Choosing Peace through Militarized Policing or Distributive Justice
Herb Montgomery | June 26, 2020
This week we end our consideration of the final warnings in Luke’s version of the Jesus story and how they might relate to our society. In Luke 23, we read:
“Jesus turned and said to them, ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, ‘Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ Then ‘they will say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?’” (Luke 23:28–31)
In this passage, Jesus addresses women weeping for him as Roman soldiers march him toward Golgotha. Jesus is just moments away from being crucified here. Luke tells us that “a large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him” (Luke 23:27). Days earlier this same crowd had ushered Jesus into Jerusalem. White Christians today who still trust in militarized saviors in our current social climate miss a lot of the details in Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem.
Luke’s gospel borrows imagery used by Rome itself, which referred to Caesar as the “son of God.” He was called “the savior of the world.” Through the victories of Rome (i.e., Caesar), the political propaganda of Jesus’ day proclaimed, “peace on earth” would come. They called that peace the Pax Romana, the “peace of Rome.” And when Caesar would approach a city in the Roman Empire, emissaries from the city would go out to meet the dignitary and escort him on his way into their city. They would welcome Caesar and the “peace” that Roman occupation brought to their lives.
The fact that Luke’s gospel used images of honor thought to be due only to the “Lord” Caesar would have deeply subverted Rome’s political gospel. As Luke’s Jesus approached Jerusalem, the crowd cries out, “Blessed is the KING who comes in the name of the Lord!” and “PEACE in heaven and glory in the highest!”
Yet there is a difference between Luke’s Jesus and Rome’s Caesar. Where Caesar would have ridden a warhorse in his triumphal entry, Jesus came riding on the foal of a colt, or a young donkey. At least two literary agendas are present here: a contrast to Rome’s militarized methods toward peace and Jesus’ path toward peace through distributive justice rather than policing, and the writer pointing readers/listeners to the words of the prophet Zechariah:
“Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your KING comes to you, righteous and having salvation, 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 9:9, emphasis added)
Attaching Jesus to Zechariah’s words put the violent imagery of Caesar riding a warhorse in direct confrontation with the nonviolent Jesus riding a donkey, calling for those on the margins to be centered and for the elites’ wealth to be redistributed to the poor. What we have here is two paths toward peace. One was enforced by militarized power and the other addressed the root causes of injustice that lead to the lack of peace.
One approach toward peace is imposed, and the other is a more organic approach to social causes and effects. When Jerusalem came into view, Jesus stopped and wept: “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you PEACE—but now it is hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:42–44, emphasis added).
This calls to mind what we are seeing take place in our society presently. The protests are a call for justice that has long gone unheard. Yet Trump is responding, not by listening to the underlying systemic causes and working to address these injustices, but by simply threatening greater force. We have an overfunded, militarized police force and as a country, we spend twice as much on law and order as we do on social welfare.
It is in a context like this that Luke’s Jesus addresses those weeping for him on the way to his execution. Rome executes Jesus because of his economic protest in the temple and his growing number of followers among the disinherited, dispossessed, and disenfranchised.
“Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children… For if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?”’ (Luke 23:28–30)
Again, many scholars believe Luke’s gospel was written after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. Luke connects Jesus’ economic teachings about distributive justice, the economic elites’ rejection of those teachings, and the Jewish poor people’s revolt in the late 60s. As I’ve shared in previous weeks, the poor people’s revolt grew into the Roman Jewish war (66-69 C.E.), which resulted in Rome’s violent leveling of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. Luke’s gospel tries to make sense of the devastation of 70 C.E. Christianity has a long, anti-Semitic history of explaining Jerusalem’s destruction as God’s punishment of the city for rejecting Jesus. I don’t believe that. Instead, I see the gospel authors connecting rejection of Jesus’ economic teachings of wealth redistribution and resource-sharing with what later happened in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. They are making a more organic, intrinsic connection between a society that rejected economic distributive justice and restructuring their community to prioritize the poor on the one hand and the poor people’s uprising and revolt on the other. The results are not divinely imposed or arbitrary. They are the natural outcome of political, economic, and social causes and effects.
This helps us understand the words, “if they do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” If Rome responds to Jesus’ minor protest and demonstration in the temple with such violence as a crucifixion, what will Rome do when it’s facing an entire poor people’s revolt and an all-out class war (i.e. the Jewish-Roman War, 66-69, and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.)?
Luke’s Jesus quotes the prophet Hosea, who centuries before had spoken those words about the way Israel would be destroyed by Assyria. “The high places of wickedness will be destroyed—it is the sin of Israel. Thorns and thistles will grow up and cover their altars. Then they will say to the mountains, ‘Cover us!’ and to the hills, ‘Fall on us!’ . . .” (Hosea 10.8-10) Luke applied Hosea’s words to how Jerusalem would be destroyed by Rome.
“As the legions charged in [the Temple], neither persuasion nor threat could check their impetuosity: passion alone was in command . . . Most of the victims were peaceful citizens, weak and unarmed, butchered wherever they were caught. Round the Altar, the heap of corpses grew higher and higher, while down the Sanctuary steps poured a river of blood and the bodies of those killed at the top slithered to the bottom . . . Next [the Romans] came to the last surviving colonnade of the outer court. On this women and children and a mixed crowd of citizens had found a refuge—6000 in all. Before Caesar could reach a decision about them or instruct his officers, the soldiers, carried away by their fury, fired the colonnade from below; as a result, some flung themselves out of the flames to their death, others perished in the blaze: of that vast number there escaped not one.” Josephus, The Jewish War, Williamson and Smallwood, p. 359 (6.5.1; 271–76)
This is where the path of systemic injustice pressed down too long by militarized force ultimately ends. People finally have enough. When the dust settles, there is either change or massive destruction as social unrest is once again quelled, and social change is once again pushed further down the line for a future revolt.
Rome put down Jerusalem in 70 C.E. But just seventy years later, there was another revolt, the Bar Kokhba revolt, the third Jewish revolt in the new millennium that ended in Rome’s genocidal destruction of the Jewish people. There’s no way to tell how a revolt quelled by militarized force will ultimately turn out. Will change come at a later date, or will it be just greater destruction?
Peace through a militarized quelling of unrest is not peace, but a lull waiting for another future eruption. Jesus’ life teaches us that it doesn’t have to be this way. The path toward peace is not greater force. The path toward peace is addressing the underlying causes for unrest, the underlying systemic injustices, and inequities causing the revolt.
For Luke’s Jesus, the green tree and dry tree imagery echoes the warning given by Ezekiel in the days when Babylonian captivity loomed on the horizon:
“Hear the word of the LORD. This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am about to set fire to you, and it will consume all your trees, both green and dry. The blazing flame will not be quenched, and every face from south to north will be scorched by it. Everyone will see that I the LORD have kindled it; it will not be quenched.” (Ezekiel 20:47)
Luke’s Jesus is saying “If Rome will do this to me—a prophet of nonviolence—if Rome sees my temple protest (involving the damage of privileged property) and my growing number of followers as a threat, how much more will they do this to Jerusalem when the people have had enough and choose the path of violence and insurrection and war?” Jesus is proclaiming, “Do not weep for me. Weep for yourselves.”
What does this mean for us today?
We can go on quelling social unrest, or we can choose to listen.
I’ve been reading The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale. On the cover of the book it reads, “The problem is not police training, police diversity, or police methods. The problem is the dramatic and unprecedented expansion and intensity of policing in the last forty years, a fundamental shift in the role of police in society. The problem is policing itself.”
Rather than funding solutions to underlying causes of inequities, we have consistently funded a path of militarized responses to those responding to those inequities. Policing looks very different in other countries with a criminal justice system that is rehabilitative rather than punitive. In some of those countries, the police haven’t taken human life in years, and they have extremely low recidivism rates compared to ours.
It’s time to take the funding we’ve been using to respond to inequity with militarized policing and invest that funding on reshaping and restructuring our societies in more just, more compassionate, safer ways and with life-affirming institutions. Recently, Mark Van Steenwyk of The Center for Prophetic Imagination posted a list of resources for those who would like to learn more about what defunding the police means and what it doesn’t mean. I recommend this list as a good starting point.
As Michelle Alexander recently stated, “America, this is your chance.”
Another iteration of our world is possible if we will collectively choose it.
HeartGroup Application
We at RHM are continuing to ask all HeartGroups not to meet together physically at this time. Please stay virtually connected and practice physical distancing. When you do go out, please keep a six-foot distance between you and others, wear a mask, and continue to wash your hands to stop the spread of the virus.
This is also a time where we can practice the resource-sharing and mutual aid found in the gospels. Make sure the others in your group have what they need. This is a time to work together and prioritize protecting those most vulnerable among us. How many ways can you take care of each other while we are physically apart?
- Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
- What are some changes to the underlying causes of inequities that you would like to see more funding for in your civic community? Discuss it with your group?
- What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of systemically shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for all? Discuss with your group and pick something from the discussion to put into practice this upcoming week.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
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
COVID and The Things That Make for Peace
Herb Montgomery | June 12, 2020
“We actually can transition to a society shaped by justice and love. We can imagine a different way of being together again post-COVID, and that way will be determined by the kind of people we choose to be during COVID. In this work of imagining, faith communities have a part to play, right now.”
In Luke’s gospel, we read,
“As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes . . .” (Luke 19:41-44)
This passage has repeatedly been on my heart as we are all watching the systemic failures during the pandemic we’re facing here in the U.S. But before we go any further, I want to remind us of something about the gospels. Most scholars believe the order the canonical gospels were written in is Mark, then Mathew and Luke, and finally John. In each successive gospel, there is a growing tendency toward anti-Semitic references, and that trend climaxes with John.
Today’s gospel passage is part of a group of sayings in which Luke’s Jesus warns of coming devastation in the region of Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Many scholars believe Luke’s gospel was written after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., and so, as we discussed last week, the author connects Jesus’ economic teachings of distributive justice, the economic elites’ rejection of those teachings, and the Jewish poor people’s revolt in the late 60s. The poor people’s revolt grew into the Roman Jewish war (66-69 C.E.), which resulted in Rome’s violent leveling of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.
Luke’s gospel tries to make sense of such devastation. But again, Christianity has a long, anti-Semitic history of explaining Jerusalem’s destruction as God’s punishment of the city for rejecting Jesus. I don’t believe that.
Yes, the gospel authors connected Jesus’ rejection with what later happened in Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. But they are also making a more organic, intrinsic connection between a society that rejected Jesus’ teachings about redistributing wealth and restructuring the community to prioritize the poor on the one hand and the poor people’s uprising and revolt on the other. The results are not divinely imposed or arbitrary. They are the natural outcome of political, economic, and social causes and effects.
Jesus calls for wealth redistribution, economic distributive justice, and prioritizing those the present system deems “least of these” can offer so much to us during this time. Today, as a result of the pandemic and the systemic responses, we are witnessing a consolidation of wealth rather than a redistribution of it. Jeff Bezos (the owner of Amazon) is on target to becoming the first trillionaire, yet people who need help the most simply aren’t getting it. And those communities our present system has left most vulnerable to COVID-19 are suffering disproportionally while wealthy corporations keep making commercials saying “we’re all in this together.”
All of us are for sure being affected. But not all of us are suffering through this in the same ways. Many are suffering in far greater degrees than others while help seems to keep being funneled elsewhere.
Jesus was warning his society not to ignore the calls for economic distributive justice in a Temple-state system that was supposed to collect surplus from the wealthy and redistribute it to those the poor who needed it most. Will those in our future look back at us today and say, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”
This passage from Luke is gut-wrenching in its full context. It is a violent and graphic depiction that doesn’t even spare children. Again, the fact that it was written after the fact explains that graphic detail. This passage is part of a long Hebrew prophetic tradition of calling for justice and change.
I listened to an interview recently with Rev. William Barber. He describes the “evil” of the President of the United States using the Defense Authorization Act to make meatpackers go to work, but not using that same Defense Authorization Act to make sure they had the PPE, protections, insurance, or sick leave that they needed. The government used the Defense Authorization Act to force vulnerable populations to go back to work in lethal situations. What the “essential” in essential worker really means now is expendable, because they’re essential, but none of the interventions have given these workers the essentials to protect them and lastly, it has failed to give them also the healthcare they and their families they live in contact with need when they will get sick. The entire interview is worth listening to.
Barber shared stories of unnecessary pain, pain that’s a result of how the pandemic has been handled systemically. He tells the story of Polly, a nurse’s aide in New York who said, “I feel like we’re engaged in mass murder. We’re being led to mass murder.” She said, “We have to buy our own garbage bags to try to have some coverage. We don’t have the masks that we need. None of this was done upfront.” Barber goes on to say to these vulnerable communities not being protected, “Don’t you believe these lies these governors are telling us about the time to open back up the society. Stay at home. Stay alive. Organize. Organize.” The Poor People’s Campaign is demanding that the government do all the things it didn’t do upfront for us as a society to move forward and possibly overcome this pandemic.
The day before I caught this interview, Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas (Union Theological Seminary) interviewed Dr. Eddie S. Glaude Jr., chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Their interview on being the Church in time of COVID-19 is a powerful conversation worth sharing. You can listen to the entire interview at https://www.facebook.com/unionseminary/videos/248181253070899/
In this discussion, Douglas and Glaude make clear how COVID-19 is exposing the injustice of racial inequities in the U.S. It is not an aberration of the U.S.’s experiment with a White Supremacist Democracy (as contrasted with an egalitarian democracy) but a reflection of the very nature of this country. COVID-19 has not created new injustices or inequities but is helping people recognize these elements in our society that already existed. Our present crisis is revealing the “fissures and breakages” to those who would rather not know or remain ignorant. And it is confirming what those who have been bearing the brunt of these injustices—Black and Brown communities, poor communities, elderly people, migrant communities—have known by experience all along. Douglas connects how Trump’s executive order that meatpacking industries will be compensated for the loss of their labor to how slave owners were compensated for the loss of their slave labor after the Civil War when they had no intention to care for the human beings producing their products. Glaude calls this the ugliness of capitalism.
It made me think of how indigenous communities have historically suffered and are still suffering as a result of our economic system. Capitalism has always placed profit, product, property, and power over people and the planet, seeing both people and the planet as disposable. We are again seeing its character in the clamor to reopen states while vulnerable people and communities are dying at disproportionate rates. “Essential,” “expendable,” and “disposable” are all being shown to be synonyms. What’s happening is being chosen by those who in charge at the expense of lives they deem disposable.
Next, the interview transitions to the role that faith communities have during this time. And the final part of this interview is the most important. I’ll save it for you to listen to and I cannot recommend it highly enough. You can find it at https://www.facebook.com/unionseminary/videos/248181253070899/
This time asks us all these questions: Who are we going to be? What will the heart and soul of our societies be? Take a moment to imagine us differently.
This week, most of us don’t have the resources at our disposal to make global change. But we do have within our power the ability to create local change. You can start today, wherever this finds you. Within your family, within your circle of friends, within your faith communities, and the larger community outside of your faith community that you also belong to, we can collectively change the world. That change starts right now, with you, with me, with each of us.
Another world is possible. It’s not a world beyond our present material world, but as Dr. Glaude puts it, it’s beyond the present iteration of our material world. A different iteration of our present material world is possible: a different world here and now. Glaude ends the interview with the call to both imagine a different world and voice the notion that we actually can transition to a society shaped by justice and love. We can imagine a different way of being together again post-COVID, and that way will be determined by the kind of people we choose to be during COVID. In this work of imagining, faith communities have a part to play, right now.
HeartGroup Application
We at RHM are continuing to ask all HeartGroups not to meet together physically at this time. Please stay virtually connected and practice physical distancing. When you do go out, please keep a six-foot distance between you and others, wear a mask, and continue to wash your hands to stop the spread of the virus.
This is also a time where we can practice the resource-sharing and mutual aid found in the gospels. Make sure the others in your group have what they need. This is a time to work together and prioritize protecting those most vulnerable among us. How many ways can you take care of each other while we are physically apart?
- Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
- Share something that spoke to you from the interview between Dr. Douglas and Dr. Glaude with your HeartGroup.
- 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 all? Pick something from the discussion to practice this upcoming week.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
Another world is possible if we collectively choose it.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week
3 Reasons Why White Christians Should Be Standing In Solidarity With Black People
Herb Montgomery | June 3, 2020
“It’s not enough to not be racist ourselves. We must also stand intentionally against racial inequality. The current train is racing down the tracks and it’s not enough to remain neutral or individually focused. It’s not enough to make people on the train non-racist personally or privately. The whole social train must be stopped.”
Here are a few reasons why I am convinced that White Christians should be standing with and working alongside movements for Black lives right now.
1. Jesus was Liberator of the Oppressed
Out of all the ways that the author of the Gospel of Luke could have chosen to sum up Jesus’ gospel and life work, Luke’s gospel begins by characterizing Jesus as Liberator, Advocate, Abolitionist, and Activist:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the prisoners, and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” (Luke 4:18, emphasis added.)
In the gospel stories, the central figure of the Christian faith chooses to stand in his deeply Jewish, oppression-confronting, prophetic, justice heritage:
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” (Proverbs 31:8-9)
“God judges in favor of the oppressed.” (Psalms 146:6-7)
“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6)
“How terrible it will be for those who make unfair laws, and those who write laws that make life hard for people.” (Isaiah 10:1)
“Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed.” (Isaiah 1:17)
“I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:21-24)
Each of the prophets made the privileged class of their time uncomfortable by calling for systemic change. Each stood in solidarity with the oppressed in their communities.
In his book God of the Oppressed, Dr. James H. Cone wrote, “Any view of the gospel that fails to understand the Church as that community whose work and consciousness are defined by the community of the oppressed is not Christian and is thus heretical” (p. 35).
This has grave implications presently for all White, American Jesus followers.
2. Jesus’ Gospel Confronted Both Private and Systemic Sin
One of the deepest disconnects for many of my White friends is that they see these events of police officers killing Black people as isolated and individual occurrences. They don’t connect the dots and want to debate the intricacies of each case without stepping back and looking at the big picture.
But if we stop to listen first, we will discover that these cases are not disconnected or about a few bad apples, but rather one example after another of an entire systemic problem. They are daily experiences for all too many Black people.
Jesus challenged both systemic sin/injustice and personal or private, individual sins. Gustavo Gutierrez, in his landmark book A Theology of Liberation, contrasts individual sins with the social sin that the gospels challenge:
“But in the liberation approach, sin is not considered as an individual, private, or merely interior reality—asserted just enough to necessitate ‘spiritual’ redemption which does not challenge the order in which we live. Sin is regarded as a social, historical fact, the absence of fellowship and love in relationships among persons, the breach of friendship with God and with other persons, and, therefore, an interior, personal fracture. When it is considered in this way, the collective dimensions of sin are rediscovered . . . Nor is this a matter of escape into a fleshless spiritualism. Sin is evident in oppressive structures, in the exploitation of man by man, in the domination and slavery of peoples, races and social classes.” (Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation: 15th Anniversary Edition, pp. 102-103)
When we focus on liberating individuals from personal sin but ignore systemic sin, we create a reality that is deeply problematic. An old example I first heard from the late Howard Zinn is helpful. Imagine systemic injustice in society as an automated locomotive train racing down the tracks. We are all on this train together. We as individuals may not participate personally in the operation of the train, yet we are still on the train with everyone else as it moves along.
Similarly, someone can choose privately or personally to be a Jesus follower, but that person is still part of a much larger society that is racing down a track. Just because an individual is not racist, that doesn’t change the course of their society’s train. As a White Christian in society, I may be completely unaware of how society is structured for communities I have no contact or association with. And whether I know or not, the train we are on is still moving us all together down the tracks. White Christians are not only called to be free from racism themselves as individuals, but we are also called to be anti-racist, standing and working in solidarity with people who are targeted by racist social systems or working to dismantle those systems.
Some will ask, “If we just focus just on healing hearts, won’t we heal the systems as well?” It’s a beautiful thought. It’s simply not automatic. Social justice has never taken place from the inside-out or the top down. It happens from the margins inward, from the bottom up. Also, if one is privately a follower of Jesus, one should also be publicly involved in ending systems of oppression and privilege. It’s not enough to not be racist ourselves. We must also stand intentionally against racial inequality. The current train is racing down the tracks and it’s not enough to remain neutral or individually focused. It’s not enough to make people on the train non-racist personally or privately. The whole social train must be stopped.
3. Jesus Valued Human Lives Over Privileged Property
Where do we see Jesus confronting systems of injustice in the gospels? All throughout the gospels! But the most infamous incident for the early Jesus community was Jesus’ protest in the courtyard of the Jerusalem Temple. Jerusalem was the heart of the Temple-State. Remember that in Jesus’ society there was no such thing as a separation of civil and religious, or church and state. The temple was not solely a religious symbol as Christians think of a church today. Yes, there were religious activities taking place there, but it was also a political symbol, much like the symbol of a state capital building, today. Jesus’ demonstration in the temple wasn’t a challenge to the religion of Judaism; Jesus was a Jew. Rather he was staging an economic protest against the systemic injustice of the Temple-State’s exploitation of the poor:
“They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely . . . But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others.’” (Mark 12:40,42-34)
Mark’s gospel includes a story detail that is often overlooked.
“Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.” (Mark 11:11, emphasis added.)
When Jesus arrived at the Temple at the climax of what Christians refer to today as Palm Sunday, it was already too late in the day for his Temple protest to accomplish his desired result. So he went back to Bethany with his disciples, spent the night, and then came back the next day when there would be enough people to make shutting down the Temple services an effective demonstration.
Mark’s gospel adds that as a result of Jesus’ demonstration and the growing number of followers among the people, those in positions of power and privilege began “looking for a way to put Jesus to death” (Mark 11:18). A gospel that is only about saving individuals from personal sins would not evoke this kind of response from those in charge.
Luke’s gospel story reads that within days “temple police” came at night with swords and clubs to “arrest” Jesus. They came at night to avoid a riot by the people: a gospel example of police brutality against a protestor and an attempted cover-up. John’s gospel has Jesus subjected to even more temple police brutality over the day that follows his arrest.
We must not sanitize Jesus’ protest in the Temple courtyard: that day also involved property damage. When a system values property over human lives, it makes sense for some to feel the only way to move a system to listen is to impact whatever those benefiting from the system value most. Our present pandemic has proven time and again how much our present system values property, production, and profit over human life.
White Christians who claim that they would have been on Jesus’ side in the story two millennia ago, need to reassess the verity of their claim today when they find themselves speaking out more loudly against property damage than against the police’s murder of yet another Black person. A riot is “the language of the unheard,” a demand for their lives to “matter” in a system, to be valued in a system, to be respected in a system.
If you want peace, don’t simply call for peace. Add your voice to the voices that are calling for justice.
“Until the white body writhes with red rage, until the white heart heaves with black tremors, until the white head bows before yellow dreams and tan schemes and olive screams for a different world, any communion claimed will be contrivance of denial. A theologian—speaking of resurrection, in a body not bearing the scars of their own ‘crucifixion’? Impossible!” (James Perkinson, White Theology, p. 216)
Lastly, my Black friends will be the first to tell you that there is nothing wrong with seeing their color, race, or culture. These things are part of who they are, as my color, race, and culture are part of who I am. There is nothing wrong with them, and no reason we shouldn’t see their skin color along with the colors of their eyes or hair. We are not all the same, and we are all of equal worth. The human family is richly diverse and this diversity is not the problem. The problem is when we have a system that treats people as “less than” because they are Black.
So this week, with angry tears in my eyes, I lift up my own voice to the chorus raging around me:
Black.
Lives.
Matter.
HeartGroup Application
We at RHM are continuing to ask all HeartGroups not to meet together physically at this time. Please stay virtually connected and practice physical distancing. When you do go out, please keep a six-foot distance between you and others, wear a mask, and continue to wash your hands to stop the spread of the virus.
This is also a time where we can practice the resource-sharing and mutual aid found in the gospels. Make sure the others in your group have what they need. This is a time to work together and prioritize protecting those most vulnerable among us. How many ways can you take care of each other while we are physically apart?
- Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
- Contrast examples of systemic racial inequities and injustice versus personal, private, or individual racism. Share examples of where you see White energy being used to confront both. Which area have you found your own experience with Christianity to be more focused on, systemic, or social salvation? Or personal, private, and individual salvation?
- What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of systemically shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for all? Discuss with your group and pick something from the discussion to put into practice this upcoming week.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
Another world is possible if we collectively choose it.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week
Zacchaeus and Christian Support of Destructive Administrations
“What is needed for empowered, privileged Christians who support a corrupt administration today to follow Zacchaeus’ example? What is needed for Christians to take more seriously Jesus’ commands to stand with the vulnerable and those on the margins rather than the systems that harm them?”
Luke’s gospel brings us the story of a tax collector named Zacchaeus who walks away from his support of and participation in a systemically unjust and exploitative system to become a Jesus follower. In response to Zacchaeus, Jesus said, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham” (Luke 19:9).
The picture we get from the synoptic gospels is of a 1st Century Jewish prophet of the poor traveling through his society’s margins, teaching and calling his audiences to a distributively just society where those on the edges are included. Jesus appears in the stories as one who, like prophets such as John the Baptist before him, was a voice on the margins, “crying in the wilderness. ” Jesus’ vision was of the kind of society that the Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas refers to as God’s just future.
Do Jesus’ ethical teachings still offer anything relevant to us in the 21st century, as we work to reverse systemic injustice? I’m convinced they do.
Luke’s story indicates that Zacchaeus was Jewish but also complicit in the injustice of the larger Roman empire. Like many Christians today who continue to unconditionally support the present administration in the U.S. despite harms to decency, democracy, minoritized people, and our planet, Zacchaeus participated in Rome’s economic exploitation of the vulnerable people around him.
Yet Zacchaeus finally wakes up. Luke doesn’t tell us what caused him to. He only tells us that Jesus declares his intention to go to Zacchaeus home, and the crowd objects, rightly accusing the unjust Zacchaeus of being “a sinner.” Then Zacchaeus stands up and declares, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount” (Luke 19:8).
This was a deep reversal for Zacchaeus. He not only walks away from his support of Roman administration but he also offers reparations to those his previous actions harmed.
Jesus then responds, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham” (Luke 19:9).
For my Christian friends, Jesus does not define salvation as a legal transaction in heaven that assures Zacchaeus of post-mortem bliss. Nor does Jesus define Zacchaeus’ salvation as a pardon or letting him off the hook. Jesus instead defines salvation as the healing of Zacchaeus’ most inward being, healing that manifests in Zacchaeus’ rejection of an unjust system and his decision to work to undo the injustice of that system.
When, as Christians, we view salvation as remote forgiveness, as convincing God to let us off the hook, or as obtaining a celestial ticket to heaven, we are actually defining salvation differently than Jesus did.
For Jesus, salvation was not about getting a person from a state of being unforgiving to a state of being forgiven. It wasn’t about getting someone out of a post-mortem hell and into a postmortem heaven. Salvation for Jesus in Luke was about change for those in Zacchaeus’ social location.
I want to be careful here. The change was not so that a person could be saved. The change itself was the salvation. When we define Jesus’ vision of salvation as getting free of heavenly legal charges rather than the healing, liberation, and reparations he taught during his life, even salvation labeled as “by grace” is just another form of legal-ism. In this story we see something different: someone was complicit with an unjust system’s harm of others and that someone made a radical change in the direction in his life and became a follower of Jesus, the Jewish prophet of the poor.
The second thing Jesus declares when Zacchaeus changes is “This man, too, is a son of Abraham.” Zacchaeus had been living outside of the distributive, economic teachings of the Torah, yet Jesus declares that he is a “son of Abraham, too.”
Luke contrasts the tax collector Zacchaeus with the wealthy religious teachers who had made fun of Jesus’ economic teachings two chapters previously.
“The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus.” (Luke 16:14)
What this story communicates to me is that rejecting systemic injustice is not optional for those who desire to follow Jesus. People may bear the name of Christian, but if they support corrupt administrations who do harm in exchange for political favor or for the sake of winning a decades-long culture war, they are out of harmony with the teachings of Jesus.
I’d like to believe Zacchaeus understood this. Political, economic, religious, or even social advantage does not justify participating in or supporting a corrupt system that does harm.
What is needed for empowered, privileged Christians who support a corrupt administration today to follow Zacchaeus’ example? What is needed for Christians to take more seriously Jesus’ commands to stand with the vulnerable and those on the margins rather than the systems that harm them? What is needed for Christians to be more than simply believers in Jesus of the story, but followers of him as well?
Remember, the picture we get of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, is of an itinerant teacher gathering those who will join him in a distributively just way of organizing and doing life as a community called “the kingdom of God.” The “kingdom of God” is not a place in the heavens or a place some go when they die. The “kingdom of God” is a vision of a just future in which people prioritize the least of these. History will judge us most critically by how we take care of “the least of these” among us.
Jesus’ vision of a distributively just future was about how we do life in the here and now. He called his listeners to go against what the status quo had taught them and to organize society instead, in ways that are life-giving for all.
Today, the Jesus story still invites us to choose a world shaped by distributive justice. To follow Jesus and live the Jesus way is not about saying a sinner’s prayer or attending a service once a week and then going back to the way things have always been done. To follow Jesus means adopting a life-giving way of living.
But the “kingdom of God,” God’s just future, received pushback then, and it will also receive as much from today’s elites. The cross was the elite of society’s violent “no” to Jesus’ vision of God’s just future. The resurrection undid all the violence of Jesus’ death, causing the hope of a just future to live on in the lives of Jesus’ followers. I believe that hope can live on in those who bear Jesus’ name today. Much will have to change in certain sectors of Christianity for that to happen, but I believe nonetheless that it’s possible.
I believe following Jesus is about learning to follow Jesus’ practice of love, inclusion, just distribution, and mutual aid, nonviolence, and compassion toward others. His practice was reparative and transformative and has the power to change our lives personally and systemically. If politics is society deciding who gets what, when, and how, and if we consider Jesus’ sermon on the mount, the politics of the Jesus story are:
- Eradicate poverty by centering society on the poor.
- Comfort those whom the present system causes to sorrow.
- Create a system that takes care of those who are meek.
- Give equity to those who hunger for things to be put right.
- Stand with the merciful, those who refuse to acquit the guilty for bribes, the peacemakers working for distributive justice, and those the privileged and the powerful persecute, slander, and exclude for demanding change. (cf. Matthew 5:3-10)
Jesus’ vision of a just future is for the here and now.
The arc of history can bend toward justice if we bend it that way.
Another world is possible if we choose it.
We have choices to make.
Who will be our Zacchaeuses today?
HeartGroup Application
1. What parallels and contrasts do you see with Zacchaeus’ story and U.S. Christians today who fail to disavow the U.S.’s present destructive administration? If you need an example, ponder the children still in cages along the U.S. southern border. Discuss as a group.
2. Five years into the reign of the German Reich, in 1938 Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached:
“Faith is a decision. We cannot avoid that. ‘You cannot serve two masters’ (Matthew 6:24) . . . But with this Yes to God belongs an equally clear No. Your Yes to God demands your No to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak [or vulnerable] and poor . . .”
(Confirmation, Kieckow, April 9, 1938, quoted in The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 203)
What does this Bonhoeffer’s dichotomy mean for you today? Discuss as a group.
3. Create a list of how you can collectively say “no” to injustice as a follower of Jesus in our present context. Pick something from your list and begin putting it into practice this week.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see next week
The Refusal of the Older Brother
Herb Montgomery | February 7, 2019
“If you believe God loves someone, justice for them isn’t far behind. Love for those on the margins is the seed out of which the reality of God’s inclusive, just future sprouts.”
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in.” (Luke 15:28)
This story in Luke’s gospel may be the most famous one Jesus ever told: the story of the prodigal son and the older brother. Jesus told this story for a reason.
“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” (Luke 15:1-2)
In response, Jesus tells three stories, the last of which is the story of the older brother we are considering here.
“But while he [the prodigal son] was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ THE OLDER BROTHER BECAME ANGRY AND REFUSED TO GO IN. SO HIS FATHER WENT OUT AND PLEADED WITH HIM. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son OF YOURS who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” (Luke 15:20-32, emphasis added.)
The context of this story is economic. “Prodigal” is not a synonym for “sinner.” It means someone who spends money and resources recklessly with no thought of the future.
People labeled others sinners in Jesus’ community when they lived outside of certain interpretations of what it meant to be faithful to the teachings of the day. The label “sinner” has always been tied to the social purpose of marginalizing and/or subjugating certain folks while privileging others. I’m not saying that there are no such things as intrinsically destructive choices. I am saying that designating someone as a “sinner” is bound up with social, political, and economic exclusion because it is based on the interpretations of those centered in society.
And in this story, Jesus is including those whom the elite of his day taught should be excluded.
I was once a fundamentalist. I used to believe that the only reason anyone would not be “saved” in the end was that they had rejected God’s love for them. But the longer I ponder the story of the prodigal and his brother, the more I see how mistaken I was.
The context of this story shows that if any are left in “outer darkness” (see Matthew 8:12; 22:13; 25:30) if any are left out of Jesus’ vision of God’s just future, it will not be because they could not believe God’s love for them. Rather, like the older brother in this story, it will be that they cannot accept the inclusion of someone else that they feel should be excluded. It’s labeling someone else as other and seeking to exclude them from the table that causes us to be intrinsically out of harmony with Jesus’ vision for God’s just future—a world of safety, compassion, inclusion, justice, and love—a future we can shape.
Again, the elite class of the Jesus story didn’t reject Jesus’ vision of God’s just future because God’s love for them was too good to believe, but rather because God’s love for those they thought should be excluded was too inclusive for them to embrace.
One last example.
“When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.’ So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. ALL THE PEOPLE SAW THIS AND BEGAN TO MUTTER, ‘HE HAS GONE TO BE THE GUEST OF A SINNER.’” (Luke 19:5-7, emphasis added.)
This is the famous story of Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, who climbed into a tree to see Jesus pass by (see Luke 19:1-2). As a person who is also of a shorter stature, I know that if you are short, you step up onto the curb to see a parade, and the taller people stand behind you. This works unless some people do not want you there and shut you out from a good view.
But Zacchaeus, being resourceful, knew the procession route, ran ahead and climbed a tree.
When this parade begins, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem to confront the economic injustice of the economic, political, and religious elite at the heart of that society. But Jesus stops along the way to include this tax-collector who he perceives is changing his mind about Jesus’ economic teachings on the poor. Imagine the people objecting to Jesus, “But Jesus, this man is a sinner!”
Zacchaeus interrupts them all:
“Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.’” (Luke 19:8)
Just a few days earlier, some of the Pharisees had responded to Jesus’ call to give their possessions to the poor by “sneering” at him (see Luke 16:13,14). I can imagine Jesus with tears of joy in his eyes at this chief tax collector responding so differently. “Today,” he says to Zacchaeus, “salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham” (Luke 19:9).
Not everyone acknowledged that salvation had come.
Those left outside in Jesus’ story about the prodigal and older brother are not those whom the elites had labeled as “sinners” to be excluded. No, the ones outside the party are the ones who cannot handle Jesus modeling a just future where those they feel should be excluded are included instead.
What is the Jesus story whispering to us here?
Those left out of Jesus’ vision of God’s just future won’t be those who couldn’t believe in God’s love for themselves. They’ll be those who could not embrace God’s love for someone else—someone whom they thought should not be included. If you believe God loves someone, justice for them isn’t far behind. Love for those on the margins is the seed out of which the reality of God’s inclusive, just future sprouts.
If in the gospels, God’s just future looks like Jesus, and Jesus looks like the one we find in the Jesus stories, then this should give those who believe in and practice exclusionary forms of Christianity quite a bit to ponder. Some sectors of Christianity today still practice inequality for women. Some sectors of Christianity still practice the bigotry of colonialist, European, and American White supremacy. Sectors of Christianity still practice the same economic classism our society does. Large sectors of Christianity passionately exclude our LGBTQIA siblings. But to the degree that Christianity has practiced and led others in the practice of systemic and private distributive and inclusive justice, it has thrived. To the degree that it has failed to practice justice, it has done much harm to people and to itself.
The question Jesus followers today must ask is this: when we see Jesus’ inclusion being practiced, do we celebrate like those who “went in” in Jesus’ story, or do we mimic the “older brother,” refuse to “go in,” or even threaten schism to protect our practices and sense of superiority?
HeartGroup Application
- What movements do you see at work to bring about more inclusion and mutual participation in your faith communities? As a group, make a list.
- What movements do you see at work to bring about more inclusion, representation, and equity in our larger society? As a group, make a list.
- Brainstorm with your group how you can collectively participate with the work you see being done in both areas. Pick something from what you’ve come up with and put it into practice this coming week.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see next week
A Gospel About Jesus Versus the Gospel Jesus Taught
Herb Montgomery | November 15, 2019
“One thread in Jewish tradition enlarged this hope and applied it not only to the Jewish people, but also to the rest of humanity with a much more universal end to all oppression, violence, and injustice. It was to this Jewish hope for justice and liberation that the authors of the gospels sought to connect the Jesus story.”
“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’” (Mark 1:14–15, TNIV).
There is a stark difference between a gospel about Jesus and the gospel that Jesus himself taught in the gospel stories. Let’s take a look this week at what these stories record Jesus taught.
Mark’s gospel begins its version of the Jesus story with the gospel Jesus preached (Mark 1:14-15). Let’s break this passage down by looking at four elements found here:
1) The Time has come!
2) The Kingdom has come!
3) Repent!
4) Believe the euangelion!
The Time Has Come
The hope of the Hebrew people during the time of Jesus was that one day YHWH would intervene in Jewish history, and all oppression, injustice, and violence toward the Jewish people would be put right. One thread in Jewish tradition enlarged this hope and applied it not only to the Jewish people, but also to the rest of humanity with a much more universal end to all oppression, violence, and injustice.
It was to this Jewish hope for justice and liberation that the authors of the gospels sought to connect the Jesus story when they used phrases such as “the time has come.”
The Kingdom Has Come
Some Christian feminists, rightly naming the patriarchal nature of the term kingdom, have preferred the term kin-dom for our interrelated connectedness. As part of the human family, we are all connected to each other. We are all part of one another. We are all “kin” or “kindred.”
According to Pastor Melissa Florer-Bixler, the term kin-dom originated from a Franciscan nun named Georgene Wilson. [1]
I agree with Christian feminist Reta Haltemen Finger who states, “I think kin-dom is a good word and better reflects the kind of society Jesus envisions—as a shared community of equals who serve each other. But in the political context of that day, and in the literary context of the sentence, the term ‘kingdom’ was easily understood—as well as in the 1600s when the King James Bible was translated.” [2]
The gospels describe the kingdom of God as an alternative way to structure human community as compared with the kingdom of Rome, the Roman empire.
Our problem is that “kingdom” is patriarchal and too easily co-opted by geopolitical kingdoms, empires, and oligarchies, as European Christian history proves. A kingdom has both a hierarchy and those that will inevitably be pushed to the edges or margins of that society.
But Jesus’ vision was of a human community choosing a life-giving way of structuring itself and choosing to live out the values that shape the world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone. Wherever we see these values happening, love is reigning. Whatever we name it, it’s a human community rooted in love, compassion, safety, equity, and justice. Jesus’ gospel was not instruction on how to arrive at bliss after one died, but rather how to establish justice on the earth in the here and now, today! (See Isaiah 42:4.)
Repentance
Repentance is a religiously charged word with a history of deep emotional abuse. But it has very little to with guilt trips. In the context of what Jesus taught in the gospels, repentance has much more to do with rethinking how one views and practices politics, economics, society, and community. It’s a call to rethink how society is shaped and begin working toward shaping a world that is a distributively just, safe and compassionate home for everyone. In global and local societies of oppression, marginalization, exclusion, and exploitation, Jesus’ gospel invites us to rethink how human communities are shaped today and to imagine a world where everyone has enough to thrive rather than some have more than they could possibly need while most either scrape by or simply don’t have enough to live.
Believe the Good News
The term “gospel” itself didn’t originate in Judaism but in the Roman empire. Whenever Rome conquered a new territory, it would send out Roman “evangelists” to proclaim that the newly conquered inhabitants were now going to be living under the imperial umbrella of the Roman empire and to explain what in their society would change.
Here are three examples of how Rome used the term “gospel,” “glad tidings,” or “good news.”
“Even after the battle at Mantinea, which Thucydides has described, the one who first announced the victory had no other reward for his gospel [glad tidings] than a piece of meat sent by the magistrates from the public mess.” (Plutarch; Agesilaus, p. 33, 1st Century)
“Accordingly, when [Aristodemus] had come near, he stretched out his hand and cried with a loud voice: ‘Hail, King Antigonus, we have conquered Ptolemy in a sea-fight, and now hold Cyprus, with 12,800 soldiers as prisoners of war.’ To this, Antigonus replied: ‘Hail to thee also, by Heaven! but for torturing us in this way, thou shalt undergo punishment; the reward for thy gospel [glad tidings] thou shalt be some time in getting.’” (Plutarch; Demetrius, p. 17, 1st Century)
“Why, as we are told, the Spartans merely sent meat from the public commons to the man who brought gospel [glad tidings] of the victory in Mantineia which Thucydides describes! And indeed the compilers of histories are, as it were, reporters of great exploits who are gifted with the faculty of felicitous speech, and achieve success in their writing through the beauty and force of their narration; and to them those who first encountered and recorded the events [euangelion] are indebted for a pleasing retelling of them” (Plutarch; Moralia (Glory of Athens), p. 347, 1st Century).
The gospel authors lifted this language straight out of Roman lexicons and applied it to the social changes Jesus’ teachings could make if we chose to embrace them. The society they described would be a human society based on the golden rule above all else. It embraced the interconnectedness of us all and our responsibility to take care of one another.
The authors of the Jesus stories coupled this Roman word “gospel” with the very Jewish hope of a restored “kingdom”:
“I must preach the good news of the KINGDOM OF GOD to the other towns also because that is why I was sent.” (Luke 4:43, emphasis mine)
“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of THE KINGDOM and healing every disease and sickness.” (Matthew 9:35, emphasis mine)
“Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of THE KINGDOM.” (Matthew 4:23, emphasis mine)
Many see the New Testament book of Acts as an apologetic book for introducing the work of Paul as an accepted apostle into the Christian stream of communities in the first and second centuries. And in Acts, even Paul must also be presented as teaching a gospel of “the kingdom” too:
“For two whole years, Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. He proclaimed THE KINGDOM OF GOD and taught about THE LORD JESUS CHRIST—with all boldness and without hindrance!” (Acts 28.30–31, emphasis mine)
A gospel about Jesus has historically been about how Jesus offers us a way out of this world to a better one. Jesus instead taught us how to make the world we are living in a home that is better for everyone. A gospel about Jesus too often is about alleviating personal guilt. Jesus’ gospel instead was about rethinking how we are structuring the human communities and societies we belong to. A gospel about Jesus tends to be about post-mortem heaven in contrast to a post-mortem hell. Jesus’ gospel instead announced the arrival of a different way to shape our human communities, in this world, our world, here and now, today.
To many people today, the idea of a human society where wealth is justly and equitably distributed, where people are not marginalized, excluded or treated less-than on the bases of race, color, gender, national origin, age, religion, creed, disability, veteran’s status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression is a pie-in-the-sky dream. Our present structure seems just as eternal and unchangeable as feudalism did in the 1600s.
Maybe this is why, in a world where it seems like nothing will ever change, the gospel stories tell of a Jesus who says:
It’s time.
A new way of being human is ours for the choosing.
Rethink how society is shaped.
And I believe, despite appearances, the good news is that another world is possible, here, now in our lifetime, if we choose it.
HeartGroup Application
Discuss with your group the differences you see between the gospel being taught by some sectors of Christianity today and the gospel Jesus teaches in the gospel stories.
Discuss with your group what significant differences this makes for you in the choice you make in your daily life.
Discuss how your group can also have a more present engagement in life and society right now. How can your HeartGroup work in your local community to make our world a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
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, to take advantage of RHM’s Shared Table fundraiser going on during the months of November and December. Remember, all donations to support our work during these final two months of 2019 are being matched dollar-for-dollar enabling you to make your support go twice as far!
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
[1] Read more from Melissa in her article “The Kin-Dom of Christ.” Florer-Bixler, M. (2018, November 20). “The Kin-Dom of Christ.” Sojourners. Retrieved from https://sojo.net/articles/kin-dom-christ
[2] 2018, December 26). “From Kingdom to Kin-Dom-and Beyond.” Christian Feminism Today. Retrieved from https://eewc.com/kingdom-kindom-beyond/
Biblical Inclusion Versus Biblical Exclusion
by Herb Montgomery | November 8, 2019
“What is our relation, as followers of Jesus, to the marginalized of our day? To what degree are we marginalized in our own lives? Are we standing in solidarity with others who are marginalized or are we participating in their continued marginalization?”
Very early in Luke’s gospel, we read:
“He [Jesus] went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’” (Luke 4:16-19)
Of all the passages in the Hebrew scriptures that the author of Luke could have chosen to summarize his portrayal of Jesus, it’s telling that this gospel points to Isaiah 61. For Luke, Jesus proclaims good news, announcing liberation, reparations, and recovery. He promotes distributive, transformative and reparative justice, especially for the marginalized.
The story continues:
“Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’
All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’ they asked.
Jesus said to them, ‘Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ Truly I tell you,’ he continued, ‘prophets are not accepted in their hometowns. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.’
All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.” (Luke 4:20-30)
This story summarizes what Luke will share in this gospel. Jesus’ inclusion of those whom others exclude will ultimately lead to his rejection and attempted execution. Luke will have Jesus overcome that opposition not through escape but through the discovery of an “empty tomb.”
Luke’s connection of Jesus to Hebrew prophets like Elijah and Elisha is also telling. In each of the canonical gospels, Jesus is not part of the system in his society that is perpetuating injustice against vulnerable people. He does not emerge as one of the wealthy, powerfully positioned elite, seeking to reform society from the inside, nor is he fully abandoning society like the Essenes or even John the Baptist.
Jesus stands in solidarity with those to whom harm is being done, rolls up his sleeves, gets involved, and engages his society. He doesn’t come in the tradition of kings or priests. In Luke, Jesus comes in the traditions of the prophets of the poor. He is from the twice-marginal region of Galilee: marginal in relation to both Rome and Jerusalem. The fact that he appears in Galilee and Judea as a prophet of the poor and marginalized instead of as a member of the elite in his society speaks volumes to us. What is our relation, as followers of Jesus, to the marginalized of our day? To what degree are we marginalized in our own lives? Are we standing in solidarity with others who are marginalized or are we participating in their continued marginalization?
The story we began with in Luke mentions the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian. This is important because our sacred texts have two categories of passages: passages of exclusion and passages of inclusion. I’ll give examples of both.
First, here is an example of an exclusionary passage:
No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, not even in the tenth generation. For they did not come to meet you with bread and water on your way when you came out of Egypt, and they hired Balaam son of Beor from Pethor in Aram Naharaim to pronounce a curse on you. However, the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loves you. Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them as long as you live. Do not despise an Edomite, for the Edomites are related to you. Do not despise an Egyptian, because you resided as foreigners in their country. The third generation of children born to them may enter the assembly of the LORD. (Deuteronomy 23:3–8)
In Isaiah, we find the exact opposite: an example of an inclusive passage.
“For my house will be called a house of prayer for ALL NATIONS” (Isaiah 56:7).
Immediately after the Jewish people return from exile, Nehemiah inspires a fascinating, conscientious, and meticulous return to a more exclusionary practice of their faith. To give Nehemiah the benefit of the doubt, I see in him a sincere desire to preserve Jewish culture. Yet his fidelity becomes “zeal without knowledge.” I see it as xenophobic, ethnically nationalistic. Change is always scary, and Nehemiah was likely preoccupied with doing whatever it took to make sure events like the Babylonian captivity would never happen again. But fear often clouds clear judgment.
Nehemiah deliberately rejects the inclusion found in Isaiah and returns to the opposite trajectory of exclusion.
It’s not by whim that Luke’s Jesus begins by quoting Isaiah rather than Nehemiah. Jesus embraces Isaiah’s inclusion. He mentions the widow in Zarephath and Naaman, who would previously have been excluded, receiving the prophets’ favor in the days of Elijah and Elisha.
Jesus looked at people excluded by one set of passages in the sacred texts as those marginalized and in need of distributive and inclusive justice. We find this pattern over and over again in the Jesus story. In John 8 a woman is caught in adultery. One set of texts demanded her exclusion and execution. Yet another set spoke of God no longer requiring sacrificing and scapegoating, but rather requiring mercy, inclusion, and justice (see Hosea 6:6; cf. Matthew 12:7).
Jesus did not follow the exclusionary passages in John 8’s story but chose instead much more inclusive passages. This pattern applies to the woman at the well in John 4 and the woman with the issue of blood in Luke 8. In all these stories Jesus takes the same trajectory away from exclusion. Whatever the reasons that these exclusionary passages are present in our scriptures, Jesus perceived the more life-giving passages to be those of inclusion instead.
Did this lead some to accuse Jesus as being a lawbreaker? Of course. Yet I believe he was prioritizing the inclusive sections of his sacred text over the exclusionary ones.
Today, too, Christians have a choice. Certainly one can find texts to exclude whichever sector of society one is afraid of. The Bible has been used against women, Black people, Indigenous people, the LGBTQ community, and more. Yet, as Jesus followers, we have to do more than ask whether our exclusion is biblical. We also have to ask whether we’re practicing the same inclusion and affirmation that Jesus practiced.
This juxtaposition between the two types of passage within the same sacred text may be disconcerting. But I want to clarify: following Jesus does not mean disregarding or disrespecting the sacred text. It means prioritizing our sacred texts in the life-giving ways as Jesus also did.
If you are wrestling to get your head around this, I encourage you to read the book of James. The new followers of Jesus were being accused of doing away with the old interpretations of the scriptures and living lawless lives. James points out that though they were violating parts of their sacred texts, they were not “lawless” but were prioritizing other values in those texts. James refers to Abraham’s attempted murder and Hagar’s false testimony because their actions were strictly condemned (Exodus 20:13, 16), yet these two were heroes because they prioritized a different set of values!
Will this approach bother those who interpret the scriptures in exclusive ways? Of course. When Jesus first introduced it in Luke’s story, people wanted to throw him off a cliff.
What does this all mean to us today?
Are there people in your life whom compassion calls you to include and affirm despite how you interpret other texts in your scriptures?
What should you do?
Choose compassion.
Choose justice.
You don’t need permission to show compassion. The fruit of compassion is its own justification: “Wisdom is proved right by all her children” (Luke 7:35).
But who knows? One day, you might find different ways to interpret those passages. Even if you don’t, remember the words of both Jesus and the Hebrew prophet Hosea:
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” (Hosea 6:6)
“If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.” (Matthew 12:7)
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 to take advantage of RHM’s Shared Table Fundraiser during the months of November and December, and remember all donations during these two months are also being matched dollar for dollar so you can make your support go twice as far!
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
Checking Your Privilege
Herb Montgomery | July 19, 2019
“We can do better than defensiveness. In this story of Jesus I hear the call to lay mine down . . . Another world is possible. But we’re going to have to learn to listen to those whose experiences are less privileged and end the very system of privilege if we are to get there.”
In Luke’s gospel we read a story of Jesus rebuking his disciples:
“As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’ But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village.” (Luke 9:51-56)
Let’s get a little background on who the Samaritans were. To the best of our knowledge, this 1st Century group had Hebrew roots and focused on Mt. Gerizim rather than Jerusalem. The traced their lineage back to Ephraim and Manasseh of the northern tribes of Israel. When Israel returned from captivity and attempted to rebuild the temple, Jewish people in Jerusalem refused to allow Samaritans to join them in rebuilding the temple. This was a time when Jewish people feared their identity was at risk of being lost. During periods like this, hard lines are often drawn between insiders and outsiders. Jewish rejection of Samaritans thus led to open animosity, resentment, and even hostile violence between the communities. Samaritans erected their own temple on Mount Gerizim, which Jewish people destroyed in 130 BCE. The Samaritans built a second temple at Shechem.
Bitter hatred between Jews and Samaritans continued to escalate, and the gospel stories were written during this period. It was dangerous for Jewish travelers to travel through Samaria. According to Josephus, “Now there arose a quarrel between the Samaritans and the Jews on the occasion following. It was the custom of the Galileans, when they came to the holy city at the festivals, to take their journeys through the country of the Samaritans. And at this time there lay in the road they took, a village that was called Ginea: which was situated in the limits of Samaria, and the great plain; where certain persons thereto belonging fought with the Galileans, and killed a great many of them.” (Antiquities of the Jews, Book 20, Chapter 6)
Reparation and reconciliation efforts between adherents of Samaritanism and Judaism throughout the centuries have been attempted. (For an excellent summary of the Samaritans and the challenges in understanding who they were in the 1st Century, see “Samaritans” in Craig A. Evans, et al. Dictionary of New Testament Background, InterVarsity Press, 2005, and Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible, WB Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2019.)
Given this history, I find fascinating the story of Jesus rebuking his disciples’ violent attitude toward the Samaritans.
I live in a predominantly White area of West Virginia. I was born and raised here, and though we moved away when I became an adult, we moved back to take care of my mother who since passed away. I remember a time when a dear friend of mine who is Black visited us. As we walked through the grocery store together, she blurted out, “Two.”
“Two?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s how many non-White people I’ve seen since I’ve been here.”
Europeans first settled in my little town in the mid 1700s, and we just elected our first Black mayor. We still have a long way to go in my area of this state in the work of racial justice.
From time to time I hear people attempting to define justice efforts as “reverse racism” and getting upset whenever White privilege is even brought up. Crystal and I were standing with other parents at my daughter’s high school and talking about privilege and racial injustice. One of the dads blurted out, “I’m never gonna apologize for being born White!” I shook my head. Crystal tried to help him understand. He didn’t get it and I don’t think he really wanted to.
In the story we began with, Jesus doesn’t take a defensive stance when the Samaritans refuse him lodging. In fact, he rebukes his disciples for their desire to retaliate against what they deemed as inhospitality. For crying out loud! Did the disciples actually think the Samaritans should offer thirteen Jewish men lodging given all that Jewish men had done to them?
I want to imagine that Jesus understood. That he didn’t fault the Samaritans. That he knew the Samaritans had a right to set the healthy boundaries they needed. I find it interesting that he didn’t lecture the Samaritans on their need to show him, a Jewish man, some enemy-love. I want to believe that Jesus understood the Samaritans’ right to self-determine whom they would and wouldn’t offer lodging to. Social location matters, and I want to believe that Jesus is not just rebuking his own disciples for being offended but also taking the side of the Samaritans.
I’ve worked with multiple organizations in my town that are engaged in racial justice work here, and I continually have to choose to check my privilege. Sometimes I get it right, and sometimes I screw up and have to make things right. I’ve learned that what is okay for someone in one social location to do is not always okay for those in other social locations and vice versa. At a Christian conference event a couple years ago, a very popular, Christian preacher and author shut me out of the conversation and challenged my call to build egalitarian, mutual participation in Christian circles. Later that week, a friend who is queer and Latinx told me that another White straight male, an invited speaker, needed to bow out of a panel they were on to allow room for other voices and other perspectives. My beliefs about egalitarian, mutual participation in Christian circles were challenged again, but differently. Some would see these as the same thing, but, no, social location matters. It is perfectly right for people whose social location is less privileged and whose voices are typically excluded to demand a seat at the table instead. This is very different from someone whose social location is privileged demanding their voice be the only one heard.
If these thoughts are new to you, a great discussion of the principles of racial justice is Teaching Tolerance’s White Anti-Racism: Living the Legacy. Answering the question, “What are the common mistakes white activists make when trying to be allies to people of color?” Yvette Robles, a Chicana and Community Relations Manager in Los Angeles, responds, “Not acknowledging that they have power and privilege by the mere fact that they are white. That is not to say that other parts of their identity can’t lead them to feel powerless, for example, being white and gay, or being white and working class. Another mistake I see is when white activists try to emulate a different culture by changing how they act, their speech or style of dress. It’s one thing to appreciate someone else’s culture; it’s quite another to adopt it.”
Georgette Norman, an African American woman and director of the Rosa Parks Library and Museum, adds, “The most common mistakes white activists make are setting an agenda with the illusion of inclusion, and having to have a franchise on comfort. God forbid a person of color says or does anything to make white activists feel uncomfortable. That means there can be no discussion of race and no challenge to their privilege, which means no challenge to their power.”
Sejal Patel, a South Asian American woman and community organizer in South Asian immigrant communities answers the same question: “White anti-racists make a mistake when they shut out the poor and uneducated and keep in those ‘in the know’ to decide what’s good for people of color. No movement can work where there is divisiveness. Also, if people of color want to have their own space and place in certain aspects of society — say for a weekend or a month — they shouldn’t have to feel like they are being exclusive for doing this. White activists need to understand that society is their space and place every single day, and they shouldn’t feel threatened or left out.”
I interpret Jesus in this story as acknowledging the degree of Jewish power and privilege he held in contrast with the Samaritans in his society. He respected their space. Jesus wasn’t offended by them protecting their space. In fact he rebukes his fellow Jewish male disciples for taking offense and becoming defensive (offensive).
The disciples could have found biblical examples to use to justify their retaliation of “calling fire down from heaven.” They could have used Elijah’s words in 2 Kings 1:10: “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men!” They could have appealed to other stories like the tale of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, where even “the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens.” (Genesis 19:24)
Jesus could have become defensive and chosen to use any of these stories against those who received Jewish violence, and he didn’t.
So what can people of privilege learn from this story?
Check your defensiveness.
I just finished reading the late James H. Cone’s posthumously published book, Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody: The Making of A Black Theologian. In one portion, Cone recounts how many of his white listeners responded when he spoke out on loving his own blackness and embracing Black Power:
“When I spoke of loving blackness and embracing Black Power, they heard hate toward white people. Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and James Baldwin confronted similar reactions. Any talk about the love and beauty of blackness seemed to arouse fear and hostility in whites.” (James H. Cone, Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody, Orbis Books. Kindle Edition, Kindle Location 592)
We can do better than defensiveness. In this story of Jesus I hear the call to lay mine down.
Straight people can choose to listen to LGBTQ people rather than be defensive.
White people can choose to listen to people of color rather than be defensive.
Cis men can choose to listen to women, cis and trans, rather than be defensive.
Cis folk can choose to listen to trans folk rather than be defensive.
Non-disabled folk can choose to listen to disabled folk rather than be defensive.
Wealthy people can choose to listen to the poor and working classes rather than be defensive.
Wisdom is not the sole property of those who are most widely read or who have gained the most academic accomplishments.
Another world is possible.
But we’re going to have to learn to listen to those whose experiences are less privileged and end the very system of privilege if we are to get there.
“When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’ But Jesus turned and rebuked them.” (Luke 9:54-55)
HeartGroup Application
- Can you name a time when listening to someone else’s experience made a significant change in your own understanding?
- Share with the group what it was that actually changed.
- How can we make a practice out of learning to listen to others? Be creative.
- Choose something from this discussion and put it into practice this week.
Thanks for checking in with us this week. I’m so glad you are here.
Today, choose love, compassion, taking action and seeking justice.
Together we can choose to take steps toward a world that is a safe, compassionate, just home for us all.
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
Challenging Exclusion
Herb Montgomery | June 21, 2019
It’s not enough to simply offer a gospel that only offers divine forgiveness of sins. A gospel that is faithful to the Jesus story must include people forgiving people. It must include a redistribution of power and resources so that everyone has what they need not simply to survive but also to thrive. It must include reparations alongside reconciliation. It must include access and inclusion where the vulnerable have been excluded. A gospel that is faithful to the Jesus story must include material, holistic liberation.
“Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.” (Mark 2:4)
In the worldview of the gospel authors and their intended audience, healing was normal. Whereas most healing stories in that era tended to bolster the way society was organized, the healing stories in the gospels challenged, subverted, and even threatened the status quo.
One such resistance/healing story is found very early in the gospel of Mark:
“A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’ Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, ‘Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, ‘Why are you thinking these things? Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.’ So he said to the man, ‘I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.’ He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’” (Mark 2:1-12)
Message of Inclusion
The first thing we bump into in this story is a lack of room. The crowd could have made room for the paralyzed man to get through. They could have practiced a preferential option for the one with the disability. Yet they didn’t. They were each focused on making sure there was a place for themselves, even if it came at the expense of someone else.
I used to fly a lot. Those two options—a preferential option for others or making a place for oneself—always played out during the boarding practice. Before airlines started overselling flights, there was enough room for everyone. The plane was going to leave at the same time for everyone and seats were even already assigned. Yet you could see passengers who only thought of themselves from a concourse away.
Saving ourselves at others’ expense has a long evolutionary history for humans. Yet I contend that our salvation as a race lies not in what works for some at the expense of others but in what makes our world safe, just, and compassionate for all. We will survive together or we will perish together. What once worked for the survival of some, will not ensure the survival of us all in the context of global climate break down.
I also want to address the gospel author’s use of a person with a disability. In the culture of the gospel writers, there were religious teachings that explained disabilities as the result of sin, either one’s own or one’s parents (see John 9:1-2). This teaching added a basis for further exclusion in a world that already left those with disabilities on the margins. But in Mark’s story, Jesus rejects that teaching and declares that this paralytic has been forgiven. Jesus does not offer the man a plan or program: do this and your sins will be forgiven. Jesus declares that this man already was forgiven.
His teaching challenged those who believed that those with disabilities were being punished for some sin. It challenged them to view this man as their equal regardless of his ability. Jesus here juxtaposes disability and the culture’s definition of right standing, and calls people to rethink.
Similarly, one could challenge non-affirming Christians’ definition of what’s normative in relation to the LGBTQ community. Last week, Renewed Heart Ministries posted a meme for Pride Month juxtaposing LGBTQ identity and LGBTQ people’s being in the image of God. This deeply challenges Christian cis-heterosexism.
Again, though, Jesus does not offer the man a plan or program to follow. Jesus declared that this man already was forgiven, and so challenges many Christian stories that teach a God who must be moved by some action on our part first.
Holistic Liberation
Just like in any work of affirmation or liberation, there will always be pushback by those who feel threatened by such inclusivity and equity. The objection in Mark’s story is “only God can forgive sins.” Jesus doesn’t respond by stating that he is divine. The gospel writers instead identify Jesus with a “a human being” or the “son of man.” This language is from the Maccabean era Jewish resistance literature.
“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man.” (Daniel 7.13, NIV, emphasis added.)
“As I continued to watch this night vision of mine, I suddenly saw one like a human being . . .” (Daniel 7.13, CEB, emphasis added.)
The “human being” in Daniel 7 was a symbol of liberation from oppressive empires and putting the world to right.
Forgiveness in Mark’s story is also a human act. It’s not something left only to a god or cosmic being that leaves us off the hook. Forgiveness as something we should practice as humans was part of Jesus’s message. Yet I don’t believe Jesus taught reconciliation without reparation and liberation. Jesus message of forgiveness was primarily aimed at wealthy, elite creditors and called them to “forgive” the debts of their poor debtors. Jesus’ message of forgiveness included a deep economic implication. It was a call for debt forgiveness, the Jewish Jubilee. (See A Prayer for Debts Cancelled)
Jesus’ gospel included material liberation. And not only was the man with the disability told he had already been forgiven, but the story also includes him being liberated from his inability to walk. Honestly, I don’t like this story as I read it from our vantage point today. It can be too easily coopted to make people with disabilities feel less than those without. I’m thankful that the story author challenged the crowd’s bias against this man before he removes the group’s actual reason for marginalizing him. Otherwise the marginalized would be simply kept marginalized.
If the gospel writer had written the story differently, the solution to marginalized women would be to make women men.
The solution to marginalized Black, brown and other people of color would be to make them White.
The solution to marginalized LGBTQ people would be make them straight and/or cisgender. (Conversion therapy is harmful and is outlawed in 18 states, Maine and Colorado being the latest to ban such practices.)
Rather than using various disabilities as metaphors for social evils (as the gospels do), we can do better and name specific social evils instead.
Being gay is not a social evil.
Being a woman is not a social evil.
Being non-white is not a social evil.
Being a migrant is not a social evil.
Being disabled is not a social evil.
How the social system treats these folks is a social evil.
Poverty is a social evil.
Keeping people uneducated is a social evil.
Keeping people indebted is a social evil.
Keeping people without adequate access to health care is a social evil.
And that is what I believe Mark’s story is trying to teach. In holistic liberation, everyone receives what they need. When we apply this to people with disabilities, we arrive at the lesson of removing the barriers that keep people with disabilities excluded. We are to remove the barriers that keep people with disabilities from accessing what they need to thrive.
Actual social evils are what we as followers of Jesus must work against today. This story doesn’t stop at forgiveness. We can’t afford to either. It’s not enough to simply offer a gospel that only offers divine forgiveness of sins. A gospel that is faithful to the Jesus story must include people forgiving people. It must include a redistribution of power and resources so that everyone has what they need not simply to survive but also to thrive. It must include reparations alongside reconciliation. It must include access and inclusion where the vulnerable have been excluded. A gospel that is faithful to the Jesus story must include material, holistic liberation.
This story calls us to work toward an inclusive, just, safe society for everyone.
“Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.” (Mark 2:4)
HeartGroup Application
- What are some of the ways you either experience or witness others experiencing discrimination and exclusion, either in your faith community or our larger society today?
- Make a list of practices your HeartGroup can engage that express inclusion, justice, and create a safe space for those mentioned in number 1.
- Pick something from the list and put it into action this week.
Thanks for checking in with us. I’m so glad you’re here.
Wherever you are today, keep living in love. Choose compassion, justice and action. Till the only world that remains is a world where love and justice reigns.
I love each of you, dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
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