A God Who Takes Sides by Herb Montgomery
“‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” — Jesus (Matthew 20.12-16, emphasis added.)
This week I want to share with you a thought that I initially was very resistant to; once embraced, however, it truly and radically changes everything. This way of seeing God dramatically affects how we view ourselves as well as everyone around us.
What I want to share with you is the image of a God who takes sides.
We don’t like this way of picturing God. We want a God who is on everyone’s side. First, let me share with you what this doesn’t mean.
In Mark’s gospel, we have the story of Jesus’ interaction with a rich man. It says that Jesus “loved him” (Mark 10.21). To say that God takes sides is not to diminish in the least the fact that God infinitely loves those on both sides of oppression and marginalization. God loves both the oppressors and the oppressed. It is precisely God’s love for both sides of systemic injustice that is the basis of God’s desire to save both the oppressor and the oppressed from their enslavement to systemic oppression. And how does God do it? By standing in solidarity with the oppressed and calling the oppressor to do so too. In Mark 10, we are coming face to face with economic oppression. And Jesus, because he loves the rich man, takes the side of the poor and calls the rich man to a radical redistribution. Jesus is standing in solidarity with the poor and calls for the rich man to abandon his position of economic privilege (which would have most likely been land ownership) and to join Jesus, to follow Jesus, in stepping into solidarity with the poor as well. “Sell what you own, and give the money to the poor.”
We see in Jesus the revelation of a God who takes sides—this can also be seen in Luke 6.20-26 too!
The poor will be blessed by this new world I’ve come to inaugurate. The rich are going to struggle. The rich will find my radical redistribution difficult to embrace.
This will be true of the “Hungry” versus the “Well Fed,” those who “Weep” versus those who “Laugh.” Those who are “Hated” versus those who are “Spoken Well Of.”
Make no doubt about it. Jesus loves everyone on both sides. Yet He is seeking to save both sides as well. Jesus is seeking to establish a new world for both sides where oppression, violence, and injustice are put right. And this can only be done by His standing with the oppressed and calling to the oppressors to rethink everything and to follow Him in taking their place among the oppressed.
Remember, the father of the prodigal son deeply loves the older brother. He wants to save the older brother. And the father endeavors to do so through maintaining his solidarity with the younger brother and pleading with the older brother to embrace the younger one as well. In other words, the father is not going to change who he is to accommodate the older brother’s prejudice toward his younger sibling. The older brother is going to have to change and stand alongside his father, embracing his younger brother, if he is to come in from the outer darkness this night.
To see this God who takes the side of the oppressed is vital if we are to follow Jesus into His radical new world.
Remember that Rome claimed the gods were on their side. Herod claimed God had chosen him as the messiah and rightful king of Israel. Caiaphas and the chief priest claimed God was on their side, dwelling at the center of their temple worship, dwelling in their temple’s most holy place.
Yet the Presence was not found in any of these. The Resurrection proves that God’s Presence was actually revealed to be with and within the One shamefully suspended between heaven and earth at the hands of the unjust oppressive Powers.
The Resurrection proclaims that God did take a side that day. It proclaims a God who stood in solidarity with the One who was on the cross at the hands of those unjust systems. As Jesus stood in solidarity with the oppressed, marginalized, and disadvantaged, God, in the Resurrection, simply said, “I’m with Him.”
Whether it’s the Manifest Destiny of the 18th century, the White Christian Slave Owners of the 19th century, or the White-Male-Hierarchy, Binary-Gender-Hierarchy, or Hetero-Hierarchy of today, we live in a world where the oppressors always say that God is on their side. The typical response of many who are well meaning is to say that God doesn’t take sides. But, in the face of oppression, this doesn’t go far enough. It doesn’t go anywhere near as far as Jesus went. Jesus teaches repeatedly that God most definitely does take sides. God seeks to liberate ALL parties from systemic oppression, in every instance, through standing in solidarity with the oppressed. And if the God of Jesus takes sides, then those living with privilege must pick a side as well.
If Christianity does not offer a better god than the one who has always stood in solidarity with oppression, the best remaining option is atheism.
Jesus said it best: “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” God’s justice, the justice that so many are socially, religiously, economically, politically, and ecologically hungering and thirsting for, is not retributive. It’s not punitive. No, no. God’s justice, as it is revealed through Jesus, is redistributive, transformative, and restorative. And Jesus has promised that in His radical new world, those who hunger for this justice will be filled. The Good News, the Gospel, is that with Jesus’ Resurrection, this new world has begun!
“Never forget, that Justice is what Love looks like in public.” — Cornell West
“Seek first the Kingdom and its justice.” — Jesus
“The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners.” — Isaiah
“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” — Jesus
Psalms 76.8-9:
From the heavens you uttered judgment; the earth feared and was still when God rose up to establish justice, to save all the oppressed of the earth. Selah (Emphasis added.)
HeartGroup Application
1. Too often the Sermon on the Mount has been used by those in Power to keep others under oppression. This is done by sanctifying or “making holy” the position of being oppressed. The logic usually goes, “Why do you want to be rich? Jesus said, ‘blessed are the poor.’” But Jesus wasn’t saying that those who are oppressed by the present arrangement of this world are blessed under that arrangement. Jesus was speaking hope, saying that in this new world that He had come to inaugurate, those who are oppressed by the present arrangement are going to blessed by the changes His new world was about to make.
Again, we are all simultaneously both oppressed and privileged, depending on which aspect of our lives we are looking at. This week I want you to consider in which areas Jesus would say that his radical new world is going to be a blessing to you and in which areas Jesus would look at your privilege and feel “woe” for you. (Luke 6.20-26)
2. Make two lists, one entitled “Blessed” and the other entitled “Woe,” and write out in what areas of your life you are disadvantaged and in what areas you experience privilege.
Pray during this exercise that Jesus wakes you up to the areas of your life where you are still participating in oppression, injustice, and violence. Ask Jesus to give you the courage to stand in solidarity with the oppressed in each of these areas instead.
3. Share what Jesus shows you with your HeartGroup this week.
Till the only world that remains is a world where there is no more injustice, no more oppression, and no more violence, and only love reigns. Keep living in love. Keep seeking first Christ’s radical new world in the here and the now.
I love each of you, and remember: God does too!
See you next week.
Liberian Christians, Ebola and the LGBT Community; Advocacy or Accusation? Holy or Demonic? by Herb Montgomery
“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” — Jesus (John 14.26)
What many miss in John’s gospel is Jesus’ primary characterization of the Holy Spirit’s work as advocacy.
In John’s version of the Jesus story, Jesus actually contrasts two spirits within this narrative: the spirit of advocacy versus the spirit of accusation.
In chapter 8 of John’s gospel, Jesus says, “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires” (Vs 44). The Greek word here for “devil” is diabolou and it simply means “slanderer” (Mounce’s Greek Dictionary). Another title that is used in the Jesus stories is “the satan.” (And it’s a title, not a name.) The Greek word for “the satan” is satanas which means “accuser.”
There are two spirits in John’s story — the spirit of accusation (or scapegoating) and the spirit of advocacy. One is holy, the other is demonic.
Advocacy is defined as publically pleading for the rights or cause of those who are being oppressed. Accusation is defined as the act of making a charge or claim that someone has done something illegal or wrong.
A Modern Example of Scapegoating: Liberian Christians Blame LGBT Community for Ebola.
A perfect example of the contrast between advocacy and accusation is found in what is transpiring presently in Liberia.
The Christian leaders of Liberia last week unanimously endorsed the following resolution:
That God is angry with Liberia, and that Ebola is a plague. Liberians have to pray and seek God’s forgiveness over corruption and immoral acts (such as homosexuality, etc.) that continue to penetrate our society. As Christians, we must repent and seek God’s forgiveness.
Archbishop Lewis Zigler of Monrovia publically declared:
One of the major transgressions against God for which He may be punishing Liberia is the act of homosexuality.
Leroy Ponpon, an LGBT activist, stated:
Since church ministers declared Ebola was a plague sent by God to punish sodomy in Liberia, the violence toward gays has escalated. They’re even asking for the death penalty. We’re living in fear.
The fact that people who claim the name of Jesus would imbibe this spirit is astounding. This is the exact treatment of others (not to mention the picture of God) Jesus worked so tirelessly and subversively to reverse. What about the prophets you may ask? Go back and read them. The prophets NEVER state that God was going to punish Israel for any actions of the oppressed. God’s punishments were always because of the unjust actions of those at the top of Israel’s privilege/disadvantaged social pyramid. In other words, plagues never came in the Hebrew narratives because of the actions of the oppressed minority at the bottom of society, but because of the exploitation and oppression against the oppressed minority by the privileged and normative majority. Even in the Hebrew stories, Yahweh’s plagues were always aimed at those at the top, the privileged, because Yahweh was standing in solidarity with the minority, defending those at the bottom.
Failure to understand this is what led the religious leaders in Jesus’ day to marginalize people as “sinners.” Failing to see which end of the social pyramid (top or bottom) brought the punishment of Yahweh, led the religious leaders to begin marginalizing and oppressing anyone they deemed was living contrary to the Torah. Living in constant fear of another punishment of Yahweh, the religious leaders became the moral police constantly governing the moral behavior of others, and sacrificing those they judged as “sinners.” Failing to understand which end of the social pyramid brought Yahweh’s plagues in the narratives, in their treatment of others whom they labeled as “sinners,” they became the oppressors. The very thing that brought the plagues of old, the reality they were so afraid of, they ended up recreating.
The God we see in Jesus, within the Jesus story, stands in solidarity with the oppressed and marginalized minority. In Jesus’ day (pre-Paul), “sinner” was a term used by Jews to refer to other Jews who were living contrary to the teachings of Moses. To label those who belonged to the oppressed minority as “sinners” only served to perpetuate their oppression. After all, they were viewed as sinners, under the condemnation of God. They deserved this ill treatment. They were ruining society. They were the enemy!
This entire social mechanism, rooted in very dangerous ways of seeing God, ourselves, and others, is what Jesus continually challenged. His embrace of the marginalized and outcast so deeply threatened the religious culture of his day that they believed he must be removed in order to prevent, in their minds, Yahweh from sending another punishment (John 11.48–50). This is where the wrong picture of God, as well as the marginalized, leads. We will ultimately kill even God. In fact we already have, both historically and in our treatment of those who are made in the image of God. What Liberia (and Christians here in America, too, I might add) must remember is that it wasn’t the gays who crucified Jesus. It was the religious people.
Last week, many around the globe celebrated Halloween. This is a time when all the monster stories are dragged out and retold. What I noticed this year is that all the stories of angry mobs, chasing down monsters with pitch-forks and raised torches, belong to a long tradition of celebrating the social mechanism of scapegoating and sacrificing innocent victims. And, as a good friend of mine, Keisha McKenzie, shared with me last week, “By contrast, the Death Dances of the Black Plague era and the costuming traditions that became Halloween put a face to the fearsome ‘Other’ and in so doing humanize it. Humanizing the monster is really re-humanizing ourselves, because the ‘monster’ was always human. Dehumanizing others, downgrading them from human to monster, is a highly effective way to dehumanize self.” (For more from Keisha on this check out her thoughts here: http://spectrummagazine.org/blog/2014/10/31/halloween-and-facing-our-shadow )
A Deeper Look At How Scapegoating/Accusation Works
Jesus said it most clearly, “If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent” (Matthew 12.7).
“A scapegoat effect that can be acknowledged as such by the scapegoaters is no longer effective, it is no longer a scapegoat effect. The victim must be perceived as truly responsible for the troubles that come to an end when it is collectively put to death. The community could not be at peace with itself once more if it doubted the victim’s enormous capacity for evil.” — Rene Girard, The Girard Reader (p. 14)
“The victim cannot be perceived as innocent and impotent; he (or she, as the case may be) must be perceived if not necessarily as a culprit in our sense, at least as a creature truly responsible for all the disorders and ailments of the community . . . He is viewed as subversive of the communal order and as a threat to the well-being of the society. His continued presence is therefore undesirable and it must be destroyed or driven away by other gods, perhaps, or by the community itself.” — Rene Girard, The Girard Reader (p. 15)
“[Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.] Here, as with all the sayings of Jesus, it is crucial to avoid emptying what he says of its basic sense . . . He expresses the powerlessness of those caught up in the mimetic snowballing process [scapegoating] to see what moves and compels them. Persecutors think they are doing good, the right thing; they believe they are working for justice and truth; they believe they are saving their community.” — Rene Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning (p. 126, Kindle Edition)
Today, people, especially Christians, are afraid. Many Christians (praise God for the exceptions) are much like the fearful religious leaders of Jesus’ day. From their conversions rooted in imaginings of hell, to the constant bombardment they receive from the pulpits of the apocalyptic, catastrophically nightmarish images tied to current cultural events — fear is the rule. But fear leads us to abandon the spirit of Advocacy and embrace the spirit of Accusation. And just as perfect love drives out all fear, perfect fear also drives out all love.
With the nightmarish events of the destruction of Jerusalem approaching on the horizon, remember Jesus had the courage to say, “And because of the increase of lawlessness [social chaos was coming], the love of many will grow cold [fear and the desire to have someone to blame]. But the one [whose love] endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24.12–13).
HeartGroup Application
- This week, spend some time sitting with Jesus asking Him to show you where and with whom you may be practicing the social mechanism of sacrificing others out of fear (see Matthew 12.7). Remember, we are all children of the same Divine Parents. Jesus rose again for us all. We are all going to have to learn to sit around the same family table once again.
- Journal what Jesus shows you.
- Share what you learn with your upcoming HeartGroup.
Advocacy or Accusation? There are two Spirits: one is holy, the other demonic. Which one will you embrace this week?
Till the only world that remains is a world where Christ’s love reigns, keep living in love.
I love each of you, and remember, God does, too.
I’ll see you next week.
Orphan-Maker or Advocate by Herb Montgomery
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate. — Jesus (John 14.16)
I find it interesting that within John’s version of the Jesus story, the word here used for the One who will be given is parakletos. A parakletos in the first century was what we would call today an advocate. It was someone who would plead another’s cause, someone who would defend the rights of another.
From the Sermon on the Mount all the way to Jesus’ use of parakletos here in John, Jesus meets our human systemic evil of sacrifice and oppression head on. Sacrifice (or as some refer to it, scapegoating) and oppression are rooted in the accusation of an innocent victim, either an individual or a group, that those in positions of privilege within society unite their community against. This can be done for a multitude of sociological reasons, yet the benefit is always stability and cohesiveness for communities threatened by their own internal rivalries (for more on the way of sacrifice or scapegoating, see https://renewedheartministries.com/Esights/06-23-2014 and https://renewedheartministries.com/Esights/06-02-2014).
The kingdom that Jesus came to establish was to be “good news to the poor,” “release for the captives,” “sight to the blind,” and that which would let the “oppressed go free” (see Luke 4.18; Matthew 5.3-11; Luke 6.20-26). Notice that word “oppressed.” Jesus’ kingdom is, in every generation, about advocacy for the “oppressed” within our societies. This is made evident in Jesus’ next statement in John. Just a few verses later, Jesus states, “I will not leave you orphaned” (John 14.18).
Jesus was not referring to his followers being orphaned by their families. Many of Jesus’ followers had parents still living, and though I’m quite sure that some parents had become distant to a few of Jesus’ followers because of their following Jesus, this can’t be assumed to be the same narrative for every disciple. Jesus’ words have a much broader societal meaning than that which could be derived by privatizing the definition of “orphan” within one’s personal family units. Nor are they referring to becoming orphaned by God or by Jesus. What Jesus is referring to here is a practice called “societal orphaning.”
Within our communities, a societal “orphan” can be anyone who has been deserted by the larger group, anyone without the protective affiliation of those in positions of privilege, or anyone who has become alone. These are people whose stories become “not authorized.” They are not supported by or part of the larger community that everyone else seems to belong to. They have become isolated, abandoned—“orphaned.” (Jeremiah 5.28)
These are the very ones Jesus became the advocate for. These are the ones that we find Jesus speaking up for. Over and over, through parable and argument, Jesus urges his exclusive religious community to embrace a much more inclusive way of seeing “God,” as well as a much more inclusive way of founding human societies. Jesus was the ultimate advocate, pleading on behalf of those who had been excluded by the community he found himself in.
He was the incarnation of Proverbs 31.8: “Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute.”
Jesus, being a mirror image of God (John 14.9; John 5.19), was the original advocate. Jesus reveals God to be an advocate for the oppressed in every society. The resurrection proves it! God is not at the heart of religious, political, economic, or social systems that sacrifice the most vulnerable. The resurrection proclaims that God is in the One (and ones) being suspended shamefully on crosses by those systems.
What I find beautiful in Jesus’ departing discourses in John’s story, is that, before he leaves, he assures his disciples that another advocate will come to take his place (John 14.26; John 15.26; John 16.7).
Within today’s systemically evil way of orchestrating our societies, which is rooted in the way of the accuser, there are many who have been orphaned. Yet what concerns me the most are communities that claim to carry the name of Jesus; they claim to be “following Jesus,” the original advocate, yet they too, too many times, are guilty of “orphaning” others on the basis of race, gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, economic class, marital status, or physical/mental abilities.
Today, we are also seeing an ever-growing number of Jesus followers who are waking up to this contradiction, waking up to this disconnect and choosing to walk away from the practice of societal-orphan-making into the beautiful world of advocacy. Advocacy means to make room for the voices and stories of those who have been orphaned by their communities. Advocacy is the way of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And, through Jesus, we come to embrace that advocacy too is a core element of the character of the God we see revealed through Jesus.
Paul, who turned from religious-orphan-maker to an advocate of gentile believers in the early church wrote, “What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any accusation against those whom God has embraced? It is God who acquits. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed advocates for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8.31-39).
Whatever it is, dear reader, that has made you feel orphaned, the advocate God in Jesus has embraced you, and nothing, NOTHING, can separate you from that God’s love. Not race, not gender, not age, not sexual orientation, not ethnicity, not economic class, not your marital status, and certainly not your physical or mental abilities. NOTHING, can separate you from the love of God we see revealed in the advocate Jesus.
The best part is that Jesus has begun re-founding this world. Jesus is Lord, and although this Kingdom is open to all who will embrace it, it has started by giving a place to belong, a place to call home, to a group of orphans.
HeartGroup Application
- This week I’d like you to spend some time in contemplation, sitting with Jesus, considering the difference between being the kind of “Christian” that makes orphans versus being a “Jesus follower” who follows Jesus’ example of being an advocate.
- Prayerfully meditate on this passage: “Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute” (Proverbs 31.8). Ask Jesus whom he would have you speak out for and whose rights you should defend.
- Share what Jesus shows you with your HeartGroup this upcoming week.
On November 5,, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood before his congregation at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA and preached these words:
“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, or some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.
You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.
And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.
You died when you refused to stand up for right.
You died when you refused to stand up for truth.
You died when you refused to stand up for justice.”
In the words of David Hayward, who last week posted on his blog at nakedpastor.com, “There is a line that separates discrimination from affirmation. We can talk and progress while on the discrimination side until the cows come home. We can nudge up as close as possible to that line, but we will still be on the side of injustice. Justice doesn’t begin until that line is crossed. Period.”
Let’s follow Jesus together, making room for the orphaned voices of those whose stories have been brushed aside simply because they challenge the positions of the privilege. Let’s become advocates like Jesus till the only world that remains, is a world where Christ’s love reigns.
Keep living in love—Loving like Jesus.
I love each of you, and remember, the advocate God does too.
See you next week,
Herb
Rejected Rejection by Herb Montgomery
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?” (Matthew 21.42)
First, I want to say a big thank you to all who have been praying for my recovery over the last three weeks. I’m back on my feet now after a pretty tough bout of pneumonia. Thanks for your love, support, prayers, and patience. I really appreciate your concern.
This week, I want to talk about Jesus, social rejection, and the divine rejection of the social rejection that we see in God, revealed through Jesus. This last type of rejection will make more sense as we continue.
Matthew 21 presents a series of parables that Jesus was sharing with the chief priests and Pharisees on the subject of their religious rejection of others to whom they felt morally superior.
“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I will go, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of justice and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him. (Matthew 21.28–32, emphasis added)
There are three points to keep in mind as we read these parables that will enable us to step into their context and receive their full impact.
- Jesus stood in solidarity with, and defended those whom the chief priests and Pharisees had judged as morally inferior and had socially rejected.
- Jesus’ choice to stand in solidarity with those the chief priests and Pharisees had discarded as “sinners” (Jews living in disobedience to the Torah) also caused the chief priests and Pharisees to reject Jesus as one of them.
- God was rejecting the rejection of the chief priests and Pharisees, not only of Jesus, but also of the people who were responding to Jesus, whom He was defending. According to Jesus, God was embracing Jesus and all of these religious rejects and founding a new world beginning with them. In other words, Jesus’ Kingdom was being founded on religious “rejects.”
Follow closely. Jesus said next:
“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”
They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom. The one who stumbles over this stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.” (Matthew 21.33–46, emphasis added)
I want to draw your attention to the phrase, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” This is nothing unique, and certainly nothing new. From the founding of human society, societies have always been built on the rejection of, or scapegoating of, a single victim. Human societies find unity and cohesiveness in joining together against a common “enemy.” This enemy is accused of being responsible for societies stresses and conflicts. It’s the age old, “Us versus Them!” The rejection of a “stone” has always been the “cornerstone” of forming societies. Yet in a very real sense, there is something different about this time. In all the stories of history, legends, and myths, deities are always on the side of those who are doing the rejecting—the rejectors. In fact, the gods are the ones demanding that the victim be sacrificed/rejected! Yet in the Jesus story, the scapegoating mechanism is turned on its head. God, for the first time in all the stories, is in the One being rejected, showing the victims to innocent, over and against those who are endeavoring to found (or in this case preserve) a society on sacrificing, rejecting, a victim. (See Caiaphas’ statement in John 11.50)
In short, according to Jesus, the rejectors were about to be rejected. And this is a first! God, in Jesus, for the first time, is revealed as rejecting their rejection of the rejectors. Those who had been rejected were being taken up by God, shown to be being victimized and objectified, and then used by this same God to pioneer a new way of living life on planet Earth. This new way of doing life will be rooted in equality, justice, restoration, reconciliation, mercy and love. Jesus referred to this new way of orchestrating the world as the Kingdom. For those who were offended by this divine rejection of their rejection, those who endeavored to go against this “amazing,” unique, and original “doing of God,” would find themselves “broken to pieces and crushed.” As some have said, the grain of the universe is love and those who go against this grain receive within themselves the splinters of such a course.
The vineyard was in the process of being taken away from those who had abused and oppressed others through it—those who had chosen to go against the grain of love. Ironically, as those who had been abused and oppressed were actually responding to Jesus and aligning themselves “with the grain” (in a way unrecognizable to the chief priests and Pharisees), the vineyard was now being given to them because they could be entrusted with producing the right kind of fruit.
What does this mean for us today?
Maybe you have also been rejected for a number of reasons. Perhaps you don’t have the proper education. Maybe you don’t have the “privileged” skin color. Possibly you don’t belong to the right “income bracket.” Perhaps you’re not “from here.” Maybe you don’t have the “correct” gender or don’t even find yourself easily fitting within the accepted binary gender categories that society has constructed. Or maybe you have been rejected for possessing what has been labeled as a “non-normative” orientation.
The good news is that it doesn’t matter to God why you have been rejected. You are precious to the God we see in Jesus. To this God, the rejection you have experienced has been divinely discarded itself. It doesn’t matter whether your rejection has been social, political, economic, or religious. You’re the last people on the planet to turn others away because you know how it feels to be abandoned. If you would like to follow Jesus into this new world, remember, He was the original “reject!” This rejected Jesus, “scapegoated” by the religious of His own day, has founded a new world, one that operates very differently, yes, but also founded with “rejects.”
You—come to Him, a living stone, though REJECTED by mortals yet CHOSEN and PRECIOUS in God’s sight, and like living stones [also rejected by others but chosen by God and precious in His sight], let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, be a holy priesthood, and offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2.4–5)
“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”—Jesus
“The kingdom of God will be taken away from you [the rejectors] and given to the people [the rejected] who produce the fruits of the kingdom.”—Jesus
If you have been rejected, in Jesus, God has rejected your rejection. You are precious to the God we find in Jesus and by this God, you are chosen.
To all the rejects, myself included, Jesus is saying the same thing that we find Him saying over and over again in the four gospels—“Follow Me.”
HeartGroup Application
Matthew ends this series of parables with the statement:
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet. (Matthew 21.45–46)
This was the ultimate rejection of Jesus that would lead to His unjust crucifixion by them.
- This week, I want you to spend some time sitting with Jesus, contemplating the ways you have been rejected in your life. Write them down. Then I want you to imagine God taking each of one of these “rejections” and personally rejecting each one of them.
- Next, I want you to spend time sitting with Jesus, contemplating the ways you have rejected others at certain times in your life. Write them down. Then I want you to imagine God taking each of one of these “rejections” and personally rejecting each one of them as well.
- Then this coming week, share with your HeartGroup what Jesus showed you through this exercise.
I receive so many emails with such sad stories of how precious people, made in the image of God, have been rejected, especially by their religious communities. There are many ways in which individuals can be disregarded, not just religiously, but these seem to be the ones I hear from the most. To each of you, remember, Jesus was the original reject. You’re in good company. As a matter of fact, if you have ever felt unwanted by others for whatever reason, you are part of a precious group that Jesus called His tribe.
Wherever this message finds you this week, remember, I love you and God does, too. Keep living in love and loving like Jesus, till the only world that remains is the one where Christ’s love reigns. Now go and enlarge the Kingdom.
I’ll see you next week,
Herb
A Woman, a Ruler and Two Centers
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and to not get discouraged. (Luke 18.1)
This week we are looking at the parable referred to by many as the parable of the unjust ruler and the importunate woman. I want to make it clear from the beginning that we will not look at this parable through a domesticated or conventional “Empire Approved” lens. There are key phrases and clues that cannot be missed, and these phrases tell us explicitly that this is not a parable concerning prayer by those in places of privilege; rather, it is a parable for those who are not merely passively disadvantaged, but who are being actively oppressed in their state of being disadvantaged.
First, here are those phrases and clues:
“A judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people.” – Luke 18.2 (The word for “judge” here does not mean someone who tries a case, but rather a magistrate or “ruler” who presides over the affairs of government.)
“A widow” – Luke 18.3 (Widows in this first century, patriarchal culture were among those who were oppressed by those at the top of the economic privilege-pyramid.)
“I will grant her justice” – Luke 18.5 (What this widow was pleading for was equity and what today would be called social justice.)
“Will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?” – Luke 18.7 (This phrase, cry to him day and night, would have harkened Jesus’ listeners back to Israel’s slavery in Egypt, when they also “groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God” (Exodus 2.23, emphasis added). Within the narrative of Exodus, God is portrayed as saying to Moses, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters” (Exodus 3.7, emphasis added).
This is not a parable about praying over “first world problems.” These are not prayers by rulers or judges or those who receive their preference. This is not a prayer to get a promotion in an already high-paying job, or an “A” at an ivy league school, or that your favorite sitcom won’t get canceled this season. These are prayers from those who cry out to the “Advocate God” of the oppressed and disadvantaged that we see in the Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. These are prayers for God to end oppression, violence and injustice against those who are marginalized, mistreated, stereotyped, mischaracterized, and whose plight is ignored. Jesus is saying to these people, keep crying out to God! Don’t give up! This is not a “pray only” parable either. This is a parable where the widow not only prays—she stands up to injustice with her continued prayers. Jesus is saying to the oppressed, “Keep pushing for justice, yes vertically, but also horizontally. And change will come! God is with you. Remember, God is an ‘Advocate God.’ And this God stands in solidarity with you.” Injustice, oppression and violence is a violation of everything that the God we see in Jesus is about. In Jesus we see this Advocate God engaged in a formidable struggle against all oppression, injustice, and violence. As I’ve said so many times before, yes, God loves even the perpetrators of oppression. Yet the God we see in Jesus seeks to overthrow injustice by winning over the perpetrators of injustice, by being the first to stand in solidarity with the oppressed. Yes, this God loves all, yet this God is also seeking to heal all, both oppressed and oppressor. This God is at work to heal the oppressors by setting them free from the systemic evil they themselves are victims of. And this God is seeking to heal those who are being oppressed by putting to right the very injustice that is crushing them.
The greatest proof I can give that the God we see in Jesus is an Advocate God for the oppressed, is the resurrection. Yes, I know that the historical reality of the resurrection is under fire from our scientifically naturalist worldview today. But stop for a moment, and catch the storied truth of the resurrection.
The good news that the early apostles proclaimed was not that someone had been crucified. That happened all the time to anyone who stood up to Roman oppression. Nor was it that someone who had died had come back to life. That, although strange to us today, would not have shocked anyone in the first century. They had all kinds of stories, both Jewish and Hellenistic, of people who had come back post-mortem. What shocked the Jewish and Roman world was that this Jesus, who was deemed a threat to the political, economic and religious privilege-pyramids, whom these systems had joined together in crushing/crucifying, had been chosen by God to stand in solidarity with him, and who had resurrected this same Jesus, and established this Jesus (along with his radical teachings about justice, equity, love, and mercy rather than sacrifice) as Lord. What had been prophesied by the prophets, that God would one day put to right all injustice, oppression, and violence, had now begun in the resurrection of Jesus the “Christ.”
It wasn’t about getting to heaven after one died. It was about turning the world “upside-down” (see Acts 17.6) and placing it right-side up once again.
The resurrection proves that God is not standing in solidarity with political super-powers (“manifest destiny”), nor is God standing within the most exclusive, most holy, central places of religious systems of sacrifice. Rather, the resurrection proves that God was standing with and revealed in the very one who had been crucified by these religious, economic, and political systems.
Yes, there is good in the world worth fighting for and worth saving (see John 3.17). And when we encounter sickness in this world, whether social, political, economic, or religious, the only remedy is to hear the gospel (good news) being proclaimed by the resurrection of this same Jesus who was crucified by these sicknesses.
In John’s gospel, Jesus tells Nicodemus, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be [healed] through him” (John 3.17).
The Two Centers
The cross is the center of appeasement-based theology in the hands of those at the top of privilege-pyramids to take the gospel of the oppressed out at the knees. There is a reason why the resurrection of Jesus was the center of the apostle’s gospel in the book of Acts. The resurrection undoes and reverses the unjust act of the cross by systems of oppression. It is this reason, understood by the apostles, that places the resurrection at the center of all rightly-understood systems of liberation theology. Make no mistake, making the cross the center of one’s theological understanding speaks volumes about the character of the God at the heart of that theology. Yet placing the resurrection as God’s response to the crucifixion of Jesus by human hands also speaks volumes about the character of God at the heart of that theology. And both “centers” place their adherents on a trajectory concerning how they treat the marginalized.
It offers much to ponder for this week, for sure.
It’s time to revisit the Jesus story of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as the preachings of those in the book of Acts, and abandon conventional, domesticated, “Empire-Approved” systems of interpretation.
The cross is the center of “how to get to heaven” gospels. The resurrection is the center of “how to bring heaven to earth once again” gospels.
May God guide us to hear what the story is really telling us, for the sake of our fellow humanity “crying out to God, day and night, for justice.”
HeartGroup Application
- This week I’d like you to go back and reread Matthew 5.1-11 and Luke 6.20-26. Contemplate which end of the privilege-pyramid (top or bottom) Jesus is saying the arrival of his Kingdom “blesses,” reversing their present state, and which end Jesus’ Kingdom will challenge. See if you can outline some of the changes Jesus is outlining for those at the top of our social constructs as well as those at the bottom.
- After you have made this outline, spend some time, sitting with Jesus, prayerfully contemplating these differences, and Journal what Jesus shares with you.
- Share what you discover with your HeartGroup this upcoming week.
Till the only world that remains is a world where Christ’s love reigns, keep living in love, loving like Jesus.
I love each and every one of you, and remember, God does too.
See you next week,
Herb
Jesus, ISIS and The West by Herb Montgomery
For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.—Jesus (Matthew 26.28)
What did Jesus mean when he told his disciples that his blood was being poured out for the forgiveness of sins? We must not answer this from our perspective today, but from the perspective of those to whom these words were originally intended.
To first century Jews, who were longing to be free from Roman oppression, the phrase “forgiveness of sins” did not mean that God would forgive their moral infractions and let them into heaven when they died. No, no! “Forgiveness of sins” within the Jewish context that Jesus used this phrase meant that their time of captivity to foreign powers—and most presently, Rome’s presence in Jerusalem—would be reversed and the hope of Israel would be restored.
Jesus’ blood being poured out through his unjust crucifixion, and the reversing and undoing of that deed by God through the Resurrection, according to Jesus, was not to produce changes in God toward us, but rather radical changes in both the Roman Empire and the Jewish nation that would lead to radical redistribution of how life on Planet Earth is arranged.
Much is missed when we don’t recognize the characters in the story and who their modern-day equivalents are.
Remember, Rome was the superpower of its day—and Jerusalem was a region that resented Rome’s presence. There were even radical, fundamentalist Jews who thought the only way for Jewish voices to be heard by Rome was through barbaric, violent, militaristic terrorism on their part. Those who subscribed to these methods were called Zealots.
What Jesus was demonstrating through the cross, and what God was endorsing through the Resurrection, was that the way to heal the world was not for the Jewish people to resort to barbaric violence to bring about Israel’s liberation and restoration. Rather, it was through forgiveness and love for their Roman enemies, and a desire to awaken the hearts of the Romans’ compassion and win them over through nonviolent direct actions coupled with unconditional enemy love—having their own blood shed rather than staining their hands with the blood of others.
Now, let’s back up and see if we can plug in modern-day equivalents. Rome was the then present superpower of the Jesus story. Zealots were the fundamentalist Jews who were using barbaric violence to try and remove the Roman presence from Jerusalem.
What does the Jesus story say to us if we were to place America in the place of Rome and ISIS in the place of the fundamentalist Jewish Zealots?
ISIS is a barbarically violent, militant, fundamentalist sect—much like the Jewish Zealots of Jesus day—who felt the only way throw off the Roman presence in Jerusalem was through terroristic means. The majority of the Jewish people of Jesus’ day did not feel that the Zealots rightly represented Israel just as the majority of Muslims today do not feel that ISIS rightly represents them. The Zealots, although barbarically violent, and using terrorist tactics, did not feel they were terrorists. None of the Zealots saw themselves as terrorists. They saw themselves as defenders of Israel against a foreign presence. They saw themselves as freedom fighters, and they did not regard their tactics as in any way acts of terrorism. This is exactly how ISIS feels today, not against a Roman Empire, but against the presence of the American Empire in their home. ISIS today sees themselves as mujahedeen (warriors for the faith defending an Islamic State against foreigners). The parallels between ISIS and the Zealots of Jesus day cannot be missed. What we must also take notice of is that it was with these Zealots especially that Jesus would plead to use nonviolent enemy love as their means of arriving at the social changes they desired in relation to Roman oppression. If they would continued on the path of using their present methods, Jesus warned repeatedly, then Rome, being much stronger, would respond, and it would end in gehenna—Jerusalem’s destruction by Rome at the end of the three-year Jewish-Roman War in A.D. 70.
Just as the Jewish nation resented Roman occupation and felt oppressed by Rome’s presence, today those who belong to ISIS resent and feel oppressed by America’s presence in their region as well. What this requires of a Jesus follower is, first, not to look at the present situation as an American but as a Jesus follower. And as Jesus followers, we are not give in to fear or scapegoating, but rather compassion—even for those who others deem as evil and beyond redemption—trying to first understand what would make the members of ISIS feel that the only way to remove the presence of the West is through such barbaric violence.
We must first and foremost look at the situation from the perspective of someone who is being oppressed. ISIS is not the enemy. Matter of fact, labeling someone as enemy, drawing a hard line in the sand that demarks an “us vs. them” is the very first step away from the path that follows Jesus. So let’s first ask the question: What would Jesus say to ISIS today?
It’s the same thing Jesus would say to the Jewish Zealots of his day in the Jesus story. Jesus would say to those who feel oppressed by the West’s presence in their region to choose the way of a nonviolent direct action, coupled with enemy love and the power of truth, to overthrow injustice, violence and oppression rather than simply responding with greater violence. And that if they did not heed his call to nonviolent means of change, the only end in sight was their own gehenna at the hands of their Roman equivalent: America.
Jesus’ call to ISIS would be to seek to liberate themselves from Western occupation through a cross rather than a sword.
There are others who have been oppressed who have discovered Jesus’ way of peace:
“Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale. Love for Gandhi was a potent instrument for social and collective transformation. It was in this Gandhian emphasis on love and nonviolence that I discovered the method for social reform that I had been seeking.”—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Remember that Gandhi, in using methods learned from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, successfully removed Britain’s presence from India. King picked up these same methods and changed the face of civil rights in his generation in America.
So Jesus would first say to ISIS that there is a better way, and warn them of what the superpower they are going up against will end up doing to them if they reject this better way.
But here is MY question.
As a citizen of a modern “Rome” (the USA), whose foreign presence in a modern “Jerusalem” (the Middle East) is resented by those for whom that place is their home, what is Jesus also saying, not just to ISIS, but to the WEST?
Jesus would say to America what he would have said to Rome in his day. We cannot miss this!
1. Don’t use violence to protect your position of privilege and oppression.
Using ISIS’ barbaric violence to justify a greater presence and a greater show of force, in a region that possesses resources you may want to control, may be good for the Western economy, but it’s not just toward those for whom this region is home. It’s a contemporary form of disguised colonialism at best. If we think ISIS is the enemy that can’t be reasoned with, which leaves us with no other option than to crush it out of existence, we are no different than Rome in how she viewed militant, fundamentalist Jews of the first century.
2. Don’t use nonviolence to preserve your position of privilege and oppression either. Rather let go of the pyramid of privilege that, by definition, produces both oppressors as well as those who will continue to be oppressed.
Jesus is not telling America to use nonviolence to defeat ISIS. Jesus is telling America to relinquish her grip on her position at the top of a political pyramid. As a superpower, to co-opt the cross, using Jesus methods to defeat ISIS and gain control of that region is a gross misapplication of what Jesus would say to Rome. Jesus would call upon ISIS to use nonviolence, as he did with Jewish fundamentalist Zealots. But Jesus would call upon America (modern Rome) to abandon the power to kill, and choose the power of compassion, putting herself in the shoes of opponents by asking herself whether there is good reason to. Nonviolent direct action (NVDA) by America will not work as long as NVDA is merely a tactic whose ultimate goal is to establish a greater American presence and oppression in a part of the world only desired out of a felt need to control resources native to that region—again, a region that others call home. (America really doesn’t care about spreading “justice” and democracy in areas where oil fields, or other American interests, don’t exist.)
3. Don’t scapegoat ISIS as “enemy,” as Rome did with the militant Jews of Jerusalem in the first century to Rome’s citizens.
Reject fear and choose compassion. Choose to see the humanity of those who feel participation with ISIS is the only option they have at their disposal to have their voices heard. Start by providing space for those voices (as well as their concerns) to actually be listened to. Make it easier for members of ISIS to believe that the way of nonviolence might actually work by taking the initiative to demonstratively listen and respectfully respond to concerns of those feeling oppressed by the West’s presence in their homeland. Even if this costs the West its control of commodities it covets as precious, remember that these are commodities that really belong to those who live there. Treat others the way you’d like to be treated if they stormed into your homeland seeking to instill their favorite form of government through violent means for what could be ulterior motives.
Again, we must look at these events, first and foremost, not as Americans who blindly feel America can do no wrong. We must look at the present events through the lens of the Jesus story as followers of Jesus himself, who calls us to be makers of peace.
As a follower of Jesus, we are called not to side with a kingdom of this world in crushing a threat to that empire’s safety. We are to be ministers of reconciliation, calling on ISIS to not resort to barbaric violence but to believe there is a better way, all while calling on the West to relinquish the pyramid of privilege and oppression and to not make members of ISIS feel the only way they can be heard is through such barbaric violence.
As a Jesus follower, you are neither pro America nor pro ISIS. You are pro peace; you are a follower of the Prince of Peace. And within the pyramid of privilege and oppression, which we have discussed in so many eSights previously, we are to call upon those at the top to dismantle the entire pyramid for a better way. We are to stand in solidarity with those who are being oppressed at the bottom of the pyramid, honoring their hunger and thirst for justice while also pleading with them to choose a better way than barbaric violence.
This does not justify ISIS’ use of barbaric violence. That, no doubt, is horrifically evil. But this doesn’t justify America either. It refuses to take a side, calling both sides to follow Jesus. We place ourselves in the shoes of those who feel oppressed, pausing to reflect on what it must be like for them to feel like they are standing against the biggest bully on the planet, and not being able to believe (just like the Zealots in Jesus’ day) that if they use nonviolent means the West will actually hear them.
Yes, Jesus’ call to ISIS is to lay down the sword. But Jesus’ call to the West is also to relinquish its place as biggest bully on the hill, and to stop, listen and give hope to ISIS so that they don’t have to use barbaric violence to be heard. Jesus’ call to his followers is to not allow fear to rob you of compassion. And above all, Jesus is calling to all three parties to avoid just rushing to violent means of solving conflict between those who feel oppressed and those in the position of privilege and oppression.
Jesus calls us all to see both the West and the members of ISIS as, remember, not us vs. them, but as siblings of the same Divine Parents who are going to have to eventually learn how to sit around the same family dinner table again.
Will this come without losses? No, there will be many losses on both sides. There will be losses on ISIS’ side if they should choose to use NVDA to awaken the hearts of those in the West to listen. And there will be losses on the West’s side (in relation to the West’s position of privilege) if those in the West choose to listen and begin treating those in the Middle East the way they would like to be treated if the roles were reversed.
It’s time for humanity to let go of fear of scarcity and an addiction to monopolizing positions at the top of the pyramids. It’s time for humanity to embrace a worldview of abundance, enough for everyone’s need but not their greed—with cooperation and sharing rather than anxiety, competition and violence.
Jesus is calling.
There is a conversation that is said to have taken place between Lord Irwin and Gandhi, where Lord Irwin asked what Gandhi believed would solve the problems between Great Britain and India. The story states that Gandhi reached over and picked up a Bible from off of the desk, and opened it to the Gospel of Matthew’s chapter five—the beginning of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Gandhi then said, “When your country and mine shall get together on the teachings laid down by Christ in this Sermon on the Mount, we shall have solved the problems not only of our countries but those of the whole world.”
There is only one “Savior of the World.” It’s not America, with her military might. It’s the nonviolent Jesus.
HeartGroup Application
- This week I’m not going to ask for you to contemplate any passages from the Gospels. I’m going to ask you, every day for a week, to pray for both ISIS and America, that both will follow Jesus instead of the course they are presently on so that this world would be healed (John 3.17) and that what will be enlarged through all of this will be Jesus’ Kingdom rather than simply yet another of this world’s empires.
- Journal what Jesus shares with you about the West and about ISIS as you pray.
- Share what Jesus shares with you with your HeartGroup this upcoming week.
Wherever this finds you this week, choose love and not fear, and choose compassion over violence, until the only world that remains is a world where Christ’s love reigns.
I love each and every one of you. And remember, God does too.
See you next week.
Mercy Seeds by Herb Montgomery
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” (Matthew 5.7)
It’s back-to-school season for most this time of year. And on our morning drive to drop off the kids this past week (I have three kids of three different ages being dropped off at three different schools this year) we’ve been batting back and forth different ideas concerning the Sermon on the Mount. We’ve had some good discussions, as we’ve tried to take the Beatitudes out of the economical context they were originally spoken in and apply their principles to the context of elementary, middle, and high school. What we’ve found is that the principles are pretty universal. Everywhere you find an underdog, or those being marginalized, the Sermon on the Mount becomes exceptionally pertinent.
From listening to my kids, too, I’ve come to the conclusion that there may be no better testing ground for the ethics of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, no greater context to experiment with the truth value of these teachings, than high school. But that’s a side note.
What I want you to see in this week’s focus text is the intrinsic “reaping what we sow” principle, especially in the context of mercy. The previous verse spoke about hungering for justice. The justice Jesus taught was not retributive, but restorative—not punitive, but redemptive. And the mercy we are to practice is not out of harmony with this kind of justice, and it does not need to be brought into harmony with this type of justice. Restorative justice and the mercy we are talking about this week are simply two sides of the same coin. They are both expressions of the same thing: love.
Let’s take an example from Jesus’ cultural context first. Many people miss the economic context of Jesus’ words today. Let’s say we have a wealthy creditor in the first century and a debtor who has defaulted on a loan. The creditor has every legal right to foreclose. But Jesus asked creditors to stop and look at the circumstances of their debtors and to choose a more economically rehabilitative and restorative option than foreclosure.
Let’s look at it from the perspective of the debtor now. Let’s consider those that are being oppressed by an economic system that they can never possibly recover from. (Think of the global debt crisis between superpowers and developing countries around the world today.) The temptation is violent revolution, something to reset the scales of capitalism. A “year of jubilee” by force, if you will. I’m reminded of Gandhi’s words: “I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” Jesus is calling us to change the world through mercy.
What the Sermon on the Mount makes clear is that a new world (the Kingdom) is coming; and, in fact, it has already arrived. Jesus is Lord. And this new world is going to be a world where life is arranged very differently than the way it has been. This world, under the reign of love, is a “blessing” to those the present arrangement oppresses, and it will be a “blessing” to those who stand in solidarity with, and give a voice to, those who have been oppressed. Jesus is, in this week’s statement, giving us a way to this whole new world, this new creation—and that way is mercy.
For those who are being oppressed: set in motion mercy. I’m reminded of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words in my favorite sermon ever preached: “So, if you’re seeking to develop a just society, they say, the important thing is to get there, and the means are really unimportant; any means will do so long as they get you there—they may be violent, they may be untruthful means; they may even be unjust means to a just end. There have been those who have argued this throughout history. But we will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree” (A Christmas Sermon for Peace).
That may be the thing many revolutions miss. We are seeking to plant trees of justice without sowing the proper seeds: the seeds of mercy. For mercy awakens mercy, and mercy is the mother of justice.
For those who are in a position of privilege, even unknowingly: practice mercy. Don’t justify injustice. Practice mercy and this new world, along with all the changes it will bring, will go much easier on you. Remember that the Sermon on the Mount is a blessing for some, but a curse for others (see Luke 6.24–25). This is the sermon that changes everything.
My kids are looking for the underdogs presently in each of their schools. Looking for those whom they can stand with, be an ally for, and make space for their voices to be heard. This week, whether it be in matters of economics, gender, race, social status, orientations, and/or normativity, I want to encourage you to be on the lookout for those disadvantaged by the present arrangement. I wonder whom Jesus will draw your attention to this week, whom you will get the opportunity to practice mercy toward, rather than sacrifice. And if you are oppressed, I know this part is the most difficult to believe, but the way to a world rooted in restored justice is not to passively enable continuation of the present injustice, but rather to direct restorative mercy that awakens in the hearts of those advantaged, and to listen to the voices of those who are not.
A new world is coming. It has already begun. Let’s go enlarge the Kingdom this week together.
HeartGroup Application
Whether you are in a position of privilege this week or a position of disadvantage, practice mercy. Experiment with it. Start out small and see what happens. As a person of privilege, it may open your eyes to a whole new world; I know it has for me. And I am very much still in that process. I can testify that the Sermon on the Mount has radically changed the way I see God, myself, and those—I’m ashamed to admit—that I used to condemn simply because they were different from me. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount has changed everything for me. It has changed my life. I’m quite sure it has the power to do that for you, wherever it finds you, as well.
The oak tree is in the acorn. A just world is contained in the seeds of mercy, for the merciful will receive mercy.
1. This week, step outside of your normal routine and find an opportunity to practice mercy in a way that you wouldn’t normally.
2. Journal what happens as a result. If nothing happens, keep experimenting with it. If something beautiful does happen, write it down.
3. This upcoming week, share with your HeartGroup the stories of your experiments with Matthew 5.7 and the way of mercy.
Wherever you are right now reading this, keep living in love, loving like Jesus in the way he taught us to love, until the only world that remains is a world where Christ’s love reigns.
Next week, we’ll be looking at Matthew 5.11. And you won’t want to miss it.
I love each and every one of you. And remember, God does too.
See you next week.
God of the Oppressors Vs. God of the Oppressed and the Sermon on the Mount by Herb Montgomery
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5.1-11)
After ten days in Kapolei and two weekends with the HeartGroup there, I’m sitting on a plane, flying back home—unable, once again, to escape my introspections. This time I’m reflecting on the Hawaiians of the Hawaiian Islands, a beautiful culture with rich narratives that I have just been privileged to taste a small part of. I’m also contemplating the Maoris of New Zealand that I had the privileged of briefly learning about this summer while I was in Christchurch. Almost a decade ago now, I remember discovering the warrior people known as the Caribs and the peace-loving Arawaks during the time I spent giving a series of presentations in Trinidad and Tobago. I’m thinking today about American and British colonialism as well as European and American capitalism. My mind then jumps to the Jewish people of the first century under Rome and then further back to the exiled Jews, taken captive and ruled over by the superpowers of their day, such as Babylon and Greece. What about the Hebrews, who served as the sweatshop workers of their day under the Egyptians? Lastly, I think of Abel under the raised fist of Cain.
There has always, for as long as anyone can remember, been a top. There has always been a bottom. There has always been a conqueror and a conquered; always an oppressor, always an oppressed. The schools I attended taught me the historical narratives of those who had “won.” But I can’t help thinking that those who are on the bottom, those who have “lost,” have their narratives too. And if the narratives of the Abels, the Josephs, the Jobs, the Hebrews are whispering anything to us, they are calling us softly to listen to the stories of those who have been conquered, those on the bottom, those not in positions of privilege.
The resurrection, as God’s response over against the unjust crucifixion of Jesus on a Roman cross, testifies that—although Jesus’ God loved both oppressor and oppressed and was seeking to restore them both—this God seeks to accomplish this “restoration of all things” through standing in solidarity with the oppressed over against the oppression carried out by those in positions of privilege.
Yes, the Egyptians had their gods, and so did the Babylonians. And the Greeks had their gods, who would become much more violent versions with different names under Rome. But these were the gods of the conquerors. These were the gods of the people on top. Let me try to make this clear. With the exception of when Israel rebelled by wanting to have a king, the God of the Hebrew narrative is a God not of the superpowers but of the oppressed, the wanderers, the nomads. Historically the European conquerors, too, had their god, just as America has hers. But here is the catch, and I don’t know if you even caught the switch.
A slight of hand has occurred.
In the fourth century, something mysterious took place. But there was nothing truly magical about it. It was a charlatan move, much like the actions of those who stand on stages, waving trick wands and pulling rabbits out of hats. Christianity was subverted by a Roman emperor and wedded to the empire. And I’m not sure we realize what really happened with this. Overnight, the God of the oppressed became the god of the oppressor. The Hebrew narrative of the God who stands in solidarity with those who suffer at the hands of others was subverted. This narrative was now replaced, eclipsed rather, by a god with the same name but of a very different disposition. Now God stood on the side of Rome and conquered, oppressed, and violated through Rome. Think about how those who are oppressed today by the American Empire see America as a “Christian” nation.
The lens you use when discussing “God” makes a difference. Are you contemplating God as the one who is standing in solidarity with the oppressors or the oppressed? When you enter into ontological debates about God, are you asking questions about the existence of the god of the conquerors or the God of those being conquered?
We don’t want our God to be the God of the conquered. We want a strong God, one who is never defeated! But here is where we often miss the point. The God we find in the Jesus story is a God who stands in solidarity with the losers of the “war games” we humans play.
This is a point that many (not all, thank you, Ryan Bell!) of my atheist friends miss. What I’ve encountered, without exception, in every one of my atheist friends is that their atheism is really rooted in a deep concern about matters of justice. Their atheism is simply the expression of a much deeper revolt within themselves against injustice (and the “god” of those who perpetuate injustice). And this must be recognized, acknowledged, and honored! As a Jesus follower myself, I find this hunger and thirst for justice by my atheist friends to actually be in perfect harmony with the ethics I have found taught by the Jesus of the Jesus story (see Matthew 5.6). Yet what many of my atheist friends miss is that most of their arguments against “God” are built on a foundational assumption that the God of the Jesus story is the god of those on top. Dr. Martin Luther King’s “God” and Gandhi’s “God” looked very different from the European-American “Christian” god many of us wrongly believe is really out there. Let me make this clear. I think the atheists are right. The European-American god who stands in solidarity with the superpowers of this planet does not exist. That god is not out there. Saying that doesn’t make me an atheist. I simply agree that the god my friends say isn’t there, really isn’t. It is no wonder that the fruit of the god of the West, the god of the European conquerors, the god of America, given enough time, leaves people hungering and thirsting for justice and wanting nothing to do with god.
The God that we find in the Jesus of the Jesus story is a Divine Parent of us all, oppressed as well as the oppressor. This God is a radically inclusive God who loves all and is seeking to restore all, yet a God who does this through standing in solidarity with those on the bottom of our systems of oppression, seeking to awaken the hearts of the oppressors and to inspire them to escape their systemic injustice and stand in solidarity with the oppressed as well. (This is the story of Saul of Tarsus.)
Let me also say a word about monotheism while I’m here.
Monotheism—within the context of Jews, Christians, and Muslims who are endeavoring to conquer others—looks very different when it champions the supreme and only god of the oppressors than when it portrays the one and only God who stands in solidarity with those being oppressed or conquered. Monotheism (and I also have many friends who are not monotheists) can be one of the most destructive “isms” in the hands of those on top. But for monotheism to be properly evaluated as intrinsically harmful or not, we must ask whether we are talking about a monotheism in the hands of the conquerors who say no other god exists but theirs or a monotheism in the hands in those being oppressed, which gives hope to those being oppressed whispering that what the oppressors call their god is really no god at all. This not about theistic debates; it’s about the god/gods the oppressors are claiming is on their side over against the God those who are being oppressed believe is the only true God, who is actually standing with them even in their position of being oppressed. Today it is pointless to argue about the superiority of your religion or “god” over another person’s if both these religions worship the god or gods of the oppressors.
This leads me to the inescapable conclusion that the “Christian” god of the conquering West is not the God we find in the Jesus story. The “Christian” god that many of us have worshipped all our lives really doesn’t exist.
Again, believing this does not make me an atheist. I simply see a radical difference in the god of the oppressors and the God the Jesus story claimed was really out there and who was actually standing in solidarity with the Abels, the Hebrews, the Jews, the first-century Christians persecuted by both Judaism and Rome, the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, Hawaiians, Caribs, Arawaks, Maoris (even against the colonial missionaries who carried crosses), native Americans, African Americans, women, the poor, and anyone considered non-normative today.
I also want to add one last thing that I think many people miss. Whatever your theistic beliefs are, I as a Jesus follower have to remind myself continually in our work against injustice that I am not striving for a world where room is made at the top of a pyramid of oppression for more people—people who were once oppressed themselves. No, the God of the Jesus story is not asking those at the top to make room for others at the top. This God is calling those at the top to abandon their positions at the top in order to stand in solidarity with and give a voice to those at the bottom. This God is calling for the entire pyramid of oppression to be disassembled one human heart at a time. This God is asking for the entire edifice to come crumbling down as human beings begin to see that there is no “us” and “them”—only us, sitting side by side around a shared table, brothers and sisters once again.
For those who are interested, I’ve included a few of my thoughts on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount this week too. This is the sermon that changed my life. It’s the sermon that I believe has the power to heal the world.
At the end of these brief comments I want to try to lay out a project I’m working on. I know that at this stage it is oversimplified and very incomplete. I’m opening a window into my headspace for those who have the courage to take a look inside there. It’s not just our ideas about God that are affected when we see God through the resurrection, standing in solidarity with the oppressed. The gospel, too, is radically impacted. The gospel preached by the oppressors—the powerful, the privileged in European-American colonialism and capitalism—is significantly different from the gospel we find the Jesus of the Jesus story teaching. I’ve included a few blank spaces for you to make your own comparisons. This is a work in progress. In other words, this is not a completed product. It’s not finished. It’s ongoing, and this is a very rough draft. If you have some comparisons that you feel should be added, shoot me an email. I would be most interested in hearing those and possibly adding them to my list.
For those who have already been reading long enough, I’ll sign off.
Keep living in love and loving like Jesus till the only world that remains is a world where Jesus’ love reigns.
I love each of you, and remember that God does too.
My Musings on the Sermon on the Mount
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5.3)
The poor in Jesus’ day were one of the groups who were considered to be living contrary to the Torah and who were therefore being punished by God. The poor were oppressed and marginalized by the rich. Rather then feeling compassion for the poor, those who were better off simply felt morally superior. Why else would God be blessing them economically while withholding blessing from others? To be poor in spirit simply meant to stand in solidarity, in spirit, with the poor, those who were economically oppressed. This kingdom Jesus had come to establish would readjust how life operates on planet Earth in a way that would be especially good news to the “poor” in the present arrangement. (Jesus’ kingdom of redistribution of resources would be impossibly difficult for the wealthy to accept, but it was good news to the poor.)
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. (Matthew 5.4–7)
This kingdom Jesus had come to establish would bless those who were mourning because of the present distribution. The meek were those who had been trampled on by the powerful and privileged in the present distribution. Those who were hungering and thirsting for justice are those who were being oppressed by the powerful and privileged class.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5.8,9)
The pure in heart are those who do not allow what they’re suffering at the hands of the powerful and privileged to cause them to resort to impure methods of redistribution. The peacemakers are those who participate in Jesus’ nonviolent way of establishing justice once again on earth.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. (Matthew 5.10–11)
Those who stand in solidarity with the oppressed—whether in matters of economics, gender, age (both young and old), race, or orientation—will be persecuted, hated, reviled, and spoken against as evil by the powerful who feel their position of privilege being threatened by Jesus’ kingdom.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5.12)
The prophets have always called for injustice, oppression, and violence on earth to be made right.
“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)
“But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an eternal flowing stream.” (Amos 5.24)
God of the Oppressors God of the Oppressed
| The gospel is first and foremost that “God loves Me” (Me meaning those in a position of privilege). | The gospel is the entire Jesus story, which climaxes in the revelation that “this Jesus, whom the oppressors crucified, God has raised back to life, and this Jesus is Lord.” |
| The gospel is about post-mortem assurance about things like getting to heaven or escaping hell, keeping those who suffer oppression passive looking forward to “bliss” in the afterlife. | The gospel is about Jesus’ egalitarian kingdom being restored on earth here and now, healing the world, puting all injustice, oppression, and violence to right (Matthew 6.10). |
| Focuses on proving the historicity of story details within the Jesus story. | Focuses on demonstrating the intrinsic value of the ethical teachings of Jesus. |
| A private, personal relationship with God that is inwardly focused | An ever deepening encounter with God that focuses one outside oneself toward the present restoration |
| Hierarchical authority structures | Mutual egalitarian community |
| Justice is punitive and was satisfied by Jesus on the cross. | Justice is restorative and was initiated, begun, started, commenced, instituted, launched, set in motion, established, founded, brought in, ushered in, introduced once again, and inaugurated on earth by Jesus through the power of his death and resurrection over against the powers of injustice, violence, and oppression. |
| Has an aversion to justice and focuses on mercy, grace, and forgiveness instead | Deeply focused on justice, the restoration of which is promised for the oppressed |
| Justice is seen as standing in opposition to mercy and love. | Justice is the natural expression of mercy and love. |
| Mercy, grace, and forgiveness are things that we receive from God and that give us post-mortem assurance. | Mercy, grace, and forgiveness come from God but are what we are called to show our fellow humans who are oppressing us. |
| Eschatological focus on the destruction of the world and being a part of an elite, special, privileged group that escapes. | Eschatologically focused on a renewed and restored heaven reunited with a renewed and restored earth. |
| “Fire” is punitive and retributive | “Fire” is restorative. |
| Evangelism focuses on the threat of hell, the reward of heaven, and the love of God in saving humanity from God’s imposed punishment. | Evangelism focuses on putting on display the beauty of what the world changed by Jesus and his teachings actually looks like, recognizing and honoring this beauty already at work in some, while endeavoring to inspire those in whom this beauty is not present to join the revolution. |
| Focused on enemies getting their due (vengence) | Focused on enemies being won and restored along with the restoration of justice to the oppressed. |
| Violence is an acceptable means of maintaining and preserving a position of privilege. | Nonviolent direct action rooted in enemy love is the means of saving even our oppressors from systemic injustice. |
| Salvation means being allowed into heaven by ontological certitude (being certain of what exists and is true and what doesn’t and is not). | Salvation is seen as the healing and restoration of this world, which all are invited to participate in. |
| Human suffering is a huge philosophical problem for a God who is in control. | Human suffering is a tangible and formidable enemy that God is at work bringing to an end. |
| A God who desires sacrifice rooted in sociological scapegoating | A God who never desired or required sacrifice but desires us to follow the way of mercy instead (Mathew 9.13; 12.7) |
| God is love (means something very different for the oppressors) | God is love (means something very different for the oppressed) |
HeartGroup Application
1. Spend some time this week sitting with Jesus and contemplating the above chart.
2. Journal what Jesus brings to your mind—other passages, questions, stories, thoughts, and insights.
3. Share with your HeartGroup what Jesus shows you this upcoming week.
The Non-normative Jesus
His disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” But he said to them, “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.” (Matthew 19:10-12)
This week I want to consider Jesus’ words to his disciples in Matthew 19. But to understand why these words are relevant, we have to go all the way back to a seemingly bizarre statement Moses makes in the book of Deuteronomy. When you see the connection between Deuteronomy 23 and Matthew 19, you will be blown away, just as I was.
“No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD.” (Deuteronomy 23:1)
I’ll bet you didn’t think we would be looking at this verse in this week’s eSight! But this verse is not random, and it’s not marginal. When we explore this verse together with Jesus’ words in Matthew 19, a new and beautiful understanding of Jesus begins to emerge.
The “assembly of the Lord” refers to when Israel assembled for religious ceremonies. Eunuchs (men who had been castrated or were otherwise unable to reproduce) were considered non-normative within this society. Among the Hebrews, the carrying on of a man’s name through his male offspring was the only way to ensure that his name and nation would endure forever. Passing that name down through generations was the ancient Hebrews’ idea of eternal life.
What about the women? When it came to reproduction, ancient Hebrew culture considered the woman little more than an incubation chamber for the baby that was being passed down from the male. I know, I know, extremely patriarchal! At this stage they didn’t have the faintest idea about the zygote being the combination of the female ovum and the male sperm. For the Hebrew, the male seed contained everything needed for a human to be produced. All that was required was the fertile soil (the woman) for the seed to planted in and to grow. It’s no wonder that many women in this culture were treated like dirt!
Being a eunuch within Hebrew society, by birth or otherwise, placed a man in the “non-normative” category. “Normative” simply refers to that which has been established by the majority in a society as normal, or standard. The opposite of “normative,” academically speaking, is the word queer. Today, “queer” too often is used in an offensive and negative sense, typically as a slur toward someone who is non-normative in matters of sexuality or gender. But in an academic sense, the term “queer” carries no negative connotation. It simply refers to something that is non-normative or non-majoritive. For example, in a world designed for right-handed people, left-handedness (a trait my eldest daughter possesses) is non-normative. In matters of dexterity, left-handed people might labeled as dexterously queer. All of this is to say that eunuchs in Hebrew society during the time of Moses were considered non-normative, and therefore were not admitted to the assembly of the Lord. (Maybe my left-handed daughter would have been excluded from the assembly as well!)
Notice what Moses has to say about normativity in this passage from Leviticus.
The LORD spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to Aaron and say: No one of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the food of his God. For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, one who is blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long, or one who has a broken foot or a broken hand, or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a blemish in his eyes or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles […] that he may not profane my sanctuaries; for I am the LORD; I sanctify them. Thus Moses spoke to Aaron and to his sons and to all the people of Israel. (Leviticus 21:16-24)
What’s fascinating is to observe in the book of Isaiah how God begins to change everything, moving Israel further along a trajectory from where they have been toward what we are about to discover in Jesus.
Do not let the foreigner joined to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”; and do not let the eunuch say, “I am just a dry tree.” For thus says the LORD: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant—these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered. (Isaiah 56:3-8)
Here is the question I want you consider. How is God going to give the eunuchs an everlasting name when that, within a Hebrew context, can only be accomplished by producing a long line of male children?
Let’s listen in on a private conversation Jesus had with his disciples and see if we can find the answer.
His disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” But he said to them, “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.” (Matthew 19:10-12)
Who is Jesus referring to when he says, “There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven”? In this context, voluntarily becoming a eunuch did not refer to self-mutilation. Jesus is referring to young Hebrew males who chose to abandon the patriarchal expectations of their society — taking a wife, having children, and propagating the nation of Israel through male offspring — to embrace a life of celibacy instead. Who had done this? Who is Jesus referring to? He was standing right in front of them! Jesus is referring to HIMSELF! He included himself in the eunuchs’ “tribe,” saying, in effect, “I’m choosing to stand in solidarity with you, voluntarily becoming one of you!” The eunuchs would now have an everlasting name, a name that would never be cut off. Moses had excluded them, but now they were being made holy by Jesus’ solidarity with them.
Celibacy is still considered “non-normative” in many of today’s hetero-normative cultures. The cultural pressure for a single person to marry and have children is often immense. But according to Jesus, whether a person is a eunuch by birth, is made so by others, or has simply chosen to live a life of celibacy for the Kingdom’s sake, they have been made not merely acceptable, but holy, special, unique. They have been given a place at Jesus’ table alongside everyone else by virtue of Jesus’ embrace of them…by Jesus’ becoming one of them.
As a side note for those who are non-celibate, you’re included, too. No one is left out. Jesus is quick to say that choosing a life of celibacy, while still non-normative, no longer holds negative connotations; after all, Jesus was celibate, too. Celibacy is to be strictly voluntary, according to Jesus. Further, only those who have been given the spiritual gift of celibacy are called to be celibate. For those who have not been given this gift, Paul would say, “if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.” (1 Corinthians 7:9)
But let’s get back to this non-normative eunuch, Jesus, who, standing in the prophetic lineage of Isaiah, calls for the radical inclusion of those once excluded under Moses.
Radical inclusion is a trend in Jesus’ ministry. Speaking to Israel, Jesus announces that the favor of God is now available for the Greeks as well. (Luke 4:25-29) Addressing the Jews, Jesus calls for the inclusion of the Romans. (Matthew 5:43-48) With the Pharisees, Jesus calls for the inclusion of Jews not living according to the Torah (i.e., “sinners,” Luke 19:7-9). Addressing the rich and healthy (wealth and health being socially constructed indications of “God’s favor” in Jesus’ day), Jesus calls for the inclusion of the poor, the blind, and the lame. (Luke 14:13-14; cf. Luke 6:20, 24) Addressing men within a patriarchal society (and women with a Stockholm-syndrome like support of partriarchy), Jesus calls for the inclusion of women. (Luke 10:39-41) Jesus calls to all who are benefiting from society’s arrangements to make room for those who are being oppressed. It was this radically inclusive nature of Jesus’ kingdom that led his early followers who were circumcised to begin including the uncircumcised among them as well. (Acts 10:47)
What I want you to ponder this week is what it must have meant for those non-normative eunuchs of Jesus’ day to be embraced by Jesus, to be called His new “tribe.” Just imagine it: after years of being excluded from the “assembly of God,” they were not merely accepted by their long-awaited Messiah; he had actually chosen to live as one of them. This is the non-normative Jesus, choosing the life of a eunuch as a Hebrew male and Rabbi who refused to marry and have children. This non-normative Jesus chose to stand in solidarity with a group considered non-normative in his day. What did it mean to them that Jesus, through his identification with them, could give them a name that would now last forever?
It is no accident that the first individual conversion story Luke records in the Book of Acts is that of an Ethiopian eunuch. Luke purposely chooses to tell the conversion story of a person who, under Mosaic law, would have been excluded from the Hebrews’ religious assemblies. Luke knows exactly what he is communicating when he begins the many individual conversion narratives of Jesus’ Kingdom with Philip’s baptism of a eunuch.
He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. (Acts 8:38)
Societies today, ours included, can still be divided into the normative/majoritive and the non-normative/non-majoritive. There will always be a majority and a minority. (Again, think of my left-handed daughter.) But when those considered “normative” fail to recognize those considered “non-normative” as their brothers and sisters in Christ, every bit as deserving of a place at Jesus’ table, something monstrously un-Jesus-like is being perpetuated — something that looks very different from the example we are given in the non-normative Jesus. When normativity is wedded to exclusivity it produces hierarchical privilege for the normative and, by definition, an oppressed minority composed of anyone non-normative. When the preservation of normativity is the Moral concern, rather than the deeper non-objectification, non-dehumanization, and anti-degradation of those who are considered non-normative as the Ethical concern, in the name of “standing up for what is right,” the non-normative minority will always be objectified, dehumanized and degraded, becoming themselves the recipients of attempts at being purged from society by the normative majority. This is exactly the opposite of what we see the non-normative Jesus doing with the eunuchs of his day.
HeartGroup Application
1. The early followers of Jesus embraced the radically inclusive nature of Jesus’ kingdom. I’d like you to spend time this week with Jesus, contemplating Paul’s words in Acts 17:24-31.
“The God who made the world and everything in it, this God who is sovereign of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is this God served by human hands, as though God needed anything, since this God gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and God allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for this God and perhaps grope for this God and find this God—though indeed this God is not far from every one of us. For ‘In God we [all] live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are God’s offspring.’ Since we [all] are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now God commands all people everywhere to [rethink everything we have assumed about God, ourselves and the world around us], because this God has fixed a day on which [the injustice, oppression and violence of this world will be put to right] in justice by a man whom this God has appointed, and of this God has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
2. As you contemplate this passage, journal what Jesus reveals to you through these words.
3. Share with your HeartGroup what Jesus shows you this upcoming week.
Till the only world that remains is a world where Jesus’ love reigns. Keep loving like the sun shines and the rain falls, restoring one human heart at a time.
I love each and every one of you. And remember, whether in today’s world you are considered normative or considered non-normative, God loves you, too.
I’ll see you next week.
The Demoniac, the Crowd and the way of Mercy rather than Sacrifice.
Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” (Mark 5:9)
I must confess that this is one of the most bizarre and difficult sections of the four Jesus narratives. In our naturalistic worldview, most of us struggle to entertain this story long enough to perceive and understand its point. The demonology framework prompts kneejerk reactions in those whose outlook is more scientific. But don’t chuck the story yet. Demonology certainly is present in this story. It points to this story having a very early origin in the Jesus revolution of the first century. When we understand the point of the story and its early dating, we gain a window into what the early Jesus community was really about. It calls us to rediscover this point again for ourselves today. Let’s jump in. This story is found in both Mark 5:1–20 and Luke 8:26–29. We’ll look at Mark’s version.
They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills, he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of Him. He shouted at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name, don’t torture me!” For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you evil spirit!” Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.”
We cannot miss three details if we are to understand what has taken hold of this man.
1. No one was strong enough to subdue him.
2. He cut himself with stones.
3. Its name was Legion.
Let’s start by putting the puzzle pieces on the table and turn to point number 2 first. This man cut himself with stones. Scholars have seen this as what they call auto-lapidation. Lapidating is the act of pelting or killing someone with stones. What cannot be missed is that the gospels always attribute this activity to a crowd stoning a victim (Matthew 21:35, 23:37; Luke 20:6; John 8:7, 59, 10:31–33, 1:8) What this man does to himself is auto-lapidation or self-lapidation. Self-stoning. Why would this man do this to himself? The answer is found in point number three. Whatever has taken over this man, its name is “Legion, for we are many.” This story fits perfectly with the pattern running through the gospels that it is always the many—always the majority, always the crowd—that engages in this form of capital punishment, in which a group throws stones at a person until the victim dies. This man embodies the crowd’s collective violence. The crowd, the many, is embodied in one person. And this story in front of us is how Jesus delivered this man from legion.
Before we can move on, we must understand point number 1, too. Legion, the crowd, the many within this man, cannot be subdued. It might help to realize that what is true of the crowd many times in the gospels is also true of this man right now. This man embodies the crowd or legion, so in order to understand what’s going on inside him, we have to pause and ask how crowds or the many actually work.
The Mechanics of the Crowd/Many/Legion
Throughout history, societies have faced moments that threaten their coherence and unity. Scholars have observed that, to keep society from coming apart at the seams in the times of conflict, a strange phenomenon often takes place. A society will regain its unity and solidarity by finding a common enemy around which to unite in blaming for its struggles. The many historically have managed their societal rivalries, competition, and disunity, not by turning their violent tendencies on one another, but by coming together and transforming what would be their violence toward one another into collective violence against an Other. In short, a society finds unity in finding a common enemy.
Collective Violence
Violence in a society becomes collective when it chooses someone all its members can come together against. They find unity in agreeing on who they are against. If violence is not channeled together and directed toward a common enemy (which is the way of sacrifice), the violence will turn on the society itself and will destroy it. More on this in a moment.
The Demoniac
This man is the embodiment of the crowd (i.e., legion/we are many). And whatever it is inside of this man cannot be subdued. It cannot be bound or chained. Yet again, this man simply contains “the crowd” within one individual. The violence of the crowd cannot be overcome. A crowd can never collectively free itself from its own violence. It can manage, or direct that violence, but it needs someone outside of that community to set it free. A society, in all actuality, only has three options: a) The society can allow the violence to escalate until it tears apart the society; b) The society can unconsciously but collectively direct its violence against a minority whose absence would least diminish the overall whole, thus restoring unity in action against this minority; or c) Someone from the outside the society (in this story, Jesus) can intervene and remove the violence from the society one person at a time. This makes perfect sense when laid along side of what we just said about number 2. While the crowd can collectively redirect its violence against an Other,this man is alone, there is no Other, so the crowd inside of him turns the violence on itself. (This is why we see this man cutting himself in auto-lapidation. We’ll see this more clearly in a moment when we get to the pigs.)
To illustrate how we, in following Jesus, become free of this mechanism within our society is exactly why we have this story. What many miss is that what is going on inside this man happens on a larger scale between this man and the society in this region. (Think of the medieval icons of angry mobs carrying pitch forks and flaming torches against a monster.) This region manages its societal rivalries, competition, and disunity (a) not by turning its violence on one another but by coming together and transforming its violence into collective violence against this man (b). Jesus came to create a new humanity (a new crowd, so to speak) that united around mercy (c) instead of sacrifice, mercy and love toward enemies (or Others) instead of common hatred. Jesus came to end humanity’s paradigm of us vs. them. And He began His work of saving this society, turning this region away from the way of sacrifice to the way of mercy, by first rehumanizing (I know that’s not a word; I just made it up) the one the crowd had sacrificed or purged. In this case, the demoniac. Jesus’s actions cause them to fundamentally reassess their entire way of life.
Let’s proceed through the rest of the story and see if we are on the right track.
And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” He gave them permission, and the evil spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned. Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man—and told about the pigs as well. Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.
In this mostly Greek region (Gentile with very few Jews), pigs were a farming commodity. But why do we have this bizarre detail about the pigs running off a cliff? The pigs (animals) become infected with the legion/crowd and the violence that had just been in this man, and with no one against whom to turn that violence (they are just pigs), the herd runs and hurls itself off a cliff. It is self-destruction. It is the crowd/legion that comes out of this man, and goes into these pigs, and throws itself off the cliff. The point? If people are not freed from that which lies at the heart of this demon, the crowd which temporarily finds peace and unity by purging a victim from its homogenous society eventually runs itself off a cliff, just like these pigs. The same demon that causes the crowd to throw stones at others stones/destroys itself if it does not find a victim for the crowd to come together against instead. If not remedied, that which drives the crowd to collective violence against a minority destroys that society in the long run.
Now let’s finish the story.
How did Jesus begin to turn things around in this story? Jesus began with restoring the one within this narrative the crowd had been collectively against. When Jesus restores this man they had been sacrificing and reintegrates him into society, He threatens the unity and peace the society had found by coming together against this man. He, in effect, turns their way of life, their stability, their worldview, their “sacrifice” on its head. They are forced to see the one they had collectively been sacrificing as a fellow human being, like themselves. Jesus un-objectifies the man. Jesus de-dehumanizes him. Jesus de-degrades him. Jesus lifts this man up and returns him to a place of belonging within the very society that had found unity and coherence by purging him. Jesus challenges the entire arrangement of this society, calling its members to no longer find unity in the practice of societal sacrifice but in coming together in the way of mercy (cf. Matthew 9:13, 12:7; Hosea 6:6).
Do they follow this Jesus? Do they follow this radical social revolutionary?
Sadly, no. Now, they simply find a new sacrifice. They need a new person to purge. They need a new victim through which to find unity by being against. Whom do they choose? You guessed it. Jesus Himself. The way of sacrifice is so ingrained in them that they unconsciously, without missing a beat, simply switch victims, putting Jesus in the place of the man, and go on as if nothing ever changed. They purge Jesus now, instead.
As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy [as opposed to sacrifice] on you.” So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.
The man is sent back to teach this society about the way of mercy, rather than sacrifice. Set free from legion himself, perhaps he can help his society get free of the same demon. It could be said that the only thing that was wrong with this man was that he had become infected with the crowd. He had allowed how the crowd defined him to become the way he defined himself as well. And when he, inside of himself, got free from what was also inside the crowd, he could now go back, “rehumanized,” to lead the community in a better way, the way of mercy.
When people get free of collective violence toward a non-normative minority, (whether in themselves toward others, or within themselves toward themselves) they are not becoming possessed by demons but, in a very real sense, they are being freed from them. THIS is the point of the story. Embracing someone (or a group) that is accused by the crowd of being demon possessed isn’t to become possessed oneself. It’s called “following Jesus.” And it is becoming free from the demon (the demon of scapegoating) that is actually possessing the crowd (legion) which was seeking to purge or sacrifice the minority to begin with.
This is my story. I am both the demoniac and the crowd, all in one. As the crowd, I have seen the humanity of the ones I once sacrificed, and it has turned my world upside down. As the demoniac, I have been set free from the legion, or rather, the crowd—the collective violence at the heart of the crowd’s unity—in order to follow the way of mercy instead. I wish I could claim some credit for this transformation, but I did not go looking for it. It was done to me, and for me, by others. Now, I, humbly and repentantly, simply want to bring others with me. The way of mercy truly is the better way. In fact, it’s the way of God.
What would happen if we saw the ones placed on society’s altars as our brothers and sisters? Maybe this is where Jesus starts with all societies that find unity in collective violence against minorities. If this is true, then Jesus’ work today is no different than it was in the gospels. Jesus today calls us to once again see those whom we have labeled indecent, different, other, non-normative, deserving of being purged from within our circles as . . . human. He calls us to embrace the reality that they are our brothers and sisters and have a place beside us at the table, too (cf. Luke 19:9).
“[In the story of the demoniac,] we’re witnessing the birth of an individual capable of escaping the fatal destiny of collective violence.” — Rene Girard, When These Things Begin, Conversations with Michel Treguer
“If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.” — Jesus, Matthew 12:7
HeartGroup Application
1. Where are you still participating with the crowd in sacrificing others? Spend some time this week with Jesus in contemplation of this question, and ask Him to show you if you are sacrificing or scapegoating someone. My 11 yr old daughter recently confessed to my wife Crystal, that she caught herself speaking poorly of a third person to become friends with another. “I think I might have been ‘scapegoating’ mom, and I don’t want to do that.”
Who might it be for us? Maybe it’s another family member we must join in and be against in order to fit in with the rest of the family. Maybe it’s someone at the office whom everyone hates, and we feel we must join in the collective disdain and ridicule. Maybe it’s at church where, in order to fit in, we feel pressured to label someone as less than a child of God, less than our fellow brother or sister. Or maybe it’s someone within society who we feel deserves retribution, not redemption. People we feel deserve punitive justice instead of justice that restores to them a humanity of which, in our hearts, they have been deprived. Whoever it is, ask Jesus to show you, and He will.
2. Ask Jesus to show you how He thinks and feels toward those being sacrificed. Invite Him to help you see them the same way He does, and then ask Him to give you the courage to follow the way of mercy, rather than sacrifice.
3. Share with your HeartGroup what you experience this week.
Till the only world that remains is a world where love reigns, where love is shed as indiscriminately as the sunshine and the rainfall. The new creation has come. Let us enlarge its radically inclusive and restorative perimeter one human heart at a time.
I love each and every one of you, and God does, too.
See you next week.
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