ones that come to my mind first.
Advent announces that something has come: something we have long hoped for is here. Of the many things we hope for, one is a world characterized by distributive justice. A world, here and now, that is a safe, compassionate and just home for everyone, where no one is afraid and, in the words of the Hebrew prophets, “Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree” (Micah 4:4).
This second week of Advent, we read about a time when that world came to us once before. That world would soon be beheaded with John and crucified with Jesus. But when it came in both John and Jesus’s ministries, it began on the margins. This calls to me to pay attention to what’s happening in our time on the edges, the grassroots, and the wildernesses of our own society. For each time that the world we hope for has arrived throughout history, it has most often started there.
Where is that world showing up again for us today? And who can we come alongside to participate in making that world a reality for us all?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How has your own living on the margins or listening to others who do informed how you read the Jesus story? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Resurrection and Listening to Those on the Margins
New Episode of Just Talking Available on YouTube
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 1, Episode 8: John 20.1-18. Lectionary A, Resurrection of the Lord
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at https://youtu.be/a0iHvj6_PYM
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Herb Montgomery | April 7, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
Change begins from the margins of our society inward, from the grassroots up. And in our reading this week, change begins in an empty tomb after a Roman cross, with a woman named Mary daring to hope again, and a Jesus mistaken for a gardener, planting in the hearts of his early followers the seeds of his vision for a world that is a safe, compassionate and just home for everyone.
Our reading this week is from the gospel of John:
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.
But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her. (John 20:1-18*)
This weekend for many Western Christians is Easter, a celebration memorializing the resurrection.
Before we jump into this week’s reading from John, I want to remind us that for many early Christians, the good news was not that Jesus had died—especially not that he had died for them or to pay for their sins—but that Jesus, whom the Romans crucified, God had brought back to life. The good news was that Jesus was alive, and all that was accomplished through Jesus death was reversed, undone, and overcome in the resurrection.
I’ll cite the book of Acts here. Nowhere does the book of Acts define the good news of the gospel as Jesus dying. Rather, the good news in the book of Acts is that the crucified Jesus has been brought back to life. He is alive!
“With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” (Acts 4:33)
“You crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.” (Acts 2:22-24)
“This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.” (Acts 2:32-33)
“You handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, but God raised from the dead.” (Acts 3:12-16)
“. . . Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead. (Acts 4:10-11)
“The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.” (Acts 5:30-32)
“They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day.” (Acts 10:36-43)
“Even though they found no cause for a sentence of death, they asked Pilate to have him killed. When they had carried out everything that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead . . . And we bring you the good news that what God promised to our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising Jesus.” (Acts 13:35-38)
I resonate deeply with Delores S. Williams on this point. Speaking in the context of how Black women have experienced harm in their Christian communities through certain interpretations of Jesus’ death on the cross, Williams writes, “As Christians, Black women cannot forget the cross, but neither can they glorify it.” (in Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk, p. 132)
Williams reminds us that Jesus didn’t come to die. He came to show us how to live.
“Matthew, Mark and Luke suggest that Jesus did not come to redeem humans by showing them God’s ‘love’ manifested in the death of God’s innocent child on a cross erected by cruel, imperialistic, patriarchal power. Rather, the texts suggest that the spirit of God in Jesus came to show humans life . . . The response to this invitation by human principalities and powers was the horrible deed the cross represents—the evil of humankind trying to kill the ministerial vision of life in relation that Jesus brought to humanity. The resurrection does not depend upon the cross for life, for the cross only represents historical evil trying to defeat good.” (In Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk, p. 130)
Williams continues:
“It seems more intelligent and more scriptural to understand that redemption had to do with God, through Jesus, giving humankind new vision to see the resources for positive, abundant relational life. Redemption had to do with God, through the ministerial vision, giving humankind the ethical thought and practice upon which to build positive, productive quality of life. Hence, the kingdom of God theme in the ministerial vision of Jesus does not point to death; it is not something one has to die to reach. Rather, the kingdom of God is a metaphor of hope God gives those attempting to right the relations between self and self, between self and others, between self and God as prescribed in the sermon on the mount, in the golden rule and in the commandment to show love above all else. (Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk, pp. 130-131)
Again the witness from the book of Acts:
“We bring you the good news that what God promised to our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising Jesus.” (Acts 13:32-33)
John, the book this week’s reading is from, was written when the Jesus movement, heavily influenced by the surrounding culture and social structures of certain communities, had been taken over by patriarchists. The early egalitarianism of the house churches was being pushed out by those who favored the more patriarchal structures of the surrounding civic organizations (see In Memory of Her: A Feminist Reconstruction of Christian Origins by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza). Interpretations and arguments that did not previously exist in the Jesus movement begin being seen in the early church. One famous example is the statement in 1 Timothy 2:11-14:
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.”
This was a time when communities that recognized the apostleship of Peter and other male disciples began to be in conflict with communities that recognized the apostleship of Mary Magdalene and other women like Priscilla in the early church. The era of the patristic fathers was about to begin.
So it is interesting that in this same era, the gospel of John gives us this week’s story. Jesus could have showed up to either of the two male disciples referenced in the story, but instead he chooses to appear first to Mary. As has been often said, when she tells the other believers what she has heard and experienced, Mary becomes an apostle to the apostles. Patriarchists taught that woman, symbolized by Eve, was the first human to be deceived, but in John’s gospel, woman is the first human to believe in the risen Jesus. Mary is the new Eve.
This makes sense in terms of our journey so far through the gospel of John in the lectionary. The Johannine community had many Gnostic leanings. In later Gnostic communities, a person’s sex was a material matter, not spiritual. It was part of the concrete realm of their physical bodies. What mattered to these dualistic, binary communities was a person’s soul or spirit, regardless of whether their spirits lived in a physical body that was male or female. So these communities were much more egalitarian in practice than more orthodox, patriarchal Christian communities.
Though I reject the Gnostics’ belittling of our bodies and the concrete world, especially considering our dire need to reverse climate change and the very real, material injustices that some communities fight to survive and thrive in spite of every day, I appreciate the egalitarian practices that these early beliefs led to. I reject the Gnostic basis for those practices (i.e. the belief that the material world doesn’t matter), yet we, as contemporary Jesus followers, can still learn from some of those practices given the injustices women still face in our society today.
This week’s reading shows me a Jesus who choose to reveal himself first to Mary. Not to Peter, nor to John. It reminds me of the importance, especially in our current social context, of listening to women when they speak their truth. This Easter, let’s focus on the life-giving good news of love, justice, and their power to overcome, reverse, and undo the death-dealing things in our world. Let’s begin, like Jesus, with prioritizing the voices of women sharing the truth. Then, let’s not stop there! Let’s prioritize all the voices that our systems and practices push to the margins and undersides of our society.
Change begins from the margins of our society inward, from the grassroots up. And in our reading this week, change begins in an empty tomb after a Roman cross, with a woman named Mary daring to hope again, and a Jesus mistaken for a gardener, planting in the hearts of his early followers the seeds of his vision for a world that is a safe, compassionate and just home for everyone.
What is this story of Mary and Jesus saying to you this week?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Again, what is this story of Mary and Jesus saying to you this week? Share with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
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Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
* Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
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