Advent as Good News for the Marginalized
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Advent as Good News for the Marginalized
Herb Montgomery | December 19, 2025
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this weekend is from the gospel of Matthew.
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:
“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
(Matthew 11:2-11)
For years, I was a preacher of the gospel in a pretty fundamentalist tradition. At the same time, the gospel I preached never even mentioned the poor. This week’s lectionary passage continues to remind me that good news to the poor is how we know whether Christianity’s gospel is the same as the one Jesus’ preached. Audience members used to often remind me that if it’s not good news it’s not the gospel. Today, a better reminder would be that if what we are preaching is not good news first and foremost to the poor, if it’s not accessible by the poor, than it’s at bare minimum not the same gospel that the Jesus of the stories preached.
A reliable litmus test for the gospel is whether it is truly good news to the poor. Jesus announced a kingdom where the last are made first, the hungry are fed, people’s humanity is restored, and the poor become the blessed. If our message comforts only the privileged, it drifts from Jesus’ own proclamation in the gospels. The gospel becomes tangible when it addresses hunger, oppression, exploitation, and injustice with practical compassion and material, concrete hope. Good news to the poor is not just charity. It is solidarity. It is justice. It stands with those who are overlooked by the status quo and affirms the intrinsic worth of those presently being disenfranchised and made vulnerable. Today, it doesn’t matter whether we define those communities as migrant, trans, or the people in Ukraine or Gaza. The gospel Jesus preached challenges systems that crush people and inspires us to create societies shaped by generosity and justice. When the marginalized including the poor hear the gospel and recognize it as hope, freedom, and belonging, its authenticity is unmistakable.
In the spirit of that justice and hope, I want to begin this week by addressing the other recipients of Jesus’ gospel in the statement to John’s disciples. When it comes to people who live with disabilities and how we tell the Jesus story, I believe we can do better today for them. The gospels contain ableist elements. Many healing stories frame disability primarily as a condition needing correction. Jesus’ miracles often present disabled people as objects through whom divine power is displayed, rather than as full participants with agency. This narrative pattern has unintentionally reinforced the idea that a meaningful life requires being “fixed.” Additionally, disability is sometimes used metaphorically for moral or spiritual lack, such as blindness for ignorance and lameness for weakness, which can deepen the stigmatizing, negative associations of having a disability with being “less than.” Many disability theologians also note subversive moments in the Jesus story where Jesus centers marginalized people, restores them to community, and challenges social exclusion (see Nancy Eiesland’s The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability.)
Acknowledging ableist elements doesn’t disqualify the gospel stories. Rather, admitting the truth about these stories invites us into deeper reflection on how we can interpret these texts today as faith communities endeavor to uphold the humanity and dignity of all, including people who live with disabilities.
Next in our reading, Jesus addresses his audience regarding John the Baptist. John the Baptist was born into a respected priestly family; his father, Zechariah, served in the Temple State system, and his lineage offered him the social, political, and economic benefits of that path. Yet John chose a radically different calling. Rather than serve within the structured Temple State system—deeply intertwined with political and religious authority—he withdrew to the wilderness. He chose a path of challenging the status quo, calling his society to repent for complicity with Rome and to return to the practice of justice toward one another, all of this outside of institutional control. John’s voice in the desert was a contemporary return to the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition and was in tension with the institutionalized and co-opted-by-Rome priesthood. John confronted corruption, preparing hearts for a just future brought about by a God who would respond to the people’s repentance and return to justice. He reminded the people that their future directly depended on what they chose to practice toward one another: continued exploitation or a return to the Torah’s justice.
In the gospels, “the wilderness” symbolizes the margins of society. It represents those places far from centers of power, wealth, and political/religious control. It is in these edges that God’s presence is revealed most clearly. John the Baptist preaches there in the wilderness, showing that divine truth arises outside the institutional authority of his time. Remember, Jesus is also tested in the wilderness, therefore identifying with the vulnerable and the unseen. The wilderness becomes a space where God meets those who are overlooked, oppressed, or displaced. By locating revelation in the margins, the Gospels declare that God is not confined to centered places of power but stands in solidarity with the marginalized and offers them hope, reclaimed humanity, and new beginnings rooted in justice.
In his book Say to This Mountain, 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.” (Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 11)
Myers goes on to say, “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. (Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 12)
John the Baptist’s ministry, as portrayed in the Gospel of Luke and illuminated by Josephus, centers not on offering assurances of heavenly reward but on demanding concrete, ethical transformation in society. Luke presents John as standing in the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition with a message focusing on action-based repentance in contrast to the complicity that elites engaged in with the Roman empire. When the crowds ask John what repentance requires, John does not speak of greater fidelity to the Temple State, but of earthy, concrete, social practices and preparation for an approaching end to unsustainable social practice. He instructed them to share resources: “Whoever has two tunics must share with the one who has none, and whoever has food must do the same” (Luke 3:11). John’s demands also addressed tax collectors and soldiers. He calls tax collectors to economic honesty, to refuse to collect more than prescribed, and calls soldiers to non-violence and contentment, forbidding extortion and false accusation (Luke 3:12–14). These calls reveal his vision of repentance as social and economic justice embodied in everyday life.
Josephus corroborates this image, describing John as a teacher who urged people to practice justice toward one another as an expression of their devotion to God. In Antiquities 18.5.2, Josephus states that John commanded his followers to exercise justice in their dealings and piety toward God, emphasizing the practice of social justice as the true preparation for baptism. This portrait aligns with Luke’s emphasis: John’s baptism symbolizes a commitment to transforming present social reality, not a ticket to a later heaven.
Taken together, Luke and Josephus portray John as a prophetic figure calling Israel to ethical renewal. He insists that genuine repentance manifests in equitable economic practices and compassionate treatment of neighbors. His message is a summons to rebuild society on justice, not a promise of post-mortem security.
Advent rituals remind and call us, like John’s preaching of old, to return to the social justice practices of our various faith traditions, and to renew our commitments to shaping our present world into a just, safe, compassionate home for us all.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How are you taking a stand for justice this Advent 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.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
If you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 2 Episode 50: Advent as Good News for the Marginalized
Matthew 11:2-11
Advent rituals remind and call us, like John’s preaching of old, to return to the social justice practices of our various faith traditions, and to renew our commitments to shaping our present world into a just, safe, compassionate home for us all. John chose a radically different calling. Rather than serve within the structured Temple State system—deeply intertwined with political and religious authority—he withdrew to the wilderness. He chose a path of challenging the status quo, calling his society to repent for complicity with Rome and to return to the practice of justice toward one another, all of this outside of institutional control. In the gospels, “the wilderness” symbolizes the margins of society. It represents those places far from centers of power, wealth, and political/religious control. It is in these edges that God’s presence is revealed most clearly. This narrative details speaks to every person who finds themselves doing justice work along the edges of our communities today.
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/advent-as-good-news-for-the-marginalized
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
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Salvation from the Margins
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Salvation from the Margins
Herb Montgomery, December 6, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading for the second weekend of Advent is from the gospel of Luke:
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all people will see God’s salvation.’ ” (Luke 3:1-6)
One of the things I appreciate about the gospel of Luke is its emphasis on distributive justice. The author of Luke models their gospel on the Hebrew justice tradition. Certain prophets began their writings in the same way:
The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. The word of the LORD came to him in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah, and through the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, down to the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile. (Jeremiah 1:1-3)
The author of Luke’s gospel begins similarly, by listing those in power: The list of Roman rulers and their clients begins with Tiberius and Pilate, and ends with the regional conduits of Roman rule, Herod, Annas, and Caiaphas. This emphasizes again what we have said so often recently: the high-priesthood in Jerusalem (Annas and Caiaphas) extended the Roman government in Judea, as did Herod in Galilee. They were more than merely religious figures in the rituals of the Temple, they were also political rulers in the Temple State established and overseen by Rome. This explains why Jesus’ Temple protest at the end of this account wasn’t about maintaining the purity of religion as much as it was about Rome economically exploiting the people through the priesthood. This is why Jesus’ protest landed him on a Roman cross as an enemy of Rome itself.
Next, Luke’s gospel introduces to us John the Baptist as an adult. We have already been introduced to John through the story of his birth and childhood in Luke chapters 1 and 2. John was the son of a priest. He belonged to the priesthood. Yet when John became an adult, he turned his back on being part of the system and the priesthood his genealogy entitled him to be a part of. Rather than taking up the vocation of priest, John chose something different. He chose to embrace not the priestly tradition but the parallel Hebrew justice vocation of prophet. The vocations of priest (the establishment) and prophet (those who spoke truth to power when the establishment practiced injustice) were often in tension with one another. Luke’s gospel characterizes John as seeking to bring change not from the inside, from the seats of power, but from the outside speaking in. His is a voice in the “wilderness.” And this detail cannot be lost on us because it offers a bit of wisdom for many of us who feel we are in the wilderness now looking at our own political landscape.
A Voice in the Wilderness
John’s was a “voice from the wilderness.” The wilderness was more than a simple geographical location or story detail. It was also a political and economic social location as well as a religious one. In this narrative, God brings change not from within the system but from the outside in, from the margins, and from the grassroots up.
In his book Say to the Mountain, Ched Myers comments on the political, social, economic and religious implications of John’s work being located in the wilderness:
“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, Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 12)
In Luke’s gospel, John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ work is located not within the system in centered locations such as the Temple, a synagogues, or Jerusalem, but on the peripheries in places like the wilderness of Judea (John) and the rural villages of Galilee (Jesus).
These marginal social locations were charged with political meaning, meaning still relevant to us today. I want to be clear about this: In this story, God is already present and at work on the margins of this society. Often those living in centered positions of privilege mistake the work of justice as opening access so those less privileged can sit at the tables of privilege. But opening up potential to compete with others in an unjust system doesn’t change the actual system itself. Some tables shouldn’t be shared. They should be flipped (cf. Luke 19:45-46).
Our story this week isn’t one where salvation is defined by including those on the margins at the tables of the privileged. God is already at present and at work on the margins. God and the gospel are already at work on the edges in the wilderness. God is there and those of us who live in more privileged social locations are with God when we work alongside and in solidarity with the work already in motion where God already is—on the margins.
This is the theological and political point of the “wilderness” in our narrative this week. Change, liberation, and social salvation has historically come from voices on the outside of unjust systems. It’s comes from the grassroots, the outside in and bottom up. Outside is where John shows up in our story. It’s where Jesus shows up in our story (cf. John 1:46).
The wisdom for us as we rededicate our efforts to resistance and harm mitigation in the years to come is to look to the margins. Listen to the voices of those on the edges. Look for the good that is already happening in justice efforts on the margins and get with that! Throw your energy and solidarity alongside that!
What work was taking place on the edges in this week’s story? Even in the face of deep harm and the social and economic devastation of vulnerable communities, a path for change was being prepared in the wilderness. The way was being smoothed out for justice’s arrival. In that first season of Advent, even when things looked most bleak, a way was being made out of no way on the margins.
Preparing the Way
Our reading this week intimates what was actually happening on the margins, in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all people will see God’s salvation.’” (Luke 3:1-6)
Justice doesn’t just happen in our world. It is the result of years of organizing, planning, and action. Here in my state, we still have so far to go toward economic, racial, gender and LGBTQ justice. And even though the way is uphill most of the time, there are those who are still preparing the way, straightening out crooked paths, leveling the ground, making the rough ways smoother, and working to remove the obstacles of justice.
One such example is Fairness West Virginia, which is working in local municipalities to expand each town’s nondiscrimination ordinances to include LGBTQ nondiscrimination. This work has been going on for over a decade now in the hope that one day we’ll have enough local municipalities with expanded ordinances that the step to make LGBTQ nondiscrimination statewide will be easy and seamless. There are many who still oppose this effort. Nonetheless, just last week another small town joined the work and expanded their nondiscrimination ordinances.
There are others at work, too, in many other issues and areas where justice is desperately needed here in Appalachia. But this is my point:
Even in the face of deep chaos and the many attempts to harm people, communities of justice are still present and at work. Communities of resistance formed last time we were here are still present and still at work. Yes, those at the helm of the mechanisms of injustice are more prepared this time and planning to hit the ground running the day after the inauguration. But we are still here and better prepared, too.
Look to the margins. Look to the wilderness. Look to the voices on the edges, and to the grassroots work being done in your local communities. When you become aware of an opportunity, don’t just sit back. Add your voice. Add your energy and whatever resources you can spare. Because the promise in our reading this week is even when we are faced with the most daunting of extraordinary challenges, we can choose for justice to have the last word. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways will be be made smooth. And all the people will see God’s salvation.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. Have you ever felt like you were in the wilderness? In what ways have you experienced healing change from the margins? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 39: Luke 3.1-6. Lectionary C, Advent 2
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 34: Salvation from the Margins
Luke 3:1-6
“This is the theological and political point of the “wilderness” in our narrative this week. Change, liberation, and social salvation has historically come from voices on the outside of unjust systems. It’s comes from the grassroots, the outside in and bottom up. Outside is where John shows up in our story. It’s where Jesus shows up in our story (cf. John 1:46). The wisdom for us as we rededicate our efforts to resistance and harm mitigation in the years to come is to look to the margins. Listen to the voices of those on the edges. Look for the good that is already happening in justice efforts on the margins and get with that! Throw your energy and solidarity alongside that! What work was taking place on the edges in this week’s story? Even in the face of deep harm and the social and economic devastation of vulnerable communities, a path for change was being prepared in the wilderness. The way was being smoothed out for justice’s arrival. In that first season of Advent, even when things looked most bleak, a way was being made out of no way on the margins. “
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/salvation-from-the-margins
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
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A Special Christmas Message
Herb Montgomery | December 23, 2022
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“This Christmas, let’s celebrate in the form of a life lived every day in harmony with the belief that when it comes to those pushed to the undersides and edges of our society, this baby lying in a manger grows up to be an advocate for them.”
wFrom all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, Merry Christmas!
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to their own town to register.)
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Most High appeared to them, and the glory of God shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; who is the Messiah, the Sovereign One. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Most High has told us about.”
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen the child, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about him, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. (Luke 2:1-20)
This reading of Jesus’s birth story begins with one of Luke’s unique narrative elements. In Matthew, Jesus was born under Herod’s reign. Herod died in 4 B.C.E., and the census referred to in our passage this week took place under Quirinius in 6 C.E., ten years after Herod’s death.
Remember, Matthew’s version of the Jesus story is based in Galilee, as seen in its closing chapter. Luke’s version of the Jesus story is Judean-based, and more specifically Jerusalem-based, as seen in both the closing chapters of Luke and the book of Acts. In Acts, the Jesus movement doesn’t return to Galilee but instead takes root in Jerusalem and grows from there. Luke’s burden is to tell a version of the Jesus story that takes on the oppression of the Roman empire, contrasts Jesus with Caesar, and raises up the imperial rule of Jesus’ YHWH (the basileia that is translated as “kingdom”) against the imperial rule of Rome.
From the very beginning of Luke, Jesus’s story is brought into conflict with Rome.
In Matthew, Jesus is from Nazareth (Galilee). In Luke, Jesus is from Bethlehem (Judea), the city of David. This detail would have brought to the minds of Luke’s audience Micah’s words:
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.” (Micah 5:2)
All of this, again, would have served the purpose of contrasting the imperial reign of the God of the Torah, which David’s kingship symbolized for many Jewish members of Luke’s audience, over and against the imperial rule of Rome.
In the first few chapters of Luke, Jesus’ movement isn’t characterized as the start of a new religion competing with or replacing Judaism, but rather it’s a Jewish renewal movement anticipating the liberation of Judea and surrounding Jewish regions from Rome.
The angel doesn’t appear to the ruling class or Jewish representatives of the empire in Jerusalem, but to rural shepherds, who we’d call “blue collar,” in the fields of Bethlehem.
Economically and socially, rural Judeans and Galileans living in agricultural villages were the people most negatively impacted by Roman imperialism. Families had to make hard decisions and often sacrificed their community bonds to survive. In these communities, indentured farmers and shepherds cultivated their own versions of the Israelite liberation traditions that had long inspired hope for liberation from oppressive rulers and renewed the Hebrew prophets’ calls for justice. (For more details on the social climate these shepherds lived in, see Richard A. Horsley’s Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder.)
Luke’s angelic announcement to shepherds has many layers to it. Not only did it narratively serve to link Jesus’ liberation with those most harmfully impacted by Roman imperialism, it also fits nicely with the language this week’s passage draws from Micah. Micah’s liberator would be a “shepherd-king”:
“Therefore Israel will be abandoned
until the time when she who is in labor bears a son,
and the rest of his brothers return
to join the Israelites.
He will stand and shepherd his flock
in the strength of the Most High,
in the majesty of the name of the Sovereign God.
And they will live securely, for then his greatness
will reach to the ends of the earth.
He will be our peace . . . he will rule . . . he will deliver . . .” (Micah 5:3-6, emphasis added.)
All of this associated Jesus with God’s imperial reign, which was symbolized by the restoration of David’s Kingdom. David was also a shepherd-king: his pre- coronation occupation was a shepherd.
Luke aligns Jesus and his liberation not with the centered and powerful, but with the marginalized and powerless rural communities being harmed most by the imperial rule of Rome.
There are so many similar layers to Luke’s version of the birth and infancy narratives of Jesus that it really is a narrative masterpiece when read through the lens of social justice.
There is no room for Jesus to be born that night in an inn or a bed. Instead he’s born in the marginalized stable out back. From that point forward, the story of this child marks a dramatic shift and hope for those marginalized in their society, including those marginalized and disenfranchised today.
Some of our more contemporary Christmas carols echo this theme. One example is “O Holy Night,” a carol whose lyrics Placide Cappeau wrote in 1843:
“Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.”
I know that many expressions of Christianity today have been and continue to be complicit with oppression. Others are not. But we have not always lived out the lyrics of this carol. Too often, Christians have been at the center of oppressions for vulnerable people: women, indigenous populations, slaves, the poor, and our LGBTQ friends and family.
This Christmas my heart longs for us to do better. Can we, today, find ways of following Jesus that genuinely do end oppression and come alongside others also working to end it. What does my Christianity need to look like to be life-giving to those presently being harmed? What differences do I need to choose for my Jesus-following to aid and help, to contribute rather than become an obstacle to the work of ending injustice, violence, and dehumanizing violations of everyone’s human rights? Will that carol ever ring true, that in Jesus’ name, all oppression will cease?
There is much to be thankful for this Christmas season, and I’m reminded once again that, in the spirit of a baby who was born in a manger, whose birth announcements were sent to blue-collar workers who were politically, socially, and economically marginalized, we’ll still have a lot of work to do in the coming year.
Here’s to a celebration of Jesus’ birth that doesn’t last just one day a year, or even just one season during the year, but rather celebrates him in the form of a life lived every day in harmony with the belief that when it comes to those pushed to the undersides and edges of our society, this baby lying in a manger grows up to be an advocate for them.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What does Jesus’ life, aligned with those on the undersides and margins of his society, mean for you? 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.
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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 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,
Merry Christmas,
I’ll see you in the new year.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
It’s finally here! 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, just in time for the holidays!
Here is just a taste of what people are saying:
“Herb has spent the last decade reading scripture closely. He also reads the world around us, thinks carefully with theologians and sociologists, and wonders how the most meaningful stories of his faith can inspire us to live with more heart, attention, and care for others in our time. For those who’ve ever felt alone in the process of applying the wisdom of Jesus to the world in which we live, Herb offers signposts for the journey and the reminder that this is not a journey we take alone. Read Finding Jesus with others, and be transformed together.” Dr. Keisha Mckenzie, Auburn University
“In Finding Jesus, Herb Montgomery unleashes the revolutionary Jesus and his kin-dom manifesto from the shackles of the domesticated religion of empire. Within these pages we discover that rather than being a fire insurance policy to keep good boys and girls out of hell, Jesus often becomes the fiery enemy of good boys and girls who refuse to bring economic justice to the poor, quality healthcare to the underserved, and equal employment to people of color or same-sex orientation. Because what the biblical narratives of Jesus reveal is that any future human society—heavenly or otherwise—will only be as good as the one that we’re making right here and now. There is no future tranquil city with streets of gold when there is suffering on the asphalt right outside our front door today. Finding Jesus invites us to pray ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ on our feet as we follow our this liberator into the magnificent struggle of bringing the love and justice of God to all—right here, right now.”—Todd Leonard, pastor of Glendale City Church, Glendale CA.
“Herb Montgomery’s teachings have been deeply influential to me. This book shares the story of how he came to view the teachings of Jesus through the lens of nonviolence, liberation for all, and a call to a shared table. It’s an important read, especially for those of us who come from backgrounds where the myth of redemptive violence and individual (rather than collective) salvation was the focus.” – Daneen Akers, author of Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints and co-director/producer of Seventh-Gay Adventists: A Film about Faith, Identity & Belonging
“So often Christians think about Jesus through the lens of Paul’s theology and don’t focus on the actual person and teachings of Jesus. This book is different. Here you find a challenging present-day application of Jesus’ teachings about the Kingdom of God and the Gospel. Rediscover why this Rabbi incited fear in the hearts of religious and political leaders two millennia ago. Herb’s book calls forth a moral vision based on the principles of Jesus’ vision of liberation. Finding Jesus helps us see that these teachings are just as disruptive today as they were when Jesus first articulated them.” Alicia Johnston, author of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
“Herb Montgomery is a pastor for pastors, a teacher for teachers and a scholar for scholars. Part memoir and part theological reflection, Finding Jesus is a helpful and hope-filled guide to a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and who he can be. Herb’s tone is accessible and welcoming, while also challenging and fresh. This book is helpful for anyone who wants a new and fresh perspective on following Jesus.”— Traci Smith, author of Faithful Families
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
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Advent as Too Political
End of Year Matching Donations!
2021 has been a year of big challenges. Doing ministry during an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought its share of change along with moments of heartwarming providence and blessings.
As this year is coming to a close, I’m deeply humbled and thankful for all of you who read, listen to, and share RHM’s work. I’m also grateful for the actions you have taken to make our world a safer, compassionate, just home for all. Thank you for being such an important part of our community, and for your continued support.
Thanks to a kind donor, who also believes in our work, we are able to extend matching donations through the end of month of December. All donation this month will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries, and the work we do, go twice as far.
Your support enables RHM to continue providing much needed resources to help Jesus-followers find the intersection between their faith and labors of love, compassion, and justice in our world today.
As 2021 ends, we invite you to consider making a donation to Renewed Heart Ministries to make the most of this very kind offer.
You can donate online by clicking online at renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
Thank you in advance for your continued support.
This coming year, together, we will continue being a voice for change.
Advent as Too Political
by Herb Montgomery | December 10, 2021
“If Jesus really did begin as a disciple of John, what was it about John’s preaching that resonated so deeply? Was it concern for what people were unjustly suffering within a system structured to benefit others at their expense? . . . How can we, as Jesus-followers during Advent season, continue John’s and Jesus’ work in our own settings today?”
This weekend is the third weekend of Advent. Our reading is:
John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” “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.” The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them. (Luke 3:7-18)
The followers of John the Baptist comprised a movement that preexisted the Jesus moment and co-existed alongside it for a time. They were quite a broad Jewish community (see Mark 1:5; 11:32; and Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 18:118-119). Most Jesus scholars today see Jesus’ and John’s movements as separate but related, perhaps with Jesus following John before launching out on his own (see Mark 1:14).
The gospel of John, the canonical gospel written last, goes to great lengths to portray Jesus and his movement as being superior to John’s, however, and there are differences between John’s movement and Jesus’, including differences on fasting and baptisms (see Mark 2:18; John 4:1-2).
This week, in the context of Advent, I’ll focus on the themes that John’s teachings and Jesus’ held in common.
To the crowds, John taught:
“Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
To tax collectors:
“Don’t collect any more than you are required to.”
To soldiers:
“Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”
In each of these instances, John reminds us of his own location: he’s not within the system of the temple-state we covered last week but a voice in the wilderness calling for social justice from outside. He’s standing within the Hebrew Prophetic tradition here. His concern is for justice to be practiced within his society because deeds prove social repentance is more than lip service. John demands that those who are exploiting others stop making them vulnerable.
Jesus made similar demands: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.” (Luke 12.33; cf. Luke 4:18; 6:20; 11:41; 18:22; 19:8)
John and Jesus were not itinerant preachers traveling the countryside, handing out tickets to a post mortem heaven as an escape from this world’s problems or a reward for religious purity. They were both itinerant prophets of the poor, deeply concerned not about a life hereafter but about the concrete realities of those suffering in the here and now.
In this light, and especially during the season of Advent, a Christianity that focuses on achieving entrance into heaven without regard for injustices being committed right now is out of harmony with the teachings of both John and Jesus.
For many Christians, it’s rare to speak out against real world injustice. I’ve bumped up against this disconnect myself. As I’ve spoken out against racism and White supremacy, patriarchy and misogyny, classism and predatory capitalism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and exclusion, for many years now, too often it’s my Christian friends who’ve told me that we are to be “not of this world” and that I was reading the Jesus story too “politically.”
By “too political,” my friends don’t mean that I was endorsing and promoting a certain political party or specific candidate. But in our highly charged environment, speaking out against harm being done to vulnerable communities is political. Jesus was also political in that he taught that the reign of God belonged to those the present system makes poor.
Both Jesus and John are religious in the sense that they both interpreted their religious commitment to the God of the Torah, but their teachings were also political, economic, and social as well. You can’t separate Jesus’ and John’s teachings along these hard lines or categories. If you begin with an understanding that God loves everyone, then any harm being done in the present to the objects of that love should be opposed. This is what we see happening in the lives and ministries of both John and Jesus. Speaking out got John beheaded. It got Jesus crucified.
I’m reminded of the words of the late Dr. James H. Cone in this regard:
“What has the gospel to do with the oppressed of the land and their struggle for liberation? Any theologian who fails to place that question at the center of his or her work has ignored the essence of the gospel.” (James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed, p. 9)
Whether speaking out against harm to vulnerable communities is political all depends on which communities you claim are being harmed. If, for example, I were saying that Christian religious freedoms are being limited by recognition of same-sex marriage, or that men are at risk because of the accusations of the Me Too movement, or that White folks were being harmed by the teaching of critical race theory, or, especially at this time of year, that Christmas itself was under attack, then I would probably be applauded. I wouldn’t be accused of being “too political.” I’m guessing I wouldn’t hear that as Christians “we are not of this world.”
The problem, then, isn’t that I’ve taken a side, but which side I’ve have taken. Have I taken the side of those who are losing their positions of privilege and power in a changing society, or have I, reading the Jesus story through the lens of oppressed people, chosen to speak out alongside communities that for too long have been crying out for justice and change? Social location matters. Which communities in which social locations have we chosen to speak out alongside?
This Advent season, may we stand in the spirit of John and Jesus, and carve out time to listen to those calling for justice and change in our day. May we make time to listen to Indigenous communities and immigrants; to trans, lesbian, gay and bisexual people; let’s listen to Black and Brown people; to women and religious minorities in our communities; and let’s listen to those who, economically, daily scratch and scrape to survive on the losing side of our economic games.
If Jesus really did begin as a disciple of John, what was it about John’s preaching that resonated so deeply? Was it concern for what people were unjustly suffering within a system structured to benefit others at their expense? Jesus repeated and enlarged these themes in his own life and teachings.
How can we, as Jesus-followers during Advent season, continue John’s and Jesus’ work in our own settings today?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How does Advent call you to focus on concrete forms of justice work in our society today? Discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
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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Advent, Hope, and Living on the Margins
[To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast click here.]
Herb Montgomery | December 3, 2021
“The gospel message here, and one of my favorite Advent themes, is that salvation, change, and liberation don’t come from the center of our societies, but from the margins. . . . Advent tells a liberation story that 2,000 years ago inspired hope in those who were being forced to live on their own society’s margins. Can it for us today?”
Our reading this week is from the Gospel of Luke:
“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all people will see God’s salvation.’ ” (Luke 3:1-6)
I love this week’s Advent reading for so many reasons.
The narrative has the “word of God” coming to John in an unusual location. John was a son of Zechariah the priest (Luke 1:5) and therefore, by lineage, he should not be in the wilderness acting like an ancient Hebrew prophet. He should have been occupying his place in the temple services, being a priest like his father. Instead, John rejected the path of working in the system or changing the system from the inside. I can imagine the struggle John might have gone through when he told his father that he wasn’t going to follow the family expectations and abandon a path toward priesthood for the margins of his society, the edges, and the wilderness.
The narrative’s contrast between the temple versus the wilderness resurrects a tension repeated by the Hebrew prophets: the centralized temple state and its priesthood versus those on the margins or edges of their society. The Hebrew prophets in the wilderness called for justice, for liberation, and for all violence against society’s vulnerable to cease.
This contrast takes on even more meaning when one realizes that one national myth of the Judean Temple-state was that Jerusalem and the Temple would eventually become the center of the world and all nations would flow to it. Consider these passages. All emphasis is added:
Psalms 2:6 “I have installed my king
on Zion, my holy mountain [the temple in Jerusalem].”
Psalms 14:7 Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! [Jerusalem and the Temple]
When the LORD restores his people,
let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad! (emphasis added)
Psalms 69:35-46- for God will save Zion [Jerusalem and the Temple]
and rebuild the cities of Judah.
Then people will settle there and possess it; the children of his servants will inherit it,
and those who love his name will dwell there.
Psalms 102:15-16 The nations will fear the name of the LORD,
all the kings of the earth will revere your glory.
For the LORD will rebuild Zion [Jerusalem and the Temple]
and appear in his glory.
He will respond to the prayer of the destitute;
he will not despise their plea.
Let this be written for a future generation,
that a people not yet created may praise the LORD:
“The LORD looked down from his sanctuary on high,
from heaven he viewed the earth,
to hear the groans of the prisoners
and release those condemned to death.”
So the name of the LORD will be declared in Zion [Jerusalem and the Temple]
and his praise in Jerusalem
when the peoples and the kingdoms
assemble to worship the LORD.
Isaiah 4:5- Then the LORD will create over all of Mount Zion [Jerusalem and the Temple] and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory will be a canopy.
Isaiah 18:7 At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD Almighty
from a people tall and smooth-skinned,
from a people feared far and wide,
an aggressive nation of strange speech,
whose land is divided by rivers—
the gifts will be brought to Mount Zion [Jerusalem and the Temple], the place of the Name of the LORD Almighty.
Isaiah 60:10-14 “Foreigners will rebuild your walls,
and their kings will serve you.
Though in anger I struck you,
in favor I will show you compassion.
Your gates will always stand open,
they will never be shut, day or night,
so that people may bring you the wealth of the nations—
their kings led in triumphal procession.
For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish;
it will be utterly ruined.
“The glory of Lebanon will come to you,
the juniper, the fir and the cypress together,
to adorn my sanctuary;
and I will glorify the place for my feet.
The children of your oppressors will come bowing before you;
all who despise you will bow down at your feet
and will call you the City of the LORD,
Zion of the Holy One of Israel. [Jerusalem and the Temple] (emphasis added)
In the gospels, John rejects all of this. He turns his back on the city and its temple and takes up residence along the margins or the wilderness of his own society. The gospel message here, and one of my favorite Advent themes, is that salvation, change, and liberation don’t come from the center of our societies, but from the margins.
In Say to This Mountain by Ched Myers, Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, and Stuart Taylor, the authors write,
“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 . . . Wilderness is the residue of war and greed and injustice.” (Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 11)
Advent begins by birthing hope within people who live in the wildernesses of their society: it tells them that their lived experience on the margins of any society is not the result of divine will but the result of social, political, economic and religious forces wielded by the privileged and the powerful in our communities.
Our reading from Luke this week also corrects a conflation of passages we first read in Mark’s gospel:
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.’ ” (Mark 1:1-3)
These words were not from the same source but from Exodus, Malachi, and Isaiah.
“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.” (Exodus 23:20)
I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty. (Malachi 3:1)
These words from Exodus speak of the liberation of Hebrew slaves and those from other groups who left Egypt with them. I question what the indigenous peoples of Canaan thought about this, given the history of how this same narrative was used against indigenous people here in America. We must be careful to remember that the liberation of one community should not mean the genocide of another.
The context of the passage from Malachi is God coming to God’s temple opposing “those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice” (Malachi 3:5). Because of this passage, I think of those today who must work more than 40 hours each week for less pay than they need to on .
Luke’s gospel drops these references to Exodus and Malachi and keep only the passage from Isaiah, though Luke will use the passage from Exodus and Malachi later in the Jesus story to refer to John:
“This is the one about whom it is written: ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.” (Luke 7:27)
The passage in Isaiah reads, “A voice of one calling: In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.”
Both John and Jesus emerge from the margins of their society and come to liberate oppressed people and restore justice to them. The gospels describe John as the forerunner for the reign of God that Jesus taught. Jesus came calling for change. But change doesn’t just happen.
Before any social change has ever taken place, years of groundwork has been laid. Many of those who did that initial ground work never lived long enough to see the fruit of their labor. They worked for a generation yet to come. Change doesn’t always take that long either: we can always choose change today.
But I think of changes taking place presently in the state of Georgia as just one example. The political changes we are witnessing in Georgia result from years of ground work by so many people including Stacey Abrams.
Changes today also depend on the work of generations who have gone before us. People chose to do the work they did not knowing for sure that change would come. They chose to live the kind of lives they lived because that was the type of people either they were and they refused to let the system shape them. They lived their life in a way that, even if they didn’t change the system, at least the system wouldn’t change them. Others did their work simply because it was the right thing to do. And still others labored because they hoped that one day, society would “reach the promised land” whether they were there to witness it or not.
This week’s reading includes two highly charged religious words: repentance and forgiveness.
If it helps, think of repentance as “thinking about things differently.” It’s much more about experiencing a paradigm shift than it is about the negative connotations religious abuse usually attaches to the term. Remember, too, that although contemporary Christianity often discusses forgiveness in the context of personal, individual morality, for the Hebrew prophets forgiveness and repentance sat in the context of calls for systemic justice and liberating a nation from injustice’s harmful effects. The Hebrew prophetic tradition speaks of sin as social injustice, repentance as turning away from that social injustice, and forgiveness as social restoration from that social injustice.
This is the context of John’s message that his listeners change their unjust ways for God’s reign. God’s just future was near.
I think of our society now. I think of LGBTQ justice work, racial justice work, and justice work for women. I think of economic justice for those our system pushes into poverty. I think of indigenous justice, and climate justice. So many justice movements are presently engaging our world, seeking to make it a safer, compassionate, just home for everyone.
During this Advent season, I also think of the Jesus story, not as only a Christian story to celebrate at Christmas time, but as a liberation story that 2,000 years ago inspired hope in those who were being forced to live on their own society’s margins.
What does Advent have to say to those living on the margins in our world today?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How does Advent speak of liberation for you? 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.
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
End of Year Matching Donations!
2021 has been a year of big challenges. Doing ministry during an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought its share of change along with moments of heartwarming providence and blessings.
As this year is coming to a close, I’m deeply humbled and thankful for all of you who read, listen to, and share RHM’s work. I’m also grateful for the actions you have taken to make our world a safer, compassionate, just home for all. Thank you for being such an important part of our community, and for your continued support.
Thanks to a kind donor, who also believes in our work, we are able to extend matching donations through the end of month of December. All donation this month will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries, and the work we do, go twice as far.
Your support enables RHM to continue providing much needed resources to help Jesus-followers find the intersection between their faith and labors of love, compassion, and justice in our world today.
As 2021 ends, we invite you to consider making a donation to Renewed Heart Ministries to make the most of this very kind offer.
You can donate online by clicking online at renewedheartministries.com and clicking “Donate.”
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
Thank you in advance for your continued support.
This coming year, together, we will continue being a voice for change.
JESUS FROM THE EDGES
Herb Montgomery | August 10, 2018
“These societal structures all function based on the variables of race, gender, sexuality, gender identity and expression, current economic status, ability, age, education, ethnicity, religion, criminal record, and more . . . What does it mean for a Jesus follower to take seriously Jesus’ solidarity with those relegated to the margins and/or undersides of his society?”
“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call [those you call] righteous, but [those you call] sinners.” (Matthew 9:13)
In previous series, we have discussed how people in Jesus’ society used the labels of “righteous” or “sinner” to politically, socially, economically, and religiously gain power and privilege for themselves or to marginalize and exploit those who were vulnerable. (You can review this in The Lost Coin and Solidarity with the Crucified Community.) This week I want to build on this idea.
In that society, how well a person conformed to popular interpretations of the Torah determined where they fell on al spectrum between righteous/sinner or clean/unclean. The more righteous or “pure” one was deemed to be, the more their society centered them. They were more privileged. They had power. They were the elite.
Two groups in the Sanhedrin that competed for power were the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The Sadducees interpreted the Torah more conservatively than the Pharisees. This made conforming to their interpretation much more difficult. In many cases, their definition of “righteous” was only viable for those who had the economic means to conform, i.e. those with money who could afford to live the way the Sadducees deemed pure. This ensured that the Sadducees remained in power under the guise of fidelity to the Torah.
The second group, the Pharisees , was much more liberal in interpreting the Torah. This made them much more popular with the masses. Under the Pharisees’ teaching, it was easier to be righteous and avoid being labeled a sinner and thus marginalized. The Pharisees were the popular interpreters of the “teachings of Moses.” Being favored by the majority of the people gave them social power, yet they also preserved their position as the ones who set the standard of “clean” and “unclean.”
This was a social, political, economic and religious system that produced winners and losers. In this context, an itinerant Jewish teacher from Galilee named Jesus emerged. He stood apart from both schools of interpretation and came preaching a gospel where the “kingdom” belonged to those left out of both the Sadducees’ and Pharisees’ determination of who was righteous. With this in mind, read carefully the following passages.
Luke 5:30—“But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’”
Matthew 9:13—“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Luke 14:13—“But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind . . .”
Matthew 11:19—“The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
Mark 2:15-16—“While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Luke 19:7—“All the people saw this and began to mutter, ‘He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
Today in the U.S., our system creates winners and losers, too. Politically, we also have two parties that compete for popular approval while gaining power in a system that still privileges the elites. Economically, our system produces enormous wealth disparity, with those who “have not” being the natural result of creating those who “have.” Socially and religiously, we have complex systems that create an us versus them worldview and label those who are in and those who are out.
These societal structures all function based on the variables of race, gender, sexuality, gender identity and expression, current economic status, ability, age, education, ethnicity, religion, criminal record, and more. Our interconnectedness, our part-of-one-another is continually ignored. Rather than seeing every person’s differences as a testament to the rich variety we possess as a human family, we use these differences to “other” in ways that label some as “righteous” and others as “sinner.” Those of us whose differences place them in a minority category are still members of the human race, and still part of us.
What does it mean for a Jesus follower to take seriously Jesus’ solidarity with those relegated to the margins and/or undersides of his society? How can we live out that kind of solidarity in our context today? What does it mean to stand and work alongside those who are pushed to the edges of our society?
In the 1960s and 1970s, Christians developed a keen awareness of Jesus’ solidarity with those labeled as outsiders, oppressed, marginalized and/or exploited. This emergence was global. In South America, Latin Liberation theology was born. In North America, other liberation theologies, such as Black Liberation theology, Feminist theology, Amerindian theology, womanist theology, and queer theology arose. In the east, Asian theologies of liberation were born. Gustavo Gutierrez comments on the importance of this rising consciousness.
“Black, Hispanic, and Amerindian theologies in the United States, theologies arising in the complex contexts of Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific, and the especially fruitful thinking of those who have adopted the feminist perspective—all these have meant that for the first time in many centuries theology is being done outside the customary European and North American centers. The result in the so-called First World has been a new kind of dialogue between traditional thinking and new thinking. In addition, outside the Christian sphere efforts are underway to develop liberation theologies from Jewish and Muslim perspectives. We are thus in the presence of a complex phenomenon developing on every side and representing a great treasure for the Christian churches and for their dialogue with other religions. The clarification I mentioned earlier is thus not limited to the Latin American context but affects a process and a search that are being conducted on a very broad front today. These considerations should not make us forget, however, that we are not dealing here solely with an intellectual pursuit. Behind liberation theology are Christian communities, religious groups, and peoples, who are becoming increasingly conscious that the oppression and neglect from which they suffer are incompatible with their faith in Jesus Christ (or, speaking more generally, with their religious faith). These concrete, real-life movements are what give this theology its distinctive character; in liberation theology, faith and life are inseparable. This unity accounts for its prophetic vigor and its potentialities. (Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation [15th Anniversary Edition])
Womanist scholar and theologian Jacquelyn Grant comments, “Theology as developed in Europe and America is limited when it approaches the majority of human beings… nns Liberation theologies including Christian feminists, charge that the experience out of which Christian theology has emerged is not universal experience but the experience of the dominant culture . . . liberationists therefore, propose that theology must emerge out of particular experiences of the oppressed people of God.” (in White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus, pp. 1, 10)
Making space for these voices and attending to their insights is so very important. Here at Renewed Heart Ministries we believe that the teachings of Jesus —a 1st Century Jewish prophet of the poor from Galilee—can still speak into and inform our work of survival, resistance, liberation, reparation and transformation today. For that to be life giving, we must consider those teachings through the lens of the experiences of the people Jesus would have been addressing if he were walking among us today. As Ched Myers states in Binding the Strong Man, “The fact remains that those on the peripheries will have ‘eyes to see’ many things that those at the center do not.”
From the experiences of those now in a social location similar to the social location of those Jesus taught we can see how those teachings help us in our work of making our world a safe, just, compassionate home for everyone. As someone who has been engaged in ministry for over twenty years, these perspectives, voices, stories of people fighting to reclaim their humanity in the context of their faith traditions have been the key to helping me rediscover and reclaim my own humanity as well. I resonate deeply with the words of Aboriginal elder Lilla Watson, “If you have come to help me, please go home. But if you have come because your liberation is somehow bound with mine, then we may work together.” I don’t work alongside communities working for survival and liberation out of charity. It is beside them that I rediscover my own humanity, too.
If one is new to these perspectives, where does one start? One place to begin is by exposing yourself to the writings and works of those who belong to these communities. An easy way to do this is to follow our yearly reading course at RHM. We announce each month’s book at the beginning of each month. You can sign up to be notified of each month’s book by signing up for our weekly news and eSights emails here. The point is not so much where one begins as it is to simply begin. One resource will lead you to another, and over time, you’ll see the difference these voices make to you.
Jesus did not call those who the status quo places “first.” He instead stood alongside those his culture relegated to “last” place (see Matthew 20:8-16). He came not calling the insiders, but the people those in power had labeled as “sinners.”
What does it look like for us to do the same in our time?
“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call [those you call] righteous, but [those you call] sinners.” (Matthew 9:13)
HeartGroup Application
- Pick a book from our book list at RHM that you as a group can read and discus together.
- Read a chapter a week and determine a time each week you can meeting to discuss together what you have read.
- Discuss how you can put what you’ve read each week into practice and do so.
I’m so glad you checked in with us, this week. Wherever you are today, keep living in love, survival, resistance, liberation, reparation and transformation. Till the only world that remains is a world where only love reigns.
Another world is possible.
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
To support these podcasts and weekly eSight articles, go to www.renewedheartministries.com and click “donate.”
The Exalted Humbled and the Humble Exalted
by Herb Montgomery
“There is a vast difference between the kind of pride that exalts self over others as if you were the normal or ideal and others were somehow less than, and the kind of pride that rejects the social shame others have tried to impose on you for being different. Pride that simply lifts oneself to a place of equality with others is not a sin!”
Featured Text:
“Everyone exalting oneself will be humbled, and the one humbling oneself will be exalted.” (Q 14:11)
Companion Texts:
Matthew 23:12: “For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Luke 14:11: “For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Purity Circles
This week we once again face one of Jesus’ sayings that we must be careful not to apply to everyone. Jesus specifically pointed the saying at those who had lifted themselves up to be above their peers.
In Matthew’s story of Jesus, this saying is in the context of Matthew’s critique of the scribes and the Pharisees. A little background will help us understand.
In The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology, Bruce Malina tells us how the purity cultures of the ancient world like the Hebrew tradition gave their members a sense of order from the chaos of the material world around us.
“Specifically about the general cultural map of social time and space, about arrangements wishing the space thus defined, and especially about the boundaries separating the inside from the outside. The unclean or impure is something that does not fit the space in which it is found, that belongs elsewhere, that causes confusion in the arrangement of the generally accepted social map because it overruns boundaries.” (p. 125)
Notions of ritual cleanness or uncleanness were connected to a sense of belonging: in certain communities, well-defined boundaries marked insiders from outsiders. Within such cultures there was also a spectrum of cleanness. The greater your ability to remain clean, the purer you were. The opposite was also true. These notions of purity were not simply religious; they were but also social, economic, and political.
Think of a circle for a moment. If the circle represented the community, the purer you were, the closer you were to the center of the circle. The more unclean you were, the more you were pushed to the edges or margins. And guess who made the decisions for the group as a whole? You guessed it: those at the center. Those closer to the center had greater political, economic, and societal control. They maintained the status quo, a status quo that benefitted and privileged those at the center over those on the edges.
William Herzog once commented on the political struggle for the center in 1st Century Jewish society. His thoughts shed insight on why Matthew would have included this week’s saying.
“According to Leviticus 11:38 if water is poured upon seed it becomes unclean. [Think if you’ve ever had seeds ruined by rain water while they were still in their envelopes.] The passage, however, does not distinguish between seed planted in the soil and seed detached from the soil . . . In years of poor harvests, a frequent occurrence owing to poor soil, drought, warfare, locust plagues and poor methods of farming, this text was a source of dispute. Why? During such lean years, grain was imported from Egypt. But the Egyptians irrigated their fields (putting water on seed) so that their grain was suspect, perhaps even unclean. The Sadducees judged that such grain was unclean and anyone consuming it also became unclean. They were quite willing to pay skyrocketing prices commanded by scarce domestic grain because they could afford it. . . . One senses economic advance being sanctioned, since the Sadducees were often the large landowners whose crops increased in value during such times. By contrast the Pharisees argued that the Pentateuchal ordinance applied only to seed detached from the soil; therefore . . . one could be observant and still purchase Egyptian grain.” (in Ched Myers’ Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, p. 76)
The Pharisees were the religious teachers of the masses, while the Sadducees were the elites who desired above all else to maintain their control on society. The Pharisees appeared to want to make purity more accessible to the masses, so in that context, they were considered the “liberals” while the Sadducees were the “conservatives.” Yet they were not really concerned with empowering the masses, but with placing power in their own hands, a power that the masses would legitimize. They did not dismantle the system; they only sought to co-opt it and hold the socio-political power and a populous base over the Sadducee elites in Jerusalem.
On the contrary, Jesus wanted to, proverbially, “burn the whole system down.” He repeatedly transgressed purity boundaries, bringing in those who had been pushed down and to the margins of his culture. He didn’t do this because he was anti-Jewish or anti-Torah. I believe he did this because he saw the purity model of societal order as deeply damaging to those of his Jewish siblings who were forced by those at the center to live on society’s fringes and edges.
In our saying this week, we see a Jesus who challenged and subverted the model of organizing society as a purity circle with insiders and outsiders. Jesus challenged this way of organizing society not just with his words, but also with his table, body, and temple/synagogue practices in the gospels.
We’ll come back to this in a moment.
Tax Collector Versus Pharisee
Matthew describes a horizontal model, a circle, Luke uses a vertical image: a pyramid. The circle has a center and margins, but a pyramid has a few at the top who wield control or power over the masses below them. The lower one goes in a social pyramid, the greater the number of people and the less those people have any say about the world in which they live.
Luke places our saying this week in the context of a story about a Pharisee and a tax collector. Both of these groups were closer to the top of Jesus’ social, economic, and political pyramid. Both were typically well-to-do financially. But where one of these groups responded positively to Jesus’s teachings, the other did not. As we have already discussed, Sayings Gospel Q 7:23-30 includes the statement, “For John came to you. The tax collectors responded positively, but the religious authorities rejected him.” Luke adds this parable:
“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
In Luke’s telling of the story, “The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus” and his economic vision (Luke 16:14). By contrast, the hated tax-collector responded, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (Luke 19:8).
The tax-collectors were the last ones expected to respond to Jesus’ economic teachings of mutual aid and wealth redistribution. Yet they came to Jesus’s shared table, while others did not, and Jesus welcomed them (see Luke 15:1-2).
In Luke, the Pharisees continued to compete with the temple elite for the exalted position of political control over the masses while the tax-collectors humbled themselves and embraced a world where there is enough for everyone. I’m sure there were exceptions; stories are often told with generalizations. What remains is the truth that when we seek to exalt ourselves over others, it leads to disastrous results for everyone.
How Not To Use This Passage
There is a difference between someone at the center or top of a group having their self-exaltation challenged, and those on the periphery and bottom working to lift themselves up to a equitable shared position. Let me explain.
I just finished reading Carol Anderson’s book White Rage. Over and over it recounted the history of how whiteness and structural racism have functioned in American society to impede social progress upward or toward the center for people of color. Sayings like ours this week have been aimed at people of color to try and silence or shame their efforts at equality.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough that there is a difference between those who would exalt themselves over others and those who simply are seeking to lift themselves up to level ground. One group seeks to maintain an unjust status quo, and the other simply works toward equality. Our saying this week is not about those lifting themselves up toward equality. It’s about those who continually impede their work, who have exalted themselves over others, who are called to humility, equity and solidarity with those lower or on the periphery.
This month I also was blessed to be able to participate with SDA Kinship International in D.C.’s Capital Pride parade. June is Pride month for the LGBTQ community. It is also a month when I see a lot of Evangelical Christians critiquing the idea of “pride” itself. “Pride is a sin!” they say. And they quote our saying this week, “Everyone exalting oneself will be humbled, and the one humbling oneself will be exalted.”
But social location matters. There is a vast difference between the kind of pride that exalts self over others as if you were the normal or ideal and others were somehow less than (think heterosexism) and the kind of pride that rejects the social shame others have tried to impose on you for being different. Pride that simply lifts oneself to a place of equality with others is not a sin! And our saying this week isn’t critiquing that kind of pride.
If a person is already being shamed and humiliated, they don’t need to humble themselves further. They are already experiencing humiliation from those who endeavor to marginalize them and their voices. Those who really need to humble themselves in that situation are those who think that just because someone is different they are broken or less than.
There was a time when those who were left-handed were considered less than, too. We don’t know why some are born one way and others are born another, but these differences do exist. Jesus subverted systems that push people to the margins or undersides of society, and that should challenge any Christian who believes cisgender heterosexuals are the ideal and all other people should stay on the margins of society. It is for them that this saying was given. They are the ones our saying this week is speaking to.
I’ve been reading Ched Myers’ book Binding the Strongman: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus. I’m enjoying it immensely. It has been quite affirming and confirming for me personally, and I recommend the book highly if you have not read it. In the introduction, which I quoted from earlier, Ched shows how social pyramids and circles functioned in Jesus’ day and how they call those of us who want to follow Jesus to challenge similar models today.
These two statements resonated deeply inside me this week:
“White North American Christians, especially those of us from the privileged strata of society, must come to terms with the fact that our reading site for the Gospel of Mark is empire, locus imperium . . . The ‘irreducible meaning’ of empire is the geopolitical control of the peripheries by the center . . . the fact remains that those on the peripheries will have ‘eyes to see’ many things that those of us at the center do not.”
And
“The ancient Mediterranean world was dominated by the rule of imperial Rome [center]. However, whereas I read from the center, Mark wrote from the Palestinian periphery. His primary audience [was] those whose daily lives bore the exploitative weight of colonialism, whereas mine [is] those who are in a position of enjoy the privileges of the colonizer. In this sense, Third World liberation theologians, who today also write from the perspective of the collided periphery have the advantage of a certain ‘affinity of site’ in their reading of the Gospels.”
Whether we use the vertical model of a pyramid where the few at the top control everyone beneath them, or the horizontal model of a circle where those closer to the center have control of the body, our saying this week offers a critique and warning to all who push others from a position of input and influence to the margins, edges, or periphery:
Everyone exalting oneself will be humbled, and the one humbling oneself will be exalted. (Q 14:11)
HeartGroup Application
Jesus sought to change the way communities were organized. Where there were pyramids with people on top and closed circles with people outside, Jesus sought to form a shared table.
So this week I want you to do something a little different. Each of you, take time to listen to a presentation I gave in the fall of 2015 in southern California entitled, A Shared Table.
Then after listening,
- Discuss your responses together as a group.
- Brainstorm how your group can become more of a shared table experience rather than in a pyramid or closed circle. Write these strategies out.
- Pick something from what you’ve written and put it into practice this week.
Something that may be helpful to you in your brainstorming is our newly updated HeartGroups page.
Together we can make choices that continue to transform our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone. The teachings of Jesus don’t call us to escape from a hostile world. Radical discipleship, radical Jesus-following, calls us to engage the world so that it becomes a less hostile place. In the words of Sam Wells, “The one thing everyone seems to agree on today is that there’s plenty wrong with the world. There are only two responses to this—either go and put it right yourself, or, if you can’t, make life pretty uncomfortable for those who can until they do. When we take stock of our relationship with the powerful, we ask ourselves, ‘Does the shape of my life reflect my longing to see God set people free, and do I challenge those who keep others in slavery?’” (in Binding the Strong Man: a political reading of Mark’s story of Jesus by Ched Myers)
Remember, we are in this together. We are each other’s fate.
Also remember to check out our new 500:25:1 project at http://bit.ly/RHM500251. There you can find out more about why we’re launching weekend events around the country, how you can help to make these events happen, and, best of all, how you can have us come and teach in your area.
Thanks for checking in with us this week!
Wherever this finds you, keep living in love, survival, resistance, liberation, restoration, transformation and thriving! Till the only world that remains is a world where only love reigns.
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
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