Sacrificing our Humanity to Change the World

Herb Montgomery | February 24, 2023

To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.

These legends of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness can still inform the lives of Jesus followers working to shape our world in more just and compassionate ways. We’ll need to interpret them differently than the original audience did, but we can still interpret them in life-giving ways for our society.

Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

  ‘He will command his angels concerning you,

and they will lift you up in their hands,

so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. (Matthew 4:1-11)

This week marks the beginning of Lent. This is the Christian season leading up to Easter and its celebration of the undoing, reversing and overcoming of the state murder of Jesus and the resurrection.

The stories of Jesus’ temptations are legends that were part of the earliest traditions in the Jesus communities of the first century. In each version that we have today, Jesus quotes from Deuteronomy. The gospel authors use the Septuagint version of the Hebrew scriptures for these quotations. As I’ve written recently, it’s helpful to remember that Matthew’s purpose in drawing parallels between Moses and Jesus is to characterize Jesus as a liberator.

As we discussed last week, Jesus does not replace Moses as a new lawgiver, but is a present day Moses. As Moses was a liberator, Jesus is another liberator. This time the people aren’t liberated from Egyptian slavery but from Roman imperialism destroying rural Jewish communities. It’s helpful to hold this in mind with each temptation if we are to harvest any relevance for us as we work to shape our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone in the face of contemporary systemic injustice.

Moses and Israel were tempted for forty years in the wilderness in their liberation myth. Similarly, in the temptation narratives, Jesus is tempted for 40 days in the wilderness, He is another liberator.

The first temptation in Matthew comes in the context of Jesus’ extreme hunger from his extended fast. “Living for bread alone” speaks to the Jewish elites’ complicity with Roman empire and their hoping for power, property and privilege. “Bread for today” was their highest priority regardless of what it might set in motion for the Jewish poor and marginalized tomorrow. Rural Jewish farming communities dotted through the countryside were the most deeply impacted by the choices of the urban elite and wealthy. Rome promised the elites wealth and positions of influence or power, but that would all come at a price that paid by the masses.

This strikes a similar chord today. In our capitalist system, how many times are people’s long-term wellbeing traded for the short-term profit margins of wealthy corporate investors or CEOs? Too often, the bottom line is the highest priority: profit is king. I think most about the environmental devastation that will get worse in the next decades if something doesn’t change. Just making more capital isn’t life-giving, and growth for growth’s sake is cancerous. Growth needs to happen in a responsible way. That’s why I think the message of not living for bread alone but by those things that are life-giving in the long term I think still can speak to us today.

What other things can you think of that are often sacrificed for short-term gain? This temptation paints a picture of Jesus as one whose liberation wouldn’t involve short-term gains that sacrificed the community’s long-term life. His liberation would be holistically life-giving.

The second temptation may be harder for us to draw present societal applications for. It’s hard for me to get my head around the devil taking Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and tempting him to place God in a position to perform a miracle to save Jesus’ life. One thing that helps here is not to think of the temple as solely religious. It was the center of the Jewish religion, but it was also the seat of the temple state, so with this temptation, it’s more helpful to think of the temple as a state capital.

These verses ultimately speak to me of the temptation to sacrifice oneself for the cause, assuming that good will ultimately result from that sacrifice. Jesus was tempted to throw himself off the pinnacle in the hopes that God would intervene. How many times since then have people in justice movements been inspired to put their own wellbeing in jeopardy and sacrifice themselves to try and awaken the consciences of their oppressors? I think there is a place for certain types of sacrifice for specific causes, but what I’m referring to here is the way that some movement leaders call others to become sacrificial lambs to reach the “hearts and minds” of those harming them.

I think of how pastors have pled with some of my Christian LGBTQ friends to keep showing up in unsafe religious environments each week to model something (I don’t know what) for bigoted Christians in the hopes that their hearts will be changed. This doesn’t take into account the real life harms these spaces impose on these LGBTQ Christians. As a dear friend of mine used to say in Ben Kenobi tones, “These aren’t the sacrificial lambs you’re looking for.”

My friends have callings and dreams and hopes for their lives and shouldn’t have to waste their years simply justifying their existence. They exist. They are here. The question for straight , cisgender Christians is how will we choose to relate to our fellow Christians whether they are different from us or not?

I think of the critiques of feminist scholars like Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker, who have spent a lot of energy critiquing certain expressions of self-sacrifice, taught by well-meaning Christians, that prioritize and center oppressors and abusers to the detriment of survivors and victims.

I will be quoting at length here from Brown’s and Parker’s classic essay “For God So Loved the World?” It’s in dialogue with statements made by Martin Luther King, Jr. Again, it’s lengthy, and worth the extended read:

“In liberation and critical theologies the suffering of Jesus becomes a symbol for the conflicts that occur when people fight for new and more just social forms. The old must pass away before the new comes, and in its death throes the old lashes out against the new.”

I agree. But as Brown and Parker go on to explain, this concept often then turns into unhealthy passive acceptance and unhealthy forms of self-sacrifice having a greater purpose and meaning.

“The martyrs of the revolution are the sign that the beast is dying. Their blood gives hope, because it reveals the crisis that is at hand. Furthermore, violence against the vanguards of a new age is to be accepted. Acceptance witnesses against the perpetrator of violence and ennobles the victim. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, accepted the inevitability of the violence directed against the civil rights movement and saw it as the responsibility of people in the movement to bear the suffering in order to transform the situation. [Italics added for emphasis]

‘Suffering can be a most creative and powerful social force…. The nonviolent say that suffering becomes a powerful social force when you willingly accept that violence on yourself, so that self-suffering stands at the center of the nonviolent movement and the individuals involved are able to suffer in a creative manner, feeling that unearned suffering is redemptive, and that suffering may serve to transform the social situation.’ (Martin Luther King, Jr., quoted. in A Testament of Hope, ed. James Washington (New York: Harper & Row, 1986, 47)

King’s view is similar to the “moral influence” theory of the atonement: unjust suffering has the power to move the hearts of perpetrators of violence. The problem with this theology is that it asks people to suffer for the sake of helping evildoers see their evil ways. It puts concern for the evildoer ahead of concern for the victim of evil. It makes victims the servants of the evildoers’ salvation.” (Brown and Parker, For God So Loved the World?, p. 14-15)

This teaching has proven not only harmful but also lethal for victims of abuse.

Another source worth listening to on this point is womanist scholar Delores Williams, author of Sisters in the Wilderness. Commenting in response to Brown and Parker’s essay, Williams states, “Their critique of Martin Luther Kings, Jr.’s idea of the value of suffering of the oppressed in oppressed-oppressor confrontations accords with my assumption that African-American Christian women can, through their religion and its leaders, be led passively to accept their own oppression and suffering—if the women are taught that suffering is redemptive” (p. 176-177).

In the paragraphs that follow, Williams discusses the ways that Brown’s and Parker’s critiques resonate with the womanist god-talk Williams affirms about Jesus.

Social location matters. The privileged, the propertied, and the powerful may at times need to lean into some sacrifices to live into life-giving ways for and with those who are presently being harmed by systemic injustice. But to call even these forms of sacrifice “self sacrifice” is a misnomer. When the powerful, propertied, and privileges practice this kind of sacrifice, their humanity, their self, is being reclaimed, not sacrificed. Some sacrifices put us back in touch with our selves.

In our story this week, Matthew’s Jesus recognizes a system where the marginalized are already being sacrificed. In this second temptation, this Jesus does not ask them to sacrifice themselves further. His liberation will be a restoring and reclaiming of one’s humanity, not a sacrificing of it. We don’t need to tempt fate, God, or the consciences of our oppressors in ways that are lethal to oppressed communities. To trust the moral conscience of oppressors or abusers is dangerous business.

Lastly Jesus sees a vision of the kingdoms of the world—if he would just bow down to the tempter. In Matthew, Jesus will liberate not by obtaining imperial power or rule as in this last temptation, but by standing up for the humanity of the downtrodden, the marginalized, the underprivileged, and the excluded. For this Jesus, worshipping God and God only was synonymous with loving one’s neighbor as one’s self and practicing the golden rule.

Today, I believe these legends of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness can still inform the lives of Jesus followers working to shape our world in more just and compassionate ways. We’ll need to interpret them differently than the original audience did, but we can still interpret them in life-giving ways for our society.

How do these three temptations resonate with you?

HeartGroup Application

1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.

2. How do these three temptations resonate with you? Share with your group.

3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?

Thanks for checking in with us, today.

You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast thro  ugh the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.

Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.

If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. Todd is brilliant in his discernment of how the Jesus story can speak into our lives today as we work together toward shaping our world into a just, safe and compassionate home for everyone.  He’s worth listening to.

You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a Comment.

And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.

My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com

Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.

I love each of you dearly,

I’ll see you next week.

Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!

It’s here!  Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.

Here is just a taste of what people are saying:

“Herb has spent the last decade reading scripture closely. He also reads the world around us, thinks carefully with theologians and sociologists, and wonders how the most meaningful stories of his faith can inspire us to live with more heart, attention, and care for others in our time. For those who’ve ever felt alone in the process of applying the wisdom of Jesus to the world in which we live, Herb offers signposts for the journey and the reminder that this is not a journey we take alone. Read Finding Jesus with others, and be transformed together.” Dr. Keisha Mckenzie, Auburn Theological Seminary

“In Finding Jesus, Herb Montgomery unleashes the revolutionary Jesus and his kin-dom manifesto from the shackles of the domesticated religion of empire.  Within these pages we discover that rather than being a fire insurance policy to keep good boys and girls out of hell, Jesus often becomes the fiery enemy of good boys and girls who refuse to bring economic justice to the poor, quality healthcare to the underserved, and equal employment to people of color or same-sex orientation.  Because what the biblical narratives of Jesus reveal is that any future human society—heavenly or otherwise—will only be as  good as the one that we’re making right here and now. There is no future tranquil city with streets of gold when there is suffering on the asphalt right outside our front door today.  Finding Jesus invites us to pray ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ on our feet as we follow our this liberator into the magnificent struggle of bringing the love and justice of God to all—right here, right now.”—Todd Leonard, pastor of Glendale City Church, Glendale CA.

“Herb Montgomery’s teachings have been deeply influential to me. This book shares the story of how he came to view the teachings of Jesus through the lens of nonviolence, liberation for all, and a call to a shared table. It’s an important read, especially for those of us who come from backgrounds where the myth of redemptive violence and individual (rather than collective) salvation was the focus.” – Daneen Akers, author of Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints and co-director/producer of Seventh-Gay Adventists: A Film about Faith, Identity & Belonging

“So often Christians think about Jesus through the lens of Paul’s theology and don’t focus on the actual person and teachings of Jesus. This book is different. Here you find a challenging present-day application of Jesus’ teachings about the Kingdom of God and the Gospel. Rediscover why this Rabbi incited fear in the hearts of religious and political leaders two millennia ago. Herb’s book calls forth a moral vision based on the principles of Jesus’ vision of liberation. Finding Jesus helps us see that these teachings are just as disruptive today as they were when Jesus first articulated them.” Alicia Johnston, author of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.

“Herb Montgomery is a pastor for pastors, a teacher for teachers and a scholar for scholars. Part memoir and part theological reflection, Finding Jesus is a helpful and hope-filled guide to a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and who he can be. Herb’s tone is accessible and welcoming, while also challenging and fresh. This book is helpful for anyone who wants a new and fresh perspective on following Jesus.”— Traci Smith, author of Faithful Families

Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com

Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?

Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE.