It’s Okay to Discover You Are Wrong
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New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 26: Matthew 15.10-28. Lectionary A, Proper 15
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/nauEBogqH10
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
It’s Okay to Discover You Are Wrong
Herb Montgomery | August 18, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“She calls him out on the hurtfulness of his rhetoric. She also uses his language against him to show him how blinkered his understanding is. And Jesus models humility. She is right, and Jesus makes an about-face.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”
Jesus left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came out and started shouting, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered, “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed instantly. (Matthew 15:10-20, 21-28)
Before we begin this week I want to address some harmful language in our reading. The first is a generalizing reference to Pharisees. The Pharisees were a very diverse group that held many of the same ethical views of love and inclusion as the early Jesus community did. They were the progressive liberals of their community, and appealed to a large portion of the masses. The Pharisees later evolved into what would become Rabbinic Judaism. Their ethics of love and compassion, justice, and inclusion are a central part of Jewish wisdom today.
This is important to say because using the term “Pharisee” as a pejorative slur is historically incorrect and has also been the root cause of antisemitism in Christianity over the centuries.
There was a sect of the Pharisees (the school of Shammai) that opposed the more progressive Jesus community. But this group of Pharisees were just as much opposed to their more progressive fellow Pharisees in the school of Hillel.
Because of this complex historical reality, as we tell the Jesus story we need to remember that many of the debates we encounter in the Jesus story were not between Christians and Jews (as Jesus himself was never a Christian). They were a debate within the Jewish community, between competing voices in Judaism, over what fidelity to their God looked like.
The first portion of our reading addresses whether things we eat defile us individually and whether how we relate to one another defile us collectively. This was a debate between Jesus and some of the Pharisees, and also a debate among the Pharisees themselves.
Second, this passage refers to blindness pejoratively too. Equating a disability like blindness with being inferior, sinful, or adversarial is harmful to people who live with disabilities every day. Again, today we can do better when we tell the Jesus story.
Later in this week’s reading, we encounter a story of a woman whom Matthew refers to as “Canaanite” and Mark calls “Syrophoenician” (Mark 7:26). When Matthew refers to her as a Canaanite, his listeners would have recalled the region’s ancient Indigenous populations within their own cultural stories and folklores of exodus, migration and settlement there.
The early Jesus movement was not monolithic on the underlying message of this passage. Some members of the early Jesus movement felt their purpose was more in-house: they believed they were to be about winning fellow Jews to follow the Jewish Jesus. Many of these members stayed in Judea, specifically Jerusalem, and recognized the apostleship of Peter and James (see Luke and Acts). Others in the early Jesus community believed they were called to win those outside of the Jewish community to become followers of Jesus. Paul and the Matthean community in Galilee held this view (compare the endings of Matthew’s gospel and Luke’s). In Luke’s gospel, all the disciples remain in Jerusalem and grow the Jesus movement among the Jewish people from there. But in Matthew’s gospel, all the disciples return to Galilee and grow the Jesus movement from there, embracing even those who were not Jews.
The story of the Canaanite woman supports the Matthean community’s view that Jesus teachings should be shared beyond the boundaries of the Jewish community.
What I love about this story is that we get a picture of a very human Jesus. He models being open to listening to those our theologies, interpretations, or views harm and being willing to grow and change. When we discover that something in our theology or our interpretations is harmful, this Jesus tells us it’s okay to learn and change. It’s okay to admit that once you held a harmful position, you now know more than you knew then, and your mind has changed.
This story forces us to embrace an evolving Jesus, not a fixed one. As the gospel of Luke says, “The child [Jesus] grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him” (Luke 2:40).
When Jesus became an adult, did this growing and learning in wisdom stop? Did he just know everything as an adult? It may appeal to some to view Jesus this way, but it doesn’t align with our own experiences or how much we keep learning, evolving, and growing as adults.
Consider this passage in the New Testament book of Hebrews: “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” (Hebrews 5.8)
Jesus learned obedience. And he learned it through those things he suffered. This sounds a lot like the way all of us learn: through experience and the hard way. It’s a picture of a very human Jesus who, when his understanding broadened, embraced change to become even more a source of healing and life to those he came in contact with.
Again, Matthew’s gospel refers to this woman as a Canaanite woman. I love that the person who teaches Jesus to see the world through a much larger lens is a woman. When Jesus refers to Jewish people as God’s children and non-Jews as less than dogs, she calls him out on the hurtfulness of his rhetoric. She also uses his language against him to show him how blinkered his understanding is. And Jesus models humility. She is right, and Jesus makes an about-face.
Remember, this is not just any Gentile woman. Matthew refers to her as a Canaanite.
This calls to my mind the words of James Cone in his classic, God of the Oppressed, and Philip Jenkins’ comments in Laying Down the Sword. Here are both:
“Native American theologian Robert Warrior [reads] the Exodus and Conquest narratives ‘with Canaanite eyes.’ The Exodus is not a paradigmatic event of liberation for indigenous peoples but rather an event of colonization.” (James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed, Kindle Edition Location 130)
The story of the Exodus speaks of liberation to some oppressed communities, and to others, this same narrative speaks of colonization.
“The parallels are all the more painful as European colonialists over the centuries consciously used the conquest of Canaan as a model for their own activities.” (Philip Jenkins, Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses, p. 20-21)
This month’s recommended reading from Renewed Heart Ministries is Randy Woodley’s Indigenous Theology and the Western Worldview: A Decolonized Approach to Christian Doctrine. This volume is well worth reading as we also follow Jesus in listening to and growing our understanding of, relationships with, and reparations toward Indigenous populations today.
Who might our Canaanite women be today? Who might we need to listen to?
How can we follow the Jesus of this week’s reading and be willing to listen to communities our theologies and interpretation have harmed? Jesus followers who are men could begin by listening to the experiences of women. Jesus followers who are straight and cisgender could begin by listening to the experiences of those who identify as LGBTQ. Jesus followers who are White could listen to the experiences of people of color. Jesus followers who are upper class or middle class could listen to the experiences of those who spend every day trying to survive poverty. The list could go on and on.
What does it look like for us today to follow the Jesus in our reading this week? Again, who are the Canaanite women that we need to listen to today?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Think back to an experience from your own journey where you discovered you were wrong and that you needed a larger worldview through which to relate to others in our shared world? 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 and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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
When Working for Justice Feels Like Walking On Water
Thank you to all of our supporters.
If you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by clicking “donate” above.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 25: Matthew 14.22-33. Lectionary A, Proper 14
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/Tx_GTZXvuF8
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Herb Montgomery | August 11, 2022
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“This story was not written for our time and place, but for an audience that looked at the world very differently . . . Nevertheless, for us today, this story can be a very powerful metaphor.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (Matthew 14:22-33)
The earliest canonical version of this story that we have is from the gospel of Mark (6:47-52). Matthew adds the detail of Peter following Jesus by walking on the water too. In Mark’s version, Peter’s attempt is absent. Also, in Mark’s earlier version, the disciples are left befuddled, in not-sure-what-to-think amazement (existemi, Mark 6:51). In Matthew, by contrast, the disciples affirm “Truly you are the Son of God.” We’ll talk about these two different endings in a moment.
First, let’s acknowledge how strange a story like this is to our post-enlightenment, science informed minds today. No one believes it’s possible for any of us to walk on water today.
This story was not written for our time and place, but for an audience that looked at the world very differently. Let’s look at a few of the possible roots of this story in the Hebrew Scriptures. And let’s keep in mind that in the Matthean Jesus community of Jesus followers, most of the early Jesus followers would have been Jewish.
Describing the Divine, the book of Job reads,
“[God] alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea.” (Job 9:8)
Compare this to Job 38:16: “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?”
Next consider Psalms 77:16-19:
The waters saw you, God,
the waters saw you and writhed;
the very depths were convulsed.
The clouds poured down water,
the heavens resounded with thunder;
your arrows flashed back and forth.
Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,
your lightning lit up the world;
the earth trembled and quaked.
Your path led through the sea,
your way through the mighty waters,
though your footprints were not seen.
In this ancient story, the waters were parted so the people could follow God’s “way” through the sea, whereas in Matthew, Peter attempts to walk on the sea like Jesus.
Before Jesus, Second Maccabees describes the oppressor of the Jewish people, Antiochus:
“Not content with this, Antiochus dared to enter the most holy temple in all the world, guided by Menelaus, who had become a traitor both to the laws and to his country. He took the holy vessels with his polluted hands, and swept away with profane hands the votive offerings that other kings had made to enhance the glory and honor of the place. Antiochus was elated in spirit . . . Antiochus carried off eighteen hundred talents from the temple, and hurried away to Antioch, thinking in his arrogance that he could sail on the land and walk on the sea.” (2 Maccabees 5:15-21)
Let’s add to this background a Hellenist legend in the culture surrounding Matthew’s Jesus and the community in which he lived. In many Hellenistic stories, characters cross the seas rapidly by various magical means. One story is the story of Orion, son of the god Poseidon. Orion could walk on water.
“Hesiod says that [Orion] was the son of Eurayle, the daughter of Minos, and of Poseidon, and that there was given him as a gift the power of walking on the waves as though upon the land.” (Eratosthenes, fragment 182, quoted in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, James D.G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson, editors)
As strange as this story may be to us today, it would not have been strange at all for those who originally heard it. The story would instead have signaled to the hearers of Matthew’s gospel just what claims the Matthean community was making about Jesus. This story ends with the disciples explicitly proclaiming that Jesus, like the Hellenists’ Orion was “truly the Son of God.”
Again, there is another difference in Matthew’s story: Peter’s attempt to follow Jesus in walking on water. And this is the part of the story that I believe can still speak to us, today.
In the previous chapter of Matthew’s Jesus story, Jesus has just explained how his gospel of love for one another manifested in inclusion, justice, and shaping a community (“the kingdom”) safe for everyone (see our article from two weeks ago, “Kingdom” Parables for Social Change), was considered by the elites, the powerful, propertied, and privileged of his society. They considered it and him to be a weed that must be quickly weeded out before it took over the hearts of the masses, or like a corrupting leaven that if not dealt with would transform the entire dough of their society.
For us today, the story of Jesus walking on water and Peter’s attempt to follow him on those rough seas can be a very powerful metaphor. There are times when following Jesus in working toward a world that is safe, compassionate, and just for everyone is hard. I don’t want to make it sound like it’s harder than it is. But I want to be honest about how difficult, at times, it is. Today, following Jesus means standing up to the winds and waves of racism, White supremacy, Christian nationalism, misogyny, patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, economic elitism, classism, ableism, xenophobia, and so many more. And though these societal issues are not directly named in the Jesus story, his story does model the principles of being a source of healing and life in our world when facing those things that do harm. The principles for how we are to respond are laid out in the Jesus story for us to apply in our time and context.
When we seek to stand up against those things that do harm today the way Jesus stood up to systemic harm in his own society, we can find ourselves outside the boat at times. In those times, our material survival could be seen as impossible as walking on water. This is why in many grassroots communities of Jesus followers working toward some form of liberation the saying is often repeated, “God makes a way out of no way.”
Sometimes following Jesus, making the world a better place, and even surviving economically, socially, or materially feels as impossible as walking on water. But that is what it means to choose to follow Jesus in his work. In moments like this, the words of this beautiful story mean something to me:
“Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
And when Peter tried to follow, but because of the waves and the wind became afraid and found himself beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” The story says that immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him with the words, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
So this week, let’s be honest. Sometimes following Jesus in working for social change, whether within faith communities or outside of them, can be hard and even feel impossible. When we become afraid. That’s okay. You’re in the right story. Keep doing what you can. Don’t lose heart. Don’t give up.
Together, even if at times it feels like we are being called to step out of the boat to walk on water, we are making a way out of no way. Together, we are not alone. We don’t know what tomorrow will hold. But I believe our efforts will pay off.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Think of times in your own experience when following the teachings of Jesus felt like getting out of the boat and walking on water 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.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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
Kingdom Parables for Social Change
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. 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.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 23: Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52. Lectionary A, Proper 12
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/oG16JTOGXQ8
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
“Kingdom” Parables for Social Change
Herb Montgomery | July 28, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“When we discover we have been wrong, that’s okay. That’s a good thing. We can make old, death-dealing interpretations give way to new, life-giving interpretations. We can hold on to old, life-giving interpretations too, and adopt new interpretations that we think are more life-giving as new information is discovered. When what we thought was life-giving turns out not to be, we can hold on to the good old, letting go of the bad old, and replace it with the new. The object is not to protect everything that is old, but to ask whether what we are believing and practicing is truly life giving for all.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”
He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
“Have you understood all these things?” Jesus asked. “Yes,” they replied.
He said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” (Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52)
There are so many beautiful themes in this week’s reading for us to dive into. First let’s consider the language here that refers to Jesus’ vision for human community as a “kingdom.”
Remember, Jesus’ gospel in these stories was not instructions for nor good news about a pathway to a post mortem heaven. Jesus’ gospel was good news that announced and called people to a new vision for human community in the here and now. A human community where those presently being marginalized and pushed to the undersides of society find a world that is safe, just, and compassionate for all.
Kingdom
The term “kingdom” combined the imperial culture of the Roman empire with the restoration hopes of the indigenous Jewish people of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee living under Roman imperial colonization. It is the language of that time and place. Today we rightly recognize the kingdom language as hierarchical and patriarchal. It is my studied opinion that we would harmonize more with Jesus’ vision of community cast in the gospels if we referred to this community in more democratic terms, in ways reflected in the democratic principles practiced in the book of Acts by early Jesus communities.
I also argue that the cosmic, post resurrection Jesus became the King of the early Jesus communities. Kingdom imagery was intended to help the church replace any earthly “king,” and make way for a more egalitarian community. Consider the following:
“And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah.” (Matthew 23.9-10)
This same principle could be applied: Don’t have kings among yourself, you have one King, Jesus. All of you are to relate to each other non hierarchically as equals:
“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. (Matthew 23:8, emphasis added.)
Again, this language attempts to communicate egalitarian siblinghood and yet even this version only mentions “brothers.” Today, we might say “brothers and sisters,” or more simply “siblings.” We can push this language to be more inclusive of women and nonbinary, gender nonconforming, and other people, and still be in perfect harmony with the trajectory of the intention of the original egalitarian and non-hierarchical passage.
Mustard (See also Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18-19; Gospel of Thomas 20)
The parable of the mustard seed is a political parable, not a botanical one. Botanically, mustard don’t grow into trees at all. They grow into shrubs of average size. This story is meant to be understood in the context of the political hopes of Jesus’ Jewish community. Consider the promise made to this people in Ezekiel:
“This is what the Sovereign God says, ‘I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches.’” (Ezekiel 17:22-23)
A tree being used as a metaphor for a kingdom or empire was common in the scriptures. Consider how Babylon itself was described with the same language.
“Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant, and on it was food for all. Under it the wild animals found shelter, and the birds lived in its branches; from it every creature was fed . . . The tree you saw, which grew large and strong, with its top touching the sky, visible to the whole earth, with beautiful leaves and abundant fruit, providing food for all, giving shelter to the wild animals, and having nesting places in its branches for the birds—Your Majesty, you are that tree! You have become great and strong; your greatness has grown until it reaches the sky, and your dominion extends to distant parts of the earth.” (Daniel 4:12, 20-22)
In saying that Jesus’ vision for human community would ultimately grow from tiny beginnings to the fulfillment of Jewish hopes of restoration and independence, the gospel authors were appealing to the Jewish people’s hopes in the midst of their imperial colonization by Rome.
This can be challenging for contemporary Christians to wrap their minds and hearts around, but the hard work of reading the Jesus story from the perspectives of marginalized and excluded communities is work worth doing.
Calling Jesus’ vision of human community a mustard seed was about more than its small beginnings. Most of the agricultural world at that time deemed the mustard plant a weed. So Jesus’ kingdom vision for human community was being likened in this parable to a weed. This called out how Jesus’ vision for what human community could be was deemed by the elite, powerful, propertied and privileged: a weed that must be speedily eliminated before it took over the imaginations of the masses.
Yeast (Luke 13:20-21; Thomas 96)
In the Passover traditions, leaven was a corrupting influence, and unleavened bread symbolized purity. So in this week’s reading, Jesus’ kingdom vision for human community is being likened to something that corrupted. Again, the elite, powerful, propertied and privileged considered this vision for human community that Jesus was casting a corrupting influence among the masses. If something wasn’t done about it quickly, it would permeate the entire society that the elites were profiting off of.
Historically, democracy was seen as a corrupting influence in societies that practiced monarchy or other forms of hierarchy. Today, even non-authoritarian, more democratic forms of socialism and communism are deemed as a corrupting influence by global capitalists who profit off the masses. (Consider the history of U.S. policy in relation to Vietnam and Cuba.)
Jesus’ love for the poor and his vision of a human community that practiced wealth redistribution, debt cancellation, resource sharing, and mutual aid inspired the poor and marginalized in his society, and benefitted those being exploited. It threatened the elites. Truly Jesus’ preaching was corrupting leaven and a noxious weed to them.
Priority of hidden treasure or a pearl of great price
The next parable characterizes Jesus’ kingdom not as a weed or a corrupting influence but as treasure: a pearl worth a person selling everything they have to obtain it. This language aims squarely at Jesus’ wealthy listeners who had much to lose by embracing Jesus’ vision for human community. Yes, the changes would cost their bottom line, but what they would get in return would be worth so much more. It would result in a world that would be safer, more compassionate, and more just for everyone including themselves. Notice how this language is repeatedly focused toward the wealthy in the Jesus story:
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21)
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21)
Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. (Luke 12:33)
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Luke 18:22)
In the parables of the treasure located in the field and the pearl of great price, those who discovered it sold everything they had to obtain it. And in the book of Acts, wealthy Jesus followers did the same to create the kind of community Jesus’ teachings inspired them toward:
They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. (Acts 2:45)
That there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. (Acts 4:34-35)
A Net
Also in this week’s reading, we bump into a theme repeated in Matthew’s gospel. A wide net gathers all. Some people are labeled as good and some as wicked, and a sorting takes place at the end of the age. That “end” includes a purging or burning metaphor for the wicked. Given how long this week’s discussion is, I want to re-share last week’s critique of that way of viewing the world.
Things Old and New
In Jesus’ time, teachers of the Torah who embraced Jesus‘ kingdom paradigm would rightly be expected to bring out both old, universal truths and new ones. This reminds me today that it’s okay for Jesus followers, even within traditional expressions of Christianity, to present interpretations and teachings that mix old and new.
When we discover we have been wrong, that’s okay. That’s a good thing. We can make old, death-dealing interpretations give way to new, life-giving interpretations. We can hold on to old, life-giving interpretations too, and adopt new interpretations that we think are more life-giving as new information is discovered. When what we thought was life-giving turns out not to be, we can hold on to the good old, letting go of the bad old, and replace it with the new. The object is not to protect everything that is old, but to ask whether what we are believing and practicing is truly life giving for all. If we hold to this standard, it will produce a Jesus follower that isn’t afraid of the new.
Our goal is to be a source of healing and life and change for the better for everyone. And in this way, Jesus followers can, as our reading states, brings out of our storerooms new treasures as well as old.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How do these parables inform your own justice work? Share that 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 and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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
How Not to View the World
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. 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.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 22: Matthew 13.24-30, 36-43. Lectionary A, Proper 11
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/oG16JTOGXQ8
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
How Not To View The World
Herb Montgomery | July 21, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“We don’t need to label some as weeds with the sick assurance that one day they will be destroyed. How awful! Nor should we look at the injustices as our world as things we can do nothing about except endure until some point in the future when outside forces will set things right. We can do something about injustice, here, now, today.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’
Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear.” (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43)
I’m thankful we discussed the principle of all or nothing a couple weeks ago. I didn’t realize it would also prepare us to discuss this passage, and I’m thankful for that foundation. If you have not read The Destructiveness of All or Nothing I encourage you to go back and do so.
Our reading this week is an isolated parable found only in Matthew among the four canonical versions of the Jesus story. Outside of our canon, there is a version of the parable in the gospel of Thomas:
Jesus said, ‘My Fathers’ kingdom can be compared to someone who had seed. Their enemy came by night and sowed weeds among the good seed. The person didn’t let anyone pull out the weeds, “so that you don’t pull out the wheat along with the weeds,” they said to them. ‘On the day of the harvest, the weeds will be obvious. Then they’ll be pulled out and burned.’” (Gospel of Thomas, 57)
This parable probably circulated among the Matthean community orally before the gospel of Matthew was written. It wasn’t a saying of Jesus’ within the Markan community, the Johannine community, or the larger cosmopolitan Lukean community.
When a problematic passage only appears in one gospel, it gives me pause. We don’t need to throw it out, but should practice the utmost care with it. It’s difficult to attribute a reading like this to the historical Jewish Jesus who is characterized in most of the gospels as an inclusive, prophet of the poor from Galilee. It is much easier to attribute the passage to the Galilean, Jesus-following community: it reflects the concerns of that young community in protecting its own purity. Concern for protecting community purity, calling people “weeds,” and looking forward to their destruction doesn’t sound like the Jesus we encounter in the rest of Matthew. It sounds more like the apocalyptic John the Baptist than Jesus.
What this passage does do is reflect the worldview of the original audience of Matthew’s gospel. Apocalypticism divided our world between the seen and the unseen. The unseen world was composed of both good cosmic powers and evil comic powers, and that world was connected to our visible world. Good people were also connected to the good cosmic powers, while “evil” people were connected or even controlled by evil cosmic powers. We see this worldview expressed in passages such as this one from the book of Ephesians,
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12)
For the early, Jewish Jesus communities who subscribed to this worldview (not all did), Rome would have been the earthly, visible conduit of the destructive unseen cosmic powers of evil.
This way of looking at the world was somewhat pessimistic, as well. The world was what it was, controlled by whom or whatever. Nothing would change until the “end of the age” when there would be a great reversal and evil powers (and thus evil people) would be no more. Some of the early Jesus communities explained the world around them in these apocalyptic ways, where there wasn’t much one could do but patiently endure the present injustices of our world, holding on till the day of “harvest” when the “wheat” would be gathered up while the “weeds” would be destroyed.
Again, it is much easier to accept that this passage has its source in the Matthean community and was attributed to Jesus than that it came directly from Jesus but only the Mattheans community remembered it. Above all else, this way of looking at the world is deeply problematic and destructive. Let’s explore why.
First, we know from human history that when we forget that we are all connected and all part of one another, and we begin to define some among us as “evil,” or as “weeds” to use our parable’s language, it’s not long before those we deem to be weeds we then exclude, marginalize, scapegoat, and harm. Even if this parable says to leave “the weeds” alone, when we label someone as a weed and estimate them to be evil, we never make it our practice to let them be. We always set out at once to weed them out.
Second, it is intrinsically harmful to others’ humanity and to our own to look at fellow human beings as evil creatures who will one day be eradicated. We can’t help but seek to eradicate them in some form now, today. Add to this social dynamic of labeling some as evil or “of the devil,” the language of rounding them up and burning them. This is a holocaust. That is how millions of Jewish people were murdered last century. This is how people were tortured and killed during the Inquisition. This is how women were hanged or drowned as witches. There are so many more horrific examples in human history.
As I said in the article The Destructiveness of All or Nothing, “wisdom is proved right by her deeds.” And we need to judge this way of looking at our world and the people in our world by deeds it has produced throughout history. By those results, this way of looking at the world is the weed, not the people it maligns.
Today, it is not life-giving to look at the world through an apocalyptic lens. We don’t need to label some as weeds with the sick assurance that one day they will be destroyed. How awful! Nor should we look at the injustices as our world as things we can do nothing about except endure until some point in the future when outside forces will set things right. We can do something about injustice, here, now, today.
Is there anything that we can redeem from this passage?
There is one thing. And it is a corrective. This passage gives us the Biblical phrase, “gnashing of teeth.” Too often, Christians have assumed that “weeping and gnashing of teeth” refers to the physical agony those in the “fires” of this parable experience. But the gnashing of teeth is not a Biblical expression about being tormented. It’s a Biblical expression about being angry, so angry that they grit or gnash their teeth together.
Consider a few examples:
“God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me.” (Job 16:9)
“The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them…” (Psalms 37:12)
“When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.” (Acts 7:54)
In the gospels, people gnash their teeth when they see those they excluded being welcomed to the center of God’s just future while those who were so assured they were so much better and deserving to be at the center are left outside because of their own exclusionary practices. As you sow, you reap. Or to put it simply, people gnash their teeth when angry at seeing who is being “let in” when they themselves aren’t. As the gospel of Luke explains, “There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out” (Luke 13:28)
If any are excluded in the just world we are working towards and creating, it will be those who make it a practice of labelling others as weeds. It should give us pause to see the intrinsic destructiveness of looking at the world through the same lens as the authors of this week’s reading. Today, we can and must do better.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How does labelling some people as weeds harmfully impacted the way you relate to others? What better way of relating to others who are different from you have you found? Share that 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 and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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
The Deceitfulness of Wealth
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. 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.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 21: Matthew 13.1-9, 18-23. Lectionary A, Proper 10
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/vXMQHAoHjOI
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
The Deceitfulness of Wealth
Herb Montgomery | July 14, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“But wealth creates in us a kind security that isolates us from fellow members of our human family. Community, on the other hand, is a way of finding security to weather potential future hardships together. Even evolutionarily, species that have proven to be the “fittest” over time, are species that don’t go it alone but that practice care for vulnerable members rather than some taking care of themselves at the expense of others.”
Our reading this week is from two sections of Matthew chapter 13:
“That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. Whoever has ears, let them hear.” (Matthew 13:1-9)
and
“Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:18-23)
The author of Mathew has mostly taken this section from the gospel of Mark (Mark 4:1-34). And for good reason. There is plenty here that it was important for the early Jesus community to remember.
The parable of the sower gives us a special glimpse into what the gospel Jesus himself preached actually was. What stands out to me is that of all the obstructions that the early Jesus community could have named to following Jesus, all the temptations that could have been mentioned, and all the sins that this parable could have railed against, the one thing named is “the deceitfulness of wealth.”
I ask why? How does wealth deceive and obstruct us from following Jesus? Why was it at the top of the list for the early Jesus community?
Wealth does not obstruct the contemporary gospel message of getting to heaven. You can “get to heaven” in many contemporary gospel narratives and still be immensely wealthy. But in Jesus’ gospel of wealth redistribution and resource-sharing from the haves to the have nots, it becomes immediately apparent how wealth obstructs. The desire to build or hold wealth is directly opposed to giving that wealth away to those negatively impacted in a system built to benefit a few at the expense of the many.
Jesus’ gospel was about creating a different way of being human together, here, now. It was not about a post mortem destination. Jesus was casting the vision of a beautiful community of people dedicated to making sure no one was pushed to the edges or undersides of their community, no one was made vulnerable, and every member of the community held a mutual commitment to share what they could to ensure everyone was cared for.
This was what the gospel authors called the “empire” or “kingdom” of God, a community in which God reigned. It was a community where people came first. So how does the deceitfulness of wealth obstruct this?
First, a community where God reigns according the gospel stories is a community where people are of a greater priority than profit or wealth-building. This is why the gospels repeatedly state that in a community such as the one Jesus describes, we have to choose between God and money. It’s one or the other.
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6.24)
This was also the practice of the early believers in the book of Acts:
“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” (Acts 2:44-45)
“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had . . . there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales, and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.” (Acts 4:32-35)
But how is wealth deceitful?
Hoarded wealth gives us a sense of security, but this kind of security leaves us alone, isolated, on our own, each of us in our silos of hoarded resources, feeling that we will be able to take care of ourselves but living against the grain of reality and how we survive as a planet, together. As we discussed weeks ago, we are all connected. We are all part of one another. No one survives alone, and if there is such a thing as social salvation, no one is saved unless we all are saved.
But wealth creates in us a kind security that isolates us from fellow members of our human family. Community, on the other hand, is a way of finding security to weather potential future hardships together. Even evolutionarily, species that have proven to be the “fittest” over time, are species that don’t go it alone but that practice care for vulnerable members rather than some taking care of themselves at the expense of others.
This, too, was a common theme in the early Jesus community. Consider the following words from 1 Timothy:
“Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God.” (1Timothy 6:17)
What does it mean in this context to “put their hope in God”. James Robinson, author of books on the historical Jesus and the gospel that Jesus taught, gives insights on what it might have meant for believers to “put their hope in God.”
“Such ‘security’ [or hope] should be replaced by God reigning, which means both what I trust God to do (to activate you to share food with me) and what I hear God telling me to do (to share clothes with you). We should not carry money while bypassing the poor or wear a backpack with extra clothes and food while ignoring the cold and hungry lying in the gutter. This is why the beggars, the hungry, the depressed are fortunate: God, that is, those in whom God rules, those who hearken to God, will care for them. The needy are called upon to trust that God’s reigning is there for them (“Theirs is the kingdom of God”) . . . Jesus’ message was simple, for he wanted to cut straight through to the point: trust God to look out for you by providing people who will care for you, and listen to him when he calls on you to provide for them.” (James M. Robinson, The Gospel of Jesus, Kindle Location 71)
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians also suggests how the members of early Jesus communities practiced this:
“Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality.” (2 Corinthians 8:13)
How can wealth be used, today, not to give us individual, privatized security but to build community where our security is in each other, in people? The Jesus story is offering us two options, two competing places in which to “put our trust.” We can either put our hope in hoarding money against potential future hardships, or we can put our hope in a community of people who are dedicated to making sure their resources care for those in their community. Jesus’ way is about facing the future together, rather than alone. It’s about having each other’s back.
Here in the United States, we are continuing to move toward a society that leaves each person on their own. From Supreme Court rulings to local political supermajorities, we are shaping a country in such a way that leaves people on their own to pull themselves up by bootstraps they don’t even have. Those our system makes most vulnerable are the most being harmed.
Some societies and countries are deeply committed to democracy and also have strong social commitments to one another. They make sure community members’ needs are met. We, too, can still practice the freedom of democracy while we move toward making sure everyone in our democracy has what they need to thrive. These are not mutually exclusive goals. In fact, making sure everyone in our democracy is on level ground is deeply democratic in itself.
This call also harmonizes much more with the call of Jesus to work toward shaping a world where we are committed not to isolated, self-sufficiency in facing survival challenges on our own, but to practice the Golden Rule, love our neighbor as ourselves, and share with those who are in need. As the books of Acts says, “Each according to their ability, and each according to their needs.”
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How do you wish our society practiced more socially responsible care. Share that 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 and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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
The Destructiveness of All or Nothing
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. 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.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 20: Matthew 11.16-19, 25-30. Lectionary A, Proper 9
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/0fZtVrHzL7g
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
The Destructiveness of All or Nothing
Herb Montgomery | July 7, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“By taking the Bible as an un-nuanced whole they are setting themselves up to always be
destined to exhibit “deeds” that mix life-giving and death-dealing practices. That’s why our own journeys within Christianity are often so complicated. All-or-nothing approaches set us up to try to follow a Christianity that is both extraordinarily beautiful in some regards and a nightmare in others. We must learn to choose between those things that are Christian but death-dealing and those things that are Christian and life-giving.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
‘We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.’
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30)
There’s a lot in this week’s passage to unpack that could guide our justice work today. I love how our reading begins with John and Jesus being likened to pipers. John played a dirge; Jesus’ pipe called hearers to dance. Neither gets their desired response. John gets beheaded. Jesus gets crucified. But in the end, “Wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
Two things resonate with me here. First is the feminine language for wisdom, in harmony with the Hebrew tradition. Second, she is proved right by the deeds to which she gives birth: wisdom produces deeds. It’s for us to discern from our own experience and the experiences of those not like ourselves whether what we think is wisdom has produced deeds that are life-giving or death dealing. It’s another way of saying, “by their fruits you will know them.”
Wisdom.
Is proved right.
By her deeds.
Are the actions being produced by so-called wisdom death-dealing? If they are, then we need to rethink what we have deemed to be wise.
I want to apply this to our faith tradition in a practical way for a moment. We can apply this principle to our expression of Christianity, our interpretations of the Bible, and the Bible itself, as well as the Jesus story within the Bible.
Let’s begin with the Bible. The Bible is not monolithic. The more one actually reads the Bible, the more one encounters passages in the scriptures that are life-giving and passages that are death-dealing. The Bible authors were trying make sense out of the world they were living in, within the bounds of their own time and space.
So this impacts how we relate to the Bible as a whole. I want to caution against an all-or-nothing kind of thinking. We can be honest about things in our sacred text that are not life-giving but destructive (its affirmation of slavery and texts of terror used against women are just two examples). And we can at the same time hold on to the things in the Bible that are beautifully good. We can hold on to the things that are life-giving, deeming them of enough positive value for us, yet not throwing our entire sacred text out because not everything in our sacred text has proven life-giving.
By their fruits we will know know them. Jesus practiced this method of interpreting his own sacred texts (cf. Luke 4:18-19 and Isaiah 61:1-2). We can take the good and let go of the bad by rightly discerning, or, to use Biblical language, “rightly dividing the word of truth” by testing passages by their fruit.
We can follow this same practice as we interpret specific passages as well. Sometimes it’s not the passage that is the problem but the way we have interpreted it. So we can hold our interpretations of texts to this same test: whether their fruit is life-giving or death-dealing, healing or destructive.
We can apply this to Christianity, holding its practices and doctrines to the test of “wisdom is proved right by her deeds.” And we can evaluate our interpretations of teachings we credit to the historical Jesus too. We can affirm the life-giving value of the Jesus story while also being honest about where the authors writing that story reflected the concerns and struggles of the early Jesus community out of which these stories evolved more than they reported direct transcripts from the historical Jesus. We can begin to embrace the humanity of Jesus himself, who “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and people” (Luke 2:52).
For those who object (I hear these voices loudly in my own head at times), it’s helpful to remember that there is really nothing more to be said if someone who views the Bible, or Christianity, or the Jesus story as an all-or-nothing deal, a book in which the authors never made mistakes or brought in their or their community’s concerns. By taking the Bible as an un-nuanced whole they are setting themselves up to always be destined to exhibit “deeds” that mix life-giving and death-dealing practices. That’s why our own journeys within Christianity are often so complicated. All-or-nothing approaches set us up to try to follow a Christianity that is both extraordinarily beautiful in some regards and a nightmare in others. We must learn to choose between those things that are Christian but death-dealing and those things that are Christian and life-giving. An all-or-nothing approach puts people in a place where they have to grapple with whether they are even Christian at all when nuance would give them a way to embrace the good while rejecting the bad.
Ultimately, we must instead learn to practice knowing something by its fruit or the deeds it produces. Even our sacred text can be embraced as being inspired by the Divine while having been written by humans. This allows us and it to not always get it right: neither it nor we are infallible. We are simply reaching for and attempting to find ways of answering the big questions that are life-giving. Sometimes we get it right; sometimes we do not. And some questions can’t be answered yet. It’s up to us to hold everything with an open hand, asking questions from our own to-the-best-of-our-knowledge context today. We can let go of things that are death-dealing and hold on to those things that are life-giving. And when we discover that something we thought was life-giving actually isn’t, we can then let go of that, giving way to making room to embrace that which is. We can always be in search of the most life-giving way to follow the life-giving Jesus today, not being threatened by discovering we’ve been wrong about something, and always reaching for what is true.
I feel like that’s enough this week for most of us to chew on, but there are two final things I want to address in our reading.
The exclusivity at the end our reading sounds more like the gospel of John than the Jesus we typically encounter in the synoptics. It may reflect the claims of the early Jesus community and their efforts to communicate Jesus’s importance through the language of exceptionalism.
Today, we can do better. We don’t have to put others down for Jesus and his teachings to be intrinsically valuable. And we don’t have to make Jesus the only source of life-giving things to emphasize the value of his teachings.
Lastly, I want to address the yoke of Jesus being easy and his burden being light. One’s social location matters here. This statement was addressed to those who were worn out from being over-burdened in that society. To them, the yoke of Jesus was much easier than the yoke of the system they were trying survive in. Jesus’ system of resource-sharing, mutual aid, and taking responsibility for ensuring the care and well being of one another was way easier than every person or family being for themselves in a society where every moment they were teetering between survival and catastrophe, living each day one at a time. Again, this statement was given to those whom that system had worn out and overburdened. For them, Jesus’ yoke/burden was easy and light. But for those benefiting from the present system, change would be different. It was “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19.24) and embrace the changes Jesus’ teachings called them and us to.
Again, there’s a lot in this week’s gospel lectionary reading. What in our reading this week is resonating with you?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. In what ways do you relate to the Bible or Christianity in nuanced ways, holding on to those things that are life-giving and rejecting those elements that are death-dealing. 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 and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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
Our Dependence on One Another
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. 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.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 19: Matthew 10.40-42. Lectionary A, Proper 8
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/kFO67xwCAsw
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Herb Montgomery | June 30, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“We are dependent on each other whether we are willing to admit that or not. And rather than developing stalwart, privatized systems of self-sufficiency, we should work toward building community where each person is taken care of, where we take responsibility for ensuring each person has what they need to thrive.”
Our reading this upcoming weekend is from the gospel of Matthew:
“Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” (Matthew 10:40-42)
To get our heads around this week’s reading from the perspective of its original audience, we need to back up a bit. The subject here in Matthew 10 is Jesus’ instructions as he sends out early followers:
“Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts—no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep. Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.” (Matthew 10:9-14)
In the synoptic gospels (Mark, Matthew, and Luke), each version of these instructions differs slightly (cf. Mark 6:8-9, Luke 9:3; 10:4). But each version agrees that Jesus wasn’t sending out his followers to be independent, self-sufficient workers for Jesus’ vision of the new world. They were sent out to be wholly dependent on the hospitality, generosity, and resource-sharing of those to whom they were begin sent. This is important for our work today.
Let’s try to understand the context around what’s happening in these passages. In his excellent book The Lost Way: How Two Forgotten Gospels Are Rewriting the Story of Christian Origins, Jesus scholar Stephen Patterson explains:
“It begins with a knock at the door. On the stoop stand two itinerant beggars, with no purse, no knapsack, no shoes, no staff. They are so ill-equipped that they must cast their fate before the feet of a would-be host. This is a point often made by historical Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan. These Q folk are sort of like ancient Cynics, but their goal is not the Cynic goal of self-sufficiency; these itinerants are set only for dependency. To survive they must reach out to other human beings. They offer them peace—this is how the empire arrives. And if their peace is accepted, they eat and drink—this is how the empire of God is consummated, in table fellowship. Then another tradition is tacked on, beginning with the words ‘Whenever you enter a town.’ This is perhaps the older part of the tradition, for this, and only this, also has a parallel in the Gospel of Thomas (14). There is also an echo of it in Paul’s letter known as 1 Corinthians (10: 27). Here, as in the first tradition, the itinerants are instructed, ‘Eat what is set before you.’ Again, the first move is to ask. The empire comes when someone receives food from another. But then something is offered in return: care for the sick. The empire of God here involves an exchange: food for care.” (pp. 74-75)
This stands in contrast with economic and political soundbites today. Many in our American capitalist culture today expect the poor to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps in a system stacked against them. We live in a culture of independence, isolation, and self-sufficiency that ignores the reality that whether we like it or not, we are all connected.
We are all dependent on one another for our survival. We are in this together. Social salvation means that if we are to be saved, no one is saved until everyone is saved. As King said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. What affects one, thought it affects others differently, affects us all because we are a part of each other. We are connected to each other. And one of the central tenets of the Jesus of the gospels is to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Jesus wasn’t sending these disciples out as self-sufficient workers, but as disciples instructed to completely lean into our dependence on one another and make this their intentional practice.
Not all followers of Jesus followed this instruction, however. The apostle Paul worked.
“Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. Don’t we have the right to food and drink? Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas? Or is it only I and Barnabas who lack the right to not work for a living? . . . If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more? But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.” (1Corinthians 9.1-6, 12)
For whatever reason, Paul rejected dependence on those he served and choose a path of providing for himself—a practice of self-sufficient independence. But from this passage in Corinthians, we learn that he was the outlier here. Even in the Didache we see that Jesus’ original instruction was so practiced by the majority that some guidelines had to be added as a result of Jesus’ dependence instruction being abused:
“Let every apostle who comes to you be received as the Lord. But he shall not remain more than one day; or two days, if there’s a need. But if he remains three days, he is a false prophet. And when the apostle goes away, let him take nothing but bread until he lodges. If he asks for money, he is a false prophet.” (Didache: The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations, Chapter 11)
For Jesus followers today, this holds meaning for our justice work. We work to create a new world of mutual aid, resource-sharing, and a just wealth redistribution in the face of a world where a few have so much while too many don’t even have what they need to survive. As Jesus followers, we have to ask ourselves: does our programming of independence and being self-sufficient come from our American culture? Does it conflict with the teaching of Jesus? Does it even conflict with how our world really functions? We are dependent on each other whether we are willing to admit that or not. And rather than developing stalwart, privatized systems of self-sufficiency, we should work toward building community where each person is taken care of, where we take responsibility for ensuring each person has what they need to thrive.
I want to continue with Patterson’s words, because I think they are extremely relevant here:
“This warrants pause. Food for care. In the ancient world, those who lived on the margins of peasant life were never far from death’s door. In the struggle to survive, food was their friend and sickness their enemy. Each day subsistence peasants earn enough to eat for a day. Each day they awaken with the question: Will I earn enough to eat today? This is quickly followed by a second: Will I get sick today? If I get sick, I won’t eat, and if I don’t eat, I’ll get sicker. With each passing day the spiral of starvation and sickness becomes deeper and deeper and finally, deadly. Crossan has argued that this little snippet of ancient tradition is critical to understanding why the followers of Jesus and their empire of God were compelling to the marginalized peasants who were drawn to it. ‘Eat what is set before you and care for the sick.’ Here is the beginning of a program of shared resources of the most basic sort: food and care. It’s an exchange. If some have food, all will eat; if any get sick, someone who eats will be there to care for them. The empire of God was a way to survive—which is to say, salvation.” (pp. 74-75)
Years ago now I read a passage from historical Jesus scholar James Robinson that caused me to question whether I was preaching a gospel about Jesus or teaching the same gospel that Jesus himself taught:
“[Jesus’s] basic issue, still basic today, is that most people have solved the human dilemma for themselves at the expense of everyone else, putting them down so as to stay afloat themselves. This vicious, antisocial way of coping with the necessities of life only escalates the dilemma for the rest of society . . . I am hungry because you hoard food. You are cold because I hoard clothing. Our dilemma is that we all hoard supplies in our backpacks and put our trust in our wallets! Such ‘security’ should be replaced by God reigning, which means both what I trust God to do (to activate you to share food with me) and what I hear God telling me to do (to share clothes with you). We should not carry money while bypassing the poor or wear a backpack with extra clothes and food while ignoring the cold and hungry lying in the gutter. This is why the beggars, the hungry, the depressed are fortunate: God, that is, those in whom God rules, those who hearken to God, will care for them. The needy are called upon to trust that God’s reigning is there for them (“Theirs is the kingdom of God”) . . . Jesus’ message was simple, for he wanted to cut straight through to the point: trust God to look out for you by providing people who will care for you, and listen to him when he calls on you to provide for them.” (James M. Robinson, The Gospel of Jesus)
I know this flies in the face of much of how we are enculturated to live in our economic environment today. We learn early on that survival depends on competition instead of cooperation. That there is scarcity rather than enough for everyone. We are taught over time to hoard what we need rather than share with others who have needs. And this ultimately leads to us appealing to violence to protect our hoarded resources rather than a generosity that sees us rising or falling all together. Jesus’ early disciples were instructed to follow a practice of dependence and not lose sight of it. Our survival both economically and ecologically today is vitally connected to us embracing our dependence on one another. This week’s reading calls Jesus followers to take this to heart and let it inform how we live.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. In what ways do you wish our society today acknowledged our connectedness to each other more? 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 and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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
Refusing to Be Silent About Injustice
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. 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.
We’ll Be Back Next Week!
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/MAYBXFTYygY
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Herb Montgomery | June 23, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“What does this passage have to say about how unsustainable our predatory and exploitative capitalist system today is, both environmentally and economically? What might our Gehenna look like today? Climate change scientists tell us that our Gehenna is coming too. Economic and environmental exploitation in the wake of the industrial revolution is unsustainable, period.”
This week’s reading is from the gospel of Matthew:
“The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!
“So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’
“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:24-39)
This week’s reading reflects the struggles of the early Jesus community. When Matthew was written, Jesus followers were experiencing pushback and slander similar to what Jesus had experienced from those benefiting from the status quo. In our reading this week, the early Matthean community of Galilee hears Jesus encouraging them to expect being treated the same way he was treated as result of refusing to be silent about the thing Jesus also spoke out about (cf. Luke 4:18-19).
In this reading, they are encouraged to not fear those who can kill their bodies the same way they killed Jesus’ body. This community believed Jesus’ state murder and everything accomplished through his death had been overcome, undone, and reversed by God in the resurrection of Jesus. That’s why Jesus uses the language of killing the body but not killing the soul. What Jesus warns the listeners about next is being thrown whole into Gehenna. There would be no coming back from that.
Let’s try to hear this language about Gehenna in its original Jewish context rather than in a modern Christian one. In the justice tradition of the Hebrew prophets, Gehenna had a rich history. Gehenna, the valley of the son of Hinnom, was a place where child sacrifice was practiced. Later it became a place where Gentile empires would raze Jerusalem and massacre the Jewish people. The reference in the gospels makes perfect sense: Matthew was written in the wake of Jerusalem being razed again, this time by Rome. Jerusalem’s total destruction was what some Jews, including Jesus-followers, were trying to make sense of. Without the temple and without Jerusalem, it was as if the Jewish community had been thrown completely into Gehenna.
Consider how Gehenna evolved in the scriptures:
“And [Ahaz, King of Judah] made offerings in THE VALLEY OF THE SON OF HINNOM, and made his sons pass through fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel.” (2 Chronicles 28:3)
“He made his son pass through fire in THE VALLEY OF THE SON OF HINNOM, practiced soothsaying and augury and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.” (2 Chronicles 33:6)
“And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in THE VALLEY OF THE SON OF HINNOM, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire—which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when it will no more be called Topheth, or THE VALLEY OF THE SON OF HINNOM, but THE VALLEY OF SLAUGHTER: for they will bury in Topheth until there is no more room.” (Jeremiah 7:31–32)
“The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: Stand in the gate of the LORD’S house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the LORD. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’ For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever. Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are safe!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the LORD.” (Jeremiah 7:1–11, emphasis added.)
It’s telling that the gospel authors put Jeremiah’s words in Jesus’s mouth during his temple protest against exploitation of the poor. Jesus flips over the money changers’ tables, saying “You have made this house a den of robbers.”
One last passage from Jeremiah:
“And go out to the VALLEY OF THE SON OF HINNOM (Gehenna) at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you. You shall say: Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such disaster upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent, and gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind. Therefore the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, OR THE VALLEY OF THE SON OF HINNOM, but THE VALLEY OF SLAUGHTER.” (Jeremiah 19:2–6)
I want to be clear. Jerusalem was not destroyed by Rome in 70 C.E . because God was punishing Jews for rejecting Jesus. This trope by Christians has had a long harmful history for Jewish people. The destruction of Jerusalem was instead brought about in the wake of the Jewish-Roman war of 66-69 C.E. This war resulted from the rich exploiting the poor and poor people revolting, taking over the temple, burning the records of their debt, and ultimately making Jerusalem their center of operations as they struck Rome itself. Their revolt provoked the full weight of the Roman Empire coming down on their heads.
In this week’s reading, then, the original audience would have heard Jesus encouraging them not to fear being killed for following him as he spoke out against the exploitation of the poor. They would have heard him advising them to fear remaining silent, to not go along with exploitation that would plunge all of Jerusalem into a “Gehenna” at the hands of Rome. Again, it’s important to remember this was all written after the fact, with the community’s hindsight helping them to map social, political and economic causes for what they had just gone through.
What does this passage have to say about how unsustainable our predatory and exploitative capitalist system today is, both environmentally and economically? What might our Gehenna look like today? Climate change scientists tell us that our Gehenna is coming too. Economic and environmental exploitation in the wake of the industrial revolution is unsustainable, period.
Matthew’s community would have heard Jesus say that speaking out against injustice is divisive: it divides like a sword. And in that world, family ties were more than just relationships, they were also the means of economic survival. But for Jesus, preserving family ties was not a higher priority than speaking out against injustice or the harm being done to those their society had made vulnerable.
Lastly, Jesus encourages his followers to take up their own crosses. I want to be very careful here. Too often Christians have told victims of abuse and injustice that they must simply bear their cross. This is effectively saying the opposite of our reading this week: it would mean to keep silent and passively bearing injustice.
But in the context of our reading, remember that Jesus followers are threatened with the cross for speaking out against injustice. Bearing a cross is not inherent to following Jesus. A cross is only invoked when those with power and privilege become threatened by egalitarian change and threaten those calling for change if they don’t shut up.
To people in that situation, Jesus is saying, don’t be silent. Speak out, resist, keep calling for change, even if they threaten you with a cross for doing so. It is better to take up one’s cross, to speak out against injustice and harm, than to lose your soul, your very being, who you are and your commitment to justice, by choosing to be silent in the face of injustice.
What does it mean to follow Jesus in the context of what we are facing today?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. In what ways to you choose to not be silent in the face of injustice today? 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 and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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
A Different Iteration of our Present World
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. 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.
This Week’s Episode of Just Talking Available on YouTube
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 1, Episode 17: Matthew 9.9-13, 18-26. Lectionary A, Proper 5
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/MAYBXFTYygY
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
A Different Iteration of our Present World
Herb Montgomery | June 16, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
If we are choosing the unmentioned themes over the centerpiece of the Jesus stories, we have to ask ourselves why we are avoiding the central tenet of Jesus’ teachings in favor of a future or individual, privatized, and inward focus that leaves us unconcerned about social injustices and leaves our unjust systems unchallenged and unchanged.
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were troubled and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.
These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give. (Matthew 9:35-10:8)
The first thing that jumps out at me in this week’s reading is the connection between the preaching of the kingdom and acts of healing. The kingdom was to be linked in people’s hearts with the act of healing and liberating them from whatever they were suffering in the here and now. To really get our heads around this, let’s first look at Jesus’ compassionate response to those who were troubled and helpless.
Our reading says that when Jesus saw the crowds, he “had compassion on them, because they were troubled and helpless,” like sheep without a shepherd. He then spoke to his disciples of a plentiful harvest with too few laborers to go out and get it. There is a lot to unpack here.
The Christian church has historically used the image of a harvest as a metaphor for Christian evangelism. But that doesn’t work in this context. Why would Jesus respond to people being oppressed and being helpless by calling for more workers to save souls for heaven. There is a disconnect with this passage that I don’t often hear folks point out. “Harvest” in this passage speaks of something much different.
First, Jesus’ people were troubled, harassed, pushed to the edges and undersides of the empire, and helpless to do anything about it! Jesus then speaks of a harvest. It helps to think of harvest through a more Jewish lens, one that Jesus himself would have used. A harvest metaphor makes a lot more sense given that context.
In the Hebrew scriptures, the harvest was associated with justice: everyone receiving enough to thrive from the hand of the God of the Torah. In fact, the people weren’t even supposed to harvest the entirety of their fields so that those living in poverty could go and glean enough to survive (Leviticus 19:9-10, Leviticus 23:22, Deuteronomy 24:19-22).
When Jesus responds to people being troubled and helpless by saying that the harvest is plentiful, he’s confessing that everything needed for their thriving is present but that the people are being prevented from accessing what they need. Picture a field full of grain but hungry people being prevented from being able to go into the field and harvest the grain they desperately need in order to be fed (see Matthew 12:1).
What Jesus was calling for was access to rights being denied. It was a call to society-wide justice in the face of an elite few who were prospering economically at the expense of the masses. Jesus’ God was sending sunshine and rain on all equally (Matthew 5:45), so if any did not experience what they needed to thrive, we must ask ourselves who was preventing them from receiving what they needed. What Jesus is calling for when he calls for workers for the harvest, then, is not evangelists religiously saving souls for post mortem bliss, but those who work for social justice.
The kingdom that Jesus preached is also associated in the reading with exorcisms and healings. In the book Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power (this month’s recommended reading from RHM), Rita Nakashima Brock points out that, in the Jesus stories, exorcisms were associated with political liberation (Mark 5:9) while healing stories were often associated with social liberation (Mark 5:25). Again, the kingdom, whatever we make of it today, was about people experiencing a liberation marked by them receiving enough to thrive. The kingdom was Jesus’ vision of a world where no one had too much while others didn’t have enough.
Now let’s return to this kingdom theme in the Jesus stories. In the synoptics and the book of Acts, Jesus’ gospel was not about getting to heaven. And as important of a corrective to abusive religion as the idea has been, Jesus’ gospel was not about a God who loves you. Don’t misunderstand me here. Both heaven and God’s love are important themes and have been life-giving to many Christians. But they simply aren’t Jesus message in the synoptics or the book of Acts. In fact, in Acts, where the gospel goes out to all the world, the disciples do not mention hell, heaven as a destination for us, or Divine love. What the gospel does proclaim is “the kingdom.”
Consider the following passages.
After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news [euangelion – gospel]!” (Mark 1:14-15)
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news [euangelion] of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. (Matthew 4:23)
As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. (Matthew 10:7-8)
But he said, “I must proclaim the good news [euangelion] of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” (Luke 4:43)
Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ (Luke 10:9)
So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news [euangelion] and healing people everywhere. (Luke 9:6)
But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. (Acts 8:12)
Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. (Acts 19:8)
Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again. (Acts 20:25)
They arranged to meet Paul on a certain day, and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying. He witnessed to them from morning till evening, explaining about the kingdom of God, and from the Law of Moses and from the Prophets he tried to persuade them about Jesus. (Acts 28.23)
For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance. (Acts 28:30-31)
Today the language of kingdom is problematic. Many no longer believe a kingdom is the best way to organize human society, and many subscribe to some form of democracy, not a kingdom. Secondly, a kingdom is deeply patriarchal and not the best language for the egalitarian world Jesus envisioned in his teachings.
Today we can and should call it something else. Many do. One of my favorite alternatives is Kelly Brown Douglas’ language of “God’s just future already breaking into the present.” I’ve written at length on various life-giving ways we can envision Jesus’ kingdom in chapter 5 of my book Finding Jesus. Whatever we call it, Jesus’ kingdom preaching was about a world that is compassionate, safe, just home for all, especially prioritizing those our status quo is marginalizing and making vulnerable to harm.
Too often, when people speak of the gospel today, they’re aren’t referring to Jesus’ vision for a world where no one is harmed in the here and now. If they do, they receive the pushback of being “too political.” I find this sad. As Jesus followers we should not see people being harmed as a tool to be exploited by a political party, but as people who are objects of Divine value and worth, people who are being harmed, and people who we are called to care for. It’s fine to be passionate about heaven and God’s love, but not at the expense of Jesus’ kingdom. If we are choosing the unmentioned themes over the centerpiece of the Jesus stories, we have to ask ourselves why we are avoiding the central tenet of Jesus’ teachings in favor of a future or individual, privatized, and inward focus that leaves us unconcerned about social injustices and leaves our unjust systems unchallenged and unchanged.
Jesus’ kingdom calls each of us to participate in choosing and creating a different iteration of our present world, a world that is a safe, compassionate, just home for all.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How does this more “kingdom” focus in our passage this week shape your own Jesus following? 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 and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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
Jesus, Jarius, and Respect for the Bodily Autonomy of Women
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. 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.
This Week’s Episode of Just Talking Available on YouTube
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 1, Episode 17: Matthew 9.9-13, 18-26. Lectionary A, Proper 5
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/QioBr152Cu0
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Jesus, Jarius, and Respect for the Bodily Autonomy of Women
Herb Montgomery | June 9, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“To Christians today who want to use political power to make it much more dangerous to be a woman, what can the life-giving Jesus of our reading this week say? It would do us well to pause and sit for a time with these stories.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
While he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples. Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.
When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. News of this spread through all that region. (Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26)
Having spent a lot of time in John in the lectionary this year so far, we are used to Jesus calling his listeners to “know.” In the synoptics, Jesus’ call is a little different: it’s always, “Follow me.” This is a call to action. It’s a call to emulate Jesus’ model of a life of love and justice. The Synoptics call is to follow (See Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27-28).
What I also love in the first part of our reading this week is that Jesus seems to be looking at people through the lens of healing and restoration, of making them whole. He doesn’t use a lens of obedience with punitive punishments or rewards. Instead of punishing those judged morally inferior and withholding his association from them, Jesus sees all the people in the story through a much more dynamic set of lenses.
Jesus is well aware that tax collectors are part of the privileged social class of his day. And he knows the harm they have done. Yet he sees these as symptoms, signs that they’ve been harmed themselves. His ministry of restoring the humanity of the excluded and marginalized also extends to those harming them. They, too, need healing. Hurt people, as the saying goes, hurt people. Jesus seeks to heal the hurt and restore people’s relationships with themselves and with others. It’s a holistic view of the economic and social harms as well as those responsible for those harms. If we follow Jesus, we will also ask, what is broken and needs healing in a person that causes them to want to harm others politically, economically, or socially (see also Mark 2:17; Luke 5:31-32)?
Next the gospels introduce us to Jairus and his daughter. To the best of our knowledge, Matthew and Luke both take this story from Mark (Mark 5:21-43; Luke 8:40-56). Then, in the middle of the story of Jairus’ daughter is a different story of a woman and her healing (see also Mark 5:24-34; Luke 8:42-48).
One thing that bothers me about these stories is that they focus on a woman and little girl, yet only the male involved is named. We know Jairus by name, but not the woman nor the girl. This speaks to me, once again, of the patriarchal context in which these stories were passed down. Both the girl and the woman had names. I imagine that when the stories were originally told, their names were used. What caused these characters to become nameless objects playing a narrative role rather than the human beings their names originally communicated? I wish their names had been preserved alongside of Jairus’ name.
So what lessons can we glean for our justice work today from these two stories?
I’m deeply indebted to the work of Rita Nakishima Brock for how I read the stories of this woman and this little girl. I recommend her book Journeys By Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power, especially Chapter 4, for a fuller treatment of these stories. Brock demonstrates how, whereas exorcism stories in the gospels are often addressing political domination and subjugation, the healing stories are often addressing social structures of injustice.
The story of the woman with the bleeding has a strong social dimension. Her illness was a sentence of social death due to the purity codes that her bleeding continually violated. In male-dominated cultures, female sexuality and reproduction are controlled by men. Women’s reproductive ability is not their choice but governed by men to meet patriarchal needs.
Also, within these patriarchal cultures, control of a woman’s sexual activity is coupled with labelling women’s bodies, bleeding, birthing, and genitalia as unclean. In the context of our patriarchal society today, this woman’s story represents a social reality that women still experience.
The narrative placement of this story is also important. The story of the woman who has been bleeding for 12 years is right in the middle of the story of a little girl who is 12, just beginning menstruation and so starting to be defined as a woman by her patriarchal culture. Both are in or entering a kind of social death, and are considered inferior to the men around her. These are all signals that we are to read these stories together.
As Brock writes, “Both females are afflicted with crises associated with the status of women in Greco-Roman and Hebraic society” (p. 83). Within these cultures, the woman is “plagued” with a disease connected to having an adult female body, while the little girl is on the threshold of puberty. The woman has already suffered for the same length of time it has taken the girl to reach puberty. Both women are suffering because they are female.
In Matthew’s version of this story, Jairus says, “My daughter has just died.” The juxtaposition of the bleeding woman gives us another hint of what connects them. By coming of age, Jairus’ daughter has just socially died in the patriarchy, but both she and the older women are about to encounter the life-giving and healing Jesus represented and that the early Jesus community envisioned for women.
This story screams to me of the injustices many women suffer today for simply being a woman. Simply because their anatomy is different from men’s, they suffer in a society that privileges one kind of anatomy over another. As binary as this is, it doesn’t even begin to address the struggle so many trans folk have today in a society that privileges cisgender men above all else.
In both these stories, Jesus represents liberation and restoration of life for a woman and little girl whose patriarchal culture was death-dealing.
What does this say to us today? What does it say to a faith-based community that still has yet to offer equality to women, refusing to ordain women as ministers alongside men, some of whom have proven to be less qualified but have their job because they happen to be men.
And what does this story say to those Christians who in our larger society are seeking to control women’s sexuality, reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, and access to needed health care? The movement to deny women rights to control their own bodies and health is the direct result of a certain group of Christians who have not allowed the Jesus of this week’s stories to confront their own biases and misogyny.
To Christians today who want to use political power to make it much more dangerous to be a woman, what can the life-giving Jesus of our reading this week say?
It would do us well to pause and sit for a time with these stories. Let’s allow them to confront and challenge us. Is our pro-life stance really life-giving? Or could respecting a woman’s bodily autonomy and healthcare decisions be more in line with the Jesus we encounter in this week’s stories? If we can’t see the connections yet, let’s sit with our assumptions until we can.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Share one insight you gain from interpreting these stories in the context of social injustice for women? 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 and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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
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