Exorcism of a Man with an Unclean Spirit
Finding Jesus Second Edition!
I have some exciting news!
I have just signed an agreement with a new book publisher (Quoir), and we are putting together a launch team for the second edition of Finding Jesus, coming out next month!
If you have been blessed by the first edition, and you would like to see this book have greater exposure to reach an even larger audience, I want to invite you to be a part of the launch team. This second edition will be available in paperback, Kindle and an audio book available on Audible. And great news for those who already have a copy of the first edition, the first 25 people to sign up to be part of our launch team will also receive a FREE Audible copy of the audiobook for Finding Jesus.
To join the Finding Jesus launch team, all you need to do is four things:
1) Go to Amazon and pre-order a copy of the second edition when pre-orders become available.
2) Read the pdf copy of the second edition of Finding Jesus that I will send you after your pre-order the book so that you’re ready on launch day.
3) On launch day go back to Amazon and write a review for Finding Jesus. (You’ll be able to do this on day one since you’ve already read the pdf copy.)
4) Share your review of Finding Jesus on your social media pages that day, also.
It’s pretty simple. That’s all. And if you already have copy of the first edition this is a great opportunity to get the audiobook version on Audible as soon as it is available.
If you would like to join our launch team, you can email me at info@renewedheartministries.com and just put in the subject of your email “Launch Team.”
Thank you in advance for being part of this special second edition publishing and ensuring this edition is a success.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 48: Mark 1.21-28. Lectionary B, Epiphany 4
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 48: Mark 1.21-28. Lectionary B, Epiphany 4
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Exorcism of a Man with an Unclean Spirit
Herb Montgomery, January 26, 2024
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“People of faith should always be involved working for justice to be practiced when people are being marginalized and dispossessed, and faith communities should never allow themselves to be overtaken and possessed by any single political party. We are to be about justice, compassion, inclusion and love, not unconditional loyalty one political party or politician.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had a uthority, not as the teachers of the law. Immediately there was man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit who cried out, “Why do you meddle with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the holy one of God!”
“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee. (Mark 1:21-28)
Whenever we read the exorcism stories in the gospels, the first thing we need to remember is that these stories were not written to answer our modern scientific questions. These stories about Jesus were circulated by an oppressed community on the margins of the Roman empire. As difficult as it may be to temporarily park our attempts to rationalize these stories, we would do well to see them as the narratives of a community in a particular social or political location telling stories to communicate truths while still staying under the radar of the powers that be.
In all of the gospels, Jesus is characterized as an itinerant teacher. In the same gospels, Jesus is also an exorcist.
Rather than demythologizing this week’s story and trying to label it as a story of epilepsy or a mental disability, as modern Jesus scholarship often does, let’s leave the story as it is and instead look for how our reading functions within its original social context: a dangerous world, an oppressed community longing for liberation. Let’s see if there is any socio-political application we can make for our context today.
I also must admit the exorcist stories in the gospels are a bit triggering for me. I remember watching the horror movie The Exorcist on television late one night. I was just 9 years old and I was scarred for life! I still can’t tolerate movies or dramas that include the theme of this week’s story.
In this part of Mark’s gospel, Jesus has begun teaching and called his initial followers. Then, his first public act is this exorcism on the Sabbath in the synagogue!
The first act of Jesus in each gospel tells us a lot (see Luke 4:18-19.) Here in Mark, Jesus’ first supernatural act is an exorcism. Healers and exorcists were everywhere in the world for which the gospel of Mark was originally written, yet they did not provoke the wrath of the local authorities the way Jesus’ healings and exorcisms did. Others did the same activities Jesus did, but were not viewed as a threat by those in power. Jesus, on the other hand, experiences hostility from the authorities from his very first act.
Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. (Mark 3:6)
And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.” (Mark 3:22)
In our story, Jesus comes from the wilderness or margins of his society to enter the local, central locations of sacred time (the Sabbath) and sacred space (the synagogue). I want to be clear, though. These stories are not a religious challenge to either the Sabbath or the synagogue. These stories are not anti-Semitic, though Christians have used them to harm Jewish people. Jesus never railed against the Sabbath as an institution. Nor did he ever preach against having synagogues. Rather his challenges were always aimed at those in positions of power over both sacred time and sacred space. Jesus also politically challenged those in power over the masses because of their complicity with the Roman empire.
From the very start, we see Jesus contrasted with the scribal establishment. The people claim that Jesus is offering a “new teaching with authority.” The Greek word for authority relates to doing what one pleases without having to have someone else’s permission. Those in the scribal establishment were under the authority of Rome and knew well not do promote anything that threaten Rome’s leave or permission for them to exist. Synagogue leaders also answered to the priesthood power structure back at the capital of the temple state, the temple in Jerusalem. This priesthood answered to the High Priest who was chosen by the Roman empire and answered to both Herod (Rome’s agent) and to Caesar.
The people also claim that Jesus’ authority was different and “not as the teachers of the law.” Jesus is standing outside of Roman permission, not answering to it. As the framing of Jesus’ first exorcism story, this gives us a hint as to how we should interpret these stories in the rest of Mark.
Again, I think that we should take this exorcism story symbolically, not literally. Jesus is liberating the people from that which has inhabited and “possessed” their sacred times and sacred spaces through the authority of Rome. No sooner does Jesus step into the status quo sacred space and authority structure than he meets this man. It’s a good hint that we are on the right track here: later in Mark’s gospel the author comes right out and tells us about another demon tormenting a man.
“Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “My name is Legion.” (Mark 5:9)
The Roman Legion was the largest military unit of the Roman army. It often inhabited, “possessed,” or was stationed in areas known to cause problems for the Pax Romana.
The language of this story tells us that Jesus met with opposition from the possessed man immediately: “Immediately there was a man.” Jesus’ authority comes in conflict with the local authority of the scribal authority immediately. Jesus’ teachings are seen as a threat from the very beginning. Our story uses language from the Hebrew sacred text in the context of opposition to political power:
“No! We did it for fear that some day your descendants might say to ours, ‘What do you have to do with the LORD, the God of Israel?’” (Joshua 22:24)
“Then Jephthah sent messengers to the Ammonite king with the question: ‘What do you have against me that you have attacked my country?’” (Judges 11:12)
“She said to Elijah, ‘What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?’” (1 Kings 17:18)
And in our story we read: “Why do you meddle with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”
Even the demons’ naming Jesus as the holy one of God harkens back to those who stood up to corrupt power in the stories of old. Speaking of Elisha, Elisha’s host tells her husband, “‘I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God’” (2 Kings 4:9). In our story, as in Elisha’s, this designated a prophet who spoke truth to power for the liberation of the people. Our author is giving Jesus prophetic status that the original audience should interpret as equal to that of ancient prophets like Elisha.
There is also panic in the demons’ voice here. There is fear of disruption. How appropriate for when corrupt authority and power structures are threatened. Those who benefit from these structures fear disruption and change, and oppose change, while those being harmed rejoice. I hear this rejoicing in the people of our story: “The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, ‘What is this? A new teaching—and with authority!’”
The exorcism stories in Mark are to be seen through the apocalyptic lens of that time and place. The apocalyptic worldview sees the world dualistically, as a concrete material world and an unseen world filled with powers, demons, spirits. The concrete is connected with the spiritual and when there is conflict among the unseen, there is also conflict through their conduits in our seen world. This is how some of the ancients explained the existence of injustice, oppression and violence in our world. Jesus in our story in Mark is exorcising those “possessing” his people’s systems to prepare God’s creation for God’s just future, God’s coming rule, or, as the gospels name it, “the kingdom” where everyone is included and everyone has enough to thrive.
So the inaugural exorcism in our story this week begins with the scribal establishment in the synagogue system of Jesus’ people. The man possessed is the establishment, and the demon is the Roman empire’s coopting of the establishment. Jesus here is not against the scribes, but against their complicity in Roman oppression of his people. In Mark, from the very beginning, we are to see the exorcism stories in this narrative not as private liberations of individual people, but as systemic acts of purging corruption.
We will have this confirmed by the time we encounter the exorcism stories in Mark 3 and 5. In those chapters, those in power and authority accuse Jesus of exorcising demons in the name of the head demon Beelzebul and the demons themselves are blatantly associated with the Roman empire.
What applications can we make for our lives today?
Again, in Mark, exorcisms were a central action of Jesus:
“So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.” (Mark 1:39)
He also gave his followers the power to do the same:
“He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.” (Mark 3:14-15)
“Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits.” (Mark 6:7)
When we look at these stories socially or politically, we are called to also call out and work for change in these areas where our communities are complicit in injustice, such as when our faith community being “possessed” and used by a political party. Outside of our faith communities, a system could be “possessed” when used by elites and the powerful at the expense of those they have made vulnerable.
Politics is about how power and resources are shared among humans. People of faith should always be involved working for justice to be practiced when people are being marginalized and dispossessed, and faith communities should never allow themselves to be overtaken and possessed by any single political party. We are to be about justice, compassion, inclusion and love, not unconditional loyalty one political party or politician.
We can be “exorcists,” as Jesus followers. Where is your Jesus following calling you to “cast out” injustice this week?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What would a society shaped by love look like? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
I have some exciting news! I have just signed an agreement with a new book publisher (Quoir), and we are putting together a launch team for the second edition of Finding Jesus, coming out next month!
If you have been blessed by the first edition, and you would like to see this book have greater exposure to reach an even larger audience, I want to invite you to be a part of the launch team. This second edition will be available in paperback, Kindle and an audio book available on Audible. And great news for those who already have a copy of the first edition, the first 25 people to sign up to be part of our launch team will also receive a FREE Audible copy of the audiobook for Finding Jesus.
To join the Finding Jesus launch team, all you need to do is four things:
- Go to Amazon and pre-order a copy of the second edition when pre-orders become available.
2) Read the pdf copy of the second edition of Finding Jesus that I will send you after your pre-order the book so that you’re ready on launch day.
3) On launch day go back to Amazon and write a review for Finding Jesus. (You’ll be able to do this on day one since you’ve already read the pdf copy.)
4 Share your review of Finding Jesus on your social media pages that day, also.
It’s pretty simple. That’s all. And if you already have copy of the first edition this is a great opportunity to get the audiobook version on Audible as soon as it is available.
If you would like to join our launch team, you can email me at info@renewedheartministries.com and just put in the subject of your email “Launch Team.”
Thank you in advance for being part of this special second edition publishing and ensuring this edition is a success.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s new Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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The Gospel Jesus Taught
Finding Jesus Second Edition!
I have some exciting news!
I have just signed an agreement with a new book publisher (Quoir), and we are putting together a launch team for the second edition of Finding Jesus, coming out next month!
If you have been blessed by the first edition, and you would like to see this book have greater exposure to reach an even larger audience, I want to invite you to be a part of the launch team. This second edition will be available in paperback, Kindle and an audio book available on Audible. And great news for those who already have a copy of the first edition, the first 25 people to sign up to be part of our launch team will also receive a FREE Audible copy of the audiobook for Finding Jesus.
To join the Finding Jesus launch team, all you need to do is four things:
1) Go to Amazon and pre-order a copy of the second edition when pre-orders become available.
2) Read the pdf copy of the second edition of Finding Jesus that I will send you after your pre-order the book so that you’re ready on launch day.
3) On launch day go back to Amazon and write a review for Finding Jesus. (You’ll be able to do this on day one since you’ve already read the pdf copy.)
4) Share your review of Finding Jesus on your social media pages that day, also.
It’s pretty simple. That’s all. And if you already have copy of the first edition this is a great opportunity to get the audiobook version on Audible as soon as it is available.
If you would like to join our launch team, you can email me at info@renewedheartministries.com and just put in the subject of your email “Launch Team.”
Thank you in advance for being part of this special second edition publishing and ensuring this edition is a success.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 47: Mark 1.14-20. Lectionary B, Epiphany 3
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 47: Mark 1.14-20. Lectionary B, Epiphany 3
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
The Gospel Jesus Taught
Herb Montgomery, January 19, 2024
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“It is much easier to preach a gospel about Jesus that says “God loves us,” than it is to venture to teach the gospel Jesus teaches in the stories calling on us to love each other.”
Our lectionary reading from the gospels for this coming weekend is from the gospel of Mark:
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!”
As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him.
When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him. (Mark 1:14-20)
Every year around this time, I find myself writing on the themes in this passage. Take a look at two of my previous entries on Matthew’s and Luke’s versions of this passage, in 2022 and in 2023.
Before we dive into the fishing metaphor, though, let’s explore how our reading begins.
First, Herod has imprisoned John. Rome and Rome’s extensions are generally tolerant of things we consider today to be religious in nature. What Rome didn’t tolerate was anyone who became a social, political, or economic threat to Rome’s status quo and power structure. John didn’t get arrested because he was handing out tickets to heaven. He was arrested because he came to be seen as a threat the system. (In this December 2023 article, I mention Josephus’ description of how Herod viewed John the Baptist.)
After John is arrested, Jesus sets out preaching his gospel. Try and get inside the headspace of the gospel authors here. They aren’t describing a gospel about Jesus, like we would preach today. Instead they’re talking about the gospel Jesus himself taught. What was that gospel like?
The word “gospel” is not a Jewish term but a Roman one. When Rome would conquer a new territory, it would send out a messenger called an evangelist to go throughout the area announcing the gospel or “good news” that these people had just been conquered by their “savior” Caesar, “savior of the world,” and would now be subject of the Empire of Rome and the Pax Romana. Here are a few examples of how Rome used this term “gospel.”
“Even after the battle at Mantinea, which Thucydides has described, the one who first announced the victory had no other reward for his gospel [euangelion
– singular] than a piece of meat sent by the magistrates from the public mess.” (Plutarch, Agesilaus, p. 33)
“Accordingly, when [Aristodemus] had come near, he stretched out his hand and cried with a loud voice: ‘Hail, King Antigonus, we have conquered Ptolemy in a sea-fight, and now hold Cyprus, with 12,800 soldiers as prisoners of war.’ To this, Antigonus replied: ‘Hail to thee also, by Heaven! But for torturing us in this way, thou shalt undergo punishment; the reward for thy gospels [euangelion] thou shalt be some time in getting.’” (Plutarch, Demetrius, p. 17)
“Why, as we are told, the Spartans merely sent meat from the public commons to the man who brought the gospel [euangelion] of the victory in Mantineia which Thucydides describes! And indeed the compilers of histories are, as it were, reporters of great exploits who are gifted with the faculty of felicitous speech, and achieve success in their writing through the beauty and force of their narration; and to them those who first encountered and recorded the events [euangelion] are indebted for a pleasing retelling of them” (Plutarch, Moralia [Glory of Athens], p. 347)
Unlike the gospel these messengers announced, Jesus’ gospel wasn’t about Rome but about what he referred to as “the kingdom.” In the kingdom or reign of God, there would be enough bread for everyone and all debts would be cancelled, all slaves set free, and land returned to its original owners (Matthew 6:11, Luke 4:18-19, and Matthew 5:45).
Jesus was also not merely announcing that God’s just future was coming. He was announcing that it had arrived, and the response he called for was for his listeners to “repent and believe the good news.”
The phrase “repent and believe” is a difficult one for us Christians not to hear religiously as pertaining to the afterlife, but the Greek phrase is metanoesein kai pistos. Josephus uses this phrase when he tells us a story of visiting a Jewish brigand in prison for rebelling against Rome. Jospheus attempts to convince the rebel to leave that path and take up a more cooperative posture toward the empire. The phrase Josephus uses in his plea is for this brigand to “repent and believe/trust him” (metanoesein kai pistos emoi genesestha), and it’s the same language we read in Mark from Jesus’ gospel preaching (see Thackery’s The Life Of Flavius Josephus, p. 110).
So Jesus is preaching a gospel of the kingdom, not a gospel of Rome. He is not calling his listeners to repent of rebellion against Rome or to accept Rome’s governance, but rather for his listeners to repent (rethink their current path) of complicity with the status quo. He calls them to trust him and enter God’s just future now.
It is in this context that we must understand Mark’s next narrative move of Jesus calling fishermen. We must set aside the Christian evangelism framing this passage has suffered since this story was told, and try to hear this passage as the original Jewish Jesus followers would have heard it.
First, this language of being fishers of people is not a metaphor for evangelism. Proselytizing was not widely practiced in most expressions of Judaism at this time. Though there were occasionally converts , most scholars today agree that Jews did not do much proselytizing in the 1st Century.
Jesus was not calling to these Jewish fishermen to become proselytizers, then. Instead, the reference to fishing for people was a call to another kind of action in the justice tradition of the Hebrew prophets: joining Jesus in challenging harm being done to people in the here and now, not the hereafter.
In several Hebrew scriptures, fishing for people was about hooking or catching a certain kind of person, a powerful and unjust person, and removing them from the position of power where they were wielding harm.
Speaking of those who do harm within their positions of power, Jeremiah reads:
“But now I will send for many fishermen,” declares the LORD, “and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks. (Jeremiah 16:16)
Speaking of those who “oppress the poor and crush the needy,” Amos reads:
The Sovereign LORD has sworn by his holiness: “The time will surely come when you will be taken away with hooks, the last of you with fishhooks.” (Amos 4:2)
Speaking of the abusive Pharaoh, king of Egypt, Ezekiel reads:
In the tenth year, in the tenth month on the twelfth day, the word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. Speak to him and say: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says:
‘“I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,
you great monster lying among your streams.
You say, “The Nile belongs to me;
I made it for myself.”
But I will put hooks in your jaws
and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales.
I will pull you out from among your streams,
with all the fish sticking to your scales.
I will leave you in the desert,
you and all the fish of your streams.
You will fall on the open field
and not be gathered or picked up.
I will give you as food
to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the sky.
Then all who live in Egypt will know that I am the LORD. (Ezekiel 29:1-6)
Ched Myers, in commentaries written on this week’s passage from Mark, writes:
“In the Hebrew Bible, the metaphor of ‘people like fish’ appears in prophetic censures of apostate Israel and of the rich and powerful: ‘I am now sending for many fishermen, says God, and they shall catch [the people of Israel]…’ (Jeremiah 16:16) ‘The time is surely coming upon you when they shall take you away with fishhooks…’ (Amos 4:2) ‘Thus says God: I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt…. I will put hooks in your jaws, and make the fish of your channels stick to your scales…’ (Ezekiel 29:3f) Jesus is, in other words, summoning working folk to join him in overturning the structures of power and privilege in the world!” (Ched Myers, Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, Stuart Taylor; Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 10)
“There is perhaps no expression more traditionally misunderstood than Jesus’ invitation to these workers to become ‘fishers of men.’ This metaphor, despite the grand old tradition of missionary interpretation, does not refer to the ‘saving of souls,’ as if Jesus were conferring on these men instant evangelist status. Rather the image is carefully chosen from Jeremiah 16:16, where it is used as a symbol of Yahweh’s censure of Israel. Elsewhere the ‘hooking of fish’ is a euphemism for judgment upon the rich (Amos 4:2) and powerful (Ezekiel 29:4). Taking this mandate for his own, Jesus is inviting common folk to join him in the struggle to overturn the existing order of power and privilege.” (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, p. 132)
Jesus was calling these fishermen to join him hope, change, and participating in God’s just future. That just future begins with our challenging the existing order of power and privilege, specifically because of the harm that the status quo causes.
Love means caring for people and what they are suffering here and now. That’s why, as Cornel West often says, justice is what love looks like in public. While it is much easier to preach a gospel that says “God loves us,” it is a much more challenging venture to teach a gospel calling on people to love each other. Perhaps that’s why Jesus’ message in the gospels is rarely about God’s love toward us per se. (It is present at times, but is rarely emphasized and doesn’t even show up in the book of Acts, which is supposed to be about the gospel turning the world upside down.)
Instead Jesus’ gospel repeats the call for us to love one another, neighbor, and even enemy. Love is not something we are to simply bask in, assured that we the objects of Divine affection. Love is the ethic that a God of love calls us to live by in our relations to each other. A gospel that is only about God’s unconditional love for us has historically served as guilt alleviation for those in positions of power and privilege. It helps those complicit in harm to rest at night.
It doesn’t matter how much a gospel about Jesus talks about God’s love if it doesn’t include the call for us to love one another. I’m thinking specifically about distributive justice for others being harmed. Without that call, it may be a gospel about Jesus, but it’s not the same gospel that Jesus taught in the early stories. A gospel may include God’s universal and unconditional love, but if that gospel doesn’t result in adherents also loving their neighbors, then that gospel is “a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What would a society shaped by love look like? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
I have some exciting news! I have just signed an agreement with a new book publisher (Quoir), and we are putting together a launch team for the second edition of Finding Jesus, coming out next month!
If you have been blessed by the first edition, and you would like to see this book have greater exposure to reach an even larger audience, I want to invite you to be a part of the launch team. This second edition will be available in paperback, Kindle and an audio book available on Audible. And great news for those who already have a copy of the first edition, the first 25 people to sign up to be part of our launch team will also receive a FREE Audible copy of the audiobook for Finding Jesus.
To join the Finding Jesus launch team, all you need to do is four things:
- Go to Amazon and pre-order a copy of the second edition when pre-orders become available.
2) Read the pdf copy of the second edition of Finding Jesus that I will send you after your pre-order the book so that you’re ready on launch day.
3) On launch day go back to Amazon and write a review for Finding Jesus. (You’ll be able to do this on day one since you’ve already read the pdf copy.)
4) Share your review of Finding Jesus on your social media pages that day, also.
It’s pretty simple. That’s all. And if you already have copy of the first edition this is a great opportunity to get the audiobook version on Audible as soon as it is available.
If you would like to join our launch team, you can email me at info@renewedheartministries.com and just put in the subject of your email “Launch Team.”
Thank you in advance for being part of this special second edition publishing and ensuring this edition is a success.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s new Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HEREJacob’s Ladder
Finding Jesus Second Edition!
I have some exciting news!
I have just signed an agreement with a new book publisher (Quoir), and we are putting together a launch team for the second edition of Finding Jesus, coming out next month!
If you have been blessed by the first edition, and you would like to see this book have greater exposure to reach an even larger audience, I want to invite you to be a part of the launch team. This second edition will be available in paperback, Kindle and an audio book available on Audible. And great news for those who already have a copy of the first edition, the first 25 people to sign up to be part of our launch team will also receive a FREE Audible copy of the audiobook for Finding Jesus.
To join the Finding Jesus launch team, all you need to do is four things:
1) Go to Amazon and pre-order a copy of the second edition when pre-orders become available.
2) Read the pdf copy of the second edition of Finding Jesus that I will send you after your pre-order the book so that you’re ready on launch day.
3) On launch day go back to Amazon and write a review for Finding Jesus. (You’ll be able to do this on day one since you’ve already read the pdf copy.)
4) Share your review of Finding Jesus on your social media pages that day, also.
It’s pretty simple. That’s all. And if you already have copy of the first edition this is a great opportunity to get the audiobook version on Audible as soon as it is available.
If you would like to join our launch team, you can email me at info@renewedheartministries.com and just put in the subject of your email “Launch Team.”
Thank you in advance for being part of this special second edition publishing and ensuring this edition is a success.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 46: John 1.43-51. Lectionary B, Epiphany 2
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 46: John 1.43-51. Lectionary B, Epiphany 2
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Jacob’s Ladder
Herb Montgomery, January 12, 2024
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Are there places in our world where we’re struggling to believe there is hope for change? Where in our world do we need to be reassured that earth and heaven are still connected? Where do we still long for liberation from that which is causing harm? Whether we call it Jacob’s ladder, Jesus’ “kingdom,” God’s just future, or simply the way of justice and love, where are we longing for reassurance that a world of compassion and enough for everyone is still possible and still worth fighting for?”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of John:
The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”
Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”
“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” Nathanael asked.
“Come and see,” said Philip.
When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
“How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.
Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.”
Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.”
Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” (John 1:43-50)
The first thing I always chuckle at in this passage is how it characterizes Jesus with a slight case of sarcasm. Philip has found Nathanael and told him about Jesus. Nathaniel’s response is “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” No sugar coating, no niceties, just says things as he perceives them to be: no pretense. Jesus, meeting Nathaniel, claims Nathaniel doesn’t mince words just to be polite. Nathaniel’s not socially sensitive and doesn’t attempt to hide how he really thinks or feels about something or someone. He has “no deceit.”
Last semester my daughter had the privilege of playing Célimène in her university’s Creative Arts and Theater department production of Molière’s The Misanthrope. The play makes fun of French social hypocrisies like customs of niceness between members of aristocracy with little regard for what is actually true. The show centers around Célimène and Alceste’s relationship and asks whether Alceste is a hero for his uncompromising honestly devoid of all tact or is just a social fool. Alceste and Nathaniel from our reading this week remind me a lot of each other.
Nathaniel doesn’t think deeply about what he’s saying about Nazareth or people who live there. He simply reveals his bigotry toward those people. It’s not honesty or freedom from deceit as Jesus subtly (sarcastically) points out here, but harmful bias.
This passage also reminds me that the early Jesus followers had no decision to “accept” Jesus as their personal, private “Savior.” Such an individualized approach had not crept into the Jesus community yet. Instead, the call that Jesus makes in all of the gospels is to follow him, not to accept a gift from him.
Consider the following passages from the gospels. I’ve added italics for emphasis:
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” (Mark 1:17)
As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. (Mark 2:14)
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21)
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” (Matthew 4:19)
But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” (Matthew 8:22)
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. (Matthew 9:9)
Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. (Matthew 10:38)
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21)
After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him. (Luke 5:27)
He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” (Luke 9:59)
And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:27)
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Luke 18:22)
I share all of these passages so we can really get the impact of what the gospel call was. It was not to mentally assent and then go on living life as you always had. No, it was a radical departure from the status quo. You reordered your life to follow Jesus and his teachings, specifically his teachings about the “kingdom,” a way of being human together that was rooted in the Golden Rule, enemy love, nonviolence, resource-sharing, wealth redistribution as restoration and reparations, and more. It was a social vision where people committed to taking care of one another as the objects of God’s love and making sure each person had what they needed to thrive. It was about love of neighbor and a preferential option for those the present system marginalized.
As this new year begins, this is a good time for all of us to take a little inventory of what it means to be a Jesus follower today. It’s more than worshipping Jesus. It’s more than accepting him. It’s more than trusting Jesus the way we trust an insurance company. It’s about following him and his vision for what life could look like here on earth, and working toward shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone. Love of neighbor means seeing your fellow human, whomever they are, as part of yourself and all of us together as part of the human family. It means committing to be a part of what is best for us all.
Lastly in our reading this week, Jesus speaks to Nathaniel about seeing the heavens open. There is a reference to Jacob’s ladder, and to the apocalyptic Son of Man.
The “heaven opening” language is the same language the synoptic gospel authors used to tell the stories of Jesus’ baptism:
Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. (Mark 1:10, italics added.)
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. (Matthew 3:16, italics added.)
When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened. (Luke 3:21, italics added.)
The synoptic gospel authors connected Jesus’ baptism to the imagery in Isaiah 42 that describes one who would establish justice in the earth and in whose name, as the Christmas carol “O Holy Night” reminds us, “all oppression would cease.” In undoing our systems of economic extraction, this “chosen one” would end violence and bring “peace on earth.”
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.” (Isaiah 42:1)
John’s gospel connects this baptism imagery with imagery from Genesis of Jacob’s ladder:
He [Jacob] had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. (Genesis 28:12)
John’s author conflates the imagery of Jacob’s ladder with Jewish apocalyptic imagery of the Son of Man in Daniel chapter 7. In Daniel 7, the Son of Man would bring liberation from injustice, oppression, and violence of the world’s empires and bring about a new way of shaping human communities:
In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed…
As I watched, this horn was waging war against the holy people and defeating them, until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the holy people of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom…
“But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.” (Daniel 7:13-14, 21-22, 26-27, italics added)
These are ancient Jewish liberation texts in which the people long to be delivered from their imperial oppressors.
What John’s Jesus is doing for Nathaniel in this week’s passage is connecting the images of Jacob’s ladder and the Son of Man and telling Nathaniel that he’s going to see it all! Jacob’s ladder assured Jacob, who longed for deliverance from his brother Esau whom he had wronged and from whom he was fleeing for his life. Jacob was on the run, an exile. After Jerusalem and her temple were no more, the people for whom John’s gospel was written felt like exiles too. So this passage offers them the same assurance once given to Jacob: that earth and heaven are still connected. All is not lost and the world can still be made right. Violence can end. Oppression can cease. And injustice can be made right.
This leads me to a possible application for us in this new year, too.
Are there places in our world where we’re struggling to believe there is hope for change? Where in our world do we need to be reassured that earth and heaven are still connected? Where do we still long for liberation from that which is causing harm? Whether we call it Jacob’s ladder, Jesus’ “kingdom,” God’s just future, or simply the way of justice and love, where are we longing for reassurance that a world of compassion and enough for everyone is still possible and still worth fighting for?
As 2024 begins, may we each take a moment to remember that earth and heaven are still part of one another. In this new year, may our daily lives be the lived prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What does it mean for you to “follow” Jesus? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s new Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My latest book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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
Epiphany, Baptism, Solidarity and Justice
Thank You to All of Our Supporters
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 45: Matthew 2.1-12 & Mark 1.4-11. Lectionary B, Epiphany 1
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 45: Matthew 2.1-12 & Mark 1.4-11. Lectionary B, Epiphany 1
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Epiphany, Baptism, Solidarity and Justice
Herb Montgomery | January 5, 2024
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Wherever we are working for justice in our world today, these stories remind us of the biblical witness that we are not alone. The God of the Exodus stories, the Hebrew prophets, and the Jesus of the gospels has always stood in unflinching solidarity with whichever communities and voices throughout the ages have cried out for liberation and justice. And we are with that God too, whenever we are standing in that same solidarity.”
This weekend our readings from the gospels are from Matthew and Mark. Let’s begin with Matthew’s story of the epiphany:
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
‘“But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route. (Matthew 2:1-12)
The first thing to note is how the author of Matthew appropriates and incorporates a famous Roman mythic event into the narrative of the birth of Jesus to lay the foundation for contrasting Jesus and his kingdom with Caesar and the Pax Romana.
The event that Matthew’s author lifts from Roman storytelling is related to the Julian Star. In July of 44 BCE, a comet appeared in the night sky for seven days. The Romans interpreted it as a sign that the recently assassinated Julius Caesar was divine, and so it came to be known as the Julian Star or the Star of Julius Caesar. Caesar Augustus even put this star on the back of the Roman coins he made to bolster his claim that he was the “son of the Divine Caesar Julius.”
Publius Ovidius Naso wrote in Metamorphoses:
“Then Jupiter, the Father, spoke…”Take up Caesar’s spirit from his murdered corpse, and change it into a star, so that the deified Julius may always look down from his high temple on our Capitol and forum.” He had barely finished, when gentle Venus stood in the midst of the Senate, seen by no one, and took up the newly freed spirit of her Caesar from his body, and preventing it from vanishing into the air, carried it towards the glorious stars. As she carried it, she felt it glow and take fire, and loosed it from her breast: it climbed higher than the moon, and drawing behind it a fiery tail, shone as a star.” (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 15:745–842)
Here in Matthew’s birth narrative of Jesus, the author states that another star (comet) appears, not at a caesar’s death as a token of his divinity, but at Jesus’ birth as confirmation of the claim that this child will grow up to be special too.
But those who follow the star are not Romans. They are Rome’s closest enemies: Persians “from the east.” Would their presence be interpreted as Herod conspiring with Rome’s enemies? What did they mean when they said “king,” and how would such talk impact Herod’s standing with Rome if it escalated and was reported back? What is the narrative purpose of Jesus being recognized by Rome’s enemies? What is the narrative purpose of baby Jesus being the victim of attempted murder by Rome’s servant Herod, who was in charge of maintaining the Pax Roman in this region?
There is no stable in Bethlehem in this passage. The Magi find Mary and the baby Jesus at a house in Bethlehem.
Who were these visitors? In The Liberation of Christmas: The Infancy Narratives in Social Context, Richard Horsley explains that the Magi were the royal advisers and priests to Eastern Kings (Medes and Persians) (p. 57). This is no story of the personal piety of individual “wise men.” When we understand this story in its historical context, we can see it was filled with political tension, and the Persian characters call our attention back to another ancient liberation figure in Jewish history: Cyrus. First, here are a few verses from Isaiah 44:24-45:25 regarding Cyrus as Jerusalem’s liberator:
“This is what the LORD says—
your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb:
I am the LORD, . . .
who carries out the words of his servants
and fulfills the predictions of his messengers,
who says of Jerusalem, ‘It shall be inhabited,’
of the towns of Judah, ‘They shall be rebuilt,’
and of their ruins, ‘I will restore them,’
who says to the watery deep, ‘Be dry,
and I will dry up your streams,’
who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd
and will accomplish all that I please;
he will say of Jerusalem, “Let it be rebuilt,”
and of the temple, “Let its foundations be laid.’”
“This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
I will go before you
and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
I will give you hidden treasures,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the LORD,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
For the sake of Jacob my servant,
of Israel my chosen,
I summon you by name
and bestow on you a title of honor, . . .
I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness:
I will make all his ways straight.
He will rebuild my city
and set my exiles free,
but not for a price or reward,
says the LORD Almighty . . .”
What is fascinating to me is that Cyrus has his own birth narrative, too. When Cyrus was born, the Median Magi, royal advisors to Cyrus’ grandfather King Astyages, interpreted the strange dreams Astyages was having to foretell that baby Cyrus would grow up to usurp Astyages’ throne and become a great king and conqueror himself. We know today that King Astyages was the last king of the Median Empire. But at the time, feeling threatened like Herod in our story, Astyages tries to have baby Cyrus killed. The Jerusalem audience for whom Matthew was written would have understood the Persian Cyrus as more than the usurper of the Median throne. He not only became king of the Persian Empire but also liberated the Jewish people and authorized their return from the diaspora to rebuild Jerusalem (see Isaiah 44 and 45 above.)
Here in Matthew, then, as with baby Cyrus of old, Magi from the East show up to recognize Jesus and proclaiming that this baby boy will grow up to be “king” and liberator too.
All of these political details speak of the liberation hopes of the marginalized living under Roman oppression for whom the Gospel of Matthew was written. With the Matthean star, Jesus was to be placed on the same playing field as the Caesars. Through the presence of the Magi, Jesus was to be interpreted as a second Cyrus and a conduit of liberation for the oppressed. And just as Cyrus was a threat to Astyages long ago, Jesus now would be interpreted as a threat to the powerful, privileged, and propertied (including Herod and Herod’s household), a usurper of the status quo, with liberation effects rippling all the way back to Rome.
The entire Epiphany narrative in Matthew speaks of liberation and justice for those pushed to the undersides and edges of their society. It calls us to work alongside those same communities today and to work for change, for justice, for a world that is a safe, compassionate, and inclusive home for all.
Let’s now take a brief look at Mark’s story of Jesus baptism, since it also is part of the lectionary readings this coming weekend.
And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:4-11)
My favorite part of Mark’s version of Jesus’ baptism is the way Jesus’ baptism is tied to these words that Mark’s audience would recognized from Isaiah:
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.
He will not shout or cry out,
or raise his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.
In his teaching the islands will put their hope.” (Isaiah 42:1-4)
The purpose of this delight, this upholding, this chosen-ness, is that this servant in whom YHWH delights and upon whom the Spirit descends will “bring justice to the nations.” It’s all for the purpose of “establishing justice on the earth.”
As this new year begins, and we reflect on the liberation themes of Epiphany and the establishment of justice in the themes of Jesus’ Baptism, where are we working for justice today? So many areas come to my mind.
Wherever we are working for justice in our world today, these stories remind us of the biblical witness that we are not alone. The God of the Exodus stories, the Hebrew prophets, and the Jesus of the gospels has always stood in unflinching solidarity with whichever communities and voices throughout the ages have cried out for liberation and justice. And we are with that God too, whenever we are standing in that same solidarity.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How does the Jesus story inform your own justice work today? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s new Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My latest book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s latest 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
Subversive Narratives of Advent
All Year-End donations are going matched!
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 44: Luke 1.25-38. Lectionary B, Advent 4
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 44: Luke 1.25-38. Lectionary B, Advent 4
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Subversive Narratives of Advent
Herb Montgomery | December 22, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
” The virgin birth narrative was an economic and political critique of Rome’s predation and extraction. It presented Jesus’ alternative social vision, the gospel of the kingdom rooted in the Golden rule, enemy love, nonviolence, resource-sharing, wealth redistribution as restoration and reparations, and more. It was a social vision where people committed to taking care of one another as the objects of God’s love and making sure each person had what they needed to thrive.”
Our reading this last weekend of Advent is found in the gospel of Luke. It is the story of the angel’s visit to Mary:
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”
“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”
“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her. (Luke 1:26-38)
This is the only version of the Jesus story in our sacred canon where Jesus’ mother Mary is explicitly characterized as a “virgin.” Some translations hint at this status in Matthew, but here in Luke it is explicit. To wrap our heads around this narrative element, we need to first back up and look at the social context in which this story was originally written, and consider the larger themes of the gospel Luke for that audience. In our treatment of Rome this week, I’m deeply indebted to the work of Walter Brueggemann, specifically his book Tenacious Solidarity. If you would like to learn more about Rome’s system than we have space for this week, let me heartily suggest chapter 2 of that work.
In Rome’s economic system, money was extracted from the commoners and funneled into the various strata of the wealthy elite. This created a society in Judea where there was no middle class. The people were reduced to peasants who kept getting squeezed to become poorer, while the rich, wealthy elite continued to become richer. As Walter Brueggemann explains, systems of economic extraction are unsustainable. You can’t continue to squeeze the poor indefinitely. At some point the system breaks and we know that this system broke violently in the late 60s C.E. in Judea.
What we are reading in Luke this week happens while that overtaxation and economic predation was still going strong. The ruling elites of Jesus’ society (Herod, the priesthood, the scribes, the elders—the Temple State) were becoming wealthier and wealthier the more they complied with Rome’s extraction system. Through taxes, loans, and rents, the people became debtors, and then as debtors they were reduced to peasants. They lost their land through their inability to repay debts they’d incurred just to survive, and they became dependent on a system that continued to take from them. It was a downward economic spiral in which many of the people were helpless.
This is the social, economic and political context in which the gospel of Luke was written. And this is why in Luke’s gospel we meet Zacchaeus, a tax collector. Tax collectors were an integral part of this exploitative system, and they become wealthy themselves as a result. Luke introduces a few tax collectors (e.g. Luke 3:12, 5:27–30, 7:29, 34, 15:1, 18:10–13), but the most infamous of them is Zacchaeus. When Zacchaeus encounters Jesus’ teachings, he chooses to reject the system that made him wealthy and embraces a path of restoration and reparations instead (see Luke 19:10).
In Luke’s gospel we learn what moved Zacchaeus to change. It was Jesus’ teaching of “the Kingdom” as contrasted with the Roman Empire. Though the language of Kingdom is complicated and challenges readers today, its original audience would have understood it as a contrast to Rome’s system of imperial predation.
After all, Jesus’ ministry in Luke begins with him calling for all debts to be cancelled in the year of Jubilee, the year of the Lord’s favor (see Luke 4:18-19). Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom called for debts to be cancelled and for the Torah practices of land being given back to its original owner, indentured slaves being set free, and debt cancellation. This debt was how the system kept the masses permanently dependent and the few elites as continual recipients of funneled wealth. Jesus’ solution was simply to cancel all the debts as the Torah had taught. His “kingdom” wasn’t about saying a special prayer so you could go to heaven when you died. It was a life-giving system in the here and now as an alternative to Rome’s system of economic extraction.
In Luke’s gospel, we also encounter what we call today Mary’s Magnificat:
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:52-53)
The words of Simeon are similar:
“This child is destined to cause the falling (elite, rich rulers) and rising (poor and hungry) of many in Israel.” (Luke 2:34)
Repeatedly in Luke, Jesus calls his listeners to reject Rome’s predatory system and embrace the Kingdom instead (see Luke 12:13-31). Jesus says things to those benefitting from Rome’s system like, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” (Luke 12:15)
The word for greed here is pleonexia. Thayer defines this as the covetousness or the desire to have more specifically what others have. It is the insatiable desire for what belongs to another. This is exactly what was happening at that time. The wealthy elite were insatiable, extracting everything the masses had to enrich themselves. The Roman power brokers ran after such things too, but Jesus tells his listeners, “Seek first his kingdom, and all that you need will be given to you” (Luke 12:31). Today we here in the U.S. live in a debt economy with many experiencing only subsistence living. I wonder how Luke’s gospel would read if it was written for us?
Further in Luke’s gospel, Jesus critiques his society. In Luke 14, he gives the parable of the banquet illustrating a preferential option for those societally marginalized. In the parable of the manager who cooked the books when his unsustainable situation ran out, Jesus declares that you can’t serve both God and money (Luke 16:13). This saying makes perfect sense in its social context. Luke 16 also includes the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, which ends by calling the living to listen to the law’s debt forgiveness and the prophets’ critique of economic extraction.
This is the context in which we also need to understand Luke’s virgin birth. Jesus’ alternative vision for human society competed with the Roman system. And as difficult as it may be for post-Enlightenment minds to grapple with, if Jesus’ kingdom was to compete in that world, Jesus had to be put on the same standing as Caesar. Every Caesar around the time of Jesus (Julius, Augustus, Tiberius) was considered to be a son of God, or even divine themselves. In true Hellenistic fashion, they were each born of human mothers who had a one-night stand with one of Rome’s gods. Judaism’s culture at the time that Luke was written was a kind of purity culture. What better way for Jewish Jesus followers living under Rome to place Jesus on the same level of the Caesars, than for Jesus’ mother Mary to be a virgin who gave birth afer conceived miraculously and sexlessly by the Holy Spirit?
In our culture today, it is easy for us to fixate scientifically on the virgin birth story. But the narrative in Luke’s gospel is not a science presentation. Luke’s world was one where the supernatural was taken for granted. In that context, the virgin birth narrative was an economic and political critique of Rome’s predation and extraction. It presented Jesus’ alternative social vision, the gospel of the kingdom rooted in the Golden rule, enemy love, nonviolence, resource-sharing, wealth redistribution as restoration and reparations, and more. It was a social vision where people committed to taking care of one another as the objects of God’s love and making sure each person had what they needed to thrive.
This brings me to our context today. Today we live in an economic system with a wealth gap that’s growing exponentially. It’s a complex system where the little that people have is being extracted from them more and more and channeled into the pockets of those who already have more than they could ever possible use.
This Advent, what is Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom in Luke saying to each of us? How is it calling us to take up the work of making our world a safe, compassionate, just home for all? Each of us is part of one another. Each bears the image of the Divine. And each is the object of a Divine love that Jesus’ kingdom calls us to participate in for them, too.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. As Advent wraps us and we move into Christmas, what beautiful things in our world do you see arriving at the present time? What social changes are you thankful for? What social changes presently taking place inspire you to keep working for change? Discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s new Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Advent and the Joy of Working for a Better World
All Year-End donations are going matched!
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 43: John 1.6-8, 19-28. Lectionary B, Advent 3
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 43: John 1.6-8, 19-28. Lectionary B, Advent 3
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Advent and the Joy of Working for a Better World
Herb Montgomery | December 15, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“As difficult as doing preparation work in the wilderness is at times, there is joy in knowing what it is you are preparing the way for. We are preparing the way for the advent of a world where love is our guiding principle. There is joy in that assurance, and our labors are not in vain.”
Our reading this month is from the gospel of John.
There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”
They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
Now the Pharisees who had been sent questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
“I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. (John 1:6-8, 19-28)
Most scholars agree that John’s gospel was the last gospel in our canon to be written. Mark’s was the earliest, and Matthew and Luke were written between Mark and John. In Mark’s gospel John is a contemporary of Jesus. Jesus begins as one of John’s disciples and part of his Jewish reformation and renewal movement. Once John is imprisoned, Jesus begins his own renewal movement. One gets the impression that John’s followers and Jesus’ followers were in two related but separate movements, contemporaries and occasionally in competition.
John’s gospel presents John the Baptist as Jesus’ forerunner, the one who announced Jesus’ arrival. In Mark, Jesus is baptized by John, but as the gospels progresses, this fact becomes less and less emphasized until John’s gospel, which conveniently leaves out John’s role in Jesus’ baptism. It is cryptic about it, and this may reflect tensions that had developed between John’s followers and Jesus’s. If that’s the case, the Jesus community may not have wanted to see Jesus subordinated to John in any way in the gospels, even if only by implication.
John’s gospel seems to downgrade John the Baptist for the purpose of exalting Jesus. One example is how, in this gospel, John the Baptist rejects attempts to be identified as Messiah, the Prophet, or Elijah.
In Mark, Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, John the Baptist is dramatically associated with Elijah:
Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him.” (Mark 9:12-13)
And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. (Matthew 11:14)
And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:17, cf. Micah 4:5)
But in our reading this week, John the Baptist rejects being associated with any of these figures, including Elijah.
What I appreciate about the picture of John the Baptist that we get in the gospel of John is that it unequivocally locates John’s ministry. Each gospel tells us where John taught.
When John is cornered in our reading by people demanding that he answer their questions about who he was, John’s response is:
“I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
Last week I wrote at length about John’s ministry being in the wilderness as we considered the way John’s ministry is characterized in the gospel of Mark. If you haven’t already read that article, you’ll find it helpful as a foundation for what I’m about to say. (Read that article)
The wilderness in the gospels is contrasted with the central location of power: the temple state, centered in the temple as the capital in Jerusalem. John is characterized as working outside the centers of power, property, and privilege. Here I want to be very clear that this is not imagery that symbolizes some conflict between Christianity and Judaism. Rather, these are symbols of long standing within the Jewish society at that time. They represent Jewish voices in conflict with one another over what fidelity to the God of the Torah looked like in relation to economics, society and politics. These were all deeply religious matters in that culture, and religious fidelity demanded people live in certain economic, social, and political ways.
The symbols being contrasted, then, are those of priest and prophet. The priesthood represented those who had been coopted by Rome and were barely more than puppets of the absentee emperor, Caesar. Whoever held the position of high priest was designated as such by Rome, and the priesthood’s chief responsibility was to ensure that whatever actions took place in the Jewish temple state, those actions did not violate the Pax Romana.
In contrast to this elite class in John’s society was the symbol of a prophet in the wilderness. This symbol stood in a long lineage with Hebrew prophets who continually called those in positions of power back to justice. Again, how the most vulnerable in society was taken care of or exploited was a matter of fidelity to their God. Faithfulness to God implied living justly in relation to one’s neighbor. Those who participated in the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition stood on the margins of their society, calling those at the center and those in positions of power and privilege to return to a path of distributive justice.
This rich heritage of justice prophets is the heritage that John the Baptist is characterized with in each gospel.
What does this say to us today?
For me it tells me to keep my ear to the ground and my eyes not on the establishment; to listen to those outside, on the edges, the margins, the undersides of society, and the calls for justice they are making. It brings to mind such movements today as the Poor People’s Campaign, or the Movement for Black Lives, or movements like we saw at Standing Rock calling for justice for indigenous communities and an end to the extraction and pollution of their lands. It brings to mind the recent Women’s March on Washington and movements for LGBTQ justice and inclusion. It brings to mind those today calling for justice for the thousands of innocent Palestinian lives being taken. Who is in the wilderness today? What justice needs are they raising awareness for? Or, in the language of this week’s passage, what is the “way” that they are preparing for God’s future of love, compassion, justice and safety to arrive, a world that is a safe, compassionate, just home for us all?
Who, in other words, are the John the Baptists of today?
In our story, John was preparing the way for the one whom the synoptic gospel authors borrowed the words of Isaiah to describe:
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.” (Isaiah 42:1, cf. Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22)
Who today are preparing the way for justice to be brought to the nations?
Who are the ones on the edges, working within the grassroots of our communities preparing the way so that when justice is accomplished, it finds rich soil to take root and remain?
In our story, when God’s just future arrived, it was crucified by the powerful, privileged and propertied. We have the ability today to write a different ending to the story, one that stands awake to the resurrection of God’s just future.
But this season is not the season of Easter, yet. This season is advent. And this weekend’s theme is the joy of Advent. As difficult as doing preparation work in the wilderness is at times, there is joy in knowing what it is you are preparing the way for. We are preparing the way for the advent of a world where love is our guiding principle. There is joy in that assurance, and our labors are not in vain.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Advent is that season where we take time again to reflect on the joy of the kind of world we are working toward. What joy are you finding in Advent this year? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on X(Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Advent and Change from the Margins
All Year-End donations made from now
till the end of the year will be matched!
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 42: Mark 1.1-8. Lectionary B, Advent 2
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 42: Mark 1.1-8. Lectionary B, Advent 2
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Advent and Change from the Margins
Herb Montgomery | December 10, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Very rarely has social change ever come from the center or top of a social structure. Social change has most often come from the margins, from the outside in, and from the grassroots, from the bottom up. In the beginning of Mark, this truth is being told again.”
Our reading this second weekend of Advent is from the first chapter of Mark:
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way” —
“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’ ”
And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1:1-8)
Mark’s gospel associates John the Baptist with two passages from the Hebrew passages that are conflated here.
The first is from Malachi: “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple.” (Malachi 3:1)
The second is from Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling:
‘In the wilderness prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.’” (Isaiah 40:3)
Although the text only references Isaiah by name, Mark’s author is doing something interesting by juxtaposing these two passages. The passage combines Hebrew prophetic imagery of God coming to cleanse God’s temple (Malachi) with language that originally referred to liberation from foreign oppression, specifically Babylonian captivity, and a path being made in wilderness for the liberated exiles upon which to return (Isaiah).
To understand this kind of rhetoric we have to look at what was happening in John’s and Jesus’ society when Mark was written. The temple state leadership had become corrupted, little more than a wealthy, elite class that helped maintain Roman oppression in Judea and the surrounding regions. The poor were getting poorer and the wealthy were getting richer through their complicity and cooperation with Rome. Many of the common people were simply trying to scratch out an existence.
Then John appears in the wilderness. This narrative element clues us in to the fact that John will be working outside the establishment. He will be calling for change (repentance) from the edges and undersides of his society, outside of the official channels. Social salvation is not coming from the established center, but from the margins.
Commenting on this imagery and its possible application to our lives today, Ched Myers writes:
“The experience of wilderness is common to the vast majority of people in the world. Their reality is at the margins of almost everything that is defined by the modern Western world as ‘the good life.’ This wilderness has not been created by accident. It is the result of a system stacked against many people and their communities, whose lives and resources are exploited to benefit a very small minority at the centers of power and privilege. It is created by lifestyles that deplete and pollute natural resources. It is created by the forced labor of impoverished farmers who strip steep mountain-sides in order to eke out an existence from infertile terrain while the most arable land produces profit for a few families. Wilderness is the residue of war and greed and injustice . . . One of the first steps of hope for people in such wilderness places is to understand that their situation reflects social and political forces, not the divine will . . . While the margin has a primarily negative political connotation as a place of disenfranchisement, Mark ascribes to it a primarily positive theological value. It is the place where the sovereignty of God is made manifest, where the story of liberation is renewed, where God’s intervention in history occurs.” (Ched Myers, Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, & Stuart Taylor, Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, Orbis Books, p. 11-23)
Luke’s gospel makes this point about John the Baptist even more forcefully by showing that John’s father was part of the temple establishment (see Luke 1:9-10). Luke’s implication is that John the Baptist came from the center of society, and chose to reject that social location with all of its privileges to work for change from the outside.
Very rarely has social change ever come from the center or top of a social structure. Social change has most often come from the margins, from the outside in, and from the grassroots, from the bottom up. In the beginning of Mark, this truth is being told again.
John’s preaching centered on a specific place in the wilderness, the River Jordan. The Jordan provided water that was moving: flowing, “living water” for what grew to be the central ritual associated with John’s preaching, baptism by immersion in “living water.” Historical Jesus scholars today understand John’s baptism to be economic and political as well as religious. All of three categories combined in John’s preaching and baptism, calling the people to return to fidelity to the God of the Torah, especially in regards to the Torah’s economic justice teachings. Again this point would be forcibly made in Luke’s gospel as well:
“‘What should we do then?’ the crowd asked. John answered, ‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.’ Even tax collectors came to be baptized. ‘Teacher,’ they asked, ‘what should we do?’ ‘Don’t collect any more than you are required to,’ he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, ‘And what should we do?’ He replied, ‘Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.’” (Luke 3:10-14)
Many historical Jesus scholars believe that John’s baptism was a form of protest against the temple establishment that had become an extension of oppressive Roman rule. John’s calls for repentance and promise of forgiveness weren’t for personal or individual sins that violated one private piety. In Luke, John rails against economic and social sins, practices that impact a people’s lives together, as a society.
Josephus, who was much more closely located to the characters in these stories than we are, also writes about John, his popularity with people, and the threat the established elites, specifically Herod, came to feel they were:
“John was a good man who had admonished the Jews to practice virtue and to treat each other justly, with due respect to God, and to join in the practice of baptism. John’s view was that correct behavior was a necessary preliminary to baptism, if baptism was to be acceptable to God. Baptism wasn’t not to gain pardon for sins committed but for the purification of the body, which had already been consecrated by righteousness. Herod became alarmed at the crowds that gathered around John, who aroused them to fever pitch with his sermons. Eloquence that had such a powerful effect on people might lead to sedition, since it seemed that the people were prepared to do everything he recommended.” (Josephus, History of the Jews, 18:116-119)
The story of John the Baptist in our reading this week is a story of just change originating from the margins of a society in which both John and Jesus were both figureheads. This is a story that resonates with me today too.
This Advent season, what is God doing right now on the margins? I can’t help but think of movements for change that have formed around concerns for gender justice, racial justice, LGBTQ justice, Indigenous people’s justice, economic justice, and ecological justice. There are so many more areas where justice is needed; these are just the ones that come to my mind first.
Advent announces that something has come: something we have long hoped for is here. Of the many things we hope for, one is a world characterized by distributive justice. A world, here and now, that is a safe, compassionate and just home for everyone, where no one is afraid and, in the words of the Hebrew prophets, “Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree” (Micah 4:4).
This second week of Advent, we read about a time when that world came to us once before. That world would soon be beheaded with John and crucified with Jesus. But when it came in both John and Jesus’s ministries, it began on the margins. This calls to me to pay attention to what’s happening in our time on the edges, the grassroots, and the wildernesses of our own society. For each time that the world we hope for has arrived throughout history, it has most often started there.
Where is that world showing up again for us today? And who can we come alongside to participate in making that world a reality for us all?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How has your own living on the margins or listening to others who do informed how you read the Jesus story? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
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In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
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Advent and the Refusal to Lose Hope
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters.
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 41: Mark 13.24-37. Lectionary B, Advent 1
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 41: Mark 13.24-37. Lectionary B, Advent 1
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Herb Montgomery | December 1, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“When the words of our reading this week were written the world looked, like ours, pretty hopeless. This week’s reading is a reminder to me that, as Mariame Kaba often says, hope is and has always been, a discipline. The arc of our universe can still bend toward justice if we choose. Yes, there are other forces at work for sure. But this advent, I’m renewing my efforts to not give up.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
“But in those days, following that distress,
‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’
“At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.
“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.
“Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”
(Mark 13.24-37, Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™)
Advent begins a new year in the lectionary. Advent is the first season of the Christian church’s calendar year and comes before Christmas. The word “advent” means arrival. Considering Christianity’s claims for what has already arrived alongside what Christians still look forward to arriving in the future is a life-giving way to shape our focus as Jesus followers and renew our commitments to that focus as another year begins.
First let’s consider the imagery used in this week’s reading. Early Jewish Jesus followers would have been familiar with this language because it appeared repeatedly in the Jewish apocalyptic scriptures.
“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14)
“The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.” (Isaiah 13:10)
“I will cover the heavens and darken their stars; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give its light.” (Ezekiel 32:7)
“Before them the earth shakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars no longer shine.” (Joel 2:10)
“The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.” (Joel 2:31)
Remember the community these scriptures written for was not only trying to make sense of the crucifixion of Jesus, but were also absorbing the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. Early Christians appropriated the imagery and repurposed it for their own time:
“I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.” (Acts 2:19, cf. Revelation 6:12 and 8:12)
In none of these Christian passages does the text read, “As Jesus said,” or “As Jesus told us.” Each reference relies directly on the Hebrew scriptures just as much as the gospel authors did.
Next in this week’s reading, we encounter the imagery of the fig tree to represent the changes that the Jesus community was witnessing and being impacted by. These changes were like the buds on a fig tree, signs that the political, economic, religious and social seasons were changing. The Jesus community had just witnessed the stressful events leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem and in the wake of the tragic events that followed it. Their whole world was either in the process of being turned upside down or just had been.
It is in this context that Mark’s author encourages their fellow Jesus community to be on watch, alert and ready for what was to come next, and to hope that what would come next would be the return of their Jesus. Consider this passage from Paul:
“Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11)
It is helpful to remember that our reading this week was possibly written as far as two decades after Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. A lot had happened in this region of the world between the era of Jesus ministry and then, and the area looked very different during the late 60s and early 70s C.E. than it did during the late 20s and early 30s C.E. It was important to encourage Jesus followers to hang in there, not to lose hope, and keep following the teachings of Jesus as they looked for the advent God’s just future to arrive any time.
There are also portions of Mark where Jesus announces God’s just future had already arrived as in the very first chapter of Mark:
“The time has come,” Jesus said. “The kingdom of God has come! Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)
But again, that was in the late 20s or early 30s. If Mark was written around Jerusalem’s destruction in the 70s, it would’ve been a hard or even impossible sell to say God’s just future had come. The Jesus community of that era could much more easily attach their hopes on the future than to the tensions and tragedies before their very eyes.
What implications might this forward look of hope offer us today? Just that. The future can contain hope if we choose for it to. Here in the U.S. many are struggling and feeling squeezed economically, even with our economy having narrowly escaped an impending recession three years ago. Things are still tough now. Political circuses continue to inflict stress to varying degrees on parts of our population. Globally we continually witness the violence of war and killing of innocent lives. And ecologically, some say we’ve reached the point of no return when it comes to global capitalist growth and extraction, which have rapidly taxed our planet’s resources to the breaking point, setting us on a course of making our planet uninhabitable.
It’s no wonder we have a generation now that lives with concerning levels of anxiety and/or feelings of helplessness. And in the context of our reading this week, I’m sure the originally intended audience for our reading felt something very similar in response to the challenges of their time and place.
In those anxious moments, the author of the gospel of Mark admonished their listeners not to give up and not to let go. This gospel taught them to keep following the ethics, values and life-giving teachings of their Jesus stories. To keep choosing to love one’s neighbor, and set in motion the Golden Rule so it could change the world. To keep pursuing nonviolence as a means of changing. To keep choosing to stay committed to taking care of each other in community rather than falling into the lies of self-sufficiency and independent self-reliance. And this is what our reading is whispering to me this week, too.
When the words of our reading this week were written the world looked, like ours, pretty hopeless. This week’s reading is a reminder to me that, as Mariame Kaba often says, hope is and has always been, a discipline. The arc of our universe can still bend toward justice if we choose. Yes, there are other forces at work for sure. But this advent, I’m renewing my efforts to not give up. This advent I’m renewing my belief that the advent of a just, safe, compassionate world for all of us is still possible. I choose to continue believing that the future is not fixed but open. And I’m choosing to keep believing that, though I don’t know all our future holds, I know that we can face those challenges together in more life-giving ways than we can on our own.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. In what ways are you choosing to keep holding on to hope this season? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters.
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 40: Matthew 25.31-46. Lectionary A, Proper 29
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 40: Matthew 25.31-46. Lectionary A, Proper 29
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Sheep and Goats
Herb Montgomery | November 24, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Pay close attention when certain sectors of Christianity choose to cherry pick and prioritize the death dealing passages of their sacred text, rather than the humanizing and life-giving passages.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
(Matthew 25:31-46*)
This week’s lectionary reading is one of my favorite passages in the gospel of Matthew. Some sectors of Christianity tend to read this passage individualistically, as if it’s a scene of individual people standing before an apocalyptic judgment seat. I encourage us not to fall into the individualism ditch this week. The passage in Matthew states that it is “the nations,” collective people groups, that are being gathered. This collective view aligns with the use of the phrase “son of man” and a judgment, from the Hebrew apocalyptic book of Daniel. Daniel 7 doesn’t address individuals or their personal, private deeds or misdeeds. It uses rich imagery to address empires, nations, and collective groups, not individuals. It is also telling that no one responds in this passage responds with the question “when did I see you”: they all ask “when did we see you.”
So this parable has a collective nature. It isn’t about how we live our lives as individuals or whether we practice personal charity. It’s about how we choose to structure our collective lives together and who we choose to care for. How do we systemically, as a nation, divide up resources, and how do we collectively distribute power? Do we privilege some above others? Or do we ensure everyone in our society is taken care of? More about this in a moment.
As well as painting a collective image, this passage also divides the nations into “sheep” and “goats.” My brother is a farmer here in Appalachia. He has both sheep and goats along with other livestock. Neither the sheep or the goats are expendable: both have value and worth. But you relate to both very differently. Sheep can be led, whereas goats are stubborn and must often be driven.
This parable is about how nations choose to relate to hunger and thirst, who gets food, shelter or clothing. We know it’s an economic parable because prisons in Jesus’ culture were not used for the crimes we use prisons for today. For example, if someone was guilty of murder, they would be executed, not imprisoned. Prisons were used for economic or political reasons. If someone was in prison, they were most likely in a kind of debtors prison working off a debt after suffering economic hardship. That’s why we need to read this parable in terms of distributive justice.
The parable then states that nations enter into either eternal life or eternal punishment or turmoil. What might this mean? Nations who practice a compassionate system of distributive justice will last a long time. You could say they enter a kind of eternal life. Other nations practice an economic system rooted in extraction, exploitation, privilege (where some are worth more than others), and power (where some have more power than others). These nations intrinsically experience turmoil, conflict, striving, and punishments that are always ongoing, or eternal. Nations learn the hard way that hunger, thirst, nakedness, abuse to foreigners, denying clothing including housing, debtors’ prisons, and other things of this nature are unsustainable. They set in motion endless striving and if not corrected have brought down the most powerful empires in history from the inside out.
As an example, some contemporary Christians cite portions of Leviticus to support their own bigotry against LGBTQ folks but ignore passages like Leviticus 19:33 when it comes to immigration policies or how we treat the “stranger”:
“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” (italics added)
How we choose to shape our nation’s immigration policy matters. Pay close attention when certain sectors of Christianity choose to cherry pick and prioritize the death dealing passages of their sacred text, rather than the humanizing and life-giving passages.
Lastly, I want to briefly address this language of eternal life or eternal punishment. You can read a more in-depth treatment in the appendix of my new book Finding Jesus: A Story of A Fundamentalist Preacher Who Unexpectedly Discovered the Economic, Social, and Political Teachings of the Gospels.
First, the idea of an apocalyptic eternal punishment was taught by the Pharisees in Jesus society:
“They [the Pharisees] say that all souls are imperishable, but that the souls of good men only pass into other bodies while the souls of evil men are subject to eternal punishment*. (Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Vol. II, Chapter 8, Paragraph 14)
It’s important to understand the Greek words used to describe this “eternal punishment” as taught by the Pharisees. Aidios (eternal) was “pertaining to an unlimited duration of time” (Louw and Nida’s Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains). Timoria (punishment) meant “to punish, with the implication of causing people to suffer what they deserve” (Louw and Nida’s Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains). And penal refers to “the satisfaction of him who inflicts” (Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament).
Why is this important? Because there were other words that one could choose to use if you were talking about eternal punishment as we understand that today. Philo, for instance, mentions eternal punishment but uses a different term than aidios timoria:
“It is better not to promise than not to give prompt assistance, for no blame follows in the former case, but in the latter there is dissatisfaction from the weaker class, and a deep hatred and eternal chastisement [aionion kolasis] from such as are more powerful.” (Philo, Fragments)
Philo uses the words aionion kolasis. Aionion is “indeterminate as to duration” (Mounce’s Concise Greek English Dictionary of the New Testament). In Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, the word “gives prominence to the immeasurableness of eternity.”
It’s not that aionion lasts forever, but that linear time is not a constriction. It doesn’t matter if it takes forever for whatever this adjective is describing to accomplish its purpose.
And as it relates to the definition of kolasis, Thayer’s explains, “kolasis is disciplinary and has reference to him who suffers, [while] timoria is penal and has reference to the satisfaction of him who inflicts.” (Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament)
Plato uses kolasis in terms of discipline:
“If you will think, Socrates, of the nature of punishment, you will see at once that in the opinion of mankind virtue may be acquired; no one punishes [kolasis] the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong—only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that manner. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment [kolasis] does not retaliate for a past wrong which cannot be undone; he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished [kolasis], and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again. He punishes for the sake of prevention, thereby clearly implying that virtue is capable of being taught.” (Plato, “Protagoras”)
Whereas timora was punishment that satisfied a need in the punisher to see someone suffer for what they had done, kolasis was discipline or punishment to address the need in the one being punished so that they might learn to make different choices. It was redemptive punishment: restorative justice, not retributive justice.
The words the author of Matthew’s gospel choose to use for the goats in our story this week is not aidious timoria (retribution) but aionion kolasis (restoration). And this makes sense. Goats are of such a nature that they will only learn the hard way. Some nations will have to learn the hard way, too.
But whether a nation is a stubborn goat or a sheep that can be gently led, both goats and sheep only survive when they learn the lessons of distributive justice. I love the words of Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis speaking of social salvation within the context of our collective lives together:
“I know this to be true: The world doesn’t get great unless we all get better. If there is such a thing as salvation, then we are not saved until everyone is saved; our dignity and liberation are bound together.” (in Fierce Love, p. 14)
And that seems to be what our reading this week is hinting at. A nation’s greatness is not measured by its wealth but by its wealth disparity; not by its GDP but how much poverty it creates to produce that GDP; and not by how powerful its elite members are but by how it chooses to collectively take care of those the system deems to be “the least of these.”
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 both our small faith communities and larger society and nation practiced more life-giving policies? How could our nation do a better job at taking care of the hungry, those in need of shelter, migrants and whom we choose to imprison? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
(*Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™)
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Sheep and Goats
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters.
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 40: Matthew 25.31-46. Lectionary A, Proper 29
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 40: Matthew 25.31-46. Lectionary A, Proper 29
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Sheep and Goats
Herb Montgomery | November 24, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Pay close attention when certain sectors of Christianity choose to cherry pick and prioritize the death dealing passages of their sacred text, rather than the humanizing and life-giving passages.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
(Matthew 25:31-46*)
This week’s lectionary reading is one of my favorite passages in the gospel of Matthew. Some sectors of Christianity tend to read this passage individualistically, as if it’s a scene of individual people standing before an apocalyptic judgment seat. I encourage us not to fall into the individualism ditch this week. The passage in Matthew states that it is “the nations,” collective people groups, that are being gathered. This collective view aligns with the use of the phrase “son of man” and a judgment, from the Hebrew apocalyptic book of Daniel. Daniel 7 doesn’t address individuals or their personal, private deeds or misdeeds. It uses rich imagery to address empires, nations, and collective groups, not individuals. It is also telling that no one responds in this passage responds with the question “when did I see you”: they all ask “when did we see you.”
So this parable has a collective nature. It isn’t about how we live our lives as individuals or whether we practice personal charity. It’s about how we choose to structure our collective lives together and who we choose to care for. How do we systemically, as a nation, divide up resources, and how do we collectively distribute power? Do we privilege some above others? Or do we ensure everyone in our society is taken care of? More about this in a moment.
As well as painting a collective image, this passage also divides the nations into “sheep” and “goats.” My brother is a farmer here in Appalachia. He has both sheep and goats along with other livestock. Neither the sheep or the goats are expendable: both have value and worth. But you relate to both very differently. Sheep can be led, whereas goats are stubborn and must often be driven.
This parable is about how nations choose to relate to hunger and thirst, who gets food, shelter or clothing. We know it’s an economic parable because prisons in Jesus’ culture were not used for the crimes we use prisons for today. For example, if someone was guilty of murder, they would be executed, not imprisoned. Prisons were used for economic or political reasons. If someone was in prison, they were most likely in a kind of debtors prison working off a debt after suffering economic hardship. That’s why we need to read this parable in terms of distributive justice.
The parable then states that nations enter into either eternal life or eternal punishment or turmoil. What might this mean? Nations who practice a compassionate system of distributive justice will last a long time. You could say they enter a kind of eternal life. Other nations practice an economic system rooted in extraction, exploitation, privilege (where some are worth more than others), and power (where some have more power than others). These nations intrinsically experience turmoil, conflict, striving, and punishments that are always ongoing, or eternal. Nations learn the hard way that hunger, thirst, nakedness, abuse to foreigners, denying clothing including housing, debtors’ prisons, and other things of this nature are unsustainable. They set in motion endless striving and if not corrected have brought down the most powerful empires in history from the inside out.
As an example, some contemporary Christians cite portions of Leviticus to support their own bigotry against LGBTQ folks but ignore passages like Leviticus 19:33 when it comes to immigration policies or how we treat the “stranger”:
“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” (italics added)
How we choose to shape our nation’s immigration policy matters. Pay close attention when certain sectors of Christianity choose to cherry pick and prioritize the death dealing passages of their sacred text, rather than the humanizing and life-giving passages.
Lastly, I want to briefly address this language of eternal life or eternal punishment. You can read a more in-depth treatment in the appendix of my new book Finding Jesus: A Story of A Fundamentalist Preacher Who Unexpectedly Discovered the Economic, Social, and Political Teachings of the Gospels.
First, the idea of an apocalyptic eternal punishment was taught by the Pharisees in Jesus society:
“They [the Pharisees] say that all souls are imperishable, but that the souls of good men only pass into other bodies while the souls of evil men are subject to eternal punishment*. (Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Vol. II, Chapter 8, Paragraph 14)
It’s important to understand the Greek words used to describe this “eternal punishment” as taught by the Pharisees. Aidios (eternal) was “pertaining to an unlimited duration of time” (Louw and Nida’s Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains). Timoria (punishment) meant “to punish, with the implication of causing people to suffer what they deserve” (Louw and Nida’s Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains). And penal refers to “the satisfaction of him who inflicts” (Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament).
Why is this important? Because there were other words that one could choose to use if you were talking about eternal punishment as we understand that today. Philo, for instance, mentions eternal punishment but uses a different term than aidios timoria:
“It is better not to promise than not to give prompt assistance, for no blame follows in the former case, but in the latter there is dissatisfaction from the weaker class, and a deep hatred and eternal chastisement [aionion kolasis] from such as are more powerful.” (Philo, Fragments)
Philo uses the words aionion kolasis. Aionion is “indeterminate as to duration” (Mounce’s Concise Greek English Dictionary of the New Testament). In Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, the word “gives prominence to the immeasurableness of eternity.”
It’s not that aionion lasts forever, but that linear time is not a constriction. It doesn’t matter if it takes forever for whatever this adjective is describing to accomplish its purpose.
And as it relates to the definition of kolasis, Thayer’s explains, “kolasis is disciplinary and has reference to him who suffers, [while] timoria is penal and has reference to the satisfaction of him who inflicts.” (Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament)
Plato uses kolasis in terms of discipline:
“If you will think, Socrates, of the nature of punishment, you will see at once that in the opinion of mankind virtue may be acquired; no one punishes [kolasis] the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong—only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that manner. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment [kolasis] does not retaliate for a past wrong which cannot be undone; he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished [kolasis], and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again. He punishes for the sake of prevention, thereby clearly implying that virtue is capable of being taught.” (Plato, “Protagoras”)
Whereas timora was punishment that satisfied a need in the punisher to see someone suffer for what they had done, kolasis was discipline or punishment to address the need in the one being punished so that they might learn to make different choices. It was redemptive punishment: restorative justice, not retributive justice.
The words the author of Matthew’s gospel choose to use for the goats in our story this week is not aidious timoria (retribution) but aionion kolasis (restoration). And this makes sense. Goats are of such a nature that they will only learn the hard way. Some nations will have to learn the hard way, too.
But whether a nation is a stubborn goat or a sheep that can be gently led, both goats and sheep only survive when they learn the lessons of distributive justice. I love the words of Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis speaking of social salvation within the context of our collective lives together:
“I know this to be true: The world doesn’t get great unless we all get better. If there is such a thing as salvation, then we are not saved until everyone is saved; our dignity and liberation are bound together.” (in Fierce Love, p. 14)
And that seems to be what our reading this week is hinting at. A nation’s greatness is not measured by its wealth but by its wealth disparity; not by its GDP but how much poverty it creates to produce that GDP; and not by how powerful its elite members are but by how it chooses to collectively take care of those the system deems to be “the least of these.”
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 both our small faith communities and larger society and nation practiced more life-giving policies? How could our nation do a better job at taking care of the hungry, those in need of shelter, migrants and whom we choose to imprison? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
(*Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™)
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Reaping What Is Sown
We want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters.
Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 39: Matthew 25.14-30. Lectionary A, Proper 28
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 39: Matthew 25.14-30. Lectionary A, Proper 28
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Reaping What Is Sown
Herb Montgomery | November 17, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“If we sow the wind, we will reap the whirlwind. But we can instead sow love, and justice, and compassion, and safety. We get to choose what we set in motion. We get to choose what we sow. What kind of world do we want? However we answer that question, we have the agency in our daily choices, big and small, to set in motion the kind of world we desire. And we aren’t the only ones who get to choose.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
“The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’
“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.
“‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags. For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
(Matthew 25:14-30, Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™)
Not every truth is for every audience. That’s why it makes a difference whom we perceive this parable was directed to. Most Jesus scholars trace this parable back to the historical Jesus. If Jesus was using this parable to speak to the poor indentured farmer/slaves in his society, then it paints the God of the Torah with the same character and attributes as those farmers’ harsh absentee landlords. This would contrast starkly with how the Jesus of the gospels typically presents God in the stories.
But if we back up and understand this parable as directed to the those harsh absentee landlords whose motives were grounded in profit for a few on the backs of the many, not in economic justice, then this parable takes on a different, justice-flavored meaning.
Let’s unpack this a bit. Earlier in Matthew’s gospel, we read:
“For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1, emphasis added)
Being treated the way one has treated others has a rich history in Jewish wisdom. Injustice is unsustainable for the long term, and Jewish wisdom often reminds its listeners that we intrinsically, eventually reap what we sow. Consider the following sayings:
“A wicked person earns deceptive wages, but the one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.” (Proverbs 11:18)
“Whoever sows injustice reaps calamity, and the rod they wield in fury will be broken.” (Proverbs 22:8)
“They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7)
This wisdom is repeated by the Paul in his letter to the Galatians, although with a slightly different application.
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” (Galatians 6.7-8)
The book of James also repeats this wisdom:
“Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” (James 6:7)
So do the gospels:
“With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more.” (Mark 4:24)
If the intended audience for this week’s reading was the unjust, harsh absentee landlords of Jesus’ society, then Jesus is pronouncing judgment on the elite and wealthy classes who were unjustly exploiting workers through indentured slavery.
It is helpful to remember that Matthew was written after 70 C.E. Much of this section of Matthew is constructed to make sense of Rome’s tragic destruction of the Jewish people. Economic injustice is unsustainable: the poor who had finally had enough revolted and violently took over Jerusalem and the temple, burned the debt records held in the temple, and drove the wealthy elites from the city. In the wake of these events, these revolutionaries then launched the Jewish-Roman war of 66-69. The Jewish poor didn’t stop at their own liberation from the elites in their community. Instead, feeling their efforts had been blessed, they set their sights on an even bigger goal: liberating the Jewish people as a whole from their Roman oppressors too. This ultimately resulted in Rome visiting destruction on Jerusalem in 70 C.E.
The poor indentured farmers of Jesus society were once the owners of the farms they were now working, but had lost their land by defaulting on debt. Jesus called for Jubilee, for all debts to be cancelled, all slaves set free, and all land returned to its original owner. (Luke 4:19) This is where we encounter the multiple layers of this week’s reading. If the poor farmers were the slaves of the elite absentee land owners, the absentee land owners were in a similar relationship to their absentee rulers in Rome. It was Rome that eventually “returned” to Judea, storming in and demanding an account. It was Rome that threw the elites who had failed to govern Judea peacefully into “outer darkness” along with everyone else. If we’ve correctly identified the parable’s intended audience, then God is not the absentee landlord who shows up demanding an account of his servants. Rome was. These actions correctly resemble what Rome did to Jerusalem in response to the poor people’s revolt and war with Rome that wealthy elite’s economic exploitation had intrinsically caused. In the gospels Jesus calls for a voluntary year of Jubilee, and, for Matthew’s author, that Jubilee could have circumvented this revolt.
So what can we derive from this parable in our context today?
The Jewish wisdom this week’s parable is rooted in teaches us that with what measure we use, it will be measured back to us. If we sow the wind, we will reap the whirlwind. But we can instead sow love, and justice, and compassion, and safety.
We get to choose what we set in motion. We get to choose what we sow. What kind of world do we want? However we answer that question, we have the agency in our daily choices, big and small, to set in motion the kind of world we desire. We aren’t the only ones who get to choose. Others are setting in motion the kind of world they want, and those of us who desire a world with no injustice, no oppression, no violence must be vigilant. Sowing love doesn’t guarantee we’ll get all we want, but we most definitely won’t get it if we sit back and sow nothing. I’m reminded of the wise words of Dorothy Day:
“People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that. No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do.” (Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness)
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What we sow in our communities matter, what would you like to be sowing both in your local community and larger society? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
You can donate online by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
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