Advent as Good News for the Marginalized
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Advent as Good News for the Marginalized
Herb Montgomery | December 19, 2025
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this weekend is from the gospel of Matthew.
When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”
As John’s disciples were leaving, Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear fine clothes are in kings’ palaces. Then what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written:
“‘I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’
Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet whoever is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
(Matthew 11:2-11)
For years, I was a preacher of the gospel in a pretty fundamentalist tradition. At the same time, the gospel I preached never even mentioned the poor. This week’s lectionary passage continues to remind me that good news to the poor is how we know whether Christianity’s gospel is the same as the one Jesus’ preached. Audience members used to often remind me that if it’s not good news it’s not the gospel. Today, a better reminder would be that if what we are preaching is not good news first and foremost to the poor, if it’s not accessible by the poor, than it’s at bare minimum not the same gospel that the Jesus of the stories preached.
A reliable litmus test for the gospel is whether it is truly good news to the poor. Jesus announced a kingdom where the last are made first, the hungry are fed, people’s humanity is restored, and the poor become the blessed. If our message comforts only the privileged, it drifts from Jesus’ own proclamation in the gospels. The gospel becomes tangible when it addresses hunger, oppression, exploitation, and injustice with practical compassion and material, concrete hope. Good news to the poor is not just charity. It is solidarity. It is justice. It stands with those who are overlooked by the status quo and affirms the intrinsic worth of those presently being disenfranchised and made vulnerable. Today, it doesn’t matter whether we define those communities as migrant, trans, or the people in Ukraine or Gaza. The gospel Jesus preached challenges systems that crush people and inspires us to create societies shaped by generosity and justice. When the marginalized including the poor hear the gospel and recognize it as hope, freedom, and belonging, its authenticity is unmistakable.
In the spirit of that justice and hope, I want to begin this week by addressing the other recipients of Jesus’ gospel in the statement to John’s disciples. When it comes to people who live with disabilities and how we tell the Jesus story, I believe we can do better today for them. The gospels contain ableist elements. Many healing stories frame disability primarily as a condition needing correction. Jesus’ miracles often present disabled people as objects through whom divine power is displayed, rather than as full participants with agency. This narrative pattern has unintentionally reinforced the idea that a meaningful life requires being “fixed.” Additionally, disability is sometimes used metaphorically for moral or spiritual lack, such as blindness for ignorance and lameness for weakness, which can deepen the stigmatizing, negative associations of having a disability with being “less than.” Many disability theologians also note subversive moments in the Jesus story where Jesus centers marginalized people, restores them to community, and challenges social exclusion (see Nancy Eiesland’s The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability.)
Acknowledging ableist elements doesn’t disqualify the gospel stories. Rather, admitting the truth about these stories invites us into deeper reflection on how we can interpret these texts today as faith communities endeavor to uphold the humanity and dignity of all, including people who live with disabilities.
Next in our reading, Jesus addresses his audience regarding John the Baptist. John the Baptist was born into a respected priestly family; his father, Zechariah, served in the Temple State system, and his lineage offered him the social, political, and economic benefits of that path. Yet John chose a radically different calling. Rather than serve within the structured Temple State system—deeply intertwined with political and religious authority—he withdrew to the wilderness. He chose a path of challenging the status quo, calling his society to repent for complicity with Rome and to return to the practice of justice toward one another, all of this outside of institutional control. John’s voice in the desert was a contemporary return to the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition and was in tension with the institutionalized and co-opted-by-Rome priesthood. John confronted corruption, preparing hearts for a just future brought about by a God who would respond to the people’s repentance and return to justice. He reminded the people that their future directly depended on what they chose to practice toward one another: continued exploitation or a return to the Torah’s justice.
In the gospels, “the wilderness” symbolizes the margins of society. It represents those places far from centers of power, wealth, and political/religious control. It is in these edges that God’s presence is revealed most clearly. John the Baptist preaches there in the wilderness, showing that divine truth arises outside the institutional authority of his time. Remember, Jesus is also tested in the wilderness, therefore identifying with the vulnerable and the unseen. The wilderness becomes a space where God meets those who are overlooked, oppressed, or displaced. By locating revelation in the margins, the Gospels declare that God is not confined to centered places of power but stands in solidarity with the marginalized and offers them hope, reclaimed humanity, and new beginnings rooted in justice.
In his book Say to This Mountain, Ched Myers writes, “The experience of wilderness is common to the vast majority of people in the world. Their reality is at the margins of almost everything that is defined by the modern Western world as ‘the good life.’ This wilderness has not been created by accident. It is the result of a system stacked against many people and their communities, whose lives and resources are exploited to benefit a very small minority at the centers of power and privilege.” (Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 11)
Myers goes on to say, “While the margin has a primarily negative political connotation as a place of disenfranchisement, Mark ascribes to it a primarily positive theological value. It is the place where the sovereignty of God is made manifest, where the story of liberation is renewed, where God’s intervention in history occurs. (Say to This Mountain: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 12)
John the Baptist’s ministry, as portrayed in the Gospel of Luke and illuminated by Josephus, centers not on offering assurances of heavenly reward but on demanding concrete, ethical transformation in society. Luke presents John as standing in the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition with a message focusing on action-based repentance in contrast to the complicity that elites engaged in with the Roman empire. When the crowds ask John what repentance requires, John does not speak of greater fidelity to the Temple State, but of earthy, concrete, social practices and preparation for an approaching end to unsustainable social practice. He instructed them to share resources: “Whoever has two tunics must share with the one who has none, and whoever has food must do the same” (Luke 3:11). John’s demands also addressed tax collectors and soldiers. He calls tax collectors to economic honesty, to refuse to collect more than prescribed, and calls soldiers to non-violence and contentment, forbidding extortion and false accusation (Luke 3:12–14). These calls reveal his vision of repentance as social and economic justice embodied in everyday life.
Josephus corroborates this image, describing John as a teacher who urged people to practice justice toward one another as an expression of their devotion to God. In Antiquities 18.5.2, Josephus states that John commanded his followers to exercise justice in their dealings and piety toward God, emphasizing the practice of social justice as the true preparation for baptism. This portrait aligns with Luke’s emphasis: John’s baptism symbolizes a commitment to transforming present social reality, not a ticket to a later heaven.
Taken together, Luke and Josephus portray John as a prophetic figure calling Israel to ethical renewal. He insists that genuine repentance manifests in equitable economic practices and compassionate treatment of neighbors. His message is a summons to rebuild society on justice, not a promise of post-mortem security.
Advent rituals remind and call us, like John’s preaching of old, to return to the social justice practices of our various faith traditions, and to renew our commitments to shaping our present world into a just, safe, compassionate home for us all.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How are you taking a stand for justice this Advent season? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
As always, you can find Renewed Heart Ministries each week on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s Threads. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts.
Thank you for listening to The Social Jesus Podcast. If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to like and subscribe and if the podcast platform you’re using offers this option, please leave us a positive review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
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 The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 2 Episode 50: Advent as Good News for the Marginalized
Matthew 11:2-11
Advent rituals remind and call us, like John’s preaching of old, to return to the social justice practices of our various faith traditions, and to renew our commitments to shaping our present world into a just, safe, compassionate home for us all. John chose a radically different calling. Rather than serve within the structured Temple State system—deeply intertwined with political and religious authority—he withdrew to the wilderness. He chose a path of challenging the status quo, calling his society to repent for complicity with Rome and to return to the practice of justice toward one another, all of this outside of institutional control. In the gospels, “the wilderness” symbolizes the margins of society. It represents those places far from centers of power, wealth, and political/religious control. It is in these edges that God’s presence is revealed most clearly. This narrative details speaks to every person who finds themselves doing justice work along the edges of our communities today.
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/advent-as-good-news-for-the-marginalized
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
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The Moral Dilemma and Challenge of Wealth
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.”
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The Moral Dilemma and Challenge of Wealth
Herb Montgomery | August 1, 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 gospel of Luke:
Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”
And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:13-21)
In this passage, social location matters. Inheritance was an argument for the wealthy elites, and in Jesus’ time there was no middle class. There were wealthy elites and the poor. And in the gospel stories, Jesus emerged in Galilee as a prophet of the poor.
Consider how each synoptic gospel connects Jesus not to the wealthy but to the poor.
Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor . . . (Mark 10:21)
Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. (Mark 12:43)
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:3)
the good news is proclaimed to the poor. (Matthew 11:5)
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor . . . (Matthew 19:21)
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor (Luke 4:18)
Looking at his disciples, he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God. (Luke 6:20)
So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The good news is proclaimed to the poor. (Luke 7:22)
But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you. (Luke 11:41)
Sell your possessions and give to the poor (Luke 12:33)
But when you give a banquet, invite the poor (Luke 14:13)
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor (Luke 18:22)
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor . . . Today salvation has come to this house (Luke 19:8-9)
He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. (Luke 21:2-3)
These texts place Jesus on the side of the poor. Jesus, as a prophet of the poor, tells a story about the meaninglessness of hoarding wealth. To what end was all this man’s wealth hoarded? James Robertson, commenting on Jesus’ teaching of wealth redistribution and resource sharing, writes:
“The human dilemma is, in large part, that we are each other’s fate. We become the tool of evil that ruins another person as we look out for ourselves, having long abandoned any youthful idealism we might once have cherished. But if we each would cease and desist from pushing the other down to keep ourselves up, then the vicious cycle would be broken. Society would become mutually supportive rather than self-destructive. This is what Jesus was up to. Jesus’ message was simple, for he wanted to cut straight through to the point: trust God to look out for you by providing people who will care for you, and listen to him when he calls on you to provide for them. God is somebody you can trust, so give it a try.” (James M. Robinson, The Gospel of Jesus: In Search of the Original Good News, Kindle Edition Loc. 58)
Robinson continues:
“Put in language derived from his sayings: I am hungry because you hoard food. You are cold because I hoard clothing. Our dilemma is that we all hoard supplies in our backpacks and put our trust in our wallets! Such ‘security’ should be replaced by God reigning, which means both what I trust God to do (to activate you to share food with me) and what I hear God telling me to do (to share clothes with you). We should not carry money while bypassing the poor or wear a backpack with extra clothes and food while ignoring the cold and hungry lying in the gutter. This is why the beggars, the hungry, the depressed are fortunate: God, that is, those in whom God rules, those who hearken to God, will care for them. The needy are called upon to trust that God’s reigning is there for them (‘Theirs is the kingdom of God”’).” (James M. Robinson, The Gospel of Jesus: In Search of the Original Good News, Kindle Edition. Loc 71)
These words give us much to think about. Robinson evaluates Jesus’ teachings by what happens in the early church when Christians tried to put them into practice. Notice the result: “There were no needy persons among them.” The early Jesus movement had accomplished the goal of these ancient stories: they eliminated poverty in their midst.
“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. 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 4:32-35)
Over and over again in the gospels, Jesus places hoarding one’s wealth in tension with sharing it with others:
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (Matthew 6:24)
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Luke 16:13)
Being “rich toward God” doesn’t mean giving all your money to religious institutions. It means using your means to mitigate the suffering of the others with whom we share this world as our home. We live in a system today that creates both wealth and poverty. As that economic system continues, the gap between the two classes continues to expand. Wealth, when viewed through the lens of compassion and responsibility, can be very powerfully shared for advancing human dignity and well-being. In a world where inequality continues to deepen and many struggle to meet basic needs, those who have access to financial resources are uniquely called to be agents of healing and justice. Using wealth to help others is not just an act of charity—it is a moral imperative that affirms our shared humanity.
At its best, wealth can serve as a bridge between abundance and need. It can fund education for children who might otherwise go without schooling, provide clean water for communities where it is scarce, support healthcare systems, build affordable housing, and sustain efforts to address climate change and systemic poverty. These are not merely abstract goals; they represent real lives changed, futures made possible, and hope restored.
And using wealth for the good of others requires more than good intentions—it also calls for intentionality, humility, and equity. True generosity listens before it gives. It involves understanding the needs of communities rather than imposing one-size-fits-all solutions. It resists the temptation to give in ways that perpetuate or preserve power imbalances. Instead, it seeks to empower, to lift up, and to restore dignity.
Faith traditions, moral philosophies, and humanitarian values all speak to the sacred responsibility that comes with wealth. Jesus taught that to love one’s neighbor means to meet their needs—not out of guilt, or duty, but out of genuine care. The Hebrew prophets cried out for justice, not just charity. Across cultures, the wise and ethical have consistently called upon those with means to see their wealth not as an end in itself, but as a resource for the greater good.
In practical terms, this might mean supporting local organizations doing transformative work, investing in sustainable enterprises that uplift communities, or simply being present and generous in the lives of neighbors, friends, and strangers. It also includes advocating for fairer systems that redistribute opportunity and reduce barriers.
In the end, wealth is not measured by how much we can accumulate, but by how much good it enables in our lives and others’. This is what it may mean to be rich toward God. It means being rich toward our fellow humans. When we use what we have to love, to serve, and to repair the world around us, we step into a deeper purpose—one that honors both the giver and the receiver.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What would sharing wealth rather than hoarding wealth look like in our society today? 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 22: Luke 12.13-21. Lectionary C, Proper 13
The Moral Dilemma and Challenge of Wealth
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 31: The Moral Dilemma and Challenge of Wealth
Luke 12:13-21
“Faith traditions, moral philosophies, and humanitarian values all speak to the sacred responsibility that comes with wealth. Jesus taught that to love one’s neighbor means to meet their needs—not out of guilt, or duty, but out of genuine care. The Hebrew prophets cried out for justice, not just charity. Across cultures, the wise and ethical have consistently called upon those with means to see their wealth not as an end in itself, but as a resource for the greater good. In the end, wealth, especially gained in an economic system such as our present one, is not measured by how much we can accumulate, but by how much good it enables in our lives and others’. This is what it may mean to be rich toward God. It means being rich toward our fellow humans. When we use what we have to love, to serve, and to repair the world around us, we step into a deeper purpose—one that honors both the giver and the receiver.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/the-moral-dilemma-and-challenge-of-wealth
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
Mary, Christian Patriachy and the Existence of Poverty
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.”
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Mary, Christian Patriachy and the Existence of Poverty
Herb Montgomery; April 5, 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 gospel of John.
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
“Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” (John 12:1-8)
I understand why this passage is a Lectionary favorite during the Lenten season. Before we speak of whether poverty is inevitable or optional, let’s take a look at the woman named Mary mentioned in John’s version of the story.
John’s version of this story is very different from any of the other gospel versions of this story. In John’s version, we are in Mary, Martha, and Lazarus’ home. Mary’s act is one of gratitude, specifically for the events of the previous chapter. In the previous chapter, Lazarus, Mary’s brother, had gotten sick and died, and Jesus brought him back from the dead to live again.
Let’s also consider the other versions of this story in the gospels.
In Mark, the earliest version of this story, this event takes place not at Mary, Martha and Lazarus’ home but at the home of a leper named Simon.
“While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.” (Mark 14:3-4)
Matthew’s gospel repeats to a large degree Mark’s version:
“While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.” (Matthew 26:6-7)
In Luke, we get a different version. Simon is no longer a leper; he’s now a Pharisee. This fits Luke’s overarching theme of Jesus being in conflict with the more nationalist sectors of the Pharisee community. And the woman is not nameless as in the previous gospels, but a woman who had “lived a sinful life.” This evolved detail also fits conflict growing in Luke of certain Pharisees being upset with Jesus’ association with tax collectors and “sinners.”
“When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.” (Luke 7:36-38)
But in our reading this week, we are in Mary, Martha, and Lazarus’ home, not the home of Simon the Leper (Mark and Matthew) or Simon the Pharisee (Luke). The woman who interacts with Jesus is Mary of Bethany (Martha and Lazarus’ sister), not a woman who has lived a sinful life (Luke), nor an unnamed, morally upright woman who simply wants to anoint Jesus’ body before his death (Mark and Matthew).
What I believe is most important in all these versions of this story is that the woman mentioned is definitely not Mary Magdalene. Why is this clarification important?
In the early Jesus movement, Mary Magdalene was both an influential leader in the early movement and a symbol of support for women in leadership in the early church. Beginning in the 4th Century, though, we witness a shift to disparage women leaders, and Christianity moved toward a purely patriarchal form. The different versions of this story played a part in this history.
By the close of the 6th Century, Pope Gregory’s sermon conflates all these women to disparage Mary Magdalene. It calls Mary Magdalene a “sinful” prostitute, furthering the patriarchy’s accusation that women are innately morally inferior to men, and it forever changed Mary Magdalene’s reputation: she is never referred to as a prostitute in the gospels. It is interesting that the Eastern Orthodox Church never made Pope Gregory’s error of conflating Mary of Magdala with Mary of Bethany but kept them as separate and distinct figures. Thus, Mary Magdalene in the Eastern tradition was also never conflated with Luke’s “sinful” woman and never believed to have been a prostitute.
I want to say here that women whose work is prostitution should be valued in the same way as any other human being. Work is work. At the same time, prostitution today is very dangerous work due to its legal status and other social stigmas. We need to move away from using “prostitute” as a derogatory or disparaging slur.
The transition in the 4th to 6th Centuries that took Mary Magdalene from an influential early church leader to a “sinful” prostitute advanced the goals by the patriarchy of disparaging women women as leaders in the Western Christian church.
One more note about Luke’s gospel. Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany and the woman who anoints Jesus are always portrayed as distinct and separate women in Luke’s narratives.
In Luke 7 we have the woman who with the alabaster box. This story ends with Jesus blessing this woman.
Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:50)
In the very next chapter (Luke 8), we read:
After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. (Luke 8:1-3)
Luke refers to Mary here as “called Magdalene” (from Magdala in Galilee) “out of whom seven demons were cast out.” Luke could have easily said this was Mary, the same sinful woman I was just writing about! But no, this Mary is a new woman added to the story, and she financially supported Jesus in his work.
In addition, Luke also mentions Mary of Bethany. In Luke 10, she and Martha are still sisters, but they have no brother named Lazarus in Luke’s gospel. Mary of Bethany is an additional woman in the story.
As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. (Luke 10:38-19)
So, in Luke, we have the woman in Luke 7, Mary of Magdala (Galilee) in Luke 8, and Mary, Martha’s sister, of Bethany (Judea, outside Jerusalem) in Luke 10. Never does Luke even remotely hint that these three are all the same women.
By the time we get to the last gospel in our canon, John has now lifted this story from being about a sinful woman to being about Mary of Bethany, Martha’s sister. In John’s version she has a brother named Lazarus whom Jesus raises from the dead.
“Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) (John 11:1-2)
It’s curious that Luke never mentions Lazarus as the brother of Mary and Martha of Bethany. Stop and ponder that. Luke never mentions something so significant in John’s gospel as to be the cause of Jesus’ crucifixion. In Luke, Jesus is crucified not because he raises Lazarus but because of his protest in the temple courtyard with the money changers. Why is this significant?
So many Christians take Jesus’ words in our reading to mean that there is nothing we can do about the inevitability of poverty. After all, Jesus says here, “The poor you will always have with you.”
However we interpret this statement, we should acknowledge its roots in the book of Deuteronomy:
At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the LORD’S time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you. However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. For the LORD your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.Ifanyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need. Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the LORD against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land. (Deuteronomy 15:1-11, emphasis added.)
Notice that while there “will always be” poor people in the land, there is “no need for there to be” poor people among them. And if there are poor people among the people, they have instruction in the law on how to reverse their poverty.
The early church in the book of Acts did not take Jesus’ words as saying poverty is inevitable and there’s nothing we can do about it except for charity. They saw his words as a call to enact the principles of the book of Deuteronomy to reverse poverty.
Notice what they did:
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)
What effect did this practice have “among them” to quote Deuteronomy?
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. 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 4:32-35, emphasis added)
In this instance, Jesus may have been saying it was okay for them to care for him rather than the poor . In Mark 14:7, he says “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.” Jesus may also have been making a proclamation against the greed of their society, saying that because they refused to follow the debt cancellation and wealth redistribution of Deuteronomy, they would “always” have people in poverty among them. However we interpret these words, we must remember that Jesus’ gospel was good news to the poor. Jesus’ politics were good news for the poor. For Jesus, the concrete, material needs of the people were holy.
“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.” (Luke 4:18, italics added)
So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” (Luke 7:22, italics added)
To say that poverty is inevitable and there’s nothing we can do to eliminate it is not good news to the poor. It fails the litmus test here and it is contrary to the gospel of Jesus.
I close this week with two statements for us to ponder, one by the late Nelson Mandela and the other by the late Gustav Gutierrez.
Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the action of human beings. (Nelson Mandela, in a 2005 speech at the Make Poverty History rally in London’s Trafalgar Square)
The poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order. (Gustavo Gutierrez, The Power of the Poor in History, p. 44)
Lent is about course corrections and recommitting our lives to the gospel of Jesus. This Lent, maybe one of the matters we should repent of is that poverty exists among us as Christians and as a society.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. What does Jesus’ words in John, “The poor you will always have with you,” mean to you? 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!
Season 3, Episode 8: John 12.1-8. Lectionary C, Lent 5
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 2 Episode 14: Mary, Christian Patriachy and the Existence of Poverty
John 12:1-8
Our story this week involving Mary was used to disparage women leaders within Christianity toward a purely patriarchal form. Characterizing Mary Magdalene as a prostitute advanced the patriarchal goals of disparaging women as somehow morally inferior to men and therefore unfit as leaders in the Western Christian church. Lastly, the latter portion or our reading this week is used to perpetuate the myth that poverty is an inevitable part of society and there is nothing we can do to erradicate it. But the Torah and prophets taught differently, and the early church interpreted these words in John differently. Today, we understand that Poverty is a by-product of the system in which we live. And we are responsible for whatever system exists. Poverty is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the action of human beings. In the words of Gustavo Gutierrez, “The poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
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A Gospel of Economic Justice
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A Gospel of Economic Justice
Herb Montgomery, January 25, 2025
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this upcoming weekend is from the gospel fo Luke:
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.
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.”
Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:14-21)
Out of all of the passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that the author of Luke could have chosen, they connected Jesus with these words from the book of Isaiah:
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
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor. (Isaiah 61:1-3)
Luke’s gospel squarely places Jesus in the Hebrew prophetic justice tradition, speaking truth to power, on behalf of the poor in this case.
A Gospel of Wealth Redistribution
Considering how many times Luke’s gospel mentions “the poor,” it is no wonder that many consider it to be the gospel of economic justice. I’m reminded of what the late father of liberation theologies Gustavo Gutiérrez wrote in solidarity with the poor: “The poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.” (The Power of the Poor in History, 2004, p. 45).
Certainly this was Jesus’ call in Luke, too.
So central is Jesus’ gospel of the wealth redistribution of the kingdom for the poor that when John’s disciples ask Jesus about the authenticity of his own movement, he responds that the good news to the poor validating his ministry:
So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. (Luke 7:22)
One of the transitional moments for me in my own journey in ministry was realizing that the Jesus of the gospels never mentions so many of the things I used to be passionate about preaching. And so many of the things Jesus taught and that were central to his emphasis in the synoptic gospels, I never even mentioned.
The poor, poverty, and economic justice were one of themes for me.
In Luke, Jesus centers the poor. The kingdom belongs to them. And Jesus’ “kingdom” is good news for them. As Gutiérrez would say, it’s a different social order where poverty is no longer created. Poverty is an indictment of the system it exists in, because that system creates and allows for poverty. A system of winners and losers will always have those who lose. But in Jesus’ new social order, everyone has enough to thrive:
Looking at his disciples, he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” (Luke 6:20)
For Jesus, everything depended on how generous our attitude and actions were toward those our system places in poverty. Notwhithstanding the problematic nature of purity cultures in general, and given that this passage was written within a kind of purity culture, notice how everything “being clean” hinged on generosity toward the poor:
But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you. (Luke 11:41)
It is often said that Jesus’ advice in Luke 18 to the rich man, to sell his superfluous possessions and give them to the poor, were an isolated, private, and individual call only to that man. But this is far from the truth. Consider Jesus’ words to this man in Luke 18 and then compare them to Jesus’ words to the crowd in Luke 12. In Luke 12, this call is not to a specific wealthy person, but to all wealthy listeners in general.
When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Luke 18:22)
“Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.” (Luke 12:33)
The wealth redistribution Jesus was calling for actually makes sense. Today, the difference between a $30,000 income and a $60,000 for a family is dramatic for the adults but especially dramatic for that family’s children. Their stress, health, life expectancy, and social outcomes are all dramatically different. At the same time, we now know people aren’t dramatically happier or more fulfilled if their net worth grows from $1 billion to $10 billion.
I’m reminded of Zacchaeus, who in Luke is one of those wealthy members of society (who also was a tax collector) who choose to heed Jesus’ call:
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)
A Gospel of a New Social Order
So central was this call to create a new social order where poverty is no more that in Luke’s companion book, Acts, the first generation of Jesus followers who put Jesus’ societal vision into practice eliminated poverty in their group entirely:
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)
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. 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 4:32-35, italics added)
In our reading, Jesus’ gospel doesn’t just end with the poor. It also includes freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind, liberation for the oppressed, and the year of the Lord’s favor when slaves would be set free, debts cancelled, and lost or sold land returned back to ancestral families. The prisoners, the blind, and oppressed are all people whose social system had failed them. The blind were imprisoned in a dark Roman cell and deprived of all light. Their situation was referred to as “prison blindness.” In this context, “recovery of sight” means setting free those in these dark cells and ushering them back into the freedom of the sunlight where they could see again. This gives me pause for all whom our justice system in the U.S. is failing today. (To learn more about mass incarceration and the justice system, read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander; Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson; and Dead Man Walking: The Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty That Sparked a National Debate by Helen Prejean.)
Today, we could extend this list of system failures even further. Participating in Jesus’ justice work today is to combat white supremacy and anti-Blackness. It means combating misogyny and patriarchal norms. It means standing for the safety and well-being of our LGBTQ family and friends, and even more. This list ultimately includes all of us. Because to follow the Jesus of our reading this week means to engage the ongoing work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone, whatever obstacles we might face.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. Do you consider economic justice as foundational to other areas of social justice? How so? 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!
Season 2, Episode 44: Luke 4.14-21. Lectionary C, Epiphany 3
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 2 Episode 4: A Gospel of Economic Justice
Luke 4:14-21
“Poverty is an indictment of the system it exists in, because that system creates and allows for poverty. A system of winners and losers will always have those who lose. But in Jesus’ new social order, everyone has enough to thrive. In our reading, Jesus’ gospel doesn’t just end with the poor. It also includes freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind, liberation for the oppressed, and the year of the Lord’s favor when slaves would be set free, debts cancelled, and lost or sold land returned back to ancestral families. Today, in addition to econimic justice, we could extend this list of system failures even further. Participating in Jesus’ justice work today is to combat white supremacy and anti-Blackness. It means combating misogyny and patriarchal norms. It means standing for the safety and well-being of our LGBTQ family and friends, and even more.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/a-gospel-of-economic-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.
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Faith and Political Harm
Herb Montgomery | September 30, 2022
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“The Jesus of the gospels cared about the concrete harm being done to the marginalized and exploited. And our faith in this kind of Jesus should move us to do the same. Is our faith making us complicit with the mountains of harm done to those our present system makes vulnerable? Is our faith inspiring us to work today toward moving our mountains into the sea?”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.”
“Suppose one of you has a slave plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the slave when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Will he thank the slave because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have only done our duty.’” (Luke 17:5-10)
There is a lot to unpack in this week’s reading.
Let’s begin with the language of throwing trees into the sea. Luke’s version of the Jesus story substitutes the mulberry tree for what other gospels call a mountain:
“Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. (Mark 11:23; see also Matthew 17:20; 21:21)
Jesus said, “If two make peace with each other in a single house, they will say to the mountain, ‘Move from here!’ and it will move.” (Gospel of Thomas 48)
When you say, ‘Mountain, move from here!’ it will move.” (Gospel of Thomas 106:2)
The language of throwing trees and/or mountains into the sea had a rich political history in the Hebrew scriptures. As Isaiah wrote, “every mountain and hill” would be “made low” (Isaiah 40:4)
I agree with Richard Horsley, who explains, “To hear this parable, however, we must again remove some of the Christian theological wax from our ears” (Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder, Kindle Location 1203). We first must understand the political and economic context in which this language was used in the Jesus story.
Jesus used this language in the justice tradition of the Hebrew prophets. His community, the Jewish community, was subjugated by Rome. In Roman fashion, the empire had installed its own client ruler, Herod, to have direct control of the region, and Herod had in turn appointed the High Priests of the temple (known as Herod’s Temple) from elite families from Jerusalem and surrounding regions.
All of this meant the people were heavily economically oppressed. Not only did Rome tax the people through Herod and the Temple High Priest, but Herod also heavily taxed the people for expensive building projects to honor Caesar and to fund his reign of terror, which kept the populace in line and prevented rebellions. On top of this, the Temple itself demanded tithes and offerings. Instead of being a kind of wealth redistribution to the poor, these tithes and offerings tended only to make the wealthy elite richer.
It is in this context that we must understand the image of throwing a mountain into the sea. In the prophetic tradition, mountains represented political and social orders. In the gospels, the mountain being thrown into the sea was associated with the Temple State, which had become a proxy for Rome when, after Herod’s death, Rome began directly determining who the priests and the High Priest would be. Talking about throwing a mountain into the sea in that era would have been associated with the oppressive social, economic, and political system represented by the temple mount rulers in the hilly city of Jerusalem.
To quote Horsley again:
“The high priests are hardly ‘Jewish leaders.’ [Editor’s note: Horsley is not implying that the leaders were not Jewish ethnically. He’s suggesting that they represented the interest of Rome, not of Jewish liberation or independence from Rome.] . . . Neither in this episode nor in Mark as a whole is there any suggestion of the replacement of ‘Judaism’ by ‘Christianity.’ . . . Here, as throughout Mark’s story, the fundamental conflict lies between rulers and ruled, not ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity.’” (Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder, Kindle Locations 1203-1207)
In his insightful commentaries, Ched Myers agrees that the metaphor of throwing mountains into seas referred to Roman oppression, directly or indirectly through the Temple state acting as a Roman client.
“As impossible as it may seem, Mark insists that the overwhelming power and legitimacy of both the Roman ‘legion’ and the Jewish ‘mountain’ will meet their end—if the disciples truly believe in the possibility of a new order.” (Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, p. 305)
“Faith is here defined as the political imagination that insists on the possibility of a society freed from the powers, whether Roman militarism or the Judean aristocracy.” (Ched Myers, Say to This Mountain”: Mark’s Story of Discipleship, p. 149)
In the same way that peasants could not imagine a world without feudalism, we today find it difficult to imagine a world without capitalism, and Jesus’ followers could not imagine a world without Roman imperial rule.
Some in Jesus’ audience that day didn’t want a world without Roman imperial rule, much as capitalists today who benefit from capitalism therefore defend the way things are. The wealthy elite in Jesus’ audience were benefitting from Roman rule, and it’s to them that Jesus’ next words are aimed.
We can read the “slave” language in this week’s reading differently: I don’t accept that Jesus is calling his disciples to perceive themselves as unworthy slaves who have only done their duty. This way of perceiving oneself is damaging, not life-giving.
But repeatedly in Luke 17, Jesus’ audience keeps changing. These changes are not only frequent, they also happen rapidly with no warning. If we interpret this language as aimed at the ruling elite in Jesus’ society rather than to the disciples, another meaning becomes possible.
The last phrase gives us a clue: “We have only done our duty.” The original language of the text suggests that this concept of duty could involve the obligations of indebtedness.
Creditors don’t thank debtors for paying back their loans. They demand it. The wealthy elite at this time had become wealthy through the misfortune of others. Heavy taxation had pushed many landowners to their limits: if they had one bad year or crop failure, they’d have to take loans. Being already on the edge, any other misfortune, which was common, would push these landowners into default. Many of the wealthy landowners in Jesus’ society were creditors who had gained even more land because the original landowners had defaulted on their debts and lost their land to their creditors. The original owers had become debt-slaves, working on land that used to belong to them. In this context, those who were wealthy esteemed themselves through the typical lens of classism as being superior to those who had lost out.
Jesus turns this estimate of others as inferior back onto the elite, and accuses them of holding a similar status in relation to Rome. They were acting, he says, not as the liberated and independent worshippers of YHWH, but as the servants/slaves of the Roman Empire.
This rhetoric becomes a painful challenge, then. Is Rome going to thank them for their service and client slavery? No. Rome looks at them as inferior, conquered, and subjugated. They have traded faithfulness to God for faithfulness to Rome. Rather than being favored children of Abraham, elites have chosen the status of an unworthy slave only fulfilling the obligations of their debt to the Roman Empire.
Reading through this lens, we could paraphrase this passage this way: “So you wealthy elite, when you have done everything you were told to do by your Roman overseers, should say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have only done our duty.’”
Jesus is seeking to wake the elites up to the reality of what they are doing to others by humiliating them with their classist estimation of others and the world around them.
There are other places in the gospels that refer to disciples as slaves. I interpret our reading this week as naming the elites as slaves of Roman imperialism. I’m also thankful that even the language of referring to disciples as slaves was ultimately replaced in the Jesus story. By the time of the last canonical gospel to be written the author of the gospel of John abandons the reference to disciples as slaves:
“I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:15)
Nonetheless, I find this week’s slave language to be much more life-giving when applied not to disciples, but to the client rulers or “slaves” of the Roman Empire in Galilee, Samaria, Judea and the surrounding regions. It calls me to question my own investment in the way things are today and what capitalism causes me to trade or give up so I can survive in this system.
Jesus calls his listeners to be careful about how they esteem and treat others, because how they were treating others was how Rome was treating them.
What all of this says to me is that the Jesus of the gospels did not separate his politics from his religion. He allowed his faith and his perception of God to inform his politics in relation how others were being exploited and harmed. Remember: all theology is political, because all politics should ask who is benefiting and who is being harmed. The Jesus of the gospels cared about the concrete harm being done to the marginalized and exploited. And our faith in this kind of Jesus should move us to do the same.
Is our faith making us complicit with the mountains of harm done to those our present system makes vulnerable?
Is our faith inspiring us to work today toward moving our mountains into the sea?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What concrete harm being done to the marginalized and exploited in our societal context is on your heart this week? 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.
And if you’d like to reach out to us 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
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice.
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Stories that Shape Us
Herb Montgomery | September 23, 2022
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“This story might have spoken to those in Luke’s culture, but it would not work to threaten people in our culture with a burning afterlife. It’s much more realistic to focus on the gains and losses we experience in this life when we practice this kind of indifferent exclusion.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house—for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’” (Luke 16:19-31)
Folk tales about reversing circumstances in the next life were a staple in Jesus’ world, in Hellenistic, Roman, and Jewish culture. The author of Luke choosing to contrast the lived realities of the rich and the poor is consistent with the theme of economic justice in this version of the Jesus story.
I love the cultural diversity and richness in this week’s story. The influence of Hellenism comes through in an eternally burning Hades, yet this folk tale is also thoroughly Jewish with the poor person being whisked away, not to a Christian heaven, but to the bosom of father Abraham.
J. Jeremias reminds us,
“In order to understand the parable in detail and as a whole, it is essential to recognize the first part derives from a well-known folk material . . . This is the Egyptian folk-tale of the journey of Osiris, the son of Setme Chamois to the under-world . . . Alexandrian Jews brought this story to Palestine, where it became very popular as the story of the poor scholar and the rich publican Bar Ma’Jan.” (Parables, p. 183)
In Luke’s gospel, the author drops the focus on tension between a scholar and a tax collector and replaces it with the tension between the rich and the poor.
I also want to say something about the Hellenistic idea of flaming torment in the afterlife in this story due to its abuse by Christians throughout history.
This week’s story is a folk tale, but the 1st Century historian Josephus does tell us that some Pharisees taught of an eternal punishment after death:
“They [the Pharisees] say that all souls are imperishable, but that the souls of good men only pass into other bodies while the souls of evil men are subject to eternal [aidious] punishment [timoria]. (Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Vol. II, Chapter 8, Paragraph 14; words in brackets added.)
The Pharisaical schools weren’t monolithic: they had a rich diversity of ideas about afterlife and resurrection. Josephus’ report could not have been true of all Pharisees, then, but there must have been enough for Josephus to describe their beliefs this way.
The words Josephus used to communicate what these Pharisees were teaching are also interesting. The Greek word he used for eternal is aidious and the Greek word he used for punishment is timoria. According to Louw and Nida’s Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, aidious meant “Pertaining to an unlimited duration of time.” Timoria, on the other hand, meant “to punish, with the implication of causing people to suffer what they deserve.” Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament explains that the nature of this word is “penal and has reference to the satisfaction of him who inflicts.” Timoria, then is a retributive punishment to satisfy something in the person inflicting the suffering, who feels the offender must experience punishment.
But every time the gospel authors write about Jesus speaking of some type of punishment or reversal of fates either in this life or the next, they use the Greek phrase aionion kolasis for eternal punishment (see Matthew 25:46).
Aionion kolasis was a known phrase among Hellenistic Jews, many of whom populated the region of Galilee where Jesus travelled and taught. Philo, a Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who was a contemporary of Jesus, wrote, “It is better not to promise than not to give prompt assistance, for no blame follows in the former case, but in the latter there is dissatisfaction from the weaker class, and a deep hatred and eternal [aionion] chastisement [kolasis] from such as are more powerful.” (Philo, Fragments)
Mounce’s Concise Greek English Dictionary of the New Testament tells us that aionion is an indeterminate adjective, “indeterminate as to duration.” Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament tells us anionion “gives prominence to the immeasurableness of eternity.” In other words, it’s not that it lasts forever, but that it takes forever for whatever this adjective is describing to accomplish its purpose. We have as much time as it takes, no matter how long that is.
The meanings of the word kolasis are why this topic pricks my interest. Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament confirms what we learned earlier about timoria and compares this with the difference of kolasis, “The noted definition of Aristotle, which distinguishes kolasis from timoria is that kolasis is disciplinary and has reference to him who suffers, while the latter timoria is penal and has reference to the satisfaction of him who inflicts.”
In Protagoras, Plato writes, “If you will think, Socrates, of the nature of punishment, you will see at once that in the opinion of mankind virtue may be acquired; no one punishes [kolasis] the evil-doer under the notion, or for the reason, that he has done wrong—only the unreasonable fury of a beast acts in that manner. But he who desires to inflict rational punishment [kolasis] does not retaliate for a past wrong which cannot be undone; he has regard to the future, and is desirous that the man who is punished [kolosis], and he who sees him punished, may be deterred from doing wrong again. He punishes for the sake of prevention, thereby clearly implying that virtue is capable of being taught.”
The purpose of kolasis, then, is to deter others and to discipline or transform the one who experiences it. This implies that the gospel authors using this term want us to imagine a Jesus who taught a restorative punishment rather than a retributive one. If this discipline is to take place in the afterlife, then the people receiving it have all the time that it will take. This kind of punishment is intended to be something that someone passes through and is changed by, not an inescapable fate people are abandoned to.
Even though we’ve been considering Hellenistic sources so far, the idea of using fire to symbolize removing something considered harmful, like fire removes dross from gold, is also a Jewish idea and part of the Hebrew scriptures:
“The sinners in Zion are terrified; trembling grips the godless: ‘Who of us can dwell with the CONSUMING fire? Who of us can dwell with THE EVERLASTING BURNING?’ Those who walk righteously and speak what is right, who reject gain from extortion and keep their hands from accepting bribes, who stop their ears against plots of murder and shut their eyes against contemplating evil.” (Isaiah 33:14, emphasis added.)
In this passage, those who dwell with “the everlasting burning” are the righteous. From this we might understand that the righteous are those those who go through this kind of experience and are transformed.
Back to our reading. This story might have spoken to those in Luke’s culture, but it would not work to threaten people in our culture with a burning afterlife. It’s much more realistic to focus on the gains and losses we experience in this life when we practice indifferent exclusion in the ways of the unnamed rich person in this story.
Gustavo Guitierrez writes,
“The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.” (The Power of the Poor in History, p. 44)
How this week are you being called to prioritize those our present system marginalizes or disenfranchises, politically, socially, economically, or in all three ways?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What stories have shaped you in your journey? Share one 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.
And if you’d like to reach out to us 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
Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, action, and justice.
Go to renewedheartministries.com and click “sign up.”
Free Sign-Up at:
https://renewedheartministries.com/Contact-forms?form=EmailSignUp
or Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Mary’s Perfume and No More Poverty
Herb Montgomery | April 1, 2022
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
“I want to offer an alternative interpretation. Poverty is a human-made reality, and therefore poverty can be eradicated through our choices in how we structure our societies . . . I don’t believe Jesus’ words in John about poor people should be interpreted as establishing as an existential reality that poverty is an eternal, unchangeable given for our world.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of John:
“Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.” He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it. “Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” (John 12:1-8)
John creatively resets this story from previous versions of the Jesus story by including the characters Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. There are both significant differences and consistent story elements. What is common in each version is a meal, a woman interrupting the meal, a container of perfume, objections from some of those present at the meal, and Jesus’ defense of the woman’s actions. Oral storytelling traditions commonly alter story details for the storyteller’s purposes or the needs of their audience. John’s storytelling does that too.
In John’s version of this story, we are in Mary, Martha, and Lazarus’ home, not the home of Simon the Pharisee (Luke) or Simon the Leper (Mark and Matthew). The woman who interacts with Jesus is Mary of Bethany (Martha and Lazarus’ sister), not the woman of ill repute as in Luke, nor an unnamed woman as in Mark and Matthew, and most definitely not Mary Magdalene (contrary to the 6th Century Pope Gregory, Mary of Magdalene is a completely different character in John’s gospel). Mary also anoints Jesus’ feet (not his head as in Mark and Matthew). Foot-washing was a customary hospitality practiced at dinners in a culture where people ate together seated in a reclining position on the floor, not at a table that hid guests’ feet.
In this story, Mary’s act is one of gratitude, specifically for the events of the previous chapter. In that chapter, Lazarus, Mary’s brother, had gotten sick and died, and Jesus brought him back from the dead to live again. This is a repeated theme in the gospels: life and life-giving overturning, undoing, and reversing death and death-dealing. It is one of the strongest, most life-giving interpretations of the Jesus story. The story is not primarily that someone died, but that that the state’s murder of someone who was calling for social change was overturned, undone, and reversed. The life-giving teachings of this Jewish prophet of the poor from Galilee lived on in the life of his followers. In Acts 13:32-33, the early believers say: “We tell you the good news: What God promised our ancestors he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus” (italics added).
The good news in this interpretive paradigm is not that Jesus died, but that Jesus overcame death, death-dealing and the state. His story is a story of life overcoming death, or love overcoming in the end—love that overcomes hate, fear, injustice, and bigotry.
In John 11, Jesus conquered, reversed, and undid Lazarus’ death. Jesus had said to Lazarus’ and Mary’s sister, Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life” (see John 11:25).
Again, in John, Mary is anointing Jesus in an act of gratitude for Jesus’ reversal of sickness and death and his channeling that reversal as “the resurrection and the life.” We must not miss that in John’s story, Jesus states that Mary had been saving this perfume for Jesus’ burial. So the fact that Mary instead uses it now hints that she has learned his lesson—life and love will overcome in the end.
Those hearing this story are being prepared for how John’s version of the Jesus story will turn out: Perfume will not be needed to anoint a dead body lying lifeless in a tomb. No, that tomb will be found empty. Mary has embraced Jesus as the resurrection and life, and has chosen, not to save her perfume for a dead body but to use it now in gratitude. Love will win in the end. She won’t need this perfume later, and she is banking on it.
So many social sicknesses are in need of reversal in our society, today: the sickness of White supremacy, the sickness of patriarchy and misogyny, the sickness of classism and greed, the sicknesses of bigotry against LGBTQIA people, and many more sicknesses that lead to death. What does it mean for us to live as people who overcome, who genuinely believe that love wins?
Lastly, I want to address Jesus’ words, “You will always have the poor among you.” This statement, which appears in each gospel, has been used by the wealthy to discourage Jesus’ followers from working toward economic justice and social change. In this interpretation, Jesus’ phrase is a prediction that trying to end poverty is futile, that poverty is an eternal social reality and there is nothing we can really do to prevent it. They would like us to think that all we can do to ease poverty in society is acts of charity and creating a society where poverty doesn’t exist is impossible.
But this interpretation benefits those who are enriched by the status quo and don’t want to see structural change. Charity is not justice, remember. Charity can ease injustice but leaves an unjust system unchanged.
I want to offer an alternative interpretation. Poverty is a human-made reality, and therefore poverty can be eradicated through our choices in how we structure our societies.
Consider this passage from the Torah:
“At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the LORD’S time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you. However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.” (Deuteronomy 15:1-5)
This passage states that there doesn’t need to be “poor people” among Israelites. They are being given instruction on how to eradicate poverty. Later in the same chapter, we read, “There will always be poor people in the land [i.e. the surrounding societies outside of Israel]. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land [as opposed to the larger societies in which poverty will always exist because the way those societies are shaped] (italics and capitalization added).
I don’t believe Jesus’ words in John about poor people should be interpreted as establishing as an existential reality that poverty is an eternal, unchangeable given for our world. Even if one does, however, then we can read Jesus as saying that Israelite society has become like the surrounding nations in Deuteronomy where poverty “will always exist” because of their structure. Jesus words here are an indictment of his society’s rejection of the mandate to forgive debts every seven years. Therefore, they were choosing to structure their society by immortalizing poverty as the surrounding nations in Deuteronomy 15 had. These choices can be reversed. We can structure our societies differently. The early Jesus followers in the book of Acts eradicated poverty from their own community in Jesus’ name:
“With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.”
Remember, it was not that Jesus had died, but that he had been resurrected. His death had been reversed.
“And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales.” (Acts 4:33-34, italics added)
Last year, I mentioned these words of Nelson Mandela and Gustavo Gutierrez in Declaring War Against Poverty:
“Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the action of human beings.” (Nelson Mandela, in a 2005 speech at the Make Poverty History rally in London’s Trafalgar Square)
“The poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.” (Gustavo Gutierrez, The Power of the Poor in History, p. 44)
There is a lot to consider here.
How are you being called to be a conduit of love, healing, life, and life-giving in your own contexts, this week?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. How do you perceive poverty as something that could be prevented in our society? What would our society have to incorporate in order to eradicate poverty? Discuss (and imagine) 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
Declaring War Against Poverty
November is A Shared Table 2021 month! Find out more here.
(To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast, click here.)
by Herb Montgomery | November 12, 2021
“Seen through this lens and given Jesus’ love for the poor of his own society, Jesus’s criticism of the state was a criticism of a system that had both created poverty and then further exploited those forced to live in that poverty . . . In the gospels we get a picture of Jesus who, focused on sustainable (eternal) life, would have criticized any system that created luxury for a few at the expense of the many.”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
As Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!” “Do you see all these great buildings?” replied Jesus. “Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.” As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?” Jesus said to them: “Watch out that no one deceives you. Many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and will deceive many. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places, and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains.” (Mark 13:1-8)
By the time this week’s reading was written, the Jesus movement was living in the wake of destructions including the Jewish-Roman war (66-70 C.E.) that culminated in Rome’s razing Jerusalem and the Jewish temple to the ground. These followers of Jesus are trying to make sense of all these events.
Mark’s gospel therefore paints Jesus as critical of Jerusalem and the temple as the capital seat of the Temple State to the point of foretelling their destruction. Each gospel’s version of the Jesus story describes Jesus as critical of Jerusalem and the temple, and Mark even includes Jesus’ criticism as one of the charges brought against him in his final trials:
“Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: ‘We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’ Yet even then their testimony did not agree.” (Mark 14:57-59)
I want us to wrestle with why Jesus, a faithful Jewish male in early 1st century Judaism, would have been critical of the temple or Jerusalem? Think of the term “Jerusalem” here in much the same way as many say “D.C.” or “Washington” when speaking of the system of government centered there.
Christians have long interpreted the events fo 70 C.E. as God punishing the Jews for rejecting Jesus, and that’s been deeply harmful to our Jewish siblings. I want to offer an alternative interpretation.
The Temple was the heart of Judaism during the time of Jesus, but let’s look at this week’s passage in more than its religious context. As the seat of the Jewish Temple State, the Temple was also the heart of the banking system and the food industry (both meat and grain), and the seat of political power for Judea under Rome.
Jesus’ criticisms should not be interpreted as anti-Jewish or anti-Judaism. Jesus was a faithful Jewish man debating within his own society, and his voice was one of many at the time arguing about what it meant to be a faithful Jewish follower of the Torah given the Torah’s teachings on the poor and eliminating poverty. Seen through this lens and given Jesus’ love for the poor of his own society, Jesus’s criticism of the state was a criticism of a system that had both created poverty and then further exploited those forced to live in that poverty.
Those living after the Jewish-Roman War of 66-70 C.E. would have recognized the events described in this week’s passage. As we’ve discussed, the Jewish-Roman War began an initial uprising of the poor against rich Temple elites who served as conduits of the Roman Empire. The poor people’s revolt began with their overrunning the Temple and burning all the debt records held against the poor, and each stage of the takeover escalated. Once the Jewish rebels gained control and Rome was brought in, a war broke out between the rebels and Rome while the Jewish elites futilely endeavored to maintain allegiance to Rome as violent uprising erupted all around them.
Josephus corroborates Mark’s descriptions of this era. In The War of the Jews, he describes “a great number of false prophets” who with “signs and wonders” promised “deliverance” or liberation. But in the end, their movements only resulted in masses of the “miserable people” who followed them being slaughtered by Rome (Book 6.285-309). Josephus also writes of the famine in Jerusalem that resulted when the grain storehouses “which would have been sufficient for a siege of many years” were burned by various “treacherous faction in the city” (5.21-26).Finally, he describes the burning the Temple itself (6.249-266).
Many more than Jesus called the people to address the plight of the poor and to end a system that financially benefited wealthy families at the poor’s expense. The rich got richer and the poor only got poorer.
So Mark’s gospel called its audience to see the overthrowing of such economically exploitative systems not as “the end,” but as the “beginnings of birth pains” for a new world.
This makes me think of how so many living at this stage of the pandemic now long for a return to normal. I don’t want to go back to that normal, a world that disproportionally harmed certain sectors of society while giving others privilege, power, and property. I don’t want a post-pandemic world that looks like the pre-pandemic world. We can do better. And we have an opportunity to do just that now. With all the talk of “building back better,” we must continue to ask “better for whom?” Over the last year, the billionaire class has only become more wealthy despite almost 5 million lives lost globally and over 742,000 within the U.S.
So Jesus’ critique of the Temple and Jerusalem was not about being against Judaism, but rather his opposition to an economic, political, and social system that creates and worsens poverty. I wonder what Mark’s Jesus would say of the United States today if he were on earth?
Jesus’s path pointed us toward life, life to the full (John 10:10), specially for the poor (Luke 6:22)—life and life more abundantly for all. In the gospels we get a picture of Jesus who, focused on sustainable (eternal) life, would have criticized any system that created luxury for a few at the expense of the many. Following Jesus’ path means following him in rejecting any system that manufactures scarcity to create wealth at the expense of vulnerable people.
I’m reminded of the words of liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez:
“The poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled of their humanity. Hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.” (Gustavo Gutierrez, The Power of the Poor in History, p. 44)
Gutierrez’ words resonate with Mark’s picture of Jesus. What would a different social order look like to you? Can you imagine a world without poverty? What would we need to have in place to eliminate poverty? Jesus’ gospel spoke of a God of life who loved all and desired “life to the full” for all the objects of that love.
Are these just words? Do we who follow this Jesus really believe that a world like that is possible? Can poverty really be overcome? The child tax credit that has already lifted 40% of children out of poverty here in the U.S., and the US just approved billions of increased dollars for the U.S. military budget. I wonder what would happen if we apportioned that same money toward a war against global poverty instead?
It’s convenient for Christians to interpret Jesus’ criticism of the Temple as being about Judaism rather than being about addressing poverty. After all, poverty is a matter of human responsibility. We create it. We can change it. If we choose to interpret Jesus’ words as the latter, then we, too, are called to address poverty. That is the life-giving interpretation; the other bears the fruit of poverty being inevitable or unchangeable and therefore the fruit of death and harm.
I’ll close this week with the words of Nelson Mandela from a speech he gave in 2005 at the Make Poverty History rally in London’s Trafalgar Square:
“Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the action of human beings.”
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. Over the last couple weeks, we’ve been discussing what life-giving sharing looks like? Are there societies that in your opinion are managing wealth disparity well. What is it about those societies that you like? What are things in those societies that you feel still need addressed? What parts would you like to see reproduced here in the U.S.? 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
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Getting Free from Fear and Facing the Future Together
Herb Montgomery | October 8, 2021
“Christians have always come up with ways around stories like these in the gospels, but imagine with me this week, a community didn’t try to get around them. What if we allowed ourselves to be confronted by stories like these?”
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!” “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” (Mark 10:17-31)
Our passage this week includes a criticism on wealth and there’s a long history of those benefiting from systems that create or maintain wealth disparity and inequity trying to soften it. It will be helpful this week to hold in mind the reality that the early Jesus movement consisted almost primarily of poor peasants. In addition, multiple narratives in our sacred text indicate that wealth redistribution was a central characteristic of early Jesus communities. Consider these from the book of Acts:
“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. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47, italics added)
“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. 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 4:32-35, italics added.)
The Torah regulated debt in ways intended to eliminate poverty in the community. I see these narratives in Acts as having the same spirit of war against poverty, with the authors realizing that poverty is a human-made reality and not something that must always exist.
“At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the LORD’S time for canceling debts has been proclaimed. You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you. However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you.” (Deuteronomy 15:1-4, italics added.)
Whatever humans create can also be changed by human choices. Poverty is not a universal “way-it-has-to-be.” It presents a critique against the systems that create it, and the greater the wealth disparities within economic systems, the stronger the critique for those who have the heart to listen and understand.
The book of Acts includes another narrative that illustrates the wealth-redistributing nature of the early Jesus community.
“Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.” (Acts 5:1-6)
Whoever included this story in the early narratives of Acts wanted the movement’s ethics of wealth redistribution, resource sharing, and war on poverty to be taken seriously—deadly seriously!
In our narrative in Mark, Jesus recites the phrase “You shall not defraud,” and Ched Myers makes a strong case that this phrase is intended to teach the listener something:
“This is our first indication that much more is being discussed in this story than the personal failures of this one man: judgement is being passed upon the wealthy class.” (p. 273)
We read this story too individualistically in our culture today. The story is not about eliminating wealthy individuals or individual net worth, but rather eliminating an entire wealthy class. It’s a critique of the system that creates such wealth disparity, not a hate narrative against wealthy individuals.
Consider that the story even mentions that “Jesus looked at [the man] and loved him.” Rather than expressing hate against the rich, I want to try and understand them. Societal, systemic change begins with understanding.
I do believe that massive amounts of wealth (billionaire status especially) does something negative to the soul of its possessors when they are an exception in their society—when so many around them have so much less. It must be damaging to have to tranquilize one’s conscience in these cases.
Wealth exercises a stronghold on its possessor, one rooted in fear. Our society is a system of manufactured scarcity: a reality has been created where there is not enough for everyone. This leads to anxiety and a fear of going without, and this fear drives endless efforts of accumulation, too often at someone else’s expense. That drive to accumulate in turn leads to holding more than we need for fear that at some time in the future we may go without. Eventually, wealth-hoarding must be protected against others who have much less, typically through violence. This whole system is violent.
Within such a system of manufactured scarcity, too many people solve the scarcity problem, but only for themselves: to hell with everyone else. Jesus offered an alternative in his own society that I believe we should consider today. He called people to form communities where members pooled resources and all worked to ensure everyone in the community was taken care of. From his very first call to disciples to leave their fishing nets and follow him, Jesus called people away from individualistic solutions to scarcity—whether that scarcity was natural or manipulated—toward communal solutions.
Yet it’s not easy to get free of the fear of going without that drives the hoarding of wealth. In our story, Jesus talks about camels having an easier time getting through the eyes of needles. The camel/needle illustration has a long history of being softened. Greek scribes or copyists exchanged the word camel (kamelon in the Greek) for the word rope, implying that the task wasn’t impossible if one trimmed a rope just a bit. They and the communities that followed them also created the fiction that the “needle” Jesus referenced was a narrow gate or pass in Jerusalem that was hard, but not impossible, for camels to go through. This was completely untrue, but softened the illustration.
Jesus’ point is that just as a camel can’t go through the eye of a needle, so the wealthy cannot enter the reign of God because a society under the reign of God has no wealthy class. That class has been eliminated. This is why the gospels repeatedly say one cannot serve both God and money.
But our goal isn’t universal poverty either. As the apostle Paul wrote, “Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality.” (2 Corinthians 8:13-14)
Jesus offered a community structured so that there was enough for everyone’s needs, but not everyone’s greeds. Our passage in Mark bears this out. Those who had the courage to divest from individualist wealth in favor of a genuine commonwealth would risk persecution from those benefiting from the inequities of the status quo, but they would also receive “100 times as much in this present age.” They would not receive that individually as prosperity gospel preachers teach, but communally. Under this model, no matter what the future brought, we wouldn’t face it alone. We would have each other and we could face whatever the future holds with our combined resources.
This is a community where those the present system makes last are first and those the present system makes first are last, because there is no more first or last. We are all simply humans deserving of human dignity, survival, and thriving. Jesus’ vision for human community offered a path for thriving.
But the economic teachings of the gospels are so little understood by most Christians today. Consider Christian attitudes to the Occupy Movement years ago, Christian responses to AOC’s dress with the slogan “tax the rich” a couple of weeks ago, or Christian responses to the present movement opposing an economy of billionaires. For wealthy North American Christians who prize their individual wealth and liberties over what is best for society and our collective thriving, this week’s reading offers so much to consider. Christians have always come up with ways around stories like these in the gospels, but imagine with me this week, a community didn’t try to get around them. What if we allowed ourselves to be confronted by stories like these? What would it look like if we set our security and hope, not on wealth accumulation, but on creating the kind of communities that made wealth obsolete?
“Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.” (1 Timothy 6:17)
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What could a community that makes wealth obsolete look like? Would this community have to be religious, or could it be secular, as well? What safeguards would have to be in place for both? 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
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Political Jesus
by Herb Montgomery | May 17, 2018
“Jesus was political. Neither he nor those whom he cared about could afford to ignore the systems of injustice and oppression damaging real human lives.”
“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’” (Mark 1:14-15, emphasis added.)
Two weeks ago I stated, “Politics answers the question of who gets what. So Jesus was not a religious figure as much as he was a political one. He did not fundamentally challenge his Jewish religion . . . Jesus’ teachings centered the poor and gave them the entire ‘kingdom.’ Jesus’ teachings were political.” I want to follow up on that statement a bit this week.
It’s important to define the term “politics.” “When I use the term ‘political,’” I said last week, “I don’t mean partisan. Politics means related to the polis, the members of a community. Whenever you have two or more people doing life together, you have politics. Politics answers the question of who gets what.” So when I say political this week, I don’t mean who’s running for a political office. I’m referring to the question of how, within the polis, means of survival and thriving are justly, equitably distributed—the question of who gets what.
Jesus’ teachings were deeply political. He didn’t go around getting people to say a special prayer so they can go to heaven when they die. Rather, he taught survival and liberation for those scratching out an existence in a type of living hell here, now, today. His teachings were not exclusively focused on post mortem destinations but threatened the political and economic structures of his society. He was calling for a new social order now.
We see this present politics in his predecessor, John. John, as our featured text states, was put in prison like the prophets of old, for speaking truth to power. Even today, people are not put in prison for what they believe happens after we die. They are imprisoned for threatening political and economic systems that prop up the privilege and power of the elite. Religious teachings that only focus on the afterlife have been coopted throughout history to legitimate oppressive economic and political structures of subjugation and exploitation. These are the teachings and teachers who “fool” us and leave us passive in the face of injustice, even as we believe ourselves to be religiously faithful. We do not find this type of teaching in either John’s nor Jesus’ teachings.
John was arrested for his teachings, and Jesus’ death was a political death as well. One commentator states, “Crucifixion was and remained a political and m ilitary punishment . . . Among the Romans it was inflicted above all on the lower classes, i.e, the slaves, violent criminals, and the unruly [think political protestors] elements in rebellious provinces not least Judea . . . These were primarily people who on the whole had no rights, in other words, groups whose development had to be suppressed by all possible means to safeguard law and order in the state” (Martin Hengel, Crucifixion, p. 86).
Notice that last phrase, “to safeguard law and order.” Things haven’t changed all that much. In the United States, The Anglo-Saxon ethnic origin myth, White supremacy, Manifest Destiny, slavery, and segregation have all evolved despite the US civil rights movement into a system of mass incarceration that targets people of color in the name of ‘law and order’ (see Stand Your Ground by Kelly Brown Douglas, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, and White Rage by Carol Anderson).
In Jesus’ society and culture, crucifixion penalized political protest and/or subversive threats to the status quo. In Mark’s version of the Jesus story, Jesus takes his teachings from the margins of Galilee all the way to the center of his own political and economic structure, the door step of Caiaphas the high priest himself—The Temple State.
I understood this a new way last week when the Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock spoke on the life of James Hal Cone at Cone’s deeply moving funeral at The Riverside Church in New York City. (If you have not had a chance to watch the service yourself, you can watch the replay online). Dr. Warnock chose Amos 7:10 for his eulogy:
“Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: ‘Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words.’”
This passage not only rightly applies to Cone, but also helps us to see Jesus in his own political tradition as well. Jesus stood in the Jewish prophetic tradition of speaking truth to power alongside of and in solidarity with the oppressed. When rescued from domesticated and house-broken interpretations, the Jesus story in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) is deeply political. Jesus wasn’t running for some office within a political party or as a Pharisee or Sadducee seeking a spot on the Sanhedrin. He was political because he lived and taught in deep solidarity with the oppressed of his time and had compassionate concern for those exploited by the politics of his day:
“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 [all debts forgiven].” (Luke 4:18-19; cf Isaiah 61.1-3)
Jesus had called for those made last in their political and economic system to be placed first in the new social order he called the kingdom or reign of God: “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’ . . . So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:8, 16)
We see Jesus’ politics in the way he related to those labelled sinners, too. As we have discussed, the label of sinner was not used universally as it is in many sectors of Christianity today. In Jesus’ time, it was a label used to religiously define and therefore politically marginalize some individuals or groups.
Yet these “sinners” were the people who heard Jesus’ message as good news and responded positively. Jesus was excluded and labelled as a sinner himself, too, for standing in solidarity with them:
“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” (Luke 15:1-2)
How this label of sinners was used and Jesus’ solidarity with those being labelled and marginalized will be our topic next week. For now, note that Jesus called his followers to welcome and center the very ones those in power had influenced his society to push to the edges and undersides of their society.
“But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.” (Luke 14:13)
Jesus was a genuine threat to the social, political and economic order of his day. He was calling for his society to be turned upside down.
The same day I watched the live stream of Cone’s funeral last week, I also happened to be editing the quotations in RHM’s quotation library under the category “God of the Oppressed.” How appropriate. As I celebrated Cone’s life and teachings and mourned his loss, I was going through quotation after quotation on one of the central themes of his life. In Cone’s book by the same name, he states:
“What has the gospel to do with the oppressed of the land and their struggle for liberation? Any theologian who fails to place that question at the center of his or her work has ignored the essence of the gospel.” (James H. Cone, God of the Oppressed, p. 9)
This is why Jesus was political. Neither he nor those whom he cared about could afford to ignore the systems of injustice and oppression damaging real human lives. Today some people’s privilege allows them to ignore all things political. Politics to them is a bother. There are others, though, who do not have this luxury. For them, the political issues of the day impact their lives directly. And for still others, the policies of the day are matters of life and death. They can’t afford to wait for utopia to fall from the sky some day. For them the time is now; they are trying to survive today. For them, politics isn’t just politics. It’s not a theoretical debate. It’s about people’s lives and their very survival. For these people, and for others two millennia ago, the synoptic Jesus was also a political one.
Ultimately, politics matter because people matter. Following Jesus is not about being apolitical. It’s about endeavoring to apply the politics of Jesus in our context of survival, resistance, liberation, reparation, and transformation, today.
“After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!’” (Mark 1:14-15)
HeartGroup Application
- This week, do a little exercise. Since we are defining politics as how we answer the question who gets what, go through Matthew, Mark, and Luke and try to find ten times Jesus answers that question. Write down the verse, who he is referring to, and what he states they should get.
- Share and discuss your list with your entire HeartGroup this upcoming week. See how long of a list you can make together.
- Compare this list with your own political values and discuss how this list impacts them. Consider what Jesus’ answers challenge or affirm within your own political views. What can you no longer support if you are going to follow Jesus? Lean in to those areas where you are challenged and see what happens.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Wherever you are, keep living in love, survival, resistance, liberation, reparation, and transformation.
Another world is possible.
I love each of you dearly.
I’ll see you next week.
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