Advent as Good News for the Marginalized
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Advent as Good News for the Marginalized
Herb Montgomery | December 19, 2025
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this weekend is from the gospel of Matthew.
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:
“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
(Matthew 11:2-11)
For years, I was a preacher of the gospel in a pretty fundamentalist tradition. At the same time, the gospel I preached never even mentioned the poor. This week’s lectionary passage continues to remind me that good news to the poor is how we know whether Christianity’s gospel is the same as the one Jesus’ preached. Audience members used to often remind me that if it’s not good news it’s not the gospel. Today, a better reminder would be that if what we are preaching is not good news first and foremost to the poor, if it’s not accessible by the poor, than it’s at bare minimum not the same gospel that the Jesus of the stories preached.
A reliable litmus test for the gospel is whether it is truly good news to the poor. Jesus announced a kingdom where the last are made first, the hungry are fed, people’s humanity is restored, and the poor become the blessed. If our message comforts only the privileged, it drifts from Jesus’ own proclamation in the gospels. The gospel becomes tangible when it addresses hunger, oppression, exploitation, and injustice with practical compassion and material, concrete hope. Good news to the poor is not just charity. It is solidarity. It is justice. It stands with those who are overlooked by the status quo and affirms the intrinsic worth of those presently being disenfranchised and made vulnerable. Today, it doesn’t matter whether we define those communities as migrant, trans, or the people in Ukraine or Gaza. The gospel Jesus preached challenges systems that crush people and inspires us to create societies shaped by generosity and justice. When the marginalized including the poor hear the gospel and recognize it as hope, freedom, and belonging, its authenticity is unmistakable.
In the spirit of that justice and hope, I want to begin this week by addressing the other recipients of Jesus’ gospel in the statement to John’s disciples. When it comes to people who live with disabilities and how we tell the Jesus story, I believe we can do better today for them. The gospels contain ableist elements. Many healing stories frame disability primarily as a condition needing correction. Jesus’ miracles often present disabled people as objects through whom divine power is displayed, rather than as full participants with agency. This narrative pattern has unintentionally reinforced the idea that a meaningful life requires being “fixed.” Additionally, disability is sometimes used metaphorically for moral or spiritual lack, such as blindness for ignorance and lameness for weakness, which can deepen the stigmatizing, negative associations of having a disability with being “less than.” Many disability theologians also note subversive moments in the Jesus story where Jesus centers marginalized people, restores them to community, and challenges social exclusion (see Nancy Eiesland’s The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability.)
Acknowledging ableist elements doesn’t disqualify the gospel stories. Rather, admitting the truth about these stories invites us into deeper reflection on how we can interpret these texts today as faith communities endeavor to uphold the humanity and dignity of all, including people who live with disabilities.
Next in our reading, Jesus addresses his audience regarding John the Baptist. John the Baptist was born into a respected priestly family; his father, Zechariah, served in the Temple State system, and his lineage offered him the social, political, and economic benefits of that path. Yet John chose a radically different calling. Rather than serve within the structured Temple State system—deeply intertwined with political and religious authority—he withdrew to the wilderness. He chose a path of challenging the status quo, calling his society to repent for complicity with Rome and to return to the practice of justice toward one another, all of this outside of institutional control. John’s voice in the desert was a contemporary return to the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition and was in tension with the institutionalized and co-opted-by-Rome priesthood. John confronted corruption, preparing hearts for a just future brought about by a God who would respond to the people’s repentance and return to justice. He reminded the people that their future directly depended on what they chose to practice toward one another: continued exploitation or a return to the Torah’s justice.
In the gospels, “the wilderness” symbolizes the margins of society. It represents those places far from centers of power, wealth, and political/religious control. It is in these edges that God’s presence is revealed most clearly. John the Baptist preaches there in the wilderness, showing that divine truth arises outside the institutional authority of his time. Remember, Jesus is also tested in the wilderness, therefore identifying with the vulnerable and the unseen. The wilderness becomes a space where God meets those who are overlooked, oppressed, or displaced. By locating revelation in the margins, the Gospels declare that God is not confined to centered places of power but stands in solidarity with the marginalized and offers them hope, reclaimed humanity, and new beginnings rooted in justice.
In his book Say to This Mountain, Ched Myers writes, “The experience of wilderness is common to the vast majority of people in the world. Their reality is at the margins of almost everything that is defined by the modern Western world as ‘the good life.’ This wilderness has not been created by accident. It is the result of a system stacked against many people and their communities, whose lives and resources are exploited to benefit a very small minority at the centers of power and privilege.” (Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 11)
Myers goes on to say, “While the margin has a primarily negative political connotation as a place of disenfranchisement, Mark ascribes to it a primarily positive theological value. It is the place where the sovereignty of God is made manifest, where the story of liberation is renewed, where God’s intervention in history occurs. (Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 12)
John the Baptist’s ministry, as portrayed in the Gospel of Luke and illuminated by Josephus, centers not on offering assurances of heavenly reward but on demanding concrete, ethical transformation in society. Luke presents John as standing in the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition with a message focusing on action-based repentance in contrast to the complicity that elites engaged in with the Roman empire. When the crowds ask John what repentance requires, John does not speak of greater fidelity to the Temple State, but of earthy, concrete, social practices and preparation for an approaching end to unsustainable social practice. He instructed them to share resources: “Whoever has two tunics must share with the one who has none, and whoever has food must do the same” (Luke 3:11). John’s demands also addressed tax collectors and soldiers. He calls tax collectors to economic honesty, to refuse to collect more than prescribed, and calls soldiers to non-violence and contentment, forbidding extortion and false accusation (Luke 3:12–14). These calls reveal his vision of repentance as social and economic justice embodied in everyday life.
Josephus corroborates this image, describing John as a teacher who urged people to practice justice toward one another as an expression of their devotion to God. In Antiquities 18.5.2, Josephus states that John commanded his followers to exercise justice in their dealings and piety toward God, emphasizing the practice of social justice as the true preparation for baptism. This portrait aligns with Luke’s emphasis: John’s baptism symbolizes a commitment to transforming present social reality, not a ticket to a later heaven.
Taken together, Luke and Josephus portray John as a prophetic figure calling Israel to ethical renewal. He insists that genuine repentance manifests in equitable economic practices and compassionate treatment of neighbors. His message is a summons to rebuild society on justice, not a promise of post-mortem security.
Advent rituals remind and call us, like John’s preaching of old, to return to the social justice practices of our various faith traditions, and to renew our commitments to shaping our present world into a just, safe, compassionate home for us all.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How are you taking a stand for justice this Advent season? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
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Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 2 Episode 50: Advent as Good News for the Marginalized
Matthew 11:2-11
Advent rituals remind and call us, like John’s preaching of old, to return to the social justice practices of our various faith traditions, and to renew our commitments to shaping our present world into a just, safe, compassionate home for us all. John chose a radically different calling. Rather than serve within the structured Temple State system—deeply intertwined with political and religious authority—he withdrew to the wilderness. He chose a path of challenging the status quo, calling his society to repent for complicity with Rome and to return to the practice of justice toward one another, all of this outside of institutional control. In the gospels, “the wilderness” symbolizes the margins of society. It represents those places far from centers of power, wealth, and political/religious control. It is in these edges that God’s presence is revealed most clearly. This narrative details speaks to every person who finds themselves doing justice work along the edges of our communities today.
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/advent-as-good-news-for-the-marginalized
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
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Salvation from the Margins
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Salvation from the Margins
Herb Montgomery, December 6, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading for the second weekend of Advent is from the gospel of Luke:
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all people will see God’s salvation.’ ” (Luke 3:1-6)
One of the things I appreciate about the gospel of Luke is its emphasis on distributive justice. The author of Luke models their gospel on the Hebrew justice tradition. Certain prophets began their writings in the same way:
The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin. The word of the LORD came to him in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah, and through the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, down to the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile. (Jeremiah 1:1-3)
The author of Luke’s gospel begins similarly, by listing those in power: The list of Roman rulers and their clients begins with Tiberius and Pilate, and ends with the regional conduits of Roman rule, Herod, Annas, and Caiaphas. This emphasizes again what we have said so often recently: the high-priesthood in Jerusalem (Annas and Caiaphas) extended the Roman government in Judea, as did Herod in Galilee. They were more than merely religious figures in the rituals of the Temple, they were also political rulers in the Temple State established and overseen by Rome. This explains why Jesus’ Temple protest at the end of this account wasn’t about maintaining the purity of religion as much as it was about Rome economically exploiting the people through the priesthood. This is why Jesus’ protest landed him on a Roman cross as an enemy of Rome itself.
Next, Luke’s gospel introduces to us John the Baptist as an adult. We have already been introduced to John through the story of his birth and childhood in Luke chapters 1 and 2. John was the son of a priest. He belonged to the priesthood. Yet when John became an adult, he turned his back on being part of the system and the priesthood his genealogy entitled him to be a part of. Rather than taking up the vocation of priest, John chose something different. He chose to embrace not the priestly tradition but the parallel Hebrew justice vocation of prophet. The vocations of priest (the establishment) and prophet (those who spoke truth to power when the establishment practiced injustice) were often in tension with one another. Luke’s gospel characterizes John as seeking to bring change not from the inside, from the seats of power, but from the outside speaking in. His is a voice in the “wilderness.” And this detail cannot be lost on us because it offers a bit of wisdom for many of us who feel we are in the wilderness now looking at our own political landscape.
A Voice in the Wilderness
John’s was a “voice from the wilderness.” The wilderness was more than a simple geographical location or story detail. It was also a political and economic social location as well as a religious one. In this narrative, God brings change not from within the system but from the outside in, from the margins, and from the grassroots up.
In his book Say to the Mountain, Ched Myers comments on the political, social, economic and religious implications of John’s work being located in the wilderness:
“While the margin has a primarily negative political connotation as a place of disenfranchisement, Mark ascribes to it a primarily positive theological value. It is the place where the sovereignty of God is made manifest, where the story of liberation is renewed, where God’s intervention in history occurs.” (Ched Myers, Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 12)
In Luke’s gospel, John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ work is located not within the system in centered locations such as the Temple, a synagogues, or Jerusalem, but on the peripheries in places like the wilderness of Judea (John) and the rural villages of Galilee (Jesus).
These marginal social locations were charged with political meaning, meaning still relevant to us today. I want to be clear about this: In this story, God is already present and at work on the margins of this society. Often those living in centered positions of privilege mistake the work of justice as opening access so those less privileged can sit at the tables of privilege. But opening up potential to compete with others in an unjust system doesn’t change the actual system itself. Some tables shouldn’t be shared. They should be flipped (cf. Luke 19:45-46).
Our story this week isn’t one where salvation is defined by including those on the margins at the tables of the privileged. God is already at present and at work on the margins. God and the gospel are already at work on the edges in the wilderness. God is there and those of us who live in more privileged social locations are with God when we work alongside and in solidarity with the work already in motion where God already is—on the margins.
This is the theological and political point of the “wilderness” in our narrative this week. Change, liberation, and social salvation has historically come from voices on the outside of unjust systems. It’s comes from the grassroots, the outside in and bottom up. Outside is where John shows up in our story. It’s where Jesus shows up in our story (cf. John 1:46).
The wisdom for us as we rededicate our efforts to resistance and harm mitigation in the years to come is to look to the margins. Listen to the voices of those on the edges. Look for the good that is already happening in justice efforts on the margins and get with that! Throw your energy and solidarity alongside that!
What work was taking place on the edges in this week’s story? Even in the face of deep harm and the social and economic devastation of vulnerable communities, a path for change was being prepared in the wilderness. The way was being smoothed out for justice’s arrival. In that first season of Advent, even when things looked most bleak, a way was being made out of no way on the margins.
Preparing the Way
Our reading this week intimates what was actually happening on the margins, in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all people will see God’s salvation.’” (Luke 3:1-6)
Justice doesn’t just happen in our world. It is the result of years of organizing, planning, and action. Here in my state, we still have so far to go toward economic, racial, gender and LGBTQ justice. And even though the way is uphill most of the time, there are those who are still preparing the way, straightening out crooked paths, leveling the ground, making the rough ways smoother, and working to remove the obstacles of justice.
One such example is Fairness West Virginia, which is working in local municipalities to expand each town’s nondiscrimination ordinances to include LGBTQ nondiscrimination. This work has been going on for over a decade now in the hope that one day we’ll have enough local municipalities with expanded ordinances that the step to make LGBTQ nondiscrimination statewide will be easy and seamless. There are many who still oppose this effort. Nonetheless, just last week another small town joined the work and expanded their nondiscrimination ordinances.
There are others at work, too, in many other issues and areas where justice is desperately needed here in Appalachia. But this is my point:
Even in the face of deep chaos and the many attempts to harm people, communities of justice are still present and at work. Communities of resistance formed last time we were here are still present and still at work. Yes, those at the helm of the mechanisms of injustice are more prepared this time and planning to hit the ground running the day after the inauguration. But we are still here and better prepared, too.
Look to the margins. Look to the wilderness. Look to the voices on the edges, and to the grassroots work being done in your local communities. When you become aware of an opportunity, don’t just sit back. Add your voice. Add your energy and whatever resources you can spare. Because the promise in our reading this week is even when we are faced with the most daunting of extraordinary challenges, we can choose for justice to have the last word. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways will be be made smooth. And all the people will see God’s salvation.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. Have you ever felt like you were in the wilderness? In what ways have you experienced healing change from the margins? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 39: Luke 3.1-6. Lectionary C, Advent 2
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 34: Salvation from the Margins
Luke 3:1-6
“This is the theological and political point of the “wilderness” in our narrative this week. Change, liberation, and social salvation has historically come from voices on the outside of unjust systems. It’s comes from the grassroots, the outside in and bottom up. Outside is where John shows up in our story. It’s where Jesus shows up in our story (cf. John 1:46). The wisdom for us as we rededicate our efforts to resistance and harm mitigation in the years to come is to look to the margins. Listen to the voices of those on the edges. Look for the good that is already happening in justice efforts on the margins and get with that! Throw your energy and solidarity alongside that! What work was taking place on the edges in this week’s story? Even in the face of deep harm and the social and economic devastation of vulnerable communities, a path for change was being prepared in the wilderness. The way was being smoothed out for justice’s arrival. In that first season of Advent, even when things looked most bleak, a way was being made out of no way on the margins. “
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/salvation-from-the-margins
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
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Advent and Change from the Margins
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New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 42: Mark 1.1-8. Lectionary B, Advent 2
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
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Season 1, Episode 42: Mark 1.1-8. Lectionary B, Advent 2
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Advent and Change from the Margins
Herb Montgomery | December 10, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Very rarely has social change ever come from the center or top of a social structure. Social change has most often come from the margins, from the outside in, and from the grassroots, from the bottom up. In the beginning of Mark, this truth is being told again.”
Our reading this second weekend of Advent is from the first chapter of Mark:
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way” —
“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’ ”
And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” (Mark 1:1-8)
Mark’s gospel associates John the Baptist with two passages from the Hebrew passages that are conflated here.
The first is from Malachi: “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple.” (Malachi 3:1)
The second is from Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling:
‘In the wilderness prepare
the way for the LORD;
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.’” (Isaiah 40:3)
Although the text only references Isaiah by name, Mark’s author is doing something interesting by juxtaposing these two passages. The passage combines Hebrew prophetic imagery of God coming to cleanse God’s temple (Malachi) with language that originally referred to liberation from foreign oppression, specifically Babylonian captivity, and a path being made in wilderness for the liberated exiles upon which to return (Isaiah).
To understand this kind of rhetoric we have to look at what was happening in John’s and Jesus’ society when Mark was written. The temple state leadership had become corrupted, little more than a wealthy, elite class that helped maintain Roman oppression in Judea and the surrounding regions. The poor were getting poorer and the wealthy were getting richer through their complicity and cooperation with Rome. Many of the common people were simply trying to scratch out an existence.
Then John appears in the wilderness. This narrative element clues us in to the fact that John will be working outside the establishment. He will be calling for change (repentance) from the edges and undersides of his society, outside of the official channels. Social salvation is not coming from the established center, but from the margins.
Commenting on this imagery and its possible application to our lives today, Ched Myers writes:
“The experience of wilderness is common to the vast majority of people in the world. Their reality is at the margins of almost everything that is defined by the modern Western world as ‘the good life.’ This wilderness has not been created by accident. It is the result of a system stacked against many people and their communities, whose lives and resources are exploited to benefit a very small minority at the centers of power and privilege. It is created by lifestyles that deplete and pollute natural resources. It is created by the forced labor of impoverished farmers who strip steep mountain-sides in order to eke out an existence from infertile terrain while the most arable land produces profit for a few families. Wilderness is the residue of war and greed and injustice . . . One of the first steps of hope for people in such wilderness places is to understand that their situation reflects social and political forces, not the divine will . . . While the margin has a primarily negative political connotation as a place of disenfranchisement, Mark ascribes to it a primarily positive theological value. It is the place where the sovereignty of God is made manifest, where the story of liberation is renewed, where God’s intervention in history occurs.” (Ched Myers, Marie Dennis, Joseph Nangle, Cynthia Moe-Lobeda, & Stuart Taylor, Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, Orbis Books, p. 11-23)
Luke’s gospel makes this point about John the Baptist even more forcefully by showing that John’s father was part of the temple establishment (see Luke 1:9-10). Luke’s implication is that John the Baptist came from the center of society, and chose to reject that social location with all of its privileges to work for change from the outside.
Very rarely has social change ever come from the center or top of a social structure. Social change has most often come from the margins, from the outside in, and from the grassroots, from the bottom up. In the beginning of Mark, this truth is being told again.
John’s preaching centered on a specific place in the wilderness, the River Jordan. The Jordan provided water that was moving: flowing, “living water” for what grew to be the central ritual associated with John’s preaching, baptism by immersion in “living water.” Historical Jesus scholars today understand John’s baptism to be economic and political as well as religious. All of three categories combined in John’s preaching and baptism, calling the people to return to fidelity to the God of the Torah, especially in regards to the Torah’s economic justice teachings. Again this point would be forcibly made in Luke’s gospel as well:
“‘What should we do then?’ the crowd asked. John answered, ‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.’ Even tax collectors came to be baptized. ‘Teacher,’ they asked, ‘what should we do?’ ‘Don’t collect any more than you are required to,’ he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, ‘And what should we do?’ He replied, ‘Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.’” (Luke 3:10-14)
Many historical Jesus scholars believe that John’s baptism was a form of protest against the temple establishment that had become an extension of oppressive Roman rule. John’s calls for repentance and promise of forgiveness weren’t for personal or individual sins that violated one private piety. In Luke, John rails against economic and social sins, practices that impact a people’s lives together, as a society.
Josephus, who was much more closely located to the characters in these stories than we are, also writes about John, his popularity with people, and the threat the established elites, specifically Herod, came to feel they were:
“John was a good man who had admonished the Jews to practice virtue and to treat each other justly, with due respect to God, and to join in the practice of baptism. John’s view was that correct behavior was a necessary preliminary to baptism, if baptism was to be acceptable to God. Baptism wasn’t not to gain pardon for sins committed but for the purification of the body, which had already been consecrated by righteousness. Herod became alarmed at the crowds that gathered around John, who aroused them to fever pitch with his sermons. Eloquence that had such a powerful effect on people might lead to sedition, since it seemed that the people were prepared to do everything he recommended.” (Josephus, History of the Jews, 18:116-119)
The story of John the Baptist in our reading this week is a story of just change originating from the margins of a society in which both John and Jesus were both figureheads. This is a story that resonates with me today too.
This Advent season, what is God doing right now on the margins? I can’t help but think of movements for change that have formed around concerns for gender justice, racial justice, LGBTQ justice, Indigenous people’s justice, economic justice, and ecological justice. There are so many more areas where justice is needed; these are just the ones that come to my mind first.
Advent announces that something has come: something we have long hoped for is here. Of the many things we hope for, one is a world characterized by distributive justice. A world, here and now, that is a safe, compassionate and just home for everyone, where no one is afraid and, in the words of the Hebrew prophets, “Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree” (Micah 4:4).
This second week of Advent, we read about a time when that world came to us once before. That world would soon be beheaded with John and crucified with Jesus. But when it came in both John and Jesus’s ministries, it began on the margins. This calls to me to pay attention to what’s happening in our time on the edges, the grassroots, and the wildernesses of our own society. For each time that the world we hope for has arrived throughout history, it has most often started there.
Where is that world showing up again for us today? And who can we come alongside to participate in making that world a reality for us all?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How has your own living on the margins or listening to others who do informed how you read the Jesus story? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
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You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Matching Donations for the Rest of 2023!
As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.
To express that gratitude we have a lot to share.
First, all donations during these last two months of the year will be matched, dollar for dollar, making your support of Renewed Heart Ministries go twice as far.
Also, to everyone how makes a special one-time donation in any amount to support our work this holiday season we will be giving away a free copy of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
When making your donation all you have to do indicate you would like to take advantage of this offer by writing “Free Book” either in the comments section of your online donation or in the memo of your check if you are mailing your donation.
Lastly, its time for our annual Shared Table event once again. For all those who choose to become one of our monthly sustaining partners for 2024 by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” online, we will be sending out one our a handmade Renewed Heart Ministries Shared-Table Pottery Bowl made by Crystal and Herb as a thank you gift for your support. Becoming a monthly sustaining parter enables RHM to set our ministry project goals and budget for the coming year.
To become a monthly sustaining partner, go to renewedheartministries.com/donate and sign up for an automated recurring monthly donation of any amount by clicking the “Check this box to make it a monthly recurring donation” option. Or if you are using Paypal, select “Make this a monthly donation.”
We will be starting out the new year by sending out these lovely bowls as our gift to you to thank you for your sustaining support. Look for them to arrive during the months of January and February.
Our prayer is that whether displayed or used these bowls will be reminder of Jesus’ gospel of love, caring and shared table fellowship. They also make a great gift or conversation starter, as well.
If you are already one of our sustaining partners for 2024, we want to honor your existing continued support of Renewed Heart Ministries, too. You’ll also receive one of our Shared Table Pottery Bowls as a thank you.
No matter how you choose to donate to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work this holiday season, thank you for partnering with us to further Jesus’ vision of a world filled with compassion, love, and people committed to taking care of one another. Together we are working toward a safer, more compassionate, and just world both for today and for eternity.
From each of us here at RHM, thank you!
We wish you so much joy, peace, and blessings as 2023 comes to a close. Your support sustains our ongoing work in the coming year.
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In this coming year, together, we will continue to be a light in our world sharing Jesus’ gospel of love, justice and compassion.
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Change from the Edges
Herb Montgomery | May 24, 2019
“One of the first steps of hope for people in such wilderness places is to understand that their situation reflects social and political forces, not the divine will . . .”
“And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness.” (Mark 1:4)
Syracuse University’s Counseling Center defines marginalization as “the process of pushing a particular group or groups of people to the edge of society by not allowing them an active voice, identity, or place in it . . . Some individuals identify with multiple marginalized groups, and may experience further marginalization as a result of their intersecting identities.”
This week I ask what the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) have to say to those who live disenfranchised, disadvantaged, marginalized, and underprivileged in our society.
Mark’s storytelling about Jesus begins very early on with the character of John the Baptist, who emerges as a Hebrew prophet in the wilderness calling for social change. The much later gospel Luke emphasizes this wilderness location by explaining that John’s father is a priest (See Luke 1:5, 8-10). John’s lineage allowed him to be a priest in the temple like his father, so it is telling that we instead see a John who isn’t a priest but a prophet like Isaiah’s voice “crying out” in the “wilderness.”
The wilderness represents a marginal location in the Jesus stories: the edges of the Jewish society. It contrasts with Jerusalem, the temple state, and the elite who held positions of power and privilege in Jewish society. This is a Jewish story, and a story of Jewish voices in conflict with each other. It is the story of social tensions between those at the center of their society and those on the margins. It’s also a very human story. Every society includes a tension between those who are marginalized and those at the top and center of their social structure. When the status quo depends on marginalizing “a particular group or groups of people” Jesus’ time in the wilderness reflects the power dynamics we find in that society.
After Jesus interacted with John in the wilderness, Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus went straight away into the wilderness himself.
“At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness.” (Mark 1:12)
Some Christian preachers use this passage to parallel Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness with the Hebrew people’s forty years of wandering in the wilderness. Mark does not explain how long Jesus spent there, and this parallel is often used to teach supersessionism. I do not read it this way.
I believe Jesus is making a social choice. He, like John, is choosing the wilderness as his starting point. From the marginalized region of Galilee, Jesus enters the wilderness after John, possibly to get in touch with his Jewish roots. His is a people whose origin stories were of enslavement, oppression, liberation, and brutal colonization of others. Jesus attempts to ground himself in his story as a Jew, within their wilderness origin story, and figure out how they got to where they are today.
So both Jesus and John emerge from a place of “wilderness.” Ched Myers reminds us about the truth inthis story detail for those who today find themselves in “wilderness” locations.
“One of the first steps of hope for people in such wilderness places is to understand that their situation reflects social and political forces, not the divine will . . . While the margin has a primarily negative political connotation as a place of disenfranchisement, Mark ascribes to it a primarily positive theological value. It is the place where the sovereignty of God is made manifest, where the story of liberation is renewed, where God’s intervention in history occurs.” (Ched Myers, Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 12)
Mark explains that when John is arrested, Jesus comes out of this wilderness location and does not straightway begin preaching in the more centrally located Jerusalem and Judea. Instead, Jesus enters the marginal region of Galilee.
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)
If Judea is a marginal region within the larger Roman empire, Galilee is a marginal region on the edges of Jewish society. In Jesus’ day, it was the buffer region between the Jewish population and the largely non-Jewish population beyond Galilee. In Mark, Jesus begins his work here, among those who would have been the marginalized in his society. Consider his teaching as well. Whom does he speak in solidarity with in his teachings?
“Blessed are the poor [broken] in spirit . . .
Blessed are those who mourn . . .
Blessed are the meek . . .
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [distributive justice] . . .
Blessed are the merciful . . .
Blessed are the pure in heart . . .
Blessed are the peacemakers . . .
Blessed are those who are persecuted . . .
Blessed are you when people insult you . . .
Blessed are you when people persecute you . . .
Blessed are you when people falsely say all kinds of evil against you . . .
You are the salt of the earth . . .
You are the light of the world.” (Matthew 5:3-14)
In this teaching, Jesus is in solidarity with those who have been pushed to the edges and undersides of his society and are trying to survive there.
Notice, too, those final two statements I quoted from Matthew 5. Jesus states that those on the margins of society are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. This was centuries before refrigeration and the harnessing of electricity. Salt preserved food.
I want to offer a word of caution about the imagery of light in our context today. RHM’s book of the month for May is Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne by Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney. In a statement circulating the internet this past Easter season which was attributed to Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney (which I still cannot for the life of me find where she said this, but this does sound like her) we read, “We can celebrate the light of Easter without demonizing darkness and reinscribing a white supremacist dialectic on Christ and the resurrection. My blackness is radiant, luminous and will not and does not need to be made white as snow. The blood of Jesus will not make me white. We must learn to talk about brokenness in the world with our reducing evil to darkness and goodness to light. Blackness is God’s good gift.” (From more from Gafney go to www.wilgafney.com)
We can celebrate light without demonizing darkness. Today we understand that life requires both light and dark. What’s important is balance, a life-giving equity, rather than one or the other. I can understand the original use of this language and also understand that that use is no longer appropriate today.
Yet in the Jesus stories both images point to the marginalized of Jesus’ society. That’s the point Myers is making above. In the Jesus stories, the edges of society hold a “primarily positive theological value. It is the place where the sovereignty of God is made manifest, where the story of liberation is renewed, where God’s intervention in history occurs.”
Change happens from the outside in, from the bottom up, from grassroots movements. It is the voices sharing the experiences of those surviving on the edges of our society that tell us whether the status quo is just or unjust, life-giving or lethal. We can choose to listen to these voices or not. We can choose the way of life or not. We can choose those things that preserve society, like salt, or that which cause societies to self-destruct. Those who are in power and privileged have very little insight into how systems enfranchise some and disenfranchise others. At best they continually risk underestimating the damage done to those who do not share their social location. Change, renewal, intervention, salvation, often emerges from the edges, the “wilderness” locations. And this is one of the first truths we bump into in the Jesus story.
Today, a person can be marginalized on the basis of their gender, race, ethnicity, religion, education, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, ability, and more. Many marginalized people face exclusion for multiple intersecting traits, too. In whatever area of your life where you face marginalization, contrary to narratives of those at the top or the center of society, the Jesus story tells us that God is with those on the margins, those working in “the wilderness.” And we are working with God when we are working in solidarity with them.
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Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Wherever you are today, choose to keep living in love. Choose compassion. Take action. Seek justice. Till the only world that remains is a world where love reigns.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
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