We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your support of Renewed Heart Ministry’s work of love, justice, and compassion. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is so deeply appreciated, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate you.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Image created by Canva
Pentecost and Social Justice
Herb Montgomery | June 6, 2025
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the book of Acts:
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.” Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ Acts 2:1-21
This is the narrative of the day of Pentecost, the day when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the early Jesus movement. Many Western Christians celebrate this day each year this coming weekend. It’s a time to remember this event and all that the gift of the Spirit means.
There has always been a rich diversity of opinions on what the gift of the Spirit actually did for the early church. I choose to focus on the concrete, material differences that this outpouring made. To grasp this, let’s start in Luke. The gospel of Luke is connected to the book of Acts; Acts continues Luke’s initial story. Some believe that these books were written by the same person, but whether they were or not, they were meant to be read together.
In the gospel of Luke, the Spirit being upon Jesus bore a certain, distinct fruit. Notice first, how many times the Spirit is connected to Jesus in Luke 4:
First, in Luke 4:1:
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness…
Then, in Luke 4:14, 15:
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
Then we reach the third mention in Luke 4:16-19:
“He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Out of all the passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that the author of the book of Luke could have chosen to characterize Jesus’ ministry, that author chose this one from Isaiah. The Hebrew prophets, specifically Isaiah, understood the Spirit was intrinsically connected with liberation for the oppressed:
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’S favor. (Isaiah 61:1-2)
What I love about Luke’s and Acts’ connections s that in both books, the Spirit gives birth to justice in the lives of those upon whom the Spirit rests.
In Luke, echoing Isaiah, the Spirit being on Jesus led to liberation for the oppressed. Notice that in Acts, in the same chapter as Pentecost, we find a similar effect:
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. (Acts 2:42-45)
And what was the result? Two chapters later we read:
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. (Acts 4:32-34)
There was not one needy person among them. Within their community, they had eradicated poverty. How? The passage explains:
For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. (Acts 4:34-35)
What does this mean for those who desire a fresh outpouring of spirit on Jesus’ followers today?
The Church living in the wake of Pentecost should be concerned first and foremost with injustice, violence, and oppression in our world today. We should be sharing a gospel that is good news to the poor. We should be passionate about liberating the oppressed and participating in actions alongside others who are endeavoring to make our world a safe, compassionate home for everyone, including those who are different from us. Those who claim to follow the Jesus of our story cannot be indifferent to the tremendous social injustices taking place around us right now. We must reject a narrow, limited version of Christianity that is only concerned with private piety, personal spirituality, or giving people assurance of post mortem heaven. Christianity that resembles the Jesus in our story refuses to leave our material lives, including injustices we and others face, untouched or unchallenged by God’s love and Jesus’ redemption. A gospel that only focuses on believing in Jesus so that a person can be forgiven and go to heaven after they die is insufficient. Having the same Spirit on us that was also on the Hebrew Prophets and Jesus means being dedicated, like them, to matters of justice and the social dimensions of Jesus’ gospel. Jesus taught about a God who had a heart for social justice. And that God called his followers to make sure others around them had what they needed to thrive.
Pentecost reminds us that Christians should be deeply concerned with social justice because it reflects the heart of God’s love for humanity. Throughout the Bible, there is a clear emphasis on caring for the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized. In Micah 6:8, believers are called to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” This verse and others, such as Proverbs 31:8–9 and Isaiah 1:17, stress the importance of speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves and defending the rights of the vulnerable.
Jesus himself modeled social justice during his ministry: healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and standing with the outcasts of society. To follow Christ means to uphold his values, including actively working toward fairness, equity, and compassion in our communities. Social justice is not a political trend. It is a spiritual calling rooted in love, and a church imbued with the Spirit will heed this call.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How is the Spirit and Social Justice connected for you this year? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking.
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Lectionary Readings in the context of Love, Inclusion, & Social Justice
Season 3, Episode 14: Acts 2.1-21. Lectionary C, Pentecost
Each week, we’ll discuss the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and justice. We hope that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that we’ll be inspired to do more than “just talking” during our brief conversations each week.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 2 Episode 23: Pentecost and Social Justice
Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost reminds us that Christians should be deeply concerned with social justice because it reflects the heart of God’s love for humanity. Throughout the Bible, there is a clear emphasis on caring for the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized. In Micah 6:8, believers are called to “act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.” This verse and others, such as Proverbs 31:8–9 and Isaiah 1:17, stress the importance of speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves and defending the rights of the vulnerable. Jesus himself modeled social justice during his ministry: healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and standing with the outcasts of society. To follow Christ means to uphold his values, including actively working toward fairness, equity, and compassion in our communities. Social justice is not a political trend. It is a spiritual calling rooted in love, and a church imbued with the Spirit will heed this call.
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/pentecost-and-social-justice
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
We want to take this moment to express our heartfelt gratitude to all of our supporters for your invaluable role in the Renewed Heart Ministry community and for your dedication to our mission of fostering love, justice, compassion, and healing. Your support is the bedrock of our work. Your support empowers us to do what we do. At a time when ministries like ours are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources, your support is incredibly important, and we want to simply say thank you. Whether in our larger society or within our local faith communities, Renewed Heart Ministries remains committed to advocating for change, working towards a world that is inclusive, just, and safe for everyone, and being a source of love in our world. From all of us here at Renewed Heart Ministries, thank you for your generous support. We deeply appreciate each and every one of our supporters.
If you’d like to join them in supporting our work, please go to renewedheartministries.com and click on “Donate.”
Marching Donations Till End of Year
As we are seeking to reach our ministry goals here at the end of 2024, we are excited to share that all donations to Renewed Heart Ministries for the remainder of year will be matched! Every dollar you give will have twice the impact, helping us further expand the work of Renewed Heart Ministries in 2025. Join us in making a difference—together, we can maximize our collective impact!
When Faith Does Societal Harm
Herb Montgomery, November 1, 2024
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Herb Montgomery, November 9, 2024
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.”
Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.
Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:38-44)
Our reading this week contains one of the most misunderstood stories in Mark’s gospel. There’s quite a bit to unpack here, so let’s jump right in with the political context of Jesus’ critique of the “teachers of the law.”
Political Context of Mark 12
Interpreting Jesus’ critique of the teachers of the law without its context too often leads to thinking that Jesus was against the law (Torah) itself. Jesus was not engaging in a Protestant, post-Reformation contrast of the law versus grace. That way of reading our story is anachronistic and misses Jesus’ point entirely.
Jesus was leading a Jewish renewal movement that hoped to liberate and restore the rural village communities disintegrating because of the Roman occupation. Jesus was calling his listeners back to fidelity to the Torah’s justice in opposition to the ruling class of his day, which was colluding with Roman oppression for its own gain.
The tension in the gospels is not between Jesus and the law, but between Jesus and Roman oppression, including the Romans’ client regional ruler Herod and high priests of the Temple State. Roman exploitation and oppression through those Rome had placed in positions of power in the Temple State was wreaking economic and social havoc on the vast majority of people living in villages of Galilee, Samaria, and Judea. According to Richard Horsley, those named in the gospels such as the scribes, the Pharisees and the “teachers of the law” served in the Judean temple-state as “intellectual-legal retainers.” (Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and the Politics of Roman Palestine, p. xi)
This leads to some interesting political and social insights into who these “teachers of the law” were.
Teachers of the Law in Mark 12
The teachers of the law in our reading this week advised the Judean rulers of the Temple State and enjoyed political and economic favor as a result. They were those whose interpretations of the Torah provided religious justification for the unjust status quo of the Roman-appointed high priestly rulers.
Jesus offers two critiques of these teachers in our reading: they desired status and privilege rather than the life-giving pedagogy of the Torah and they were “devouring widows’ houses,” which indicates their complicity in the economic exploitation through over-taxation taking place in the Temple-state.
The first critique, desiring the most important seats and places of honor, should be read with the backdrop of the lessons Mark’s gospel just taught in Mark 10. James and John also desired the most important seats and places of honor, and asked to sit at Jesus’ left and right hands in the kingdom. Mark 10 contrasts this request with the request of Bartimaeus, who rightly perceives Jesus’ movement and joins it. (For more, we discussed this at length in Bartimaeus and Christians of Privilege.)
Next, Jesus zeros in on the intrinsic harm the teachings of these teachers was actually doing. Their teaching made the rich powerbrokers in the Temple state richer at the expense of the most vulnerable in Jesus’ society.
Mark’s gospel critiqued this group’s teachings on the basis of the economic injustice they were causing in Mark 7:
And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)—then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.” (Mark 7:9-13)
“Devoted to God” meant devoted to the Temple-State, and it didn’t trickle down to the poor, but rather into the pockets of those in positions of power who already possessed so much. It gave them even more at the expense and harm of those from whom these resources were being taken, all while they piously said lengthy prayers in public to add religious influence to their economic exploitation. Standing in the Hebrew prophetic tradition, Jesus like the prophets of old who spoke truth to power, declared that these teachers of the law would be “punished most severely.”
Our reading gives a clear example of this exploitation in one of the most misunderstood economic teachings in the gospel Mark: the story of the widow’s mites.
The Widow’s Mites of Mark 12
Whenever I heard the story of the widow’s mites growing up in church, it was always held up as an example of the piety and fidelity we should follow. She gave so much with the little she had and we should sacrificially do the same. But nothing could be further from the point of why Mark’s gospel is actually telling this story. The widow’s mites story is not a story to applaud the widow’s dedication to giving but a story that critiques how the widow was being exploited. The widow is not an example for the poor to follow but the system that exploits her is an example for the wealthy and powerful not to follow.
“The story does not provide a pious contrast to the conduct of the scribes in the preceding section (as is the customary view); rather it provides a further illustration of the ills of official devotion. Jesus’ saying is not a penetrating insight on the measuring of gifts; it is a lament…. Jesus condemns the value system that motivates her action, and he condemns the people who conditioned her to do it.” (A. Wright, 1982, “The Widow’s Mite: Praise or Lament? A Matter of Context.” CBQ, 44, pp. 256ff, quoted by Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, p. 321).
The teachings of the Temple-State have robbed this woman of her means of livelihood. Those who were to protect the vulnerable are no longer protecting widows but exploiting them and others in their social and economic position. Jesus, in disgust, departs from the temple for the final time.
What does this mean for us today?
Do our religious teachings today cause political and social harm and death or bring healing, life, renewal, restoration, and liberation? Is our religious teaching politically and socially death-dealing or life-giving? I can’t help but think of the way certain Christians are pro-birth but oppose state programs that ensure that same child, once born, is fed, housed, educated, and raised in a home where their parents can afford to live. I can’t help but think of the life-saving healthcare for women who have either died or almost died since the loss of Roe here in the U.S., a loss that some Christians are so proud of. I can’t help but think of how our trans community and immigrants are being scapegoated right now in our political debates. I’m not saying that Christians are the only ones engaging in such harmful misrepresentations, or that all Christians are. What I am saying is that I’m shocked that anyone, even one person, who claims to be following Jesus and his teachings is. History will not be kind to the way Evangelicalism has embraced the politics of harm. With Jesus’ critique of the teachers of the law as our backdrop, what critique might this same Jesus make of American Christians today?
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What societal healing do you believe your faith can be channelled toward? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our YouTube show each week called “Just Talking”. Each week, Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking. If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 35: Mark 12.38-44. Lectionary B, Proper 27
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 30: When Faith Does Societal Harm
“Whenever I heard the story of the widow’s mites growing up in church, it was always held up as an example of the piety and fidelity we should follow. She gave so much with the little she had and we should sacrificially do the same. But nothing could be further from the point of why Mark’s gospel is actually telling this story. The widow’s mites story is not a story to applaud the widow’s dedication to giving but a story that critiques how the widow was being exploited. The widow is not an example for the poor to follow but the system that exploits her is an example for the wealthy and powerful not to follow. ‘Devoted to God’ meant devoted to the Temple-State, and it didn’t trickle down to the poor, but rather into the pockets of those in positions of power who already possessed so much. It gave them even more at the expense and harm of those from whom these resources were being taken, all while they piously said lengthy prayers in public to add religious influence to their economic exploitation. Standing in the Hebrew prophetic tradition, Jesus like the prophets of old who spoke truth to power, declared that these teachers of the law would be “punished most severely.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/when-faith-does-societal-harm
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
Finding Jesus Second Edition!
I have some exciting news!
I have just signed an agreement with a new book publisher (Quoir), and we are putting together a launch team for the second edition of Finding Jesus, coming out next month!
If you have been blessed by the first edition, and you would like to see this book have greater exposure to reach an even larger audience, I want to invite you to be a part of the launch team. This second edition will be available in paperback, Kindle and an audio book available on Audible. And great news for those who already have a copy of the first edition, the first 25 people to sign up to be part of our launch team will also receive a FREE Audible copy of the audiobook for Finding Jesus.
To join the Finding Jesus launch team, all you need to do is four things:
1) Go to Amazon and pre-order a copy of the second edition when pre-orders become available.
2) Read the pdf copy of the second edition of Finding Jesus that I will send you after your pre-order the book so that you’re ready on launch day.
3) On launch day go back to Amazon and write a review for Finding Jesus. (You’ll be able to do this on day one since you’ve already read the pdf copy.)
4) Share your review of Finding Jesus on your social media pages that day, also.
It’s pretty simple. That’s all. And if you already have copy of the first edition this is a great opportunity to get the audiobook version on Audible as soon as it is available.
If you would like to join our launch team, you can email me at info@renewedheartministries.com and just put in the subject of your email “Launch Team.”
Thank you in advance for being part of this special second edition publishing and ensuring this edition is a success.
New Episode of JustTalking!
Season 1, Episode 48: Mark 1.21-28. Lectionary B, Epiphany 4
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at
Season 1, Episode 48: Mark 1.21-28. Lectionary B, Epiphany 4
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Exorcism of a Man with an Unclean Spirit
Herb Montgomery, January 26, 2024
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“People of faith should always be involved working for justice to be practiced when people are being marginalized and dispossessed, and faith communities should never allow themselves to be overtaken and possessed by any single political party. We are to be about justice, compassion, inclusion and love, not unconditional loyalty one political party or politician.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had a uthority, not as the teachers of the law. Immediately there was man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit who cried out, “Why do you meddle with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the holy one of God!”
“Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee. (Mark 1:21-28)
Whenever we read the exorcism stories in the gospels, the first thing we need to remember is that these stories were not written to answer our modern scientific questions. These stories about Jesus were circulated by an oppressed community on the margins of the Roman empire. As difficult as it may be to temporarily park our attempts to rationalize these stories, we would do well to see them as the narratives of a community in a particular social or political location telling stories to communicate truths while still staying under the radar of the powers that be.
In all of the gospels, Jesus is characterized as an itinerant teacher. In the same gospels, Jesus is also an exorcist.
Rather than demythologizing this week’s story and trying to label it as a story of epilepsy or a mental disability, as modern Jesus scholarship often does, let’s leave the story as it is and instead look for how our reading functions within its original social context: a dangerous world, an oppressed community longing for liberation. Let’s see if there is any socio-political application we can make for our context today.
I also must admit the exorcist stories in the gospels are a bit triggering for me. I remember watching the horror movie The Exorcist on television late one night. I was just 9 years old and I was scarred for life! I still can’t tolerate movies or dramas that include the theme of this week’s story.
In this part of Mark’s gospel, Jesus has begun teaching and called his initial followers. Then, his first public act is this exorcism on the Sabbath in the synagogue!
The first act of Jesus in each gospel tells us a lot (see Luke 4:18-19.) Here in Mark, Jesus’ first supernatural act is an exorcism. Healers and exorcists were everywhere in the world for which the gospel of Mark was originally written, yet they did not provoke the wrath of the local authorities the way Jesus’ healings and exorcisms did. Others did the same activities Jesus did, but were not viewed as a threat by those in power. Jesus, on the other hand, experiences hostility from the authorities from his very first act.
Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. (Mark 3:6)
And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.” (Mark 3:22)
In our story, Jesus comes from the wilderness or margins of his society to enter the local, central locations of sacred time (the Sabbath) and sacred space (the synagogue). I want to be clear, though. These stories are not a religious challenge to either the Sabbath or the synagogue. These stories are not anti-Semitic, though Christians have used them to harm Jewish people. Jesus never railed against the Sabbath as an institution. Nor did he ever preach against having synagogues. Rather his challenges were always aimed at those in positions of power over both sacred time and sacred space. Jesus also politically challenged those in power over the masses because of their complicity with the Roman empire.
From the very start, we see Jesus contrasted with the scribal establishment. The people claim that Jesus is offering a “new teaching with authority.” The Greek word for authority relates to doing what one pleases without having to have someone else’s permission. Those in the scribal establishment were under the authority of Rome and knew well not do promote anything that threaten Rome’s leave or permission for them to exist. Synagogue leaders also answered to the priesthood power structure back at the capital of the temple state, the temple in Jerusalem. This priesthood answered to the High Priest who was chosen by the Roman empire and answered to both Herod (Rome’s agent) and to Caesar.
The people also claim that Jesus’ authority was different and “not as the teachers of the law.” Jesus is standing outside of Roman permission, not answering to it. As the framing of Jesus’ first exorcism story, this gives us a hint as to how we should interpret these stories in the rest of Mark.
Again, I think that we should take this exorcism story symbolically, not literally. Jesus is liberating the people from that which has inhabited and “possessed” their sacred times and sacred spaces through the authority of Rome. No sooner does Jesus step into the status quo sacred space and authority structure than he meets this man. It’s a good hint that we are on the right track here: later in Mark’s gospel the author comes right out and tells us about another demon tormenting a man.
“Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “My name is Legion.” (Mark 5:9)
The Roman Legion was the largest military unit of the Roman army. It often inhabited, “possessed,” or was stationed in areas known to cause problems for the Pax Romana.
The language of this story tells us that Jesus met with opposition from the possessed man immediately: “Immediately there was a man.” Jesus’ authority comes in conflict with the local authority of the scribal authority immediately. Jesus’ teachings are seen as a threat from the very beginning. Our story uses language from the Hebrew sacred text in the context of opposition to political power:
“No! We did it for fear that some day your descendants might say to ours, ‘What do you have to do with the LORD, the God of Israel?’” (Joshua 22:24)
“Then Jephthah sent messengers to the Ammonite king with the question: ‘What do you have against me that you have attacked my country?’” (Judges 11:12)
“She said to Elijah, ‘What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?’” (1 Kings 17:18)
And in our story we read: “Why do you meddle with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”
Even the demons’ naming Jesus as the holy one of God harkens back to those who stood up to corrupt power in the stories of old. Speaking of Elisha, Elisha’s host tells her husband, “‘I know that this man who often comes our way is a holy man of God’” (2 Kings 4:9). In our story, as in Elisha’s, this designated a prophet who spoke truth to power for the liberation of the people. Our author is giving Jesus prophetic status that the original audience should interpret as equal to that of ancient prophets like Elisha.
There is also panic in the demons’ voice here. There is fear of disruption. How appropriate for when corrupt authority and power structures are threatened. Those who benefit from these structures fear disruption and change, and oppose change, while those being harmed rejoice. I hear this rejoicing in the people of our story: “The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, ‘What is this? A new teaching—and with authority!’”
The exorcism stories in Mark are to be seen through the apocalyptic lens of that time and place. The apocalyptic worldview sees the world dualistically, as a concrete material world and an unseen world filled with powers, demons, spirits. The concrete is connected with the spiritual and when there is conflict among the unseen, there is also conflict through their conduits in our seen world. This is how some of the ancients explained the existence of injustice, oppression and violence in our world. Jesus in our story in Mark is exorcising those “possessing” his people’s systems to prepare God’s creation for God’s just future, God’s coming rule, or, as the gospels name it, “the kingdom” where everyone is included and everyone has enough to thrive.
So the inaugural exorcism in our story this week begins with the scribal establishment in the synagogue system of Jesus’ people. The man possessed is the establishment, and the demon is the Roman empire’s coopting of the establishment. Jesus here is not against the scribes, but against their complicity in Roman oppression of his people. In Mark, from the very beginning, we are to see the exorcism stories in this narrative not as private liberations of individual people, but as systemic acts of purging corruption.
We will have this confirmed by the time we encounter the exorcism stories in Mark 3 and 5. In those chapters, those in power and authority accuse Jesus of exorcising demons in the name of the head demon Beelzebul and the demons themselves are blatantly associated with the Roman empire.
What applications can we make for our lives today?
Again, in Mark, exorcisms were a central action of Jesus:
“So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.” (Mark 1:39)
He also gave his followers the power to do the same:
“He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.” (Mark 3:14-15)
“Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits.” (Mark 6:7)
When we look at these stories socially or politically, we are called to also call out and work for change in these areas where our communities are complicit in injustice, such as when our faith community being “possessed” and used by a political party. Outside of our faith communities, a system could be “possessed” when used by elites and the powerful at the expense of those they have made vulnerable.
Politics is about how power and resources are shared among humans. People of faith should always be involved working for justice to be practiced when people are being marginalized and dispossessed, and faith communities should never allow themselves to be overtaken and possessed by any single political party. We are to be about justice, compassion, inclusion and love, not unconditional loyalty one political party or politician.
We can be “exorcists,” as Jesus followers. Where is your Jesus following calling you to “cast out” injustice this week?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What would a society shaped by love look like? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
I have some exciting news! I have just signed an agreement with a new book publisher (Quoir), and we are putting together a launch team for the second edition of Finding Jesus, coming out next month!
If you have been blessed by the first edition, and you would like to see this book have greater exposure to reach an even larger audience, I want to invite you to be a part of the launch team. This second edition will be available in paperback, Kindle and an audio book available on Audible. And great news for those who already have a copy of the first edition, the first 25 people to sign up to be part of our launch team will also receive a FREE Audible copy of the audiobook for Finding Jesus.
To join the Finding Jesus launch team, all you need to do is four things:
2) Read the pdf copy of the second edition of Finding Jesus that I will send you after your pre-order the book so that you’re ready on launch day.
3) On launch day go back to Amazon and write a review for Finding Jesus. (You’ll be able to do this on day one since you’ve already read the pdf copy.)
4 Share your review of Finding Jesus on your social media pages that day, also.
It’s pretty simple. That’s all. And if you already have copy of the first edition this is a great opportunity to get the audiobook version on Audible as soon as it is available.
If you would like to join our launch team, you can email me at info@renewedheartministries.com and just put in the subject of your email “Launch Team.”
Thank you in advance for being part of this special second edition publishing and ensuring this edition is a success.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on X (or Twitter), Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s new Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Are you getting all of RHM’s Free Resources?
Free Sign Up Here
This Week’s Episode of Just Talking Available on YouTube
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 1, Episode 11: John 10:1-10. Lectionary A, Easter 4
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.
You can find the latest show on YouTube at https://youtu.be/7Smif6b6Q_w
Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment
Thanks in advance for watching!
Herb Montgomery | April 28, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“How, then, do the ethics and values we encounter in the Jesus story inspire us to shape our present world into a just and safe home for all? It is important to remember that this abundant living doesn’t come at the cost of death for others. This kind of life isn’t “life” for any of us unless it is life for us all.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of John.
“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.
Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:1-10*)
The language we encounter in this week’s reading, about shepherds, sheep, sheep pens, and gates, had a context in the Jewish scriptures. Let’s look at two examples as a foundation for our discussion this week.
“I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the LORD have spoken. ‘I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of savage beasts so that they may live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests in safety. I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. The trees will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the LORD, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them. They will no longer be plundered by the nations, nor will wild animals devour them. They will live in safety, and no one will make them afraid. I will provide for them a land renowned for its crops, and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land or bear the scorn of the nations. Then they will know that I, the LORD their God, am with them and that they, the Israelites, are my people, declares the Sovereign LORD. You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign LORD.’” (Ezekiel 34:23-31)
What jumps out to me is the deeply political, concrete and material role the shepherd plays as a conduit of liberation and the means of governing and protecting the nation. The shepherd was not a private, individual, or spiritual image in the Jewish tradition as it has become in the Christian tradition.
We find the same in Micah:
“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labor bears a son, and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites. He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God. And they will live securely, for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth. And he will be our peace when the Assyrians invade our land and march through our fortresses. (Micah 5:2-5)
So how did the Jesus community come to spiritualize the image of the shepherd? In the gospel of John, whenever we bump into pejorative characterizations of the Pharisees, we are witnessing tensions and disagreements between the proto-Gnostic Johannine community and the Pharisees who were their contemporaries. The Pharisees later evolved into Rabbinic Judaism, while many of the narrative elements and themes in the gospel of John evolved into early Gnostic Christianity. Just as orthodox Christianity characterized Gnostic Christianity as heretical, Rabbinic Judaism opposed Jewish Gnosticism. In John’s gospel we see an early form of those tensions.
Our reading this week is unique for the canonical gospels. It symbolizes Jesus as a “sheep gate” through which legitimate shepherds would have led people to knowledge (gnosis). For the Johannine community, Jesus is the gate through which Johannine followers of Jesus, not Pharisees, will lead people into the gnosis/knowledge that would in turn usher them into life.
That is the theme of our reading. The Johannine community’s unique version of Jesus is the measure shepherds can be judged against: if one has the best interests of the sheep in mind, they are a shepherd; if they only have their own gain as their chief motive, they are a thief. Thieves “come only to steal, kill and destroy,” while Jesus has come to give life to the full.
As I’ve said before, this is an unfair and inaccurate characterization of the Pharisees. It’s just not true that the Pharisees were “thieves,” only motivated by killing, thieving and destroying. (Read Jesus the Pharisee: A New Look at the Jewishness of Jesus by Harvey Falk for a nuanced discussion of Jesus’ Jewish roots.)
The Pharisees’ characterization in this week’s reading is the product of the antisemitism that had become full-blown in Christianity by the time John was written. This gospel has inspired much harm to our Jewish friends and neighbors. Christians can and must do better today.
What I love about this passage, and where I agree with the Johannine community about Jesus, is that Jesus came to show us the path to life and life abundant, not just surviving, but thriving. I also add: he didn’t just come to show the way to a full, ethereal afterlife. He came to show us life in the here and now, especially for those whom the present systems of our society push to the margins and undersides of our communities.
This Easter season, I’ve been finding a lot of life in the works of Delores Williams. Jesus coming to give us life and life more abundant brings to mind one of my favorite passages from Williams:
“It seems more intelligent and more scriptural to understand that redemption had to do with God, through Jesus, giving humankind new vision to see the resources for positive, abundant relational life. Redemption had to do with God, through the ministerial vision, giving humankind the ethical thought and practice upon which to build positive, productive quality of life. Hence, the kingdom of God theme in the ministerial vision of Jesus does not point to death; it is not something one has to die to reach. Rather, the kingdom of God is a metaphor of hope God gives those attempting to right the relations between self and self, between self and others, between self and God as prescribed in the sermon on the mount, in the golden rule and in the commandment to show love above all else.” (Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk, pp. 130-131)
This is a gospel, not about life after death, but abundant life in the here and now. It’s about shaping a re-iteration of our present world. As Elisabeth Fiorenza writes in In Memory of Her A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (RHM’s recommended reading for April):
“This gospel of the basileia [the kingdom] envisioned an alternative world free of hunger, poverty, and domination.” (p. 63)
The picture of Jesus we usually get in the gospels is of a Jesus coming to give us life now, here, today. How, then, do the ethics and values we encounter in the Jesus story inspire us to shape our present world into a just and safe home for all? It is important to remember that this abundant living doesn’t come at the cost of death for others. This kind of life isn’t “life” for any of us unless it is life for us all.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How do the ethics and values we encounter in the Jesus story inspire us to shape our present world into a just and safe home for all? Share with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
*Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Herb Montgomery | March 31, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Form functions. Whatever form we use for God and however we choose to characterize Jesus in the scriptures translates into political, economic and social functions that can shape a world that is safe for everyone . . . those forms can function to marginalize people or center those made most vulnerable.”
With Palm Sunday approaching, our reading this week is from Matthew:
As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the your Sovereign needs them, and he will send them right away.”
This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet:
“Say to Daughter Zion,
‘See, your Sovereign comes to you,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”
The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,
“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of your Sovereign!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?”
The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.” (Matthew 21:1-11)
This coming week is Holy Week for many Western Christians, and it begins with Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem the Sunday before his execution on the Friday we now call Good Friday. The story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem in our reading this week is from Matthew but is also found in each of the synoptic Gospels (see Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-40).
Matthew’s version of the story, adapted from Mark’s version, uses two passages from the Hebrew scriptures:
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth. (Zechariah 9:9-10)
And
LORD, save us! [Hosanna]
LORD, grant us success! [Hosanna]
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.
From the house of the LORD we bless you.
The LORD is God,
and he has made his light shine on us.
With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession
up to the horns of the altar. (Psalms 118:25-27)
As we read from Matthew this week, I’ve chosen to use the word “Sovereign” instead of “Lord.” Words matter, and too often today when Christians read the word “Lord,” they read it as a purely religious term. But when the gospels were written, it was a much more political term. There are political implications in our passage, not simply religious ones.
Jesus was contrasting fidelity to the God of the Torah, the people’s Sovereign, with the elites’ complicity with the Roman empire and their chasing Caesar as their sovereign. Although this complicity with Roman imperialism brought great benefit to the elites in Jesus’ society, it did immeasurable damage to rural agricultural farming families as well as the urban poor and working classes. The benefit to the few and powerful came at the expense of the masses. Jesus offered another way for his society to function, to care for the marginalized and practice a preferential option for those who being most harmed.
I believe that using the term sovereign in our passage highlights the contrasts between the politics of Jesus and the politics of Rome. The synoptic gospels called people to make a choice between whom they’d embrace as their Sovereign: the God of the Torah as Jesus presented Him, or Caesar.
Today we could make similar comparisons, but it’s worth a word of caution here. It’s not enough to simply say something like “Jesus versus America.” That language is very popular among some Christians but it doesn’t go far enough and risks making both America and Jesus in our own image. If your Jesus is compassionate and just, that might not seem too bad. But simply trying to affirm your own prejudices and bigotries isn’t enough.
We need to contrast the ethics and values we read in the Jesus story with the political, social and economic options we have before us today. Our work must then go deeper. We must compare Jesus’ ethics of compassion, resource-sharing, wealth redistribution, egalitarianism, nonviolence, universal love, and more with the rule of the wealthy and privileged, authoritarianism, and the economics of capitalism, socialism, democratic socialism, and others prevalent in our world.
I also find current interpretations of Psalm 118 and Jesus’ death at the end of Holy Week problematic. In its original context, Psalms 118 is a triumphal psalm that speaks of obtaining victory over the surrounding nations:
All the nations surrounded me,
but in the name of the LORD I cut them down.
They surrounded me on every side,
but in the name of the LORD I cut them down.
They swarmed around me like bees,
but they were consumed as quickly as burning thorns;
in the name of the LORD I cut them down.
I was pushed back and about to fall,
but the LORD helped me.
The LORD is my strength and my defense;
he has become my salvation.
Shouts of joy and victory
resound in the tents of the righteous:
“The LORD’s right hand has done mighty things!
The LORD’s right hand is lifted high;
the LORD’s right hand has done mighty things!”
I will not die but live,
and will proclaim what the LORD has done. (Psalms 118:10-17)
Why is this psalm in the gospels? First, Jesus doesn’t enter Jerusalem as a warrior returning from a military victory. Second, there’s that last phrase, “I will not die but live.” This doesn’t seem to be the way Jesus’ week ended. Jesus doesn’t gain the victory over Rome, but instead ends up on a Roman cross. By the end of the week Rome wins.
This is why, for me, the resurrection is such an important story element. The resurrection tells us that the crucifixion of Jesus on Roman cross was not the Divine intention. It was Rome’s doing, an act of state violence intended to silence and stop Jesus. Yet this unjust execution ends up, three days later, being a mere interruption. It fails to stop Jesus. The resurrection undoes, reverses, and triumphs over everything accomplished through Jesus’ death and causes Jesus’ teachings to live on in the lives of his followers. This is why for me, the resurrection is much more saving than Jesus’ dying. Jesus didn’t simply come to die: he came to show us how to live. And even though he was murdered and his modeling and demonstration ignored, life still triumphs over death, love triumphs over hatred, sharing triumphs over greed, and inclusion triumphs over fear of differences.
Rather than associating Jesus with the psalmist’s words, “I will not die but live,” we could imagine Jesus, upon his triumphal entry, saying instead, “At their hands I may die, but nonetheless, I will live.”
Scholars are divided on whether the historical Jesus actually did the things in this weeks’ story or whether Mark created a narrative that Matthew and Luke copied later.
Personally, I find a lot of life in imagining a Jesus who, taking his own cue from Zachariah 9, uses Zechariah’s form (a donkey) to protest Roman imperial rule for his own entry into Jerusalem. His arrival on a donkey signals the way Pilate and others would have ridden into Jerusalem riding a military war horse followed by military forces parading Roman banners.
Jesus’ vision in the synoptic gospels for how we organize human society was so different from Rome’s. And it was these two ways of shaping a society, whether of domination, exploitation, and control or whether through mutuality, sharing, equality and a distributive justice for all, even those Rome’s present system marginalized and made vulnerable.
I’ve chose to use the term “Sovereign” in this week’s reading to contrast the Jesus of Matthew’s gospel with other sovereigns like Rome that the Jesus community saw competing for Jesus followers’ fidelity. Form functions. Whatever form we use for God and however we choose to characterize Jesus in the scriptures translates into political, economic and social functions that can shape a world that is safe for everyone whatever their class, gender, gender expression, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Alternatively, those forms can function to politically, economically, and or socially marginalize some people while privileging or empowering others.
Today, what form for Jesus and the Divine could bring the most justice and healing for you?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What form for Jesus and the Divine could bring the most justice and healing for you? Share with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
Also I want to share that we are partnering in a new weekly YouTube show called “Just Talking.” Each week, Todd Leonard and I will be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.
And if you’d like to reach us here at Renewed Heart Ministries through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now also available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com.
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
Are you receiving all of RHM’s free resources each week?
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice. Free Sign-Up HERE
Herb Montgomery | March 11, 2022
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“Even if threatened by those with privilege, we too, can keep on, in the language of our story this week, casting out demons. The demons of White supremacy, racism, patriarchy, misogyny, classism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia (and the current laws around our country that those possessed by transphobia are now trying to pass) and more.”
Our reading this week is from the book of Luke:
“At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, ‘Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.’ He replied, ‘Go tell that fox, ‘I will keep on driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem! ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (Luke 13:31-35)
For the early Jesus community, this story would have been meaningful because it put Jesus’ work in tension with Herod and the powers-that-be in Galilee. Jesus is neither part of the power structure nor a domesticated insider here. He’s not a partisan within the system. He’s a radical whom the authorities are seeking to execute. Much like John the Baptist, whom Herod had previously executed for speaking truth to power (Josephus), Jesus is characterized as being on a very similar path in relation to the power structures of his region. His teachings and ministry are framed as a threat to those in power, specifically to Herod.
This helps explain why Jesus responds boldly in this narrative with, “Go tell that fox I will keep on driving out demons . . .”
This phrase immediately triggers me and my more scientific modern worldview and I’d guess it does for many of you, too. But I want us to step outside of the religious, supernatural definition of demons as beings we cannot see but who terrorize our world, just for a moment. I’m stepping away from the characterization of demons I grew up with in the horror films and shows of the 1980s and 1990s, like The Omen and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Let’s consider an interpretation that defines demons in the gospel stories through a more political lens.
Casting Out Demons As Political
Consider this explanation of Jesus’ first exorcism (Mark 1:21-28) by Ched Myers in Say to This Mountain:
“To interpret this exorcism solely as the ‘curing of an epileptic’ is to miss its profound political impact. In contrast to Hellenistic literature, in which miracle-workers normally function to maintain the status quo, gospel healings challenge the ordering of power. Because Jesus seeks the root causes of why people are marginalized, there is no case of healing and exorcism in Mark that does not also raise a larger question of social oppression.” (Ched Myers; Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 14)
In this story, Jesus’ exorcism takes place in the heart of a Galilean synagogue, because what the story is juxtaposing the political struggle between the scribal authority there and Jesus’ authority teaching something different.
Also consider the story of the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac in the synoptic gospels (Mark 5:1-20; Matthew 8:28-34; Luke 8:26-39). The name of the demon in this story is Legion. A Roman legion was the Roman army’s largest military unit and represented the occupying Gentile forces who were possessing the Jewish homeland. So in this gospel story, the people’s oppression by a foreign ruling power appears symbolically as a person’s possession by a foreign/demonic spirit.
Walter Wink asks us to make a similar interpretive choice:
“Some first-century Jews and Christians perceived in the Roman Empire a demonic spirituality which they called Satan (the “Dragon” of Revelation 12). But they encountered this spirit in the actual institutional forms of Roman life: legions, governors, crucifixions, payment of tribute, Roman sacred emblems and standards, and so forth (the “beast” of Revelation 13). The spirit that they perceived existed right at the heart of the empire, but their worldview equipped them to discern that spirit only by intuiting it and then projecting it out, in visionary form, as a spiritual being residing in heaven and representing Rome in the heavenly council. In the ancient worldview, where earthly and heavenly reality were inextricably united, this view of the Powers worked effectively. But for many modern Westerners it is impossible to maintain that worldview. Instead, fundamentalists treat the Powers as actual demonic beings in the air, largely divorced from their manifestations in the physical or political world (the theological worldview), and secularists deny that this spiritual dimension even exists (the materialistic worldview) . . . The demons projected onto the screen of the cosmos really are demonic, and play havoc with humanity. Only they are not up there but over there, in the socio-spiritual structures that make up the one and only real world.” (Walter Wink, The Powers That Be, Location 358, Kindle Edition)
Within this context, any systemic evil or injustice that becomes almost automated within a family, community, religious structure, civil structure, corporation, government, or world power is a demon that must be exorcised. Consider the demon of White supremacy, the demon of greed, or the demon of domination and subjugation that we see in the invasion and repression of Ukraine this year.
When we read of Jesus being threatened by Herod “who is seeking to execute him,” Jesus replies, “Go tell that fox, I’m going to keep on driving out demons.”
Jesus is showing the same political obstinance and determination against injustice and abuse of power, even in the face of lethal threat, that he will again show later in the story when he flips the tables in the courtyard in Jerusalem.
Anyone who sees Jesus the exorcist as simply passing out tickets to heaven rather than calling for concrete changes in the systems that harmed the marginalized people around him isn’t reading the gospel stories in their historical context. People don’t have their lives threatened for passing out tickets to heaven. After all, focusing folks on heavenly assurance doesn’t threaten the powerful, propertied, and privileged with change in the here and now. Yet Jesus is making change now. He’s casting out demons, challenging harmful political structures in the hearts and lives of his listeners, calling them to imagine the world differently. He, like John, is stirring up the people, and things that stir the people must always be stopped by those who benefit from the way things presently are.
Eventually, Jesus will reach Jerusalem, where his strongest demonstration or protest will take place in the very seat of the Temple state, and this week’s story intimates the result. Like the prophets of the poor who called for justice before him and were stoned and killed, Jesus’ story is going to get much worse as we hope for things to get better. The authors lean into the Jewish tradition of telling honest stories, of the good, the bad, and the ugly. We today could learn a lot from that tradition if we approached our own ugly histories with honesty rather than with sanitizer.
But this week’s story isn’t a story about how someone died or was killed. It is a story anticipating how state violence would be reversed and undone. This is a story of how life and life-giving triumphs in spite of death and death-dealing. Love triumphs in spite of injustice in the end. But we are not quite there yet in Jesus’ story. We are still on the journey with him.
Before we get to the end, we must first move through demonstration and protest, pushback from those who are threatened, and ultimately the state executing a man calling for changes that were too much for the powerful and elite to leave unanswered. His was a voice that must be silenced.
Yet in the end, death is not conquered with more death, even just one more death. Death is conquered by love, life, and justice. The salvific work that those in power sought to halt proved only to be momentarily interrupted. That salvific, liberative work would live on, and it lives on today in the choices we make every day, even in small things.
This month’s recommended reading from Renewed Heart Ministries is Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis’ book, Fierce Love. I’ll end this week with a quote:
“Alice Walker wrote: ‘Helped are those who find the courage to do at least one small thing each day to help the existence of another—plant, animal, river, or human being. They shall be joined by a multitude of the timid.’ A movement to build a more just society begins with little steps taken by good people every day. Humankind desperately needs a love revolution that leads to equality and equity, to the end of white supremacy once and for all. You have the power to be an agent of change in your everyday living; you can influence your posse to also be the change you seek. And ultimately, together, in community, small steps can lead to morally courageous behavior that loves the world all the way to healing.” (Jacqui Lewis, Fierce Love, pp. 167-168).
Even if threatened by those with privilege, we too, can keep on, in the language of our story this week, casting out demons. The demons of White supremacy, racism, patriarchy, misogyny, classism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia (and the current laws around our country that those possessed by transphobia are now trying to pass) and more.
Here’s to more justice work.
Here’s to more courage, resistance, persistence and small things that we can do to create change.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How does reframing the exorcism stories in the gospels impact your own Jesus following? Discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week
March is Donor Appreciation Month
During the month of March, we want to do something special to thank you for supporting the work of Renewed Heart Ministries.
Renewed Heart Ministries provides deeply needed resources that help enable Christians to discover the intersection of their love for Jesus and their work of healing our world through actions of love, justice and compassion; actions Jesus modeled and called us to follow.
Engaging our communities in ways that shape our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone is often hard work and its worth it. We appreciate the actions, big and small, each of you take each day to engage this work.
This month, we are partnering with Watchfire Media to offer a free thank you gift, shipping included. We want to offer you Watchfire Media’s absolutely beautiful Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints 2022 Wall Calendar to everyone who makes a special one-time donation of $50 or more through the following special link during the month of March to support RHM’s work.
The online donation link to use is https://bit.ly/RHMCalendar.
(Or you donate by mail by sending your donation to
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
*If donating by mail, simply make sure that your donation is specially marked indicating you would like a HolyTroublemakers & Unconventional Saints 2022 Wall Calendar as a thank you.)
If you are unfamiliar with this special calendar, The Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints 2022 Wall Calendar features 12 “holy troublemakers,” people of faith from different faiths and different eras who worked for more love, kindness, and justice in their corner of the world. Each of them did the right thing even when it was the hard thing, and even when it rocked the religious boat.
Like the book Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints, this calendar centers holy troublemakers who are women, LGBTQ, Black, Indigenous, and other people of color who have too often been written out of religious narratives. Their stories inspire, educate, challenge, encourage, and move us all towards more love and a faith that works for the common good of everyone.
Packed with original artwork, short bios, and inspiring quotes, the calendar also includes important holidays from diverse faith traditions, social justice movement anniversaries, and dates that help us remember that joy is an essential part of holy troublemaking.
Thank you in advance for supporting the work of Renewed Heart Ministries. Together we will continue being a voice for change. And thank you to Watchfire Media, as well, for partnering with RHM this month to be able to share this special thank you gift with our supporters. We appreciate all you do, too!
Product details:
2022 Wall Calendar: 24 pages
Publisher: Watchfire Media
Language: English
Product Dimensions: 12” x 13”
Shipping Weight: 1 lb.
ISBN: 978-1-7340895-1-6
Herb Montgomery | August 27, 2021
(To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast click Episode 386: Worshiping in Vain)
“I’m not saying that we can retrospectively make Jesus a critical race theorist because he was not that, and he wasn’t even really talking about that. But we today can build on his individualist critique and ask if there is something here that can also be applied to our social systems today.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark
The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.) So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” (Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23)
There is a lot in this week’s reading. Let’s jump right in.
First, the text names the “Pharisees and some teachers of the law.” It is possible that Jesus himself had training in the Pharisaical school of Hillel. Yet those who were in power in Mark’s gospel were the Pharisees of the school of Shammai. I’ve written at length on the distinctions between these two schools of thought and Torah interpretation in The Golden Rule, Woes against the Pharisees, Woes against the Exegetes of the Law, and Renouncing One’s Rights, so I won’t repeat all of that information here. It’s enough to say that this week’s passage could have been attributed to Hillel the Pharisee as much as we attribute it to Jesus in Mark’s gospel. The language and emphasis is very Hillelian.
I share this because throughout history Christians have used the label of Pharisee as a disparaging or derogatory title very carelessly and in very antisemitic ways. Some Christians continue to do so today. We can do better. I want to offer an alternative to these common, anti-Jewish interpretations, and shed some light on why the gospel of Mark speaks so disparagingly of “Pharisees,” I believe, particularly those of the school of Shammai. The following interpretation is not my own but found in Ched Myers’ excellent commentary on the gospel of Mark, Binding the Strong Man.
Myers argues that the gospel of Mark uses the characters of Pharisees and teachers of the law not to pit Christians against Jews, but to help us understand classism within the Jesus stories and the conflict between upper classes (the elites) and the lower classes (the marginalized).
In Mark’s version of the Jesus story, Jesus’ society was shaped like a cone, with the Sadducees at the center and top of the cone. Right below them were the Pharisees, competing for power. This society also used faithfulness to the traditions of ritual purity and “cleanliness” to determine who were insiders and who were outsiders, who would be centered in that society and who would be pushed to the margins, and who was at the top of the pyramid and who was at the bottom.
The Sadducees were much more conservative in interpreting which behaviors enabled someone to be pure or “clean.” The Pharisees, by contrast, used a more liberal, “progressive” interpretation of purity standards. This enabled more people from the masses to claim cleanliness and therefore avoid being socially disenfranchised. If we were to look at this anachronistically, the Pharisees could be called the blue-collar, working person’s religious leaders, whereas the Sadducees were the religious leaders of the elite and the wealthy who could afford to live up to the Sadducees’ strict standards and their interpretations of who was pure and in or impure and out.
Myers uses the Pharisees’ and Sadducees’ differing interpretations of Leviticus 11:38 and of eating domesticated, unirrigated grain versus imported grain from Egypt, which was irrigated but also much cheaper and so affordable for those with less means. Follow closely:
“According to Leviticus 11:38 if water is poured upon seed it becomes unclean. The passage, however, does not distinguish between seed planted in the soil and seed detached from the soil . . . In years of poor harvests, a frequent occurrence owing to poor soil, drought, warfare, locust plagues and poor methods of farming, this text was a source of dispute. Why? During such lean years, grain was imported from Egypt. But the Egyptians irrigated their fields (putting water on seed) so that their grain was suspect, perhaps even unclean. The Sadducees judged that such grain was unclean and anyone consuming it also became unclean. They were quite willing to pay skyrocketing prices commanded by scarce domestic grain because they could afford it. . . . One senses economic advance being sanctioned, since the Sadducees were often the large landowners whose crops increased in value during such times. By contrast the Pharisees argued that the Pentateuchal ordinance applied only to seed detached from the soil; therefore . . . one could be observant and still purchase Egyptian grain.” (Ched Myers; Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, p. 76)
The Pharisees had a more inclusive interpretation than the Sadducees, but even their broader understanding still left some excluded and outcast. Most of all, their interpretation used the needs of the working class as leverage in their power competition with the Sadducees. In Mark’s stories, Jesus sees through this. Though the Pharisees were relevatively more inclusive, they still benefitted from a classist system that left others on the margins.
Jesus emerges in the story as the prophet of the outcasts, whether they are outcast by Sadducees or by Pharisees.
This is the dynamic we are bumping into in this week’s passage. Handwashing was another tradition used to determine who was in and who was out, who was centered and who was pushed to the margins, who was closer to the top of their society and who was closer to the bottom.
But it was classist and elitist. To put it in terms used by Karl Marx, handwashing was bourgeois. Remember this was way before the discovery of germ theory: it was not about cleanliness as we now understand it. Handwashing in this week’s passage was about one’s dedication to Torah observance or rather their interpretations of and adherence to society’s definition of purity.
And Jesus cuts straight to the heart of the matter. It is not unwashed hands that are harmful in a society, he says, but “sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.”
Today, in certain sectors of Christianity, we could apply these same principles. It’s not church attendance, offering size, worship music tastes, watching Fox News as your news media of choice, wearing the political label of “pro-life” or the claim of being a “Bible-believing, born-again Christian” that makes you an insider. Jesus could just as accurately say to us: “They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”
What truly threatens a person’s, a community’s, or a society’s wellbeing are greed, classism, scapegoating immigrants, a distrust of science, bigotry, racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, nationalism, exceptionalism, and supremacist ways of thinking and viewing the world. These are all things that come from within and are intrinsically harmful and destructive of our human communities—our life together. Jesus’ teaching could be broadened here to parallel contemporary analysis of systemic-isms or kyriarchy. Racism isn’t only internal to individuals, for example; it’s embedded in social policy and custom and culture as well as internal bias and socialization. I’m not saying that we can retrospectively make Jesus a critical race theorist because he was not that, and he wasn’t even really talking about that. But we today can build on his individualist critique and ask if there is something here that can also be applied to our social systems today.
Lastly, I don’t interpret Jesus here as simply giving his followers a new list of rules that allowed them to go on practicing the ways of marginalizing others, just with a more internalized standard. I see him doing something much different. By naming the things his new list, I see him calling the very ones who are marginalizing others based on something as silly as washing their hands to do a little introspection and see if there were things within themselves, practices that they themselves engaged in that harmed others or themselves.
What are the things that matter? Why do they matter? What are the things that are genuinely, intrinsically harmful?
And how are we as Christians today worshipping Jesus in vain, holding up elements of Christian culture as the test of who is in and who is out in the midst of our political culture-war, all the while engaging in practices that quite literally in this time of pandemic harm people around us.
What would the Jesus of our story this week say to us today?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. At RHM, we’ve often said that activism is a spiritual discipline. It can also be an act of worship. In what other ways can our justice work, informed by the Jesus story, also be an act of worship? Discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week
Renewed Heart Ministries is a nonprofit organization working for a world of love and justice.
We need your support to offer the kind of resources RHM provides.
Helping people find the intersection between their faith, compassion, and justice is work that continues to prove deeply needed.
Please consider making a donation to support Renewed Heart Ministries’ work, today.
You can donate online by clicking here.
Or you can make a donation by mail at:
Renewed Heart Ministries
PO Box 1211
Lewisburg, WV 24901
And to those of you out there who already are supporting this ministry, we want to say thank you. We continue being a voice for change because of you.
Herb Montgomery | March 26, 2021
The synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, offer consistent political comparisons between Jesus’ vision for human society (God’s just future) and the status quo of the society Jesus found himself in instead . . . certainly we can do the same with economic, political, and social policies in our time. And if we see progressive social movements resonate with the values we find in the Jesus story, then certainly all of us who claim that story as the heart of our faith tradition could check ourselves. We could choose to be last in line to oppose those progressive visions for American society rather than being among the loudest opponents of distributively just change.
Our reading this week is from Luke’s telling of the Jesus story:
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her. (Luke 1:26-38)
The first thing that stands out to me about Luke’s telling of the Jesus story is how it differs from Matthew’s. The message from Heaven comes to Nazareth rather than Bethlehem. Joseph is the recipient in Matthew’s version, but in Luke, it’s Mary. Luke has already patterned one pregnancy so far after the pregnancy stories of other matriarchs in Hebrew folklore: for Luke, Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, is a contemporary Sarah (Genesis 17-18) or Hannah (1 Samuel 1-2).
But Mary’s conception is quite different. Mary is not past child-bearing age like Elizabeth and the other women of the Jewish stories. Her story is not a miracle after the birthing time of life has passed. Mary is young, independent of men, and quite capable of bearing children. She is at the beginning of her life journey. Her conception will be a miracle of quite a different nature.
This point must not be lost: Whereas miraculous conception does exist in Jewish tradition, Divine conception does not. Divine conception is a Roman cultural tradition, and Luke’s story will repeat the point that the Jesus of this story should be compared and contrasted with Caesar and Roman social values.
Not one conception in Jewish history fits Luke’s description of how Mary conceived Jesus. But in Rome, the story of a virgin conceiving and giving birth to the son of God had a political context.
The most well-known Roman story of divine conception was of Caesar Augustus. In The Lives of Caesars, Suetonius cites Discourses of the Gods by Asclepias:
When Atia had come in the middle of the night to the solemn service of Apollo, she had her litter set down in the temple and fell asleep, while the rest of the matrons also slept. On a sudden a serpent [Apollo] glided up to her and shortly went away. When she awoke, she purified herself, as if after the embraces of her husband, and at once there appeared on her body a mark in colors like a serpent, and she could never get rid of it; so that presently she ceased ever to go to the public baths. In the tenth month after that Augustus was born and was therefore regarded as the son of Apollo. (94:4)
Many scholars believe the divine Caesar Augustus’s conception story was patterned after Alexander the Great’s conception legend as well as that of the Roman general Scipio Africans, imperial conqueror of the Carthagians. In these Greco-Roman stories of divine conceptions, male gods impregnating human women to bear great leaders or conquerors were quite common.
So it appears that Luke’s divine conception of Jesus, with the spirit of God coming upon Mary (Luke 1:35), laid the foundation for concluding Jesus was superior to Caesar. That world did not think conception by human-divine interaction was impossible, and so Luke’s telling of the Jesus story had to begin on equal footing with Caesar’s. Consider the story of Jesus’ birth through these political lenses, not modern scientific ones. Luke contrasts the politics of Jesus with the politics of Rome. Both Jesus and Caesar were referred to as the son of God, both were referred to as the savior of the world, and both were also titled as Lord. Luke’s listeners would have to decide which peace was genuine, lasting and life-giving: the Pax Romana from Caesar, his armies, and his threats, or the peace found in following the teachings of Jesus. Roman peace came through military conquering and the imposed terror of threat toward anyone who disrupted Rome’s peace. Jesus’ peace came through a distributive justice where no one had too much while others didn’t have enough and everyone sat under their own vine or fig tree (Micah 4:4).
We’re now nearing the season of Easter. Let’s not forget that Jesus was crucified by Rome not because he was starting a new religion, but because his political teachings on justice for the oppressed, marginalized, and disenfranchised threatened to upset the status quo underlying the Pax Romana. His audience was growing and Rome had to silence his voice.
The synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, offer consistent political comparisons between Jesus’ vision for human society (God’s just future) and the status quo of the society Jesus found himself in instead. This makes me wonder how our own contemporary society’s political goals would fare if we compared and contrasted the values of the American dream with the values we find in the Jesus story.
How does imprisoning children on the southern border or anywhere else in the country compare with Jesus’ vision of world where no one is illegal?
How does forgiving student loan debt compare with Jesus’ vision for world where all debts are cancelled?
How does universal healthcare or health care as a human right compare with Jesus’ life of healing those on the margins of his society?
How does eliminating poverty or closing the vast wealth gap between classes and races compare with Jesus’ gospel of the kingdom that belongs to the poor?
How do reparations for America’s heritage of slavery and genocide compare with Jesus’ call for those with ill-gotten wealth to sell everything and give the proceeds to those they exploited?
How do police reform or abolition compare to a Jesus story where the central figure was the victim of state brutality himself?
Do the values of the Jesus story offer us something better today than the status quo the privileged and elite still desperately hold on to?
I don’t mean that our society should become Christian. Christianity has proven unsafe when it comes to protecting vulnerable human populations from harm: women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and many others have been harmed and their stories have yet to be listened to in many sectors of Christianity today. Even the sacred text of Christianity has been too vulnerable to abuse by those with power, prejudice and bigotry. The recent murders in the Atlanta spas are yet another sad example. (Sadly White and/or colonial Christianity is the only form of the faith most of the world has been touched by.) Whatever one’s interpretation of Christianity’s sacred texts, the voices of those who have been harmed are still needed to ensure our interpretations are genuinely life-affirming and life-giving.
If Luke could compare Roman economic, political, and social policy with Jesus’s teachings, then certainly we can do so with economic, political, and social policies in our time. And if we see progressive social movements resonate with the values we find in the Jesus story, then certainly all of us who claim that story as the heart of our faith tradition could check ourselves. We could choose to be last in line to oppose those progressive visions for American society rather than being among the loudest opponents of distributively just change.
There are exceptions to this pattern. It burdens me that they are merely exceptions. Support for progressive movements that resonate with Jesus’ distributively just economic, political and social values could be the rule for Jesus followers today, if we would choose it. And conscious choices are exactly what it will take.
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What comparisons and contrasts can you make with Jesus teachings and current discussions in your own society regarding how we resources and power is distributed? Share with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week
Herb Montgomery | January 31, 2020
“This I believe is the genius of the ethic of enemy love that Jesus and many others in history have taught. Rightly understood, it enables one to stand up to one’s enemies while not becoming like them.”
“But to you who are listening, I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27)
In Part 1 we discussed what the ethic of enemy love may mean and what it most definitely does not mean.
Socially and historically, one of the most used methods for uniting a society or community has been to rally that community against a common enemy. It’s effective and it’s easy. Produce a common enemy, and people who were once enemies will join together against that enemy. In Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Henry gives this advice to his son, who will become Henry V after him:
“Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days.”
(Henry IV Part II, Act IV, scene V)
Another example is found in Luke’s version of Jesus’ arrest, trial, and execution. Herod and Pilate struck up a friendship, yet until Jesus appeared on the scene, they had been enemies.
“That day Herod and Pilate became friends — before this, they had been enemies.” (Luke 23:12, emphasis added, cf. Job 16:10)
Jesus taught a different way of living life together. One of the ethical threads in the fabric of his community was that members would no longer be united in hatred for a common enemy. Rather they’d be united in the practice of loving their enemies.
Jesus was calling his Jewish community back to its roots of enemy love when he said:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies.” (Matthew 5:43)
This teaching went back centuries:
“If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.” (Proverbs 25:2, cf. 2 Kings 6:21-23)
“If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it.” (Exodus 23:4,5)
“Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice.” (Proverbs 24:17, cf. Job 31:29)
At the same time, in both Jewish and Christian scriptures, one can also find support for hating one’s enemy. What made Jesus stand out in his own time and culture was his ability to parse and interpret his community’s teachings in life-giving ways. We are called to do the same.
Jesus’ vision of a just, safe and compassionate society calls us to include those who are presently our enemies, those who oppose a more compassionate society. For Jesus, enemies were to be seen as capable of change. No person was disposable, no matter how wrong they may have been. We are all connected, all of us. And as difficult as it may be, we are in this together.
Evolutionary Survival Ethic of the Past
A few years ago, I placed my 16-year-old daughter on an airplane and she flew from West Virginia to Colorado all by herself to visit her grandmother. Because she was underage, she was assigned a flight attendant to watch over her and get her safely from our care to her grandmother’s.
Before my daughter reached her grandmother, she had to comply with everything the flight attendant asked her to do. But once she was in her grandmother’s company, it would have been foolish for her to cling to the flight attendant. The attendant would want my daughter to go with and listen to her grandmother, even if, over the course of the flight, my daughter and the attendant had become fondly attached.
It could be debated that hatred of one’s enemies has, in the past, worked toward our survival as a human species. Even if that proves true, I would offer that the time for such has passed, we have outgrown its usefulness. The future does not belong to those who hate, but to those who have found a way to love, even their enemies.
Love is Not Naive
Enemy love does not mean we accept our enemies’ behaviors and choices. It means we refuse to allow their actions to change who we are. We remain responsible for our own choices and are able to choose how we respond (response-able) to our enemies’ choices. We act, proactively, out of the kind of person we choose to be. We don”t simply react to the types of people our enemies choose to be. As we said in part one, we’re part of a humanity that also includes our enemies. Yet we choose not to be the same kinds of people our enemies are choosing to be.
James Baldwin, whom I admire greatly, wrote of this principle in his classic The Fire Next Time:
“I am very much concerned that American Negroes achieve their freedom here in the United States. But I am also concerned for their dignity, for the health of their souls, and must oppose any attempt that Negroes may make to do to others what has been done to them. I think I know—we see it around us every day—the spiritual wasteland to which that road leads. It is so simple a fact and one that is so hard, apparently, to grasp: Whoever debases others is debasing himself. That is not a mystical statement but a most realistic one, which is proved by the eyes of any Alabama sheriff—and I would not like to see Negroes ever arrive at so wretched a condition.” (p. 83, emphasis added)
Love acknowledges the choices our enemies make. Love even obstructs enemies’ harmful actions. Yet it stops short of allowing a person to become the same type of person as their enemy. Love means choosing not to debase another person in the way they have debased us. We don’t ignore the actions of our enemies. We simply choose to be shaped by something greater than their actions.
This I believe is the genius of the ethic of enemy love that Jesus and many others in history have taught. Rightly understood, it enables one to stand up to one’s enemies while not becoming like them. It breaks the mimetic tendency we as humans have to simply mimic each other, even in violence. It breaks the chain and enables us to be different, to do differently than what has been done to us.
While holding our enemies accountable, we can do so with a transformative, reparative, and restorative perspective rather than with retribution in mind. This approach holds on to our enemies’ humanity and seeks a path toward a just future that includes transformation for them too. Dr. King, who strove to understand and rightfully apply the ethic of enemy love, stated as much in his sermon Loving Your Enemies, delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in November 1957:
“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, ‘Love your enemies.’ It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, “Love your enemies.” Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption . . . It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says, love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive.”
So it would seem that there really isn’t a middle ground. We either permit our enemies’ actions to shape us, to determine the kind of people we will be, or we choose a path that has the potential (without guarantee) to shape our enemies as we choose to be the kinds of people we aspire to be.
Liberation theologies today might say we can choose to remain free internally, in our own inmost being, while we work to become free outwardly.
Enemy love is difficult. But most things that are worth it are.
HeartGroup Application
1. Are there stories of enemy love that you find compelling for you, today? Share one with your group.
2. What did you learn from last week’s exercise/practice? Share with your group.
3. How can your HeartGroup deepen its practice of enemy love collectively this coming year?
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see next week.
by Herb Montgomery | January 24, 2020
“I want to be careful with this ethic of enemy love. First, this ethic does not mean that we should expect reconciliation without change or reparations from our enemies . . . To expect the victims of violence to reconcile with their oppressors in the midst of ongoing oppression, even when the injustice is systemic, is in itself violent.”
“But to you who are listening, I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you.” (Luke 6:27)
Jesus’ “love your enemy” ethic is one of his most challenging teachings. Along with his economic teachings for the wealthy elites, it remains the dealbreaker for many who initially desire to follow him.
At the heart of Jesus’ ethical teaching about God, ourselves, and others was the principle of loving your enemies. It was as if Jesus were saying, “I know you’ve been taught to love your neighbor. Now I’m going to teach you how to love your enemies.”
This teaching of Jesus has never proven to be popular. In the gospels, many of the rich (outside of those labeled publicans or tax-collectors) could not love the poor, and the poor could not love their oppressors. We have enough evidence to say that it was the poor people’s revolt in Judea during the latter half of the 1st Century that led to the Roman-Jewish war, the razing of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 C.E., and the almost total genocide of the Jewish people in 132-136 C.E. (the Bar Kokhba revolt).
The picture we get of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is that of an itinerant teacher who had enough wisdom to see where his contemporaries’ exploitation and anger/despair would lead them. (Oh, that those who carry the name of Christian could do the same today!) The gospels were written between the Jewish Revolt of the 60s and the destruction of the 130s by Jesus-followers trying to make sense of the devastation that had taken place in Jerusalem. It makes sense that they would write of a death at Rome’s hands and a resurrection that led to a distributively just world where peace reigns in the end.
They characterize Jesus as gathering whoever will join him in a revolutionary, alternative way of living and structuring life. In the gospels, Jesus’ social vision is referred to as “the Kingdom of God,” a phrase that would have resonated deeply in the culture of the gospels’ original audience. This kingdom was not a world someplace out in the heavens that one had to die to reach. Jesus taught that another world was possible, here and now, if we would choose it. Jesus’ teachings were about our communal lives. They radically rearranged how human beings arrange their society, and they involved change by those in positions of power and privilege who were responsible for the systemic injustice they were benefiting from. They also involved some form of love from those who had been deeply hurt by those same people and systems, toward the very ones they were confronting in their calls for change.
Reconciliation Without Change
I want to be careful with this ethic of enemy love. First, this ethic does not mean that we should expect reconciliation without change or reparations from our enemies.
I’m reminded of Jacquelyn Grant’s words in her classic work, White Women’s Christ and Black Women’s Jesus. In this book, she speaks of the partnership that White women expected from Black women in work that would benefit women of privilege when White women had not engaged the same kind of partnership or involvement in the causes of women disenfranchised much more.
“From a Black women’s vantage point then, the language of partnership is merely a rewording of the language of reconciliation, which proves empty rhetoric unless it is preceded by liberation.” (p. 191)
I don’t believe Jesus taught reconciliation without liberation and reparations. Reconciliation follows liberation, reparation, and systemic change. To expect the victims of violence to reconcile with their oppressors in the midst of ongoing oppression, even when the injustice is systemic, is in itself violent.
Luke’s Jesus, who taught enemy love, also taught reparations by those who were considered to be “the enemy.” Consider these words in Luke’s gospel by Zacchaeus:
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” (Luke 19:8)
Here Zacchaeus is becoming a follower of Jesus. As a person who would have been considered an enemy of the poor by those he had exploited, becoming a Jesus follower meant reparations toward those he had cheated and to the poor in general. This is telling in regards to what Zacchaeus felt Jesus’ teachings expected of him.
In the face of Zacchaeus’ model, we must be suspicious of theologies of reconciliation that promote either Christian or civil unity at the price of ignoring injustice both past and present.
Holding on to Our Enemy’s Humanity
So what does enemy-love mean?
For me, it is best expressed by Barbara Deming in her book Revolution and Equilibrium. After stating that the practitioner of nonviolent resistance obstructs an enemy’s actions, refusing to “honor the role” that enemy chooses, she then quickly adds that we also say to them:
“‘I won’t let go of you or cast you out of the human race. I have faith that you can make a better choice than you are making now, and I’ll be here when you are ready. Like it or not, we are part of one another.’” (p. 224)
Consider the prayer Luke’s gospel places on the lips of Jesus in his closing moments on the cross:
“Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’” (Luke 23:34)
I understand there are debates over whether this prayer was genuinely original to Jesus. Even so, I don’t want us to miss the narrative purpose it serves in Luke’s Jesus story.
What is this prayer but Jesus asking his God for his enemies not to be, in Deming’s words, “cast out of the human race.” This is a prayer for his enemies not to be destroyed and not let go of either. It assumes Jesus’ faith in his enemies’ potential to make “better choices than they are making now.”
The cross was the social elites’ violent “no” to God’s just future. The resurrection was God’s nonviolent response, enabling and empowering the hope of that just future to live on. Jesus’ community were to hold on to a vision of the future where enemies are not destroyed so we can get on with paradise, but rather where enemies are transformed and learn to evolve into better humans.
Seeking to shape the world according to distributive justice while choosing to hold the ethic of enemy love is entirely revolutionary. It is a radical break from our deepest instincts. It goes against what we’ve been taught is the way to survive. It calls us to go against how we have been indoctrinated and the narratives we have been handed.
Today, Jesus’ hope for a just future still extends an ongoing invitation. To follow Jesus on this point is most likely the most revolutionary thing a human being can do, not only to change our world but also to do so such that the inhabitants of our world are changed. Jesus offers a vision for a world where distributive justice, love, and compassion reign “on earth” as they do “in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)
We are too skilled at taming revolutions and making them conventional; too skilled at turning things like the Sermon on the Mount and the teachings of enemy love into complicity with society as we have known it. What if the ethic of enemy love and the energy we spend working toward survival, resistance, liberation, reparation, and transformation don’t inspire us to accept the injustice of our enemies, but instead inspire hope for genuine, lasting change?
For the next seven days, I want you to engage in a practice that will help you move toward this ethic. Each day, take a few minutes, once a day, to stop and think of the person on this planet you like the least. Then repeat these words as if you are speaking directly to them:
“What you have done or are doing is not right. I refuse to accept your actions. At the same time, I won’t let go of you or cast you out of the human race. I have faith that you can make better choices than you are making now, and I’ll be here when you choose to do so. Like it or not, we are part of one another.”
Then find someone to share what you experienced through these seven days.
If you’re willing, I’d like to hear your stories too. Drop us a line here.
HeartGroup Application
1. Engage in the above practice throughout this next week
2. Journal what you experience.
3. Share with your HeartGroup your experience.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
$5 / month