When Justice Means Division
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When Justice Means Division
Herb Montgomery | August 15, 2025
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided:
father against son
and son against father,
mother against daughter
and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? (Luke 12:49-56, NRSV)
This week’s reading describes Jesus in Luke’s gospel as the cause of division. This is, at best, problematic for Christian communities that prioritize unity above all else. Every community has a priority of values, a scale where some things matter more than others. This passage challenges those who place unity above justice, protecting the vulnerable, and standing up for those are being harmed. These communities pit unity against division as if division or conflict even over things that matter is the worst fate that could befall their community. These types of communities tend to be conflict-avoidant, using rhetoric such as “Don’t rock the boat.”
Prioritizing unity above justice shapes communities to emphasize peace, harmony, and shared identity over the often disruptive process of confronting and correcting injustice. It appeals to the desire to maintain relationships and foster a sense of togetherness, especially within faith traditions. Proponents argue that disunity can fracture community, but don’t recognize that what fractures community is the injustice some are forced to be silent about. They caution that a relentless focus on justice, especially when perceived as adversarial, may alienate individuals, polarize communities, or create division as if harmony is what is most needed.
However, unity without justice is always a fragile and superficial peace—one built on silence, marginalization, and the status quo. When people prioritize unity to the point of avoiding uncomfortable truths, it often means asking the oppressed to carry the burden of cohesion while the structures that harm them remain intact. Such unity demands quietness from those whose voices most need to be heard. It risks becoming complicit, where harmony is preserved only for those in positions of comfort.
The challenge, then, is to understand that we cannot build real unity on the denial of justice. Authentic unity emerges not from avoiding conflict but from walking through it together. It is forged in the hard work of truth-telling, repentance, reparations and transformation. Unity and justice are not necessarily enemies; they can be companions. But the order matters. Justice creates the conditions for lasting unity, not the other way around. When we seek unity without first addressing what divides us, we merely delay deeper fractures. We only kick the problem down the road, hoping the matter simply goes away. Placing unity above justice may feel safe and noble, but ultimately, it undermines both unity and justice. A better path is to pursue a justice that repairs, restores, and reconciles, and a unity that is not afraid of truth. Only then can we have a peace that endures.
Often through the years when I have found myself experiencing pushback from those telling me to prioritize unity over speaking out for what is right and for those being harmed, I have found comfort in Dr. Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It’s a letter I return to almost annually in my own justice work with faith communities today. King’s words in 1963 remain relevant and challenging in my life, encouraging me when I’m faced with my fear of speaking out and when I’m tempted to embrace what King names a “negative peace.”
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
He later calls the agents seeking positive peace “nonviolent gadflies”:
“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Being a nonviolent gadfly reminds me of Matthew 5:9: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Being a peacemaker is not the same as being a peacekeeper. Peacekeepers are primarily motivated to keep King’s “negative peace”, one where no one is rocking the boat and where injustice continues to be unaddressed. But as Frederick Douglass reminded us, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” Demands from those experiencing injustice disrupt the peace while they seek to establish a positive peace rooted in justice. Zechariah 8:12 teaches that “there shall be a sowing of peace.” Peace is something sown. The seed of peace is distributive justice. Justice grows and produces the fruit of peace. Peace, then, shouldn’t be the primary goal. It’s the secondary result of establishing a just, compassionate, safe environment for all. And to plant that initial seed of justice, to push the analogy a little further, the ground for that seed must be broken up, tilled, turned over, and disrupted.
The hard-packed ground of misogyny and patriarchy, the hard-packed ground of racism and White supremacy, the hard-packed ground of White Christian nationalism, the hard-packed ground of homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia must be broken up, and that process always involves disruption and conflict. But the ultimate goal is always a justice that produces peace. This is what it means to be a peacemaker!
With our hands on the plow, peacemakers are preparing our social soil for the seed of justice. We know that when watered by others justice will produce a peace where everyone has enough not simply to survive but also to thrive. Peacemakers, even when disrupting the hard-packed social soil, are still working toward a world matching Micah 4:4’s description where every person will “sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.”
What does this kind of peacemaking look like? Representative John Lewis tweeted in June 2018, “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”
Note those three words: good, necessary, trouble. It’s good, necessary trouble that Jesus himself was getting into in our reading this week. It was this kind of trouble that he modeled for his followers to get into too.
Lastly, Jesus confronts his listeners’ inability to discern what was happening around them at this moment. This also is fitting given our present context. In the face of growing authoritarianism and the dismantling of democratic norms in the U.S., silence is not an option for peacemakers. Voter suppression and reorganization, disinformation, attacks on laws that provide protection for the marginalized in our society, and political violence threaten the very foundation of a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone where everyone’s voice is heard. Standing up now means defending the safety of the vulnerable and marginalized, holding leaders accountable, and protecting the rights of all—especially the most vulnerable. It means rejecting fascist rhetoric and resisting efforts to centralize power through fear and retaliation. Democracy, justice, peace are not self-sustaining in any society; they depend on the courage and commitment of everyday people to speak out and take a stand, even when, as our reading this week reminds us, those choices initially cause division.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How are you or your group engaging the work of peace and justice presently? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking.
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Lectionary Readings in the context of Love, Inclusion, & Social Justice
Season 3, Episode 24: Luke 12.49-56. Lectionary C, Proper 15
When Justice Means Division
Each week, we’ll discuss the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and justice. We hope that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that we’ll be inspired to do more than “just talking” during our brief conversations each week.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 2 Episode 33: When Justice Means Division
Luke 12:49-56
“The challenge, then, is to understand that we cannot build real unity on the denial of justice. Authentic unity emerges not from avoiding conflict but from walking through it together. It is forged in the hard work of truth-telling, repentance, reparations and transformation. Unity and justice are not necessarily enemies; they can be companions. But the order matters. Justice creates the conditions for lasting unity, not the other way around. When we seek unity without first addressing what divides us, we merely delay deeper fractures. We only kick the problem down the road, hoping the matter simply goes away. Placing unity above justice may feel safe and noble, but ultimately, it undermines both unity and justice. A better path is to pursue a justice that repairs, restores, and reconciles, and a unity that is not afraid of truth. Only then can we have a peace that endures . . . Peace is something sown. The seed of peace is distributive justice. Justice grows and produces the fruit of peace. Peace, then, shouldn’t be the primary goal. It’s the secondary result of establishing a just, compassionate, safe environment for all. And to plant that initial seed of justice, to push the analogy a little further, the ground for that seed must be broken up, tilled, turned over, and disrupted.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/when-justice-means-division
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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Peace Through Justice Doesn’t Need A War Horse
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your support of Renewed Heart Ministry’s work of love, justice, and compassion. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is so deeply appreciated, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
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Peace Through Justice Doesn’t Need A War Horse
Herb Montgomery; April 11, 2025
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’ ”
Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
They replied, “The Lord needs it.”
They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.
When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:
“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” (Luke 19:28-40)
There are many ways to achieve social and political peace. The most popular means empire has used historically is military force. If your military might is great enough, you can keep the peace through the mere threat of reprisal.
Jesus offered a different path to peace: peace born of distributive justice. Distributive justice is the fair allocation of resources, opportunities, and benefits within a society. It is fairness in the distribution of goods and services as well as the burdens of the work it takes to create those goods and services. Distributive justice takes into account each individual’s needs and contributions, and seeks to balance both with the broader goals of social good and common thriving. When society experiences the fair and just distribution of rights and resources, peace is the result.
This is the kind of peace envisioned by the Hebrew prophets:
Everyone will sit under their own vine
and under their own fig tree,
and no one will make them afraid,
for the LORD Almighty has spoken. (Micah 4:4)
In the context of our reading this week, Rome practiced the kind of peace born instead out of military might and fear of reprisal after insurrection. When Rome would conquer a territory, the military general would enter the conquered city on a war stallion or steed, leading a military processional and sometimes even parading conquered soldiers in tow.
But again, the Hebrew prophets envisioned a different kind of peace: peace that is born not through military might but by the spirit of justice. In Zechariah we read:
So he said to me, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.” (Zechariah 4:6)
In chapter 9, Zechariah contrasts the typical military processional image with Jerusalem’s king bringing liberation and peace in such a way that military warhorses are not needed. This kind of peace isn’t rooted in military might at all.
But I will encamp at my temple
to guard it against marauding forces.
Never again will an oppressor overrun my people,
for now I am keeping watch.
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth. (Zechariah 9:8-10)
The authors of the gospels, beginning with Mark and repeated by each successive canonical gospel afterward, pick up this imagery of peace through distributive justice from the Hebrew prophets. Each of them associates the peace of Jesus unlike the Pax Romana’s military might with the peace that comes through making sure everyone has enough to thrive.
It is also interesting to note that our story this week begins Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem in Zechariah-like fashion in the Mount of Olives. Zechariah explains that the liberation that would come for Jerusalem would begin at the Mount of Olives:
Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem . . . (Zechariah 14:3-4)
In the years leading up to the Jewish Roman War in the late 60s C.E., the Mount of Olives was a wildly popular site of liberation rallies and starting location for insurrections against Rome because of those words in Zechariah.
The gospel authors have Jesus begin his ride here to tie his entrance to the people’s hope of liberation. The gospel authors even include the liberation cry of the psalmist in Psalm 118:25-26:
“LORD, save us! [Hosanna] LORD, grant us success! [Hosanna] Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD. From the house of the LORD [the temple] we bless you.”
The authors of the gospels tap into all of this cultural liberation symbolism in our story this week. But Jesus’ peace and liberation will not come through Jesus leading a stronger military force against Rome’s military forces, but through the holistic and intrinsic work of a distributive justice so powerful, so pervasive, so stable, that it doesn’t require a war steed. It requires nothing more than a colt.
Both Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan write of these contrasting paths to peace (military might versus distributive justice) in their classic volume The First Christmas. Concerning the futility of the kind of peace established through military violence they write:
“The terrible truth is that our world has never established peace through victory. Victory establishes not peace, but lull. Thereafter, violence returns once again, and always worse than before. And it is that escalator violence that then endangers our world.” (Marcus J.Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Birth, p. 166)
The kind of peace brought through military violence is temporary. The kind of peace that comes from everyone having what they need to thrive is lasting. This is why the Hebrew prophets also speak of this kind of peace lasting “forever”:
Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever. (Isaiah 9:7)
Where does this leave us today?
Today the way our global propertied, powerful and privileged elites seek to keep peace is through military might. But what if we sought a world where everyone had enough instead? What would that kind of global community look like? And if the global community is too large for us to try and imagine right now, let’s start closer. What would our local communities look like if each person simply had enough to thrive and we all were committed to making sure we were taking care of each other?
The late Pope John Paul II is just one example of so many who have called for this kind of peace in recent history. On the 1981 World Day for Peace, he stated, “Let us not await the peace of the balance of terror. Let us not accept violence as the way to peace. Let us instead begin by respecting true freedom: the resulting peace will be able to satisfy the world’s expectations; for it will be a peace built on justice, a peace founded on the incomparable dignity of the free human being.” On the 1998 World Day for Peace, he said, “From the justice of each comes peace for all.” And again on the 2002 World Day for Peace he reinforced the message: “No peace without justice.”
Today, as in the time of Jesus, there are two philosophies of peace in our world. One says, “If you want peace, prepare for war.” The other says, “If you want peace, work for justice.” As MLK and so many other justice workers have rightly reminded us, true peace is not just the absence of conflict, but also the pursuit of fairness and equality for all. It is with peace through justice that the gospel authors align the work and ministry of Jesus. This is why I believe Jesus enters Jerusalem for the last time to protest in the Temple for economic justice on the back of a young donkey. Because peace through justice doesn’t need a war horse.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What does distributive justice mean to you? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking.
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
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://www.youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 2 Episode 15: Peace Through Justice Doesn’t Need A War Horse
Luke 19:28-40
What would our local communities look like if each person simply had enough to thrive and we all were committed to making sure we were taking care of each other? Today, as in the time of Jesus, there are two philosophies of peace in our world. One says, “If you want peace, prepare for war.” The other says, “If you want peace, work for justice.” As MLK and so many other justice workers have rightly reminded us, true peace is not just the absence of conflict, but also the pursuit of fairness and equality for all. It is with peace through justice that the gospel authors align the work and ministry of Jesus. This is why I believe Jesus enters Jerusalem for the last time to protest in the Temple for economic justice on the back of a young donkey. Because peace through justice doesn’t need a war horse.
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
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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Free Sign Up Here
Advent and Change from the Margins
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Please see the various thank you offers following this week’s article, below.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 42: Mark 1.1-8. Lectionary B, Advent 2
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 42: Mark 1.1-8. Lectionary B, Advent 2
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Advent and Change from the Margins
Herb Montgomery | December 10, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Very rarely has social change ever come from the center or top of a social structure. Social change has most often come from the margins, from the outside in, and from the grassroots, from the bottom up. In the beginning of Mark, this truth is being told again.”
Our reading this second weekend of Advent is from the first chapter of Mark:
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way” —
“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’ ”
And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1:1-8)
Mark’s gospel associates John the Baptist with two passages from the Hebrew passages that are conflated here.
The first is from Malachi: “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple.” (Malachi 3:1)
The second is from Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling:
‘In the wilderness prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.’” (Isaiah 40:3)
Although the text only references Isaiah by name, Mark’s author is doing something interesting by juxtaposing these two passages. The passage combines Hebrew prophetic imagery of God coming to cleanse God’s temple (Malachi) with language that originally referred to liberation from foreign oppression, specifically Babylonian captivity, and a path being made in wilderness for the liberated exiles upon which to return (Isaiah).
To understand this kind of rhetoric we have to look at what was happening in John’s and Jesus’ society when Mark was written. The temple state leadership had become corrupted, little more than a wealthy, elite class that helped maintain Roman oppression in Judea and the surrounding regions. The poor were getting poorer and the wealthy were getting richer through their complicity and cooperation with Rome. Many of the common people were simply trying to scratch out an existence.
Then John appears in the wilderness. This narrative element clues us in to the fact that John will be working outside the establishment. He will be calling for change (repentance) from the edges and undersides of his society, outside of the official channels. Social salvation is not coming from the established center, but from the margins.
Commenting on this imagery and its possible application to our lives today, Ched Myers writes:
“The experience of wilderness is common to the vast majority of people in the world. Their reality is at the margins of almost everything that is defined by the modern Western world as ‘the good life.’ This wilderness has not been created by accident. It is the result of a system stacked against many people and their communities, whose lives and resources are exploited to benefit a very small minority at the centers of power and privilege. It is created by lifestyles that deplete and pollute natural resources. It is created by the forced labor of impoverished farmers who strip steep mountain-sides in order to eke out an existence from infertile terrain while the most arable land produces profit for a few families. Wilderness is the residue of war and greed and injustice . . . One of the first steps of hope for people in such wilderness places is to understand that their situation reflects social and political forces, not the divine will . . . While the margin has a primarily negative political connotation as a place of disenfranchisement, Mark ascribes to it a primarily positive theological value. It is the place where the sovereignty of God is made manifest, where the story of liberation is renewed, where God’s intervention in history occurs.” (Ched Myers, Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, & Stuart Taylor, Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, Orbis Books, p. 11-23)
Luke’s gospel makes this point about John the Baptist even more forcefully by showing that John’s father was part of the temple establishment (see Luke 1:9-10). Luke’s implication is that John the Baptist came from the center of society, and chose to reject that social location with all of its privileges to work for change from the outside.
Very rarely has social change ever come from the center or top of a social structure. Social change has most often come from the margins, from the outside in, and from the grassroots, from the bottom up. In the beginning of Mark, this truth is being told again.
John’s preaching centered on a specific place in the wilderness, the River Jordan. The Jordan provided water that was moving: flowing, “living water” for what grew to be the central ritual associated with John’s preaching, baptism by immersion in “living water.” Historical Jesus scholars today understand John’s baptism to be economic and political as well as religious. All of three categories combined in John’s preaching and baptism, calling the people to return to fidelity to the God of the Torah, especially in regards to the Torah’s economic justice teachings. Again this point would be forcibly made in Luke’s gospel as well:
“‘What should we do then?’ the crowd asked. John answered, ‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.’ Even tax collectors came to be baptized. ‘Teacher,’ they asked, ‘what should we do?’ ‘Don’t collect any more than you are required to,’ he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, ‘And what should we do?’ He replied, ‘Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.’” (Luke 3:10-14)
Many historical Jesus scholars believe that John’s baptism was a form of protest against the temple establishment that had become an extension of oppressive Roman rule. John’s calls for repentance and promise of forgiveness weren’t for personal or individual sins that violated one private piety. In Luke, John rails against economic and social sins, practices that impact a people’s lives together, as a society.
Josephus, who was much more closely located to the characters in these stories than we are, also writes about John, his popularity with people, and the threat the established elites, specifically Herod, came to feel they were:
“John was a good man who had admonished the Jews to practice virtue and to treat each other justly, with due respect to God, and to join in the practice of baptism. John’s view was that correct behavior was a necessary preliminary to baptism, if baptism was to be acceptable to God. Baptism wasn’t not to gain pardon for sins committed but for the purification of the body, which had already been consecrated by righteousness. Herod became alarmed at the crowds that gathered around John, who aroused them to fever pitch with his sermons. Eloquence that had such a powerful effect on people might lead to sedition, since it seemed that the people were prepared to do everything he recommended.” (Josephus, History of the Jews, 18:116-119)
The story of John the Baptist in our reading this week is a story of just change originating from the margins of a society in which both John and Jesus were both figureheads. This is a story that resonates with me today too.
This Advent season, what is God doing right now on the margins? I can’t help but think of movements for change that have formed around concerns for gender justice, racial justice, LGBTQ justice, Indigenous people’s justice, economic justice, and ecological justice. There are so many more areas where justice is needed; these are just the ones that come to my mind first.
Advent announces that something has come: something we have long hoped for is here. Of the many things we hope for, one is a world characterized by distributive justice. A world, here and now, that is a safe, compassionate and just home for everyone, where no one is afraid and, in the words of the Hebrew prophets, “Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree” (Micah 4:4).
This second week of Advent, we read about a time when that world came to us once before. That world would soon be beheaded with John and crucified with Jesus. But when it came in both John and Jesus’s ministries, it began on the margins. This calls to me to pay attention to what’s happening in our time on the edges, the grassroots, and the wildernesses of our own society. For each time that the world we hope for has arrived throughout history, it has most often started there.
Where is that world showing up again for us today? And who can we come alongside to participate in making that world a reality for us all?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How has your own living on the margins or listening to others who do informed how you read the Jesus story? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
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You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
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In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
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Great Joy for All People (Part 2)
Herb Montgomery | December 20, 2019
“Luke skillfully integrates into his story the hopes of Judaism and the subversion of the political theology of the Roman Empire. Jesus, for Luke, is simultaneously the fulfillment of one (Judaism) and the subversion of the other (Rome). This is not Jesus against Judaism, but Christianity against Roman imperialism . . . In Luke’s birth-narrative, Jesus is both the Davidic Messiah who converges with Judaism and the Lord, Savior, and Peace-bringer who diverges with Rome.”
We’re picking up where we left off in Part 1.
Judaism in Imperial Rome
Living in Roman-occupied territory, Jewish people hoped for a world free from injustice and foreign oppression. In the Jewish Sibylline Oracles, a series of prophecies valued within first-century Judaism and early Christianity, we find this vision:
“The earth will belong equally to all, undivided by walls or fences. It will then bear more abundant fruits spontaneously. Lives will be in common and wealth will have no division. For there will be no poor man there, no rich, and no tyrant, no slave. Further, no one will be either great or small anymore. No kings, no leaders. All will be on a par together.” (2:319-324)
The hoped-for world in the Jewish vision of the future looked like a family, where YHWH as parent provided equally for all—enough for everyone, always.
There were also two competing visions of the fate of the Gentiles, including the Romans. One strand was violent and retributive:
“In anger and wrath I will execute vengeance on the nations that did not obey . . . Then my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said to me, ‘Where is the Lord your God?’ My eyes will see her downfall; now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets . . . The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might; they shall lay their hands on their mouths; their ears shall be deaf; they shall lick dust like a snake, like the crawling things of the earth; they shall come trembling out of their fortresses; they shall turn in dread to the Lord our God, and they shall stand in fear of you.” (Micah 5:15; 7:10, 16-17)
This is actually quite mild compared to some Christian versions of this world’s future. The other Jewish option was less violent, more restorative, and involved the conversion of the Gentiles:
“In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, and many nations shall come and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.” (Micah 4:1-3, cf. Isaiah 2:2-4)
All injustice, oppression, and violence would cease. Other prophets also envision YHWH providing a rich feast where there was enough for all, Jew and Gentile alike:
“On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 25:6-8)
By the 1st Century, this Jewish, pre-Christian vision also included a Messiah figure who would birth this new world into existence:
“Raise up for them their king, the Son of David . . . to smash the arrogance of sinners like a potter’s jar; to shatter all their substance with an iron rod; to destroy the unlawful nations with the word of his mouth . . . He will judge peoples and nations in the wisdom of his righteousness . . . All shall be holy, and their king shall be the Lord Messiah. (For) he will not rely on horse and rider and bow, nor will he collect gold and silver for war. Nor will he build up hope in a multitude for a day of war.” (Psalms of Solomon 17:21, 23-24, 29, 32-33, emphasis added.)
Another example is from a Dead Sea Scroll fragment found in Cave 4 at Qumran:
“He will be called Son of God, and they will call him Son of the Most High. Like sparks of a vision, so will their kingdom be; they will rule several years over the earth and crush everything; a people will crush another people, and a city another city. Until the people of God arises [or: until he raises up the people of God] and makes everyone rest from the sword. His kingdom will be an eternal kingdom, and all his paths in truth and uprightness. The earth will be in truth and all will make peace. The sword will cease in the earth, and all the cities will pay him homage. He is a great god among the gods [or: The great God will be his strength]. He will make war with him; he will place the peoples in his hand and cast away everyone before him. His kingdom will be an eternal kingdom . . . ” (4Q246, emphasis added.)
We can see from these passages that when the book of Luke was written, many within Judaism hoped for a restored world where all injustice, violence, and oppression would be made right through the emergence of a Messiah figure. Some believed this would be accompanied by violent retribution against oppressors, and others believed the Messiah figure would bring more restorative, distributive, nonviolent, and reconciling justice for everyone.
Christianity within Judaism within Roman Imperialism
Luke begins the Jesus story with John the Baptist. Like Matthew, he includes a birth narrative rather than starting the story with an adult Jesus. But Luke begins his birth story with John’s conception, before Jesus’s. The experience of John’s parents in Luke parallels that of Abraham and Sarah, the patriarch and matriarch of the Jewish people (compare Genesis 15-18).
It also parallels the stories of Hannah and the birth of the prophet Samuel, who anointed King David (read 1 Samuel 1-2). For Luke, John is the renewed “Samuel” anointing Jesus, the renewed “David.” At his baptism in the river Jordan, Jesus, through John, becomes the renewed “anointed one.”
Miraculous conceptions by divine intervention are a staple in Jewish birth-narratives and were especially so in the time of Rome. Within both Judaism and Imperial Rome, birth-narratives were not so much biological explanations as much as they were about the destiny of the children being born. In our story this week, Luke interweaves the birth-narratives of Isaac, Samuel, and Caesar Augustus with those of John the Baptist and Jesus, and he describes Jesus as “the Christ,” the Messiah, the son of David, the renewed “King of Israel” born in David’s city, “Bethlehem.”
Let’s read Luke’s proclamation of the angels to the shepherds through our filters of Judaism and Roman imperialism. Luke skillfully integrates into his story the hopes of Judaism and the subversion of the political theology of the Roman Empire. Jesus, for Luke, is simultaneously the fulfillment of one (Judaism) and the subversion of the other (Rome). This is not Jesus against Judaism, but Christianity against Roman imperialism.
I’m going to color code this Christmas passage:
Bold phrases represent the fulfillment of Jewish hopes and Italics represent a subversion of Roman imperialism. Black and Italicized phrases represent both.
“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; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 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.” ( Luke 2:10-14)
In Luke’s birth-narrative, Jesus is both the Davidic Messiah who converges with Judaism and the Lord, Savior, and Peace-bringer who diverges with Rome.
As Borg and Crossan state in The First Christmas, from the time of Caesar Augustus onward, the title “the Lord” meant the emperor, just as “der Führer” meant “the leader” in German. Eventually, that term designated Adolf Hitler as Germany’s supreme and only leader. In that context, to have called Christ “der Führer” would have meant death in Dachau (p. 154).
Rome also had its own gospel of peace that Luke responds to in his version of the Jesus story.
By 9 BCE, the Roman province of Asia Minor was making this declaration about Augustus:
“Since the providence that has divinely ordered our existence has applied her energy and zeal and has brought to life the most perfect good in Augustus, whom she filled with virtues for the benefit of mankind, bestowing him upon us and our descendants as a savior—he who put an end to war and will order peace, Caesar, who by his epiphany exceeded the hopes of those who prophesied good tidings [euaggelia-the gospel], not only outdoing benefactors of the past, but also allowing no hope of greater benefactions in the future; and since the birthday of the god first brought to the world the good tidings [euaggelia] residing in him… For that reason, with good fortune and safety, the Greeks of Asia have decided that the New Year in all the cities should begin on 23rd September, the birthday of Augustus… and that the letter of the proconsul and the decree of Asia should be inscribed on a pillar of white marble, which is to be placed in the sacred precinct of Rome and Augustus.” (Quoted from The First Christmas, p.160, emphasis added)
That year, a magnificent “Altar of Peace” was dedicated in Rome’s Campus Martius. It was consecrated not just to the Pax Romana (peace of Rome) but, more precisely, to the Pax Augustana (peace of Augustus), and it was named Ara Pacis Augustae, the Altar of Augustan Peace.
The gospel of peace that Rome proclaimed was a peace achieved through militaristic victory and the violent overthrow of Rome’s enemies. In Luke’s gospel narrative, however, Luke channels nonviolent, restorative Jewish visions of peace. Luke’s Jesus shares the vision of peace on earth rooted in the restoration of justice for all the oppressed. Even Luke’s choice to describe shepherds as the first recipients of this angelic announcement is significant. Shepherds were from the marginalized peasant class and most acutely experienced Roman oppression and exploitation. Just two chapters after the birth narrative, Luke’s Jesus is announcing “good news to the poor,” “release to the captives,” and “sight to those with prison blindness.” He has come “to let the oppressed go free” (see Luke 4:18). The angels’ message to the poor shepherds in Luke 2 foreshadows Jesus’ entire message in the gospel of Luke.
For Luke, Rome’s peace gospel (through violence) and the peace gospel of Jesus (through distributive justice) come face to face. Jesus and Rome hold out to humanity two alternative visions for arriving at peace on earth. Rome’s way, peace through the violent forces of militaristic victory and oppression, is the way of all empires. Luke’s Jesus promises peace through nonviolent, restored distributive justice for all people.
Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan write: “The terrible truth is that our world has never established peace through victory. Victory establishes not peace, but lull. Thereafter, violence returns once again, and always worse than before. And it is that escalator violence that then endangers our world” (The First Christmas, p. 166).
The world has yet to see if choosing the way of nonviolently-achieved, distributive-justice of Jesus produces lasting peace. Christian imperialism and colonialism have co-opted the Jesus story throughout history, but Luke’s Jesus points the way to peace based upon distributive justice achieved through nonviolent means.
Today, these two “gospels” still grind against one another, even for Christians. Today we still see a conflict, but it is not Rome versus Jesus, too often it is certain sectors of Christianity versus Jesus.
Luke’s Christmas story offers more than a private peace of mind for Christians. It points to a path to peace on earth for everyone, and a peace that comes through distributive justice for all, especially those marginalized in the present system. In our next and final installment of this holiday series, we’ll consider this further.
For this week, it’s enough to ponder the words:
“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people.” (Luke 2:11-14)
HeartGroup Application
- This week as you gather together before Christmas, take some time to go around the room and say something you appreciate or value about each person.
- Next, share with your group something you are grateful for from 2019. Take time to celebrate and be thankful together as this year comes to a close.
- Share something you are hopeful for or looking forward to in the coming year.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Wherever you are, keep choosing love, compassion, taking action, and reparative and distributive justice.
Another world is possible if we choose it.
Also, all year-end donations to Renewed Heart Ministries are being matched dollar for dollar. Through this generous offer, you can make your year-end gift go twice as far as we move into the next decade. Also, we are offering a special thank you gift to all our sustaining partners for the coming year. To find out more and how you too can become a sustaining partner go to renewedheartministries.com and click the Shared Table Fundraiser image.
Happy holidays to all of you.
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you in the new year.
A Primer on Self-Affirming Nonviolence (Part 10)
Herb Montgomery | October 11, 2019
“Jesus’ form of nonviolence was an act of self-affirmation in a society where one’s self was already being sacrificed. When we interpret nonviolence as self-sacrifice, irreparable harm, even lethal harm, is done to those who survive and those who are victims of violation.”
Thank you for journeying with us through this series on self-affirming, nonviolent resistance. This is our tenth and final installment. Leaving the objections we’ve addressed, I want to wrap up our time together by summarizing what we’ve learned. I believe that understanding the Jesus of the gospels as teaching self-affirming, nonviolent resistance is a life-giving interpretation.
Let’s begin by summarizing nonviolence itself.
Nonviolence
In Jesus’ vision for social change (what the gospel authors refer to as “the kingdom”), Jesus had certain options. He had seen the results of both violent and nonviolent resistance to Roman oppression. As he weighed the success and failure rates of both approaches, Jesus rejected violence. As the late Walter Wink reminds us:
“The issue, however, is not just which [violence or nonviolence] works better, but also which fails better. While a nonviolent strategy also does not always “work” in terms of preset goals-though though in another sense it always “works”—at least the casualties and destruction are far less severe.” (Walter Wink. Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way, Facets, Kindle Locations 316-318).
Also, the social goals that Jesus was endeavoring to plant the seeds for in his own community cannot be achieved through violence: “Violence can beget fear, stalemate, annihilation, dominance, or more violence, but it cannot beget love, justice, abundant life, community, or peace.” (Rita Nakashima Brock & Rebecca Parker; Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, p. 13)
Others have also recognized the impossibility of using means that contradict the ends we are trying to achieve. As Audre Lorde wrote:
“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” (Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, p. 112)
The 1st Century Judea and Galilee had both seen violent and nonviolent acts of resistance. Jesus’ gospel was not only a gospel of liberation but also one of surviving and being able to achieve a quality of life once that liberation was accomplished. What good is liberation if your entire people and culture and way of life are wiped out in the process?
Jesus’ supreme value was not simply the rejection of violence but, more, the goal of arriving at a just society. Correcting the societal roots of systemic injustice was his passion. This is important. If rejecting violence is your highest moral goal, and justice is secondary, this has too often led to a passive response to injustice rather than acts of resistance and nonviolent noncooperation.
“Violence is not an absolute evil to be avoided at all costs. It is not even the main problem, but only the presenting symptom of an unjust society. And peace is not the highest good; it is rather the outcome of a just social order.” (Walter Wink. Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way, Facets; Kindle Locations 493-495).
Lastly, nonviolence is rooted in the value of maintaining a love for one’s enemy. Love for one’s enemy should not be interpreted as accepting enemies’ behavior, actions, or choices. Love of enemy is the choice to hold on to your enemy’s humanity. As human beings, we are all still part of one another. We still belong to each other. Nonviolence enables us to find a balance where we stop or obstruct our enemy’s actions but remain characteristically unlike our enemies in our methods. Love of one’s enemy also holds space for and adds pressure towards our enemies making better decisions than they are presently making:
“With one hand we say to one who is angry, or to an oppressor, or to an unjust system, ‘Stop what you are doing. I refuse to honor the role you are choosing to play. I refuse to obey you. I refuse to cooperate with your demands. I refuse to build the walls and the bombs. I refuse to pay for the guns. With this hand, I will even interfere with the wrong you are doing. I want to disrupt the easy pattern of your life.’ But then the advocate of nonviolence raises the other hand. It is raised outstretched – maybe with love and sympathy, maybe not – but always outstretched . . . With this hand, we say, ‘I won’t let go of you or cast you out of the human race. I have faith that you can make a better choice than you are making now, and I’ll be here when you are ready. Like it or not, we are part of one another.’” (Barbara Deming, Revolution & Equilibrium, page 224)
Resistance
As we covered in Part 4, Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence were rooted in an attempt to provide nonviolent forms of protest, noncooperation, and resistance to injustice, both personal and systemic. Culturally, turning the cheek was a refusal to accept one’s marginalized or lower social class position and treatment. Handing over your remaining article of clothing was using public nudity as a form of protest, and going the second mile was a refusal to play by the rules of one’s oppressors. Today, ignoring tone-policing or respectability politics is a similar refusal to play by the rules of an unjust status quo.
Self-Affirming
Finally, Jesus’ form of nonviolence was an act of self-affirmation in a society where one’s self was already being sacrificed. When we interpret nonviolence as self-sacrifice, irreparable harm, even lethal harm, is done to those who survive and those who are victims of violation. As we’ve said, defining Jesus’ nonviolence as self-sacrificial is rooted in interpreting Jesus’ cross as an act of self-sacrifice, as a submission to death rather than a defiant refusal to let go of life.
Remember, those in positions of power and privilege use both metaphorical and literal crosses to keep those who are being violated silent. Jesus taught us not to remain silent, but to speak our truth even if threatened with a cross. Far from being passive or submissive, Jesus’ call to take up the cross was the call to join him in self-affirming resistance to injustice regardless of dire threats. Again, to quote Brown and Parker:
“It is not the acceptance of suffering that gives life; it is commitment to life that gives life. The question, moreover, is not Am I willing to suffer? but Do I desire fully to live? This distinction is subtle and, to some, specious, but in the end it makes a great difference in how people interpret and respond to suffering.” (Brown & Parker, Patriarchy, Christianity and Abuse, p. 18)
Jesus’ cheek defiance, naked protest, and refusal to play by the rules of oppressors were not self-sacrificial, but a means of reclaiming and affirming one’s humanity when those in power ignored or denied it.
Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence should not be interpreted as self-sacrifice but as self-affirmation in the face of violence.
Over the last ten installments, I’ve shared my belief that Jesus’ form of nonviolence is much more life-giving when we interpret it as self-affirming, nonviolent resistance. Thank you to each of you who read, listened, wrote in, or commented online about how this series was making a difference for you. I’m so glad you have been here.
We must allow more destructive interpretations of Jesus to give way to more life-giving interpretations. This I believe is in harmony with the spirit of his life and teachings. The movement born out of his life once gave hope to the most marginalized and discarded of his society. May all those who take his name today reject violence, including the violent forms of religiosity that have been created in his name. May we work toward healing and reparations for all those whom certain strands of Christianity have harmed.
Jesus taught the rejection of violence.
Jesus taught self-affirmation for the marginalized.
Jesus taught resistance for those whose humanity was being violated.
May those who follow this Jewish Galilean prophet of the poor today do the same.
HeartGroup Application
Share with your group how this series has affirmed, challenged, or deepened how you presently follow Jesus.
Are there any new practices that this series has brought to your attention that you are implementing in how you live out the ethics of love, justice, and compassion? Share with your group.
How has your HeartGroup itself grown in its collective understanding of nonviolence? Has it changed even some of the ways you communicate with each other?
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Wherever you are, keep choosing love, compassion, action, and reparative and distributive justice.
Another world is possible if we choose it.
Don’t forget, we need your support here at RHM to continue making a difference. To do so, go to renewedheartministries.com and click “Donate.”
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
A Primer on Self Affirming Nonviolence (Part 9)
Herb Montgomery | October 4, 2019
“Self-defense, in and of itself, is not violence. Violation is violence. Oppression is violence. Injustice is violence. Protecting one’s privilege and power over others is violence. Self-defense or self-affirmation in the face of all of these things is not, in and of itself, violence. Although one can employ violence, one can also reject it.”
Renewed Heart Ministries is a nonprofit organization working for a world of love and justice. We need your support to continue bringing the kind of resources and analysis that RHM provides.
Intersections between faith, love, compassion, and justice are needed now more than ever.
Help Christians be better humans. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Renewed Heart Ministries, today. To do so just go to our website at renewedheartministries.com and click “Donate” on the top right or if you prefer to make a donation by mail, our address is:
Renewed Heart Ministries
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And to those of you out there who already are supporting this ministry, I want to say thank you. We could not continue being a voice for change without your support.
Before we wrap up this series on self-affirming nonviolent resistance, I want to address a topic that often comes up when we speak of nonviolence. That topic is self-defense.
When Peter uses the sword in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells him “Put your sword back in its place, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). Some Christians use this passage to say that if we take Jesus’ nonviolence seriously we also have to reject all self-defense. I do not agree. I interpret this story of Peter as pointedly rejecting the use of violence to accomplish the kind of human community (“the kingdom”) that Jesus envisioned. I do not interpret this passage as a rejection of marginalized people’s self-defense: rejecting their self-defense has produced harmful and even lethal fruit for victims of violence.
Jesus taught violated people ways to resist violation and to stand up and to affirm their selves when their humanity, their selves, were being denied (see Part 4). As we’ve discussed repeatedly in this series, Jesus did not teach his followers to be passive or submissive in the face of injustice, oppression, and violation.
There is a difference between using lethal force in self-defense and using non-lethal, yet violation-halting force. I do not mean to imply that just because something is nonlethal it is nonviolent. Yet some forms of self-defense follow Deming’s illustration of stopping the perpetrator while refusing to let go of their humanity and leaving open the possibility of transformation, of the perpetrator making better choices:
“With one hand we say to one who is angry, or to an oppressor, or to an unjust system, ‘Stop what you are doing. I refuse to honor the role you are choosing to play. I refuse to obey you. I refuse to cooperate with your demands. I refuse to build the walls and the bombs. I refuse to pay for the guns. With this hand I will even interfere with the wrong you are doing. I want to disrupt the easy pattern of your life.’ But then the advocate of nonviolence raises the other hand. It is raised outstretched – maybe with love and sympathy, maybe not – but always outstretched . . . With this hand we say, ‘I won’t let go of you or cast you out of the human race. I have faith that you can make a better choice than you are making now, and I’ll be here when you are ready. Like it or not, we are part of one another.’” (Revolution & Equilibrium, 1971, p. 224)
Self-defense, in and of itself, is not violence. Violation is violence. Oppression is violence. Injustice is violence. Protecting one’s privilege and power over others is violence. Self-defense or self-affirmation in the face of all of these things is not, in and of itself, violence. Although one can employ violence, one can also reject it.
There are countless examples that we have today of nonviolent forms of self-defense. But does nonviolent self-defense only apply to individuals or can nonviolent forms of self-defense be used globally? Just war theory is a violent form of self-defense on a global scale. Are there other options?
I want to bring up an event in history that is usually used to illustrate the limitations of nonviolence and accuse nonviolence advocates as naive. The question is usually phrased, “Would nonviolence have stopped Hitler in World War II?”
First, to say that America entered World War II to defend the Jewish people against Hitler’s holocaust romanticizes the history at best and reconstructs it at worst. The U.S. knew what Hitler was doing long before it entered the war and it still chose to remain on the sidelines. Not until the Japanese government attacked the United States’ interests in Pearl Harbor did the U.S. entered the war.
America could have ended Hitler’s holocaust without firing a single shot.
The following is from A People’s History of the United States:
“By 1941 Standard Oil of New Jersey [Exxon] was the largest oil company in the world, controlling 84 percent of the U.S. petroleum market. Its bank was Chase and its owners were the Rockefellers. J.D. Rockefeller had always argued that two things were essential to the oil industry’s survival: checking ‘ruinous competition’ and ‘cooperation.’ Given the success of his monopoly at making enormous profits for its investors while at the same time destroying any form of competition and keeping prices artificially high, it seems quite clear whose survival he was really talking about.
“After the Rockefellers, the next largest stockholder in Standard Oil was I.G. Farben, the giant German chemical company. This investment was part of a pattern of reciprocal investments between the U.S. and Germany during the Nazi years. During the Great Depression, Germany was viewed as a hot area in which to invest.”
The article continues:
“A brief aside is required here to explain what type of company I.G. Farben actually was. At the time, it was the world’s largest chemical company and through the talents of its scientists and engineers, it secured the vital self-sufficiency that was to enable Germany to maneuver in the world of power politics. From its laboratories and factories flowed the strategic raw materials that Germany’s own territory could not supply, the synthetics of oil, gasoline, rubber, nitrates, and fibers. In addition, I.G. produced vaccines and drugs such as Salvarsan, aspirin, Atabrine, and Novocain, along with sulfa drugs, as well as poison gases and rocket fuels. The depth of I.G. Farben’s connection to Nazi policy was finally realized at Auschwitz, the extermination center where four million people were destroyed in accordance with Hitler’s ‘Final Solution of the Jewish Question’. Drawn by the seemingly limitless supply of death camp labor [free labor by those in concentration/extermination camps], Farben built I.G. Auschwitz, a huge industrial complex designed to produce synthetic rubber and oil. This installation used as much electricity as the entire city of Berlin, and more than 25,000 camp inmates died during its construction. I.G. Farben eventually built its own concentration camp, known as Monowitz, which was closer to the site of the complex than Auschwitz was, in order to eliminate the need to march prisoners several miles to and from the plant every day.”
What we must not gloss over about this history is:
“This [I.G. Farben] was the company enthusiastically embraced by Standard Oil [Exxon] as well as other major American corporations like Du Pont and General Motors. I do not, however, state that Standard Oil [Exxon] collaborated with the Nazis simply because I.G. Farben was its second largest shareholder. In fact, without the explicit help of Standard Oil, the Nazi air force would never have gotten off the ground in the first place. The planes that made up the Luftwaffe needed tetraethyl lead gasoline in order to fly. At the time, only Standard Oil, Du Pont, and General Motors had the ability to produce this vital substance. In 1938, Walter C. Teagle, then president of Standard Oil, helped Hermann Schmitz of I.G. Farben to acquire 500 tons of tetraethyl lead from Ethyl, a British Standard subsidiary. A year later, Schmitz returned to London and obtained an additional 15 million dollars worth of tetraethyl lead which was to be turned into aviation gasoline back in Germany.” (Emphasis added.)
One of the most damming pieces of the article follows:
‘After the war began in Europe, the English became angry about U.S. shipments of strategic materials to Nazi Germany. Standard Oil immediately changed the registration of their entire fleet to Panamanian to avoid British search or seizure. These ships continued to carry oil to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where they refueled and siphoned oil to German tankers for shipment to Hamburg.” (Emphasis added.)
Finally:
“This deception was exposed on March 31, 1941 when the U.S. State Department issued a detailed report on refueling stations in Mexico and Central and South America that were suspected of furnishing oil to Italian and German merchant vessels. The report listed Standard Oil of New Jersey and Standard Oil of California among those fueling enemy ships, but there is no record of any action being taken as a result of this discovery. Similar deals between Standard Oil and the Japanese government for the purchase of tetraethyl lead have also been uncovered, but no direct action was ever taken against Standard Oil for its dealings with America’s enemies. A brief side note, however, is that on April 17, l945 the Chase National Bank was placed on trial in federal court on charges of having violated the Trading With the Enemy Act by converting German marks into U.S. dollars. Because many countries refused to accept German currency during the war, the Nazis used foreign banks like Chase National to change the currency into money that would be accepted, and thus allowed them to purchase much need materials to prolong the war. The closer one looks, the more ties one finds between American business and Nazi Germany, many of which remained strong well into and beyond the war.” (Emphasis added.)
In other words, had U.S. corporations valued people over profit, especially people who were being exterminated over war profiteering, Hitler would never have had the resources (gasoline, oil, rubber, nitrates, and fibers) needed for the war and holocaust of Jewish and other marginalized people (see Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged Nazi Collaboration):
“Although [Henry] Ford later renounced his antisemitic writings, he remained an admirer of Nazi Germany and sought to keep America out of the coming war. In July 1938, four months after the German annexation of Austria, he accepted the highest medal that Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle. The following month, a senior executive for General Motors, James Mooney, received a similar medal for his ‘distinguished service to the Reich.’” German trucks driven by the Nazis were manufactured by the Ford Motor Company and by Opel [GM] which also built German war planes.”
This entanglement lasted until America declared war on Germany in December 1941, and when contact with the German subsidiaries of these companies became illegal.
All companies involved denounce their activities with the Nazis, today. But closing their free labor camps and blocking the Nazi’s extermination of Jews and others could have brought Hitler’s efforts to its knees without a shot ever being fired.
We will never know.
Lastly in this treatment of self-defense, I want to address home invasion. I want to disclose that I have had my own home broken into, and I understand this violation firsthand.
I also know that we live in a system that creates winners and losers, and sometimes losers become desperate in their attempts to survive. We must understand when someone is stealing “a loaf of bread just to be able to eat.” I’m reminded of Hugo’s Les Miserables where a priest responds to Val Jean’s theft of the silver by giving him the additional silver candlesticks.
We must learn to distinguish between those in a more marginalized social location defending their right to live, to survive, and those from a more centered social location defending their privilege, power, and property over others who are subjugated. One is self-defense. The other is not self-defense but continued oppression.
Are we really defending ourselves? Or are we simply defending our privilege or “standing our ground?” Self-defense does not have to violate the principle of self-affirming, nonviolent, resistance, but defending one’s privilege against a more egalitarian world is itself an act of violence.
I want to be clear. Anyone who violates another person should be stopped, regardless of social location. We must learn to mercifully and justly hold their humanity too.
Next week will be our final installment of this series.
HeartGroup Application
- List some forms of nonviolent self-defense other than those found in Matthew 5 of cheek defiance, naked protest, and refusing to play by one’s oppressor’s rules. Use google to help you. Discuss what you found with your group.
- How can self-defense be the opposite of violence?
- Discuss how you can apply these principles in your own life as we work together toward a safer, compassionate, and just world.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Wherever you are, keep choosing love, compassion, action and reparative, and distributive justice.
Another world is possible if we choose it.
Don’t forget, we need your support here at RHM to continue making a difference.
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
A Primer on Self-Affirming Nonviolence (Part 8)
Herb Montgomery | September 27, 2019
“As followers of Jesus, especially ones who choose to embrace Jesus’ rejection of violence, we must remember that Jesus did not stand up to injustice, and suffer for it, on our behalf. He calls us to do the same.”
Renewed Heart Ministries is a nonprofit organization working for a world of love and justice. We need your support to continue bringing the kind of resources and analysis that RHM provides.
Intersections between faith, love, compassion, and justice are needed now more than ever.
Help Christians be better humans. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Renewed Heart Ministries, today. To do so just go to our website at renewedheartministries.com and click “Donate” on the top right or if you prefer to make a donation by mail, our address is:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
And to those of you out there who already are supporting this ministry, I want to say thank you. We could not continue being a voice for change without your support.
In all four canonical gospels, Jesus disrupts and, in protest, shuts down the economic activity of the Temple courtyards. For some, this conflicts with interpreting Jesus as teaching nonviolence.
Let’s look at all four versions of the story first. Then we’ll look at the objection.
“Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.” (Mark 11:11)
“On reaching [returning to] Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.” (Mark 11:15-16)
“Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the benches of those selling doves.” (Matthew 21:12)
“When Jesus entered the temple courts, he began to drive out those who were selling.” (Luke 19:45)
“In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. (John 2:14-15)
Mark’s version of this event quickly takes us to the next chapter for Jesus’ explanation of his disruption and protest:
“They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” (Mark 12:40)
“But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.” (Mark 12:42)
Jesus considers the temple tax and the temple state’s failure to redistribute funds raised among the poor as economic exploitation that takes everything from those who have nothing to give in the first place.
Jesus’ reason for protesting in Mark is economic and political if one defines politics as the discussion about how power and resources are divided among the polis or people.
It was also religious inasmuch as the Jewish prophets’ similar critiques were, too:
“The multitude of your sacrifices—
what are they to me?” says the LORD.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths, and convocations—
I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow. (Isaiah 1:11-17)
We must be clear that it’s harmful to interpret Jesus’ actions as Christianity versus Judaism. All of the early followers of Jesus were Jewish. Jesus himself was a Jew and never a Christian. In protesting exploitation, Jesus is not opposed to the Torah, nor to Judaism in general. Jesus’ voice was rather one of many Jewish voices within Judaism in the 1st Century defining what it meant to be faithful to their God, the God of Torah.
I do not believe Jesus’ actions in the temple were anti-Semitic, as some Christians would later interpret them. They were much more about how Jesus saw his own Jewish society and the Jewish Temple State relating to the poor. As both Borg and Crossan remind us, “The issue is not [the Temple state elites member’s] individual virtue or wickedness, but the role they played in the domination system. They shaped it, enforced it, and benefited from it.” (Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week, p. 28)
This explains the lethal backlash from Rome and the societal elite of Jerusalem to Jesus’ temple protest. We’ll discuss that in a moment.
First, the objection.
In John’s gospel we read:
“In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. (John 2:14-15)
To some, Jesus with a whip in-hand contradicts their understanding of nonviolence.
There are a few things we must keep in mind:
Jesus’ nonviolence is not passivity, it was a way to resist injustice.
Jesus could have made his whip of cords solely to drive out the livestock. It seems to me that he used the whip to drive out the livestock and the turning over of tables drove out the money changers.
Even with this, Jesus’ actions still fall within the parameters of nonviolent action. What must also be held in tension is that none of the force used was lethal. No one’s life was being threatened in his protest.
Add to this that all nonlethal force used was in protest of the ruling classes oppression of the poor. This was not nonlethal force being used to oppressor or marginalize those who were societally vulnerable. Social location matters.
Jesus was not losing his temper. His protest was calculated and well-thought. As we covered in Part 6, Mark’s gospel reveals that Jesus intended this temple state protest to be the climax of his entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. But when he arrived, it was already late in the day and the temple was empty. There was no crowd of people to witness his demonstration and disruption. Therefore he retired to Bethany for the night and returned the next day to disrupt the economic activity of the courtyards:
“Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.” (Mark 11:11)
If we allow Jesus’ nonviolence to inform our own nonviolent protests today, we must also consider whether it is ever appropriate for the property of the economic elite to be damaged during a nonviolent protest. Jesus valued people, especially poor people, above property. Some level of property damage was involved when he protested in the temple that day. If we have ever been more concerned about property being damaged in protests than we are about the injustice to people at the heart of those protests, we may need to reassess which side of the gospel story we would have been on.
By the time of Jesus’s protest, his actions had economic and political implications and the number of his followers was growing, especially among the poor and destitute. Property damage could not go without both Rome and the social elite making an example of Jesus in their own demonstration. Those who engage in protests like this will suffer what follows. Before the end of that week, Jesus was hanging on a cross.
Howard Thurman explains why the elite of Jesus’ society may have been complicit with Rome in opposing property damage:
“[The Sadducees] represented the ‘upper’ class. From their number came the high priests, and most of the economic security derived from contemporary worship in the temple was their monopoly. They did not represent the masses of the people. Any disturbance of the established order meant upsetting their position. They loved Israel, but they seem to have loved security more. They made their public peace with Rome and went on about the business of living. They were astute enough to see that their own position could be perpetuated if they stood firmly against all revolutionaries and radicals. Such persons would only stir the people to resist the inevitable, and in the end, everything would be lost. Their tragedy was in the fact that they idealized the position of the Roman in the world and suffered the moral fate of the Romans by becoming like them. They saw only two roads open before them— become like the Romans or be destroyed by the Romans. They chose the former.” (In Jesus and the Disinherited, p. 24)
When one begins to understand how Jesus’ disruption in the Temple threatened the Temple State’s survival in the Roman empire and how Rome viewed all public disruptions, it becomes quite easy to understand how the week ended with Jesus being crucified. Consider the following statements on the specific purpose for which Rome used crucifixion:
“In first-century Christianity, the cross had a twofold meaning. On the one hand, it represented execution by the empire; only the empire crucified, and then for only one crime: denial of imperial authority. The cross had not yet become a generalized symbol for suffering as it sometimes is today when one’s illness or other hardship can be spoken of as ‘the cross I’ve been given to bear.’ Rather, it meant risking imperial retribution.” (Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The Last Week, Kindle location 519)
“Jesus then suffered persecution, knew why he was suffering it and where it might lead him. This persecution, consciously accepted, is the measure of this faithfulness to God. It reveals him as a human being who not only announces hope to the poor and curses their oppressors but persists in this, despite persecution because this is God’s will. The final violent death does not come as an arbitrary fate, but as a possibility always kept in mind.” (Jon Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator, p. 201.)
Crucifixion was the political punishment for “violating the rule of Roman law and order.” (See Kelly Brown Douglas, Stand Your Ground Black Bodies and the Justice of God, p. 171.)
“Crucifixion was and remains a political and military punishment . . . Among the Romans, it was inflicted above all on the lower classes, i.e., slaves, violent criminals, and the unruly elements in rebellious provinces, not least Judea . . . These were primarily people who on the whole had no rights, in other words, groups whose development had to be suppressed by all possible means to safeguard law and order in the state.” (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: a political reading of Mark’s story of Jesus, p. 372)
Ched Myers reminds us that what got Jesus crucified was not a religious protest, but a protest of the entire political edifice of the Temple state and the Roman empire too.
“As in the modern practice of civil disobedience, which might break the law in order to raise deeper issues of its morality and purpose, so Jesus, just before ‘crossing the line,’ issues a challenge to his audience. Pitting his mission of compassion and justice to the poor against the imperatives of the dominant order, Jesus calls the entire ideological edifice of the law to account.” (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: a political reading of Mark’s story of Jesus, p. 162)
As followers of Jesus, especially ones who choose to embrace Jesus’ rejection of violence, we must remember that Jesus did not stand up to injustice, and suffer for it, on our behalf. He calls us to do the same. As Rustin said, “We need in every community a group of angelic troublemakers.” (Bayard Rustin, ORGANIZING MANUAL NO. 2; FINAL PLANS FOR MARCH ON WASHINGTON FOR JOBS AND FREEDOM, AUGUST 28, 1963)
This is not about redemptive suffering or a call to suffering (see Part 4). Suffering does not bring life. Refusing to let go of life, brings life. Jesus calls us, not to die, but to resist injustice even if threatened with death for doing so. The difference can be subtle, but it results in a world of difference in how we respond to suffering and injustice. As the late liberation theologian James Cone stated, “The only meaningful Christian response is to resist unjust suffering and to accept the painful consequence of that resistance” (James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed). Liberation theologian Jon Sobrino adds: “Suffering in itself has no meaning; the only suffering that has any meaning is the suffering we accept in the fight against suffering.” (Jon Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator)
Jesus’ actions in the temple don’t contradict his nonviolence. Rather, his actions embody his teachings on nonviolent, self-affirming resistance to injustice. Next week we’ll consider one more clarification regarding nonviolence before we conclude. I’m so glad you’ve journeyed with us through this series.
HeartGroup Application
- Discuss with your group what injustices today you feel particularly passionate about. What kinds of resistance or protest would you find effective or useful in standing up to those injustices?
- Does Jesus’ example of standing up to injustice in his own setting encourage you to do the same in yours? If so, discuss how.
- How can your group reach out to and help those who are the objects of injustice while also working for systemic change?
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Wherever you are, keep choosing love, compassion, action and reparative, and distributive justice.
Another world is possible if we choose it.
Don’t forget, we need your support here at RHM to continue making a difference.
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
A Primer on Self Affirming Nonviolence (Part 7)
Herb Montgomery | September 20, 2019
If Jesus taught nonviolence, why does the rest of the Bible seem to endorse or even command violence?
This week’s episode is quite a milestone. This is our 300th episode! I want to take this opportunity to ask for your support so we can continue our work. Renewed Heart Ministries is a nonprofit organization working for a world of love and justice. We need your support to continue bringing the kind of resources and analysis that RHM provides.
Intersections between faith, love, compassion, and justice are needed now more than ever.
Help Christians be better humans. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Renewed Heart Ministries, today. To do so just go to our website at renewedheartministries.com and click “Donate” on the top right or if you prefer to make a donation by mail, our address is:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
And to those of you out there who already are supporting this ministry, I want to say thank you. We could not continue being a voice for change without your support.
This week I want to begin with another common objection to interpreting Jesus as teaching nonviolence. If Jesus taught nonviolence, why does the rest of the Bible seem to endorse or even command violence?
I agree with Philip Jenkins, author of Laying Down the Sword, that we must not “ignore the Bible’s violent verses.” Christians have repeatedly used the violent passage and commands of the Bible as a basis for their actions during the last two millennia, making Christianity the most violent world religion to date. Yet before the Roman empire embraced the Christian religion, Christianity was a religion of pacifists who believed Jesus taught his followers to practice some form of nonviolence. (See Part 1 and Part 2).
So what do we do with the violence of the Bible? First, we need to be honest about it. The Bible, to which the Jesus story belongs, is a very violent book overall. From Genesis to Revelation we are accosted with violence, both human and Divine.
Second, we need to understand the social-political context of Jesus’ nonviolence was Jewish society under a very heavy-handed Roman control.
Jesus had options for what form his resistance to injustice would take. He chose nonviolent, self-affirming resistance as his means of change. Jesus chose to embrace and teach his followers nonviolent forms of resistance that some first-century Jewish resistance efforts were already using.
In his volume The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer, John Dominic Crossan shares a brief history of violent and nonviolent Jewish resistance movements within the culture of the gospel stories. Three significant Jewish rebellions stand out in that context:
The first was the Judas Rebellion under the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It took place in Sepphoris in 4 BCE. Josephus tells us how Rome responded to this rebellion. The Roman Governor in Syria, Varus, had first “committed part of [the soldiers] to his son, and to a friend of his; and sent them upon an expedition into Galilee: which lies in the neighbourhood of Ptolemais. Who made an attack upon the enemy, and put them to flight, and took Sepphoris, and made its inhabitants slaves, and burnt the city.” (Antiquities of the Jews, 17.288–89). Varus then marched on to Jerusalem. He “sent a part of his army into the country, to seek out those that had been the authors of the revolt: and when they were discovered, he punished some of them that were most guilty; and some he dismissed. Now the number of those that were crucified on this account were two thousand.” (Antiquities of the Jews, 17.295)
Think of the psychological damage to the rest of the population of seeing 2,000 crosses with rebels crucified on them along the Jewish countryside. What message would this have sent? Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas reminds us that “Crucifixion was a stand-your-ground type of punishment for the treasonous offense of violating the rule of Roman ‘law and order’” (in Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God, p. 171).
The second major Jewish rebellion during the time the gospels were written was the Roman Jewish War of 66-69 CE under the Roman emperor Nero. This ended in the destruction of the Jewish Temple and in Jerusalem being burned to the ground.
The third rebellion was the BarKokba Revolt from 132-136 CE. Rome killed more than half a million Jews in this war, and more died from starvation and disease. Rome also sold Jewish war captives into slavery. (Menaḥem Mor, The Second Jewish Revolt the Bar Kokhba War, Page 471) So great was the devastation from Rome’s backlash after this third rebellion that Joan Taylor states “the crucial date for what can only be described as genocide, and the devastation of Jews and Judaism within central Judea, was 135 CE and not, as usually assumed, 70 CE, despite the siege of Jerusalem and the Temple’s destruction” (in The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea. Oxford University Press, 2014. Page 243)
We must understand Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence in terms of the historical reality that the Jewish people picking up the sword against Rome would not have been an act of liberation but an act of suicide. Jesus would have grown up in the wake of the destruction of the first Jewish rebellion we discussed above, and his nonviolence held thriving, surviving, and liberation in tension.
But what about those 1st Century nonviolent resistance movements we spoke about earlier? Nonviolent resistance movements, though less popular, were also used by the Jewish people during this time. We’ll consider two that we have a record of.
The first is the Ensigns Incident in 26 CE. If Jesus had been on the fence before emerging in Galilee as a teacher of nonviolence, the incident would have taken place just before his ministry began and could have influenced his thinking on the potential success of nonviolent resistance.
Josephus tells us:
“As procurator [Greek: “hegemon”] of Judaea Tiberius sent Pilate, who during the night, secretly and undercover, conveyed to Jerusalem the images of Caesar known as standards. When day dawned this caused great excitement among the Jews; for those who were near were amazed at the sight, which meant that their laws had been trampled on — they do not permit any graven image to be set up in the City — and the angry City mob was joined by a huge influx of people from the country. They rushed off to Pilate in Caesarea, and begged him to remove the standards from Jerusalem and to respect their ancient customs. When Pilate refused, they fell prone all round his house and remained motionless for five days and nights.
The next day Pilate took his seat on the tribunal in the great stadium and summoned the mob on the pretext that he was ready to give them an answer. Instead he gave a pre-arranged signal to the soldiers to surround the Jews in full armour, and the troops formed a ring three deep. The Jews were dumbfounded at the unexpected sight, but Pilate, declaring that he would cut them to pieces unless they accepted the images of Caesar, nodded to the soldiers to bare their swords. At this the Jews as though by agreement fell to the ground in a body and bent their necks, shouting that they were ready to be killed rather than transgress the Law. Amazed at the intensity of their religious fervour, Pilate ordered the standards to be removed from Jerusalem forthwith.” War 2:175-203
The second example of Jewish nonviolent resistance is the incident over the statue of Gaius Caligula that Caligula attempted to erect in the Temple in 40 CE.
The following is Josephus’ account of the mass demonstration in response:
“Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Jews came to Petronius at Ptolemais with petitions not to use force to make them transgress and violate their ancestral code. They said, ‘If you propose at all costs to set up the image, slay us first before you carry out these resolutions. For it is not possible for us to survive and to behold actions that are forbidden us by the decision both of our lawgiver and of our ancestors. … In order to preserve our ancestral code, we shall patiently endure what may be in store for us… for God will stand by us; Fortune, moreover, is wont to veer now toward one side, now toward the other in human affairs.’ Petronius saw that they were determined and that it would be impossible to carry out Gaius’ order without great conflict and slaughter. He went to Tiberias to determine the situation of the Jews there. Again, many tens of thousands faced Petronius on his arrival. They besought him to not put up the statue. ‘Will you then go to war with Caesar, regardless of his resources and of your own weakness?’ he asked. ‘On no account would we fight,’ they said, ‘but we will die sooner than violate our laws.’ And falling on their faces and baring their throats, they declared that they were ready to be slain. They continued to make these supplications for forty days. Furthermore, they neglected their fields even though this was the time to sow the seed. For they showed a stubborn determination and readiness to die rather than to see the image erected.
“Then members of the royal family and civic leaders appealed to Petronius to refrain from the plan and instead to write to Gaius telling how incurable was their opposition to receiving the statue and how they had left their fields to sit as a protest, and that they did not choose war, since they could not fight a war, but would be glad to die sooner than transgress their customs, and that since the land was unsown there would be no harvest and no tribute. They brought pressure to bear upon him in every way and employed every device to make their plea effective. Petronius was influenced by their plea, and saw the stubborn determination of the Jews, and thought it would be terrible to bring death on so many tens of thousands of people. He thought it best to risk sending a letter to Gaius. Perhaps he might even convince him to cancel the order. If not, he would undertake war against the Jews. And thus Petronius decided to recognize the cogency of the plea of the petitioners.” Antiquities 18:261-309
Again, this is the landscape upon which the gospels were written. The early Jesus community, which wrote the gospels, chose the path of nonviolence.
How did early Christianity reconcile this ethic of nonviolence with the rest of their sacred text? Let’s stop for a moment and first ask that question of ourselves.
Have you ever felt that in order to do what was right and ethical you had to go against your understanding of what you believed your sacred text taught? Remember, our sacred texts can be eternal while our interpretations are temporary. We must learn to distinguish between our sacred texts and our interpretations of them. We can choose to allow older destructive interpretations that do harm to marginalized communities to give way to new life-giving interpretations for everyone, the marginalized especially.
This is the story of early Christianity. To do what they believed was right, early Christians had to go against their understanding of what they believed their sacred text had previously taught. They created or discovered new ways of interpreting their sacred text, informed by the teachings of Jesus.
We see another illustration of this in the first verses of the New Testament book of Hebrews:
“Long ago, God spoke to our ancestors in many and various forms by the prophets, but in these last days, he has spoken to us by a son [who is the] radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” (Hebrews 1:1-3)
New ways of interpreting their sacred texts emerged to replace the old. I’m sure this was just as unsettling for those back then who did not like change as it is for certain Christians today.
I have to confess, too, that I deeply wrestle with the violence I see in our sacred text, the Bible. A lot of Christian authors try and justify the violence in the Bible, conflating it with punitive or preventive justice. Their goal is to make that violence look fair or the lesser of two evils. While I admire their efforts to make these passages look less ugly, they really don’t solve my problem with Biblical violence. There is a world of difference between reconciling the violence of the Bible with justice and reconciling the violence of the Bible with Jesus and his teachings on nonviolence. One may be able to justify an example of violence in our sacred text, but the Jesus of the gospels didn’t teach justified violence or what is today called just war theory. The Jesus of the gospels taught resistance that was self-affirming and nonviolent.
The moral standard for a follower of Jesus is not the Bible. It’s not the ten commandments. It’s not even our interpretations of the Gospels. The Jesus we claim to follow taught that “a tree is known by its fruit” (Matthew 12:33 cf. Luke 6:44). This means that we can know whether we are interpreting our sacred texts in harmful or life-giving ways by the fruit that interpretation produces. Is our understanding certain stories and passages producing life, especially for the “least of these,” or is it harming others? The moral standard for a Jesus follower, according to Jesus, is to do no harm and to treat others the way you yourself would like to be treated.
This series is a call to all of those who claim to follow the Jesus of the gospels to return to what he taught about our relation to violence. When we bump into what we could interpret as a Biblical endorsement of violence or as Biblically mandated violence, we must hold those passages as secondary to Jesus and his rejection of violence in the gospels.
Last week, as the U.S. remembered the events of 9/11, a friend of mine who is a pastor, Daniel Wysong, posted this relevant reminder on Facebook:
“My hope in remembering 9/11 is that we would learn the lesson that killing people is horrible. The 2996 people who died on 9/11/2001 shouldn’t have. Nor should the 7000 US service members that died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nor should the ~100,000 police and guard members. Nor should the ~300,000 Iraqi and Afghani civilians. Every single one of those lives lost is a tragedy of equal proportion.
If we wish to honor the memory of those who have been killed, it can only be by remembering that violence is horrible. And remembering that violence begets violence. And intentionally moving towards a world with less killing.
We honor their lives by learning and remembering that we will never create the world we all want to live in by killing enough people.” (https://www.facebook.com/danwysong7/posts/10219666062303603)
May followers of Jesus come to be known in our society as those who reject violence, once again.
HeartGroup Application
1. In what ways has used the gospel stories of Jesus caused you to have to reinterpret other parts of your sacred text? Share with the group.
2. Are there passages or stories in the Bible that you feel you cannot redeem or reclaim? Share these with the group as well as why these passages trouble you.
3. How has reinterpreting the Bible through the lens of the Jesus story changed the ethics by which you live or affirmed ethics of peace you are already living? Share with your group.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Wherever you are, keep choosing love, compassion, action and reparative, and distributive justice.
Another world is possible if we choose it.
Don’t forget, we need your support here at RHM to continue making a difference.
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
A Primer on Self-Affirming Nonviolence (Part 6)
Herb Montgomery | September 13, 2019
“Jesus was not about peace-keeping but peace-making. He was not about keeping the peace, not disturbing the status quo, but about calling for justice, the justice that in the Jewish tradition was to be the foundation of peace. Peace was not the absence of conflict but about the fruit of distributive, societal justice.”
I want to take moment again this week and ask for your support. Renewed Heart Ministries is a nonprofit organization working for a world of love and justice. We are about to hit our 300th podcast next week. The last 12 years has been quite a journey. We need your support to continue bringing the kind of resources and analysis that RHM provides.
Intersections between faith, love, compassion, and justice are needed now more than ever.
Help Christians be better humans. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Renewed Heart Ministries, today. To do so just go to our website at renewedheartministries.com and click “Donate” on the top right or if you prefer to make a donation by mail, our address is:
Renewed Heart Ministries
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And to those of you out there who already are supporting this ministry, I want to say thank you. We could not continue being a voice for change without your support.
This week let’s look at another text in the gospels that some Christians use when they object to Jesus’ teaching of nonviolence:
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)
Christians have used this passage to justify picking up the sword to “enlarge the Kingdom.” When you read the context of this passage, though, that seems more a determined, intentional effort to interpret Jesus’ words in any other way than as part of the ethic of nonviolence Jesus taught. Mahatma Gandhi reportedly said, “The only people on earth who do not see Christ and his teachings as non-violent are Christians.” There was a time in my life, too, when I genuinely felt that Jesus’ teachings on non-violence were tangential, but I must confess that I believe I was wrong. I have begun to see that Jesus’ teachings on non-violence are central to the kind of human community Jesus envisioned his society could grow into. That vision involved surviving any liberation attempt against Roman oppression, but it wasn’t just about individuals surviving. Nonviolence was also to characterize the community’s quality of life, as well.
In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus continues the above passage with these words:
“For I have come to turn ‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter–in–law against her mother–in–law—your enemies will be the members of your own household.’ Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:35-38)
What did Jesus mean by the statement that He came to bring a sword? Did he want his followers to take up the sword? Or was he saying that the social changes he came to bring would quite likely bring pushback from those empowered with a sword?
The Greek word translated as sword in these verses is machaira. It can be translated figuratively to denote strife or warfare. I do not believe Jesus is saying that those who follow Him should engage in violent warfare in “Jesus’ name” as Christians have historically done. I see them instead as saying that those who chose to follow him should expect to receive strife or warfare for standing up against societal injustice and calling for change. In Jesus’ statement, the strife being created is between parents and children. This is significant, because it meant the power and authority within the social structures of the family being challenged. John Dominic Crossan comments on this:
“Imagine the standard Mediterranean family with five members: mother and father, married son with his wife, and unmarried daughter, a nuclear extended family all under one roof. Jesus says he will tear it apart. The usual explanation is that families will become divided as some accept and others refuse faith in Jesus. But notice where and how emphatically the axis of separation is located. It is precisely between the generations. But why should faith split along that axis? Why might faith not separate, say, the women from the men or even operate in ways far more random? The attack has nothing to do with faith but with power. The attack is on the Mediterranean family’s axis of power, which sets father and mother over son, daughter, and daughter-in-law. That helps us to understand all of those examples. The family is society in miniature, the place where we first and most deeply learn how to love and be loved, hate and be hated, help and be helped, abuse and be abused. It is not just a center of domestic serenity; since it involves power, it invites the abuse of power, and it is at that precise point that Jesus attacks it.” (in Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 67)
Jesus then states that His followers are not to take up the sword in response to those who wield the sword against them; rather, Jesus’ followers are to take up “the cross.” This is a far cry from Jesus encouraging his followers to practice “justified violence.” Instead this is a call to keep standing up against abuse of power and promote a more egalitarian distribution of power even if you are being threatened with a cross for doing so. (See A Primer on Self-Affirming Nonviolence, Part 4.)
Consider this passage about Jesus not bringing peace but a sword through the lens of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1955, King responded to an accusation that he was “disturbing the peace” through his activism during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. King wrote, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.”
Jesus was not about peace-keeping but peace-making. He was not about keeping the peace, not disturbing the status quo, but about calling for justice, the justice that in the Jewish tradition was to be the foundation of peace. Peace was not the absence of conflict but about the fruit of a distributive, societal justice:
“Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end . . . establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness . . .” (Isaiah 9:7)
“The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths.” (Isaiah 59:8)
“Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid.” (Micah 4:4)
An example in the synoptic gospels that illustrate Jesus’ willingness to disturb the peace is his final entry into Jerusalem. He disrupted the Temple activity in protest of the economic system’s exploitation and oppression of the poor.
In Mark 12:40, Jesus states how those benefiting from the system “devour widows’ houses” while “for a show make lengthy prayers.” Immediately Mark then gives an example of a poor widow paying the Temple tax (see Mark 12:41-13:2).
In Mark, Mathew, and Luke we read of Jesus entry into Jerusalem and his temple protest. My favorite is Mark’s version:
“They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, ‘’What are you doing, untying that colt?’ They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!’ Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.” (Mark 11:4-11)
The events of entering Jerusalem and overturning the tables in the Temple seem to have originally been planned as one combined event. Yet by the time Jesus gets to the temple, it is “already late” and most of the people there have returned home. For a demonstration to be effective there have to be people to witness the demonstration. You can’t protest and raise awareness without witnesses, and “business as usual” has to actually take place for one to disrupt.
So Mark’s story states that Jesus went back to Bethany (most likely the home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus) and stayed there for the night, then returned the next day to finish his protest.
Ultimately I believe Jesus was seeking the peace that comes through everyone having enough not only to survive but also to thrive. A world where no one has too much while others don’t even have enough. Yet to do that, we must be willing to disrupt and disturb the status quo. Jesus did so nonviolently, yet his actions were disruptive nonetheless. And yes, it did bring a “sword.” Before the week of his protest was over, he was crucified for the economic and political implications of his Temple disruption and the ever growing crowd of Jewish working and peasant poor who were following him. His action of disturbing the peace brought the sword as he’d taught it would. This is, I believe, a much more life-giving interpretation of our passage then the teaching that Christians should not oppose violence.
Christian history would look very different if Christians had refused to take up the sword in Jesus’ name. The world, too, might even look very different had the church not abandoned Jesus’ teachings on nonviolence. Today, however, Christianity stands as the world religion with the most violent history. It is to the end of repairing that damage, especially to marginalized communities, that Christians must work toward today.
Again, there is much to contemplate this week.
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)
HeartGroup Application.
1. Discuss with your group the differences between peace enforced by a sword and peace that is the fruit of distributive justice where everyone has enough.
2. What difference does it make for you personally to believe that the Jesus you follow was a disturber of the peace and invited his followers to be disturbers and disruptors of the peace in response to systemic injustice?
3. Discuss how you, too, both personally and collectively, can become a disturber of the peace in response to injustice. Pick something from your discussion and begin putting it into practice this week.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Wherever you are, keep choosing love, compassion, action and reparative and distributive justice.
Another world is possible if we choose it.
Don’t forget, we need your support here at RHM to continue making a difference.
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
A Primer on Self-Affirming Nonviolence (Part 5)
By Herb Montgomery | August 30, 2019
“We must be much more scandalized by the institutional violence that leads to violent rebellion than the violence of those who stand up to institutional violence. They are not the same. One is primary and the source or cause of all the other.”
I want to pause for a moment again this week and ask for your support. Renewed Heart Ministries is a nonprofit organization working for a world of love and justice. We need your support to bring the kind of resources and analysis that RHM provides.
Intersections between faith, love, compassion, and justice are needed now more than ever.
Help Christians be better humans. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Renewed Heart Ministries, today. To do so just go to our website at renewedheartministries.com and click “Donate” on the top right or if you prefer to make a donation by mail, our address is:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
And to those of you out there who already are supporting this ministry, I want to say thank you. We could not continue being a voice for change without your support.
I’ve been teaching Christian nonviolence for quite some time now and the number one objection I get from American Christians is based on a passage in Luke’s version of the Jesus story:
“He said to them, ‘But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.’” (Luke 22:36)
The objection goes something like “See? See? Jesus was right here telling them to buy swords! See?”
It’s undeniable that Jesus was admonishing his disciples to buy swords, and we must also ask why. Did Jesus want them to use these swords to bring about the social vision of the Kingdom? Or did he want them to use these swords to defend his social vision of the reign of God from the status quo? We don’t have to read too far to get a clear answer: it’s in the very next sentence. All we need is to keep reading.
“‘It is written: “And he was numbered with the transgressors”; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.’ The disciples said, ‘See, Lord, here are two swords.’ ‘That’s enough!’ he replied.” (Luke 22:37-38)
Let’s look at this story one step at a time. The word here translated as “transgressors” is the Greek word anomos. It means “lawless.” Jesus was more than simply a focal point of religious controversy. To be deemed worthy of being crucified, Jesus had to be seen as an insurrectionist, an armed rebel. Jesus’ crucifixion was political, not religious. Mark, believed to be the earliest gospel, states, “They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left.” (Mark 15:27)
The Greek word translated as rebel in that verse is leistes. It means insurrectionist. Jesus will be numbered with the insurrectionists, the “transgressors” of the Pax Romana.
Jesus will be perceived as a political threat to the Pax Romana or “Peace of Rome,” a “lawless” one, a political enemy, and an upstart Messiah.
In Luke’s second volume, the book of Acts, his early followers were also characterized this way:
“These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” (Acts 17:6-7)
For Luke, Jesus and his band of disciples need to be caught with swords in their possession. The mixture of the claim that this could be the Messiah who might lead the people to freedom from oppressive Roman rule and the claim that Jesus’ disciples were “gathering” or stockpiling swords would light the Roman fuse that would lead to the crucifixion.
I reject the interpretation that Jesus’ counsel to buy swords was about Jesus wanting his disciples to wield them in the next part of the story. Two swords for twelve men wouldn’t be enough for each of them to use, yet Jesus states two would be enough for them to be “numbered with the transgressors.” Further, when Peter does pick up and wield one of these two swords later in the story, he provokes one of the strongest rebukes Jesus gave in all the gospels.
“Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives . . . While he was still speaking a crowd came up, and the man who was called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus asked him, ‘Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?’ When Jesus’ followers saw what was going to happen, they said, ‘Lord, should we strike with our swords?’ And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus answered, ‘No more of this!’ And he touched the man’s ear and healed him. Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, ‘Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me.” (Luke 22:35-53, cf. Matthew 26:51-54; John 18:10-11)
There is much in this passage. For our purposes here I want to focus on Jesus’ rebuke of Peter for actually welding one of the very swords Jesus said was “enough.”
Jesus rebukes the disciple who used the sword to cut off the high priest’s servant’s ear. Peter was likely aiming for the servant’s head, but the servant leaned sideways to escape the swing and the sword glanced off the side of his head, taking off his ear. Jesus rebukes the disciple with the phrase: “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”
Jesus is teaching his followers that his goals cannot be accomplished by violence.
It would be well to remember the words of others who belong to communities facing institutional violence.
“Violence can beget fear, stalemate, annihilation, dominance, or more violence, but it cannot beget love, justice, abundant life, community, or peace.” (Rita Nakashima Brock & Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, p. 13)
“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” (Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, p. 112)
Rome sought peace through the threat of violence, specifically crucifixion. Jesus’ social vision was instead about establishing societal peace and distributive justice through self-affirming, nonviolent resistance. It was a societal goal where the means matched the end.
Some will object, “But Jesus was supposed to die, so this rebuke doesn’t apply to us does it? His death was for a specified purpose, so doesn’t that mean that his words about this had a specified meaning?”
Before Rome embraced Christianity, changing its social location, Christians did not interpret Jesus’ words to Peter as having an isolated, specialized application. Tertullian, for example, wrote, “The Lord, in disarming Peter, thenceforth disarmed every soldier.” (in Of Idolatry, ch .19)
Jesus is giving a universal principle that “those who live by the sword, die by the sword.” Here in the United States, we have the largest military presence in the world and spend more on our military than all of the next ten countries with large militaries combined. At home, our attitudes and choices toward violence also mean that we have the highest rates of gun violence and gun related deaths in the world, as well.
As we saw in Part 4 of this series, Jesus’ cross was not something he embraced instead of us, but something we are called to join him in as long as we interpret taking up one’s cross in self-affirming nonviolence and not patient, passive endurance of suffering. We are called to join Jesus in the choice to resist and stand up against oppression even if threatened with a cross for doing so.
What we see in Luke’s gospel is that, within context, Jesus’ call for his disciples to “go buy a sword” should not be interpreted as Jesus intending them to use the swords they bought. To take from Jesus’ words that he transitioned from nonviolence to being okay with his disciples wielding swords has borne very destructive fruit for the Christian tradition. Christianity’s bloody history teaches us that we must question a Christian acceptance of violence. And we must work to repair the damage that violent forms of Christianity have done to marginalized communities.
Lastly, I want to offer one word of caution about this story. One could argue that Peter was using the sword in self-defense and therefore Jesus is against self-defense. I do not equate self-defense with the institutional violence that causes marginalized communities to have to defend themselves. We must, though, learn how to distinguish between the self-defense of the oppressed and the use of violence by those privileged and empowered to use violence to maintain and protect their privilege and power. These are two very different things. I do not interpret this story as being against the self defense of the weaker against those who are stronger. I interpret it as being against taking up violence as a form of revolution. Jesus was a revolutionary, yet his revolution was, for the sake of his own, Jewish people’s survival in the face of Roman retaliation, a nonviolent, self-affirming, resistant revolution. Jesus’ revolution could not be accomplished by violence.
Yet, we must be much more scandalized by the institutional violence that leads to violent rebellion than the violence of those who stand up to institutional violence. They are not the same. One is primary and the source or cause of all the other.
I close with two statements I believe profoundly speak to this caution:
The first is from Jon Sobrino:
“First, Jesus’ practice and teaching demand absolutely the unmasking of and a resolute struggle against the form of violence that is the worst and most generative of others because it is the most inhuman and the historical principle at the origin of all dehumanization: structural injustice in the form of institutionalized violence. It follows that we have to unmask the frequent attitude of being scandalized at revolutionary violence and the victims it produces without having been scandalized first and more deeply at its causes.” (Jesus the Liberator, p. 215)
The second is from Oscar Romero:
“I will not tire of declaring that if we truly want an effective end to the violence, we must eliminate the violence that lies at the root of all violence: structural violence, social injustice, the exclusion of citizens from the management of the country, repression. All this is what constitutes the fundamental cause, from which the rest flows naturally.” (Homily on September 23, 1979.)
There is much to consider this week.
HeartGroup Application
1. Can you give examples of nonlethal forms of personal self defense or stopping another from doing harm? Have you seen these forms used with success? Share stories.
2. Can you give any historical examples of where nonlethal forms of resistance around the globe were used to bring about both societal reformation or even revolutionary change?
3. Both lethal and nonlethal forms of resistance have their success and failures. Discuss the difference between when violent forms of resistance fail and when nonviolent forms of resistance fail. Is there a difference in the extent to which they not only succeed, but even when they fail? Discuss as a group.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Wherever you are, keep choosing love, compassion, action and reparative and distributive justice.
Another world is possible if we choose it.
Don’t forget, we need your support here at RHM to continue making a difference.
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
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