Not Spiritualizing the Material
Thank You!
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Herb Montgomery, August 3, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our gospel reading from this lectionary this weekend is from the gospel of John:
Once the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus.
When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”
Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?”
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”
Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
“Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:24-35)
The gospel of John, the Johannine community’s version of the Jesus story, became a text during the second generation of Jesus followers who honored John’s apostleship. This makes it the latest gospel to be written in our scriptural canon. The Johannine community was not distanced from the original Jesus movement’s Jewish roots but the social location of the Jesus movement and Jesus followers had largely changed. Early Jesus followers were largely illiterate and practiced an oral tradition. Being able to read and even write was a privilege that only belonged to the wealthy. So the fact that the Jesus story began being put into written form tells us that wealthy Jesus followers had joined the movement. Many still only heard that story read to them each weekend, but that fact that a house church movement possessed people who could both write down the Jesus story and read it to the congregation demonstrated that the community was changing.
One of the many unique elements we encounter in the gospel of John and not in the other three gospels, is its tendency to convert material things into spiritual ones, and to then emphasize the spiritual as so much more important. This tendency is why so many Jesus scholars associate John’s gospel with early Christian gnosticism. (The patristic church father Iraneaus also associated the gospel of John with the gnostics in his Against Heresies.)
Being so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good means being focused on eternal bliss and the afterlife to the exclusion of being engaged, right now, in what people are materially experiencing in their concrete lives. It means being focused on saving souls while ignoring the suffering bodies. Over and over again in Christian history, this has produced destructive and death dealing fruit.
In one of James Cone’s final books, he warns of emphasizing the spiritual over the material.
And yet the Christian gospel is more than a transcendent reality, more than “going to heaven when I die, to shout salvation as I fly.” It is also an immanent reality—a powerful liberating presence among the poor right now in their midst, “building them up where they are torn down and propping them up on every leaning side.” The gospel is found wherever poor people struggle for justice, fighting for their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Bee Jenkins’s claims that “Jesus won’t fail you” was made in the heat of the struggle for civil rights in Mississippi, and such faith gave her strength and courage to fight for justice against overwhelming odds. Without concrete signs of divine presence in the lives of the poor, the gospel becomes simply an opiate; rather than liberating the powerless from humiliation and suffering, the gospel becomes a drug that helps them adjust to this world by looking for “pie in the sky.” (James H. Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, p. 155)
In the gospel of John, we encounter a version of the Jesus story where Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”
We need to hold this in tension with the versions of Jesus we encounter in the other canonical gospels. In those gospels we encounter a Jesus who wants his followers to work for and pray for our material world to match the heavenly world:
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)
We encounter a Jesus who holds up the material, concrete, and not spiritualized liberation that people were experiencing as a result of his work and that testified of his legitimacy:
“The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Matthew 11:5)
Our daily bread wasn’t spiritualized. That every person would be able to have and eat their actual, material, daily bread was something his followers were to work and pray for:
“Give us today our daily bread.” (Matthew 6:11)
Not spiritualizing but alleviating people’s material suffering was also lifted up as the litmus test in these gospels’ descriptions of a final judgement:
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me . . . for whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:34-40)
Caring about our and others’ material needs, especially others who were oppressed, was rooted in the tradition of the Hebrew prophets:
“If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” (Isaiah 58:10)
Again, the picture of a God who was concerned with supplying people’s material needs rather than spiritualizing them away is rooted in the soil of the Jewish wisdom that the Jesus movement grew out of:
“He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry.” (Psalm 146:7)
And when we consider the early Jesus movement located in Jerusalem as contrasted with the Jesus moment of the Johannine community two generations later, we see resource-sharing, mutual aid, as well as hunger and poverty elimination as a central characteristic of how the early movement followed Jesus:
“With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.”(Acts 4:33-35)
Outside of the gospels, my favorite New Testament book is the book of James. Here too we see the material contrasted with the spiritual. But James explains that if we focus on the spiritual to the exclusion of the material, it makes our focus on spiritual realities absolutely no good.
“Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?” (James 2:15-16)
What can we take away from this? Today, some Christians contrast saving souls with the work of social justice. There is no reason to pit the saving of souls against social justice work. Saving bodies is just as much a part of the Jesus tradition as savings souls is. In fact, in the synoptic gospels, social justice is a requirement for genuinely following Jesus. How is social justice still a requirement for you?
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How is social justice engagement a part of your Jesus following? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 23: John 6.24-35. Lectionary B, Proper 13
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out at:
https://youtu.be/bE8gDo-xEVk?si=wIN4tbmpOquEAfKM
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 16: Not Spiritualizing the Material
John 6:24-35
“There is no reason to pit the saving of souls against social justice work. Saving bodies is just as much a part of the Jesus tradition as savings souls is. In fact, in the synoptic gospels, social justice engagement is a requirement for genuinely following Jesus.”
Available on all major podcast carriers,
Or at this link:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/not-spiritualizing-the-material
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
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Reuniting the Material and the Spiritual
Thank You!
A sharp drop in giving is hurting nonprofits everywhere. Religious charities and small nonprofits are suffering the most from a historic dip in philanthropic giving presently in the U.S. We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Herb Montgomery, May 24, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading from the gospels this coming weekend is from the gospel of John.
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:1-17)
If we are going to reunite the material and the spiritual, we need to understand how they became separated in the first place. In our reading this week, we encounter what scholars today describe as early Christian proto-Gnosticism. Jewish Gnosticism predates Christian Gnosticism although clear divisions between the two continue to be difficult (See Gnosticism).
Christian Gnosticism, like other forms of Gnosticism, promoted a dualistic way of understanding our experiences as flesh and spirit. Pharisaic Judaism was predominantly holistic, placing significance on our material existence along with other ways of describing how we exist in our world. The synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are all rooted in this Jewish holistic way of understanding ourselves. The synoptic gospels are deeply concerned not just with people’s spiritual needs but with their concrete, physical, and material needs as well (see Mark 2:8-11).
In our reading this week, we also see tensions that existed between the proto-gnostic, Johannine community and the Pharisees in Judaism at that time.
“Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?”
The division pointed to here between the Johannine community and the Pharisees was not unique. Pharisees would have opposed Jewish forms of Gnosticism, just as much they opposed Christian ones.
In harmony with the Gnostics’ definition of salvation as having secret knowledge, Nicodemus stands for someone on the inside of the Pharisees’ community who secretly followed the Johannine Jesus. Nicodemus is mentioned three times in John’s gospel and each time he’s represented as a covert Jesus follower:
Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?” They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.” (John 7:50-52)
Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. (John 19:38-41)
The conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in this week’s reading centers around distinguishing between what is born of the flesh and what is born of the spirit. This division between the flesh and the spirit, between the physical, material world and the spiritual has born seriously destructive fruit throughout Christianity.
Recently I have been reminded of what Fredrick Douglass wrote about the fruit of these kinds of divisions. If we see the ethics and teachings of the Jesus story as only applying to our spiritual dimensions and not also to our material existence, we can too often slide into contradictions between what we believe spiritually and what we practice materially.
In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Douglass writes:
“Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of “stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.” I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which everywhere surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunderers for church members. The man who wields the blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday, and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly Jesus. The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation. He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity. He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me. He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence.” (Frederick Douglass, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave.)
Some may deem Douglass’ experience an extreme example of the disconnect between material and spiritual worlds. I can’t help but think of the Inquisition, the Crusades, colonial Christianity’s treatment of Indigenous populations, and more. Even today, many Christians have an impossible time applying even the simplest golden rule ethic to the United States’ predatory capitalist economic system. We too distinguish between the spiritual and material.
But what would happen if we took seriously the Jewish Jesus of the synoptic gospels who saw the Divine as concerned about our material everyday lives materially and how his society was shaped to harm those on its margins. This Jesus didn’t traverse the countryside of Galilee to get people to say a special prayer so they could spiritually escape now and experience postmortem bliss later. The synoptic Jesus worked to bring about justice as a manifestation of God’s will being done, “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). This Jesus sought to affect people’s physical realities as a source of healing, life, and liberation, and modeled salvation as relating to one’s spiritual wellbeing and material liberation as well.
The Jesus we see in the other gospels did not separate the spiritual from the fleshly or material. He taught his followers how to navigate their material world by loving their neighbor as a part of themselves (Luke 10:25-37) and relating to those our societies deems “the least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46). The Jesus of the synoptics announces the arrival of the reign of God in our material world and invites all to be a part of it. He rights injustice, ends oppression, and offers healing alternatives to violence. This Jewish Jesus did not separate the spiritual and material to offer a path of escape from the material world around us. Rather he taught his followers how to lean into the material world in life-giving ways, to bring healing to themselves and those around them, and to shape our material world into a safe, compassionate, just home for all.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. In what ways do you believe the material needs reuniting with the spiritual again in our Christian practice today? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
If you would like to listen to these articles each week in podcast form, you can find The Social Jesus podcast on all major podcast carriers. If you enjoy listening to The Social Jesus Podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if your podcast platform offers this option, consider taking some time to leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 2, Episode 14: John 3.1-17. Lectionary B, Proper 3 (Trinity Sunday)
Reuniting the Material and the Spiritual
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at:
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 7: Reuniting the Material and the Spiritual
John 3:1-17
“This division between the flesh and the spirit, between the physical, material world and the spiritual has born seriously destructive fruit throughout Christianity. The Jesus in the synoptic gospels did not separate the spiritual from the fleshly or material. He taught his followers how to navigate their material world by righting injustice, ending oppression, and offering healing alternatives to violence. That Jewish Jesus did not separate the spiritual and material to offer a path of escape from the material world. Rather he taught his followers how to lean into their material world in life-giving ways.”
Available on all major podcast carriers.
Or at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/reuniting-the-material-and-the-spiritual
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Obeying What Jesus Taught
This Week’s Episode of Just Talking Available on YouTube
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 1, Episode 16: Matthew 28.16-20. Lectionary A, Proper 4, Trinity Sunday
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at https://youtu.be/fW1lToP8HQ0
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Herb Montgomery | June 2, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“This is a path where we take responsibility for making sure everyone is taken care of and that each person has enough to thrive. No one has too much while others don’t have enough. It’s a path toward making our world a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20)
Many people refer to our reading this week as the great commission. There are other commission stories in other versions of the Jesus story, in Luke 24:47-48, Acts 1:8, and John 20:22-23, which we’ve read recently. Each commission is unique, and original to each gospel. Each commission also reflects the concerns and situations of the communities for which these gospels were written.
While the Matthean community may have been passionate about spreading Jesus’ ethical teachings and inviting others throughout the entire world to follow them, we must be honest about how this passage has been coopted in Christianity and how Christian complicity with and participation in colonialism that has harmed Indigenous populations around the globe. Christian missions today, when coupled with the economic goals of global capitalism, still do much harm. Historically, Christian missions have served to spread European or Western values, erase Indigenous cultures, and enlarge the territories of Christian empires. So many Indigenous lives hae been negatively impacted or lost. This seems to me to contradict many of the ethics of the Jesus story, ethics like the Golden Rule, loving one’s neighbor as yourself, and sharing resources rather than exploiting them.
This passage in Matthew also seems arrogant. Let me explain. I understand why the disciples thought the teachings of Jesus had changed their lives for the better. I also understand how Jesus and his teachings represented something beautifully novel to them, something that had impacted their own lives in immeasurably positive ways. This excitement can easily translate into feeling like you have something to share with everyone else and assuming they don’t know what you have just learned.
But my guess is that if the Matthean community had been humble enough to listen to others, they would have soon discovered that Jesus’ teachings contained universal truths that other communities outside of Galilean Judaism already also practiced. The disciples’ feelings of exceptionalism, possibly influenced by the exceptionalism found in some sectors of their own tradition, were compounded by their feelings of exceptionalism from being a follower of Jesus.
To be clear, Jesus’ teachings were good news! The ethics and values in the Jesus story had the potential to change the world of others in the same positive way they had changed the disciples. It just seems to me that Jesus’ story can encourage us to listen and learn from others rather than first show up in their worlds to teach them something. Change is a two way street, and those we meet, share with, and listen to leave us forever changed as well.
As a Jesus follower, I often bump into wisdom in other traditions that I feel resonance with. What has moved me about Jesus resonates with the wisdom I find already present in the lives of others. Sometimes their wisdom challenges me to rethink my own ways of considering our world. Sometimes it confirms wisdom I already possessed. And sometimes, I have something to give to them. But it is an exchange of ideas, a practice of listening and learning alongside any sharing we may do that leaves all parties positively impacted for having had their paths cross.
One way we can redeem our reading this week from the way it has been harmfully used through Christian history is that the passages speaks of making disciples, not believers: followers not merely worshipers. It speaks of obeying in our lives everything Jesus had commanded his followers to do. This is not merely religious obedience that merits one a seat in some mystical post-mortem non-smoking section, but a social, political, and economic obedience that has the potential to set our communities on a life-giving path in the here and now. This is a path where we take responsibility for making sure everyone is taken care of and that each person has enough to thrive. No one has too much while others don’t have enough. It’s a path toward making our world a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone, a home where everyone has a place to rest securely and grow and not be afraid.
What are some of these commands that Matthew’s Jesus tells us to obey? The lion share of them are found in Jesus’ sermon on the mount, the centerpiece of Mathew’s gospel. In this sermon we find commands such as:
“Let your light shine before others.”
“If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.”
“Settle matters quickly with your adversary”
“Do not swear an oath at all . . . All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.”
“If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.”
“If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.
“If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.”
“Give to the one who asks you.” (cf. Matthew 19:21, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.”)
“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.”
“When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray.”
“Forgive other people.”
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth . . . You cannot serve both God and money.”
“Do not worry about your life.”
“Seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness (i.e. justice.)”
“Do not judge.”
“In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
“Enter through the narrow gate.”
“Watch out for false prophets . . . By their fruit you will recognize them.”
“Hear these words of mine and put them into practice.” (Matthew 6-7)
And these are just a few. Yet there is enough here already for us to wrestle with. Interpretations of these teachings can also be life-giving or death-dealing. It’s important to listen and learn. We can let go of past interpretations that have proven harmful and we can embrace that are more healthy.
But the Jesus who taught these teachings is the Jesus who the Matthean community was so excited to share with others. As stated at the end of Jesus’ sermon on the mount, “When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching” (Matthew 7:28).
I used to practice a kind of Christianity that focused on themes that the Jesus of the gospels was never passionate about. The values and ethics that the Jesus in the stories was passionate about were things I never focused on. I didn’t understand the value of his ethics at that stage of their journey. I’m in a different place today.
There is so much value in wrestling with the Jesus of the stories, and endeavoring to apply his teachings to the suffering we have created through how we’ve shaped our world today. The systems we have created, which benefit some and harm others, are still challenged by Jesus’ teachings. The status quo may have repeatedly changed over the last two millennia, but wherever we find a status quo where humans are being harmed, there we can apply Jesus’ teachings. And wherever we find humans being cared for and with enough to thrive, then we can find resonance and affirmation of those systems in the Jesus story.
If our reading this week can be redeemed in any way for our world today, I believe it’s going to have to be through not focusing on our religion about Jesus but by focusing on the things that the Jesus of our stories actually taught himself.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What teachings of Jesus in Matthew are especially meaningful to you? Share with your group why.
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.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
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Pentecost and a Spirit of Justice
This Week’s Episode of Just Talking Available on YouTube
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 1, Episode 15: John 7 & 20. Lectionary A, Pentecost
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ykqgj9pEP_8
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Herb Montgomery | May 26, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Maybe you, too, still feel the pull to spiritualize that list from Isaiah and Luke, as so many Christians have before us. But what if we lean away from a gnostic response to this list and instead interpret it literally and materially? How could taking this list literally affect us? To actively participate in receiving the Spirit of Acts 2 means to care about the concrete well-being of those who are being harmed in our society today.”
Our lectionary gospel readings this week are both from John’s gospel. We considered the second reading from John 20 a few weeks ago.
On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (John 7:37-39)
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (John 20:19-23)
This coming weekend is Pentecost, the festival commemorating when the Spirit was poured out on the first Jesus followers and they developed the ability to communicate Jesus’ teachings in other languages.
Languages are not the only differences among members of our human family. We also have cultural differences, and political, social, and economic differences, as well. What could it mean today for the Spirit to enable us to understand one another, especially as we listen to those our present systems do the most harm?
Let’s consider the passage in John 7.
The first thing that jumps out at me in this passage is the Johannine community’s proto-Gnostic tendency to devalue the material, concrete, physical realities in which people suffered.
So here, “if anyone is thirsty…” let’s not dig a well or find out who is stopping the community from receiving clean drinking water, but let’s promise them an ethereal spirit instead.
In John, Jesus’ state execution liberated his spirit from his material body. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus was thereby “glorified” or transformed. This was the moment when Jesus’ spirit was freed from concrete, lowly embodiment, and was adorned with its inherent splendor.
At this time the community believed the Spirit was given to proto-Gnostic Jesus followers so they too could follow Jesus on this path, on the way to the same kind of spiritual liberation.
As I’ve said repeatedly over the last few weeks, much of western Christianity today is more gnostic than it realizes when it prioritizes the afterlife over the here and now, or prioritizes the spiritual (i.e. saving a person’s “soul”) over setting them free from material harm they are working to survive from social, political, economic, or interpersonal systems.
I want to contrast this with the Jesus we find in the synoptic gospels. Mark’s, Matthew’s, and Luke’s version of Jesus is much more concerned with the material experience of people in his society.
In Mark 8, for example, when the multitude was hungry, the synoptic Jesus did not offer them spiritual food or use food as a metaphor for his teachings. He stopped teaching and fed them literal loaves and fish. In Mark 10, seeing the wealth disparity in his community and noticing the poor suffer in a system that created winners and losers, he told an affluent man to literally sell his superfluous possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. Jesus didn’t simply point the poor toward the spiritual wealth of knowing him (gnosis).
I believe we don’t have to choose the spiritual over the material. I believe we can and must have a healthy balance of both. We need a holistic, life-giving interpretation of what it means to follow Jesus, one where people’s spiritual wellbeing is connected to their physical, material, emotional, psychological, economic, political, and social wellbeing. We don’t have to emphasize any of these to the exclusion of others. A more Jewish view of Jesus would have preserved his concern with liberating the whole person in whatever aspect of their lives they experienced harm.
As Jesus followers today, we must guard against the notion that only saving a person’s soul for eternity is important. That is not what Jesus teaches in our sacred stories. Yet our Christian history is littered with examples of a religion about Jesus that has cared more about saving people for eternity than creating a better world in the here and now where people are saved from the hell they are already enduring.
But like the water in the story of the woman at the well in John 4, the verses in this week’s reading have a gnostic bent to them. The water of life or of the Spirit is the special gnosis or knowledge that sets the believer on a path that will culminate in their own spirit being glorified once it is released from this fleshly housing at death. I understand where the Johannine community was coming from on this, but today we need a much more balanced understanding of what it means to follow Jesus or live in him.
One way to redeem this passage is, as the lectionary does, to connect it to John 20, where Jesus breathes the Spirit onto the apostles after resurrection. Today we too can inhale this Spirit and exhale justice, liberation, and life. Consider how in Luke’s gospel, the Spirit that Jesus is imparting to his followers in John was manifested on Jesus himself:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)
We must be careful here not to spiritualize away the above passage. The poor here are economically poor. In both Isaiah and Luke, the writers spoke of those who were actually poor in the economic systems of their day. The prisoners are those who were literally, not merely metaphorically, in need of liberation and justice. The blind were those who were in a Roman cell, a hole dug in the ground that was so dark they physically could not see their hands in front of their faces. The oppressed are not experiencing mystical, spiritual oppression but marginalization, subjugation, and oppression in their daily lives. And, finally, the year of the Lord’s favor was not someone’s warm and fuzzy assurance deep inside that God liked them. “The year of the Lord’s favor” was a Jewish reference to the literal year of Jubilee, when all economic debts would be forgiven and cancelled.
Maybe you, too, still feel the pull to spiritualize that list from Isaiah and Luke, as so many Christians have before us. But what if we lean away from a gnostic response to the list and instead interpret it literally and materially? How could taking Luke 4’s Spirit literally affect us?
To actively participate in receiving the Spirit of Acts 2 means to care about the concrete well-being of those who are being harmed in our society today. It means to care about LGBTQ people still being marginalized within and outside of our faith-based communities. It means to proclaim in solidarity that Black lives really do matter. That trans kids’ lives matter. That the children in our schools are of greater value to us than our freedom to own an AR-15. That the well-being of people migrating across our borders and coasts is a priority.
Who else would be included if Luke 4 were re-written in our social context today?
On this year’s Pentecost, what can it mean for us in our context to inhale the same Spirit being breathed on disciples in our gospel readings this week? How will that spirit be exhaled? What will it look like for us to breathe in and breathe out Jesus’ gift of the Spirit: a love that manifests itself in a faith that works justice, and an exhaling that is life-giving to those around us.
This Pentecost, may this same Spirit that blew on the primordial waters of our sacred creation stories blow once again today, spawning life and life-giving things into our relationships with ourselves, with others, and with the Divine.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What does the Spirit showing up and manifesting itself as activity in justice work mean for you? Share with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
(Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™)
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
We Are Not Just Passing Through
Herb Montgomery | March 20, 2020
“Our first concern should not be to leave it all behind, but to bring healing to the world around us. Jesus modeled how we can be conduits of healing to this world, and we are to be about setting that healing in motion. We must be about restoration, not relocation; our goal should not be to depart, but to remain, doing as much good as we can in the time we have been given.”
We at Renewed Heart Ministries are wishing you peace during this critical time.
To read how RHM is responding to COVID-19, click here.
In Matthew’s gospel, we read these words from the sermon on the mount:
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5)
In this verse, Jesus is focusing our attention on earth, not heaven.
Through history, many Christians have emphasized getting to heaven after death as their ultimate goal. The lyrics of the popular hymn This World Is Not My Home read, “This world is not my home. I’m just a-passing through. My treasures are laid up. Somewhere beyond the blue.”
Yet this focus is a late development in the Christian religion and is tellingly absent from the Jewish teachings of the Jesus described in the synoptic gospels.
This absence in Matthew, Mark, and Luke should challenge or even confront the post-mortem, other-world emphasis in Christianity today.
Consider these two other passages from Matthew:
“You are the salt of THE EARTH. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” (Matthew 5:13, emphasis added)
“Your kingdom come, your will be done, ON EARTH as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10, emphasis added)
By much of White Evangelical Christianity’s focus one would assume Matthew’s gospel instead read, “Blessed are the meek for they shall make it to heaven.”
This departs from the early Jewish Jesus moment, which focused on healing our world, not escaping it. Jesus and his early followers viewed this world as our home. We were not simply passing through it to someplace better.
With a focus on heaven, we have emphasized the spiritual over the material, and defined the material as less-than or “sinful.” This focus has also done immeasurable damage by inspiring complicity with, participation in, or sponsorship of earthly systemic injustice, economic, racial, gendered, sexual, and more. Many Christians also live unmoved by the deep ecological crisis we are now facing as a human race.
What we find instead in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is that Jesus did not focus on getting people out of this place to some far distant heaven. Instead, he focused on bringing justice, liberation, reparation and healing to his fellow earthly inhabitants, in his own Jewish society.
Jesus after all was not a Christian. He was a Jew, and healing our world has a rich Jewish history. Bringing healing and transformation to earthly systems of injustice was the Jewish prophetic soil in which the roots of the gospels grew.
The gospels’ earthly focus traces back to the ancient Hebrew Genesis narrative, as well.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they may have dominion over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’” (Genesis 1:26)
The early Christian community, which also persevered for us the last book of the New Testament, ends the canon not with Earth being forsaken for a heavenly dwelling, but with the earth being repaired, restored, and healed.
“I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God’.” (Revelation 21:2-3)
Whatever one makes of the book of Revelation and its many interpretations, its story ends on Earth, not in heaven.
There are some differences of belief in contemporary Christianity on this point. Some believe we go to heaven permanently at death. Some believe instead that heaven is a temporary resting place before Earth is finally restored. Martin Luther and some Anabaptists such as Michael Sattler believed this in the 16th Century. And still some other Christians don’t believe they will ever enter a cosmic heaven, but believe that death is a sort of “sleep” where they wait on a future resurrection here on Earth.
I’m not personally concerned with these minute differences. I’m concerned about what fruit the beliefs we do hold produce in our lives. Is our focus getting a cosmic heaven while we ignore systemic injustice, oppression, or violence in concrete ways here on earth? Does a person’s beliefs enable and empower them to engage justice work here in our world, now presently?
I don’t believe that as a follower of Jesus, we should be living as if “this world is not our home.” Let’s no longer say, “We are just passing through.”
I remember an advertisement for an interfaith chapel in Atlanta’s international airport years ago. The advertisement had clip art of a kneeling person, and under the image it said, “Because we’re all just passing through.” It was a fitting slogan for an airport where people are literally “passing through” every day.
But the more I pondered it, I don’t believe Jesus taught that. This world IS our home and we have a lot of work to do yet. “ON EARTH as it is in heaven” is a prayer not yet answered, and we are the ones that must answer it. We are the ones we’ve been waiting on, as Alice Walker stated, and Jesus showed us how.
We have to first let go of our fixed idea that this world is evil and something we must escape. No. This world has evil in it, but it has beauty, too. It has injustice, but also compassion, justice, charity, and love. As Jesus-followers, we are called to foster justice and compassion and care where they are thriving. We are called to sow the seeds of life-giving change. We are called to display what our world could look like if it was shaped according the ethics of resource-sharing, mutual aid, distributive justice, the connectedness of people, and the interconnectedness of the communities we belong to.
In Luke’s gospel Jesus commissioned his followers “to proclaim the kingdom of God and TO HEAL THE SICK” (Luke 9:2, emphasis added).
There is sickness in our world—physical, economic, political, social, and ecological. Our first concern should not be to leave it all behind, but to bring healing to the world around us. Jesus modeled how we can be conduits of healing to this world, and we are to be about setting that healing in motion. We must be about restoration, not relocation; our goal should not be to depart, but to remain, doing as much good as we can in the time we have been given.
This world IS our home. We are NOT just passing through; we are here to stay. Even if your beliefs state that at some point in the future you will find yourself elsewhere, it will be at that location that you can sing that you are “just passing through.” The story of the New Testament ends here, on Earth, and for the sake of those that will come after us, we must take up the work on healing our world here today.
This may take some deep transition in our beliefs. It also must create an even deeper transition in our actions.
We must become more concerned with present systemic injustice.
We must become more concerned with ecological destruction as a result of prioritized capital gain.
We must begin to place people and planet over power, profit, and privilege.
If we are to have a brighter tomorrow, we must lay the foundation for it today.
To follow the Jesus of the synoptic gospels is to deeply, humbly engage our communities and our society. What we’ll find when we do is that this kind of work is already being done by many who have been doing it quite a while. We’ll find that they have wisdom that they will offer, if we are humble enough to listen and learn. And there is plenty to do. We can come alongside them, put our hand to the plow, and invest our energy into the work as well.
I’m reminded of the words referenced by Rami M. Shapiro in Wisdom of the Jewish Sages: A Modern Reading of Pirke Avot:
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.” (p. 41)
We are in this together.
Together we can create beautiful communities of love and justice.
Another world is possible if we choose it.
And we can.
I’ll close with these words the Jewish Jesus would have grown up hearing read in the synagogues on Sabbaths throughout the year:
“Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, ‘Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?’ No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.” (Deuteronomy 30:11-14)
HeartGroup Application
It has been shown that we have the ability to slow the spread of COVID-19 if we act together. In moments like these, we affirm that all people are made in the image of God to live as part of God’s peace, love, and justice. There is nothing more powerful and resilient than when people come together to prioritize “the least of these.”
We at RHM are asking all HeartGroups not to meet together physically at this time, and encouraging each of you to stay virtually connected and to practice social distancing. We can still be there for each other to help ease anxiety and fears. We ask that when you do go out, you keep a six feet distance between you and others to stop the spread of the virus.
This is also a time where we can practice the resource-sharing and mutual aid found in the gospels. Make sure the others in your group have what they need. We are more interconnected than we realize, as this has proven. And we need each other during this time.
This is a time to work together and prioritize protecting those most vulnerable among us. We’ll get through this. For now, let’s figure out new ways to take care of each other while we are physically apart.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, working toward justice.
Another world is possible if we choose it.
Stay well!
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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