Month: October 2022

Luke 19:1–10

Jesus is closing in on Jerusalem when he encounters Zacchaeus, a wealthy tax collector, in a tree. Tax collectors were pariahs in Jewish society because they collected tariffs for the Roman Empire, the occupying force. They notoriously overcharged and exploited the poor. 

Though he was wealthy, Zacchaeus was outcast, and perhaps that is why no one makes space for him in the crowd so he can see “who Jesus was.” Zacchaeus runs and climbs a tree, which anticipates the cruel cross Jesus would soon encounter. As Jesus passes under the tree, he calls out to Zacchaeus by name, commands him to come down, and “voluntells” him to offer hospitality. 

Jesus’ command suggests that this is not a random, curious encounter, or just Jesus’ desperation to find a comfy bed for the night! In this last act public ministry in Luke, Jesus shows the crowd (and us) something about the nature of God and God’s reign—God is the liberator of all creation and is already realizing an inclusive liberatory reign through Jesus. 

Jesus could have dismissed Zacchaeus or continued the warnings about wealth that he issued in the previous chapter. Shockingly, though, he reaches out to him to draw him into relationship. This is a beautiful example of “calling in” instead of “calling out”—an important practice in abolition praxis. Jesus calls him in, humanizing him by using his name. This moment of human connection enables Zacchaeus to respond without defensiveness, and then to open up to change. Instead of calling out his sins in public, Jesus honors him and is even willing to share the intimacy of eating at table together.  

We who follow Jesus share in God’s inclusive ministry of liberation, seeking freedom for all harmed in systems oppression, which is everyone—the oppressed, oppressors, and those who passively participate in the system. Included in those harmed are non-human creatures, land, and ecosystems. In the famous words of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

Of course, the moment of “calling in” is only a starting point of the truth-telling, accountability, and transformation of relationships that are necessary for restorative justice and liberation. In this passage, we see Zacchaeus begin to move in this direction, acknowledging some wrongdoing and offering reparations.He seems to recognize that the loving, liberated life that Jesus offers is far better than all the riches he could amass. Whether he follows through or not is not the point of the passage, though; the point is that all belong in God’s dream of liberation, and relationships are the pathway into it. 

Leeann Culbreath is an Episcopal priest, immigrant advocate, and band mom in south-central Georgia.

Luke 18:9–14

Whenever Jesus meets or discusses tax collectors, the result is a paradigm of justice that differs profoundly from our own. Tax collectors are imperial collaborators, extortionists, traitors, thieves, and subjects of general derision in first century Palestine, particularly from the point of view of the Jewish people. And yet, tax collectors receive not the swift retribution many thought they deserved, but a far more transformational place in Jesus’ thought, including in this parable. 

Take tax collectors in Luke’s Gospel alone. Tax collectors are among the first to seek baptism from John (3:12-13). Levi is a tax collector who leaves his life behind and becomes one of the Twelve (5:27-31). In conflicts with religious leadership, the tax collectors remained faithful to the mission of God (7:24-30) and they come and listen to Jesus’ parables (15:1). And let us not forget Zacchaeus of children’s song fame: the tax collector who repents so fully that it results in significant reparations to those he has wronged. 

Jesus never condemns the tax collectors to retribution but instead invites them to transformation. Jesus (and John the Baptist) are quite clear about the injustice of tax collectors’ activities, which is both explicit in John’s teaching and implicit in the response tax collectors like Zaccheaus have to Jesus’ gospel. This paradigm of transformation and restoration, as opposed to retribution, is fundamental for abolition.  

Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie point out in an essay in Essence that our justice system is not set up for this kind of transformation. Discussing justice for Breonna Taylor, they write, “we want far more than what the system that killed Breonna Taylor can offer—because the system that killed her is not set up to provide justice for her family and loved ones.” While we must seek accountability for police wrongdoing, “arrests and prosecutions … have proven to be sources of violence not safety. We cannot claim the system must be dismantled because it is a danger to Black lives and at the same time legitimize it by turning to it for justice.” [1]

Jesus does not turn to systems of retributive punishment to right the wrongs of the tax collectors, including in this parable. Dr. Amy-Jill Levine speculates that the Pharisee’s proclamation is perhaps instrumental in the tax collector’s disposition toward God. “We might rather see the Pharisee as helping the tax collector,” she writes. “Just as the sin of one person impacts the community … so the merits of the righteous can benefit the community. … Jews who first heard this parable … may well have understood the Pharisee’s merit to have impacted the tax collector. This would be the parable’s shock: not only that the agent of Rome is justified but that the Pharisee’s own good works helped in that justification.” [2] We aren’t given the rest of the tax collector’s story, but we are witness to his first act of repentance and transformation. 

Jesus wants to see a world where people are transformed, not merely punished. Either that, or Jesus wants to see an end to the material circumstances that may have necessitated something we called a crime in the first place. In both cases, the response is not punitive, it’s restorative. The witness of the tax collectors demand a social vision beyond punishment, which is core to the abolitionist conviction. 

[1]  From “We Want More Justice for Breonna Taylor than the System that Killed Her Can Deliver” by Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie, originally appearing in the July 2020 issue of Essence and reprinted in We Do This ‘Til We Free Us. 

[2]  See her notes in The Jewish Annotated New Testament on this parable. 

Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his)is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina. You can find more of his work at wespearsnewsome.com.

Luke 18:1–8

Jesus gives us a parable of an unjust judge in Luke 18. At first glance, we might think that the judge is going to be torn down by the end of the parable, but Jesus, instead, lifts him up.

It would be convenient, from an abolitionist perspective, to have Jesus directly exhort unjust judges to change their ways. Then, we could map the parable directly on to our legal system and point to how unjust judges need to change their ways today. But something else is going on here.

Jesus does not lift up the unjust judge as an example to which we should aspire. The unjust judge marks a reality to which we must face. Jesus, instead, lifts up the widow who comes back to the judge again and again. She doesn’t tear him down or remark about how ill-suited he is for his position. Instead she seeks justice. She asks, again and again, grant me justice.

We don’t know how long it took for the unjust judge to respond and finally be sick of her and grant her claim. It was probably a long time, yet she continued.

Jesus lifts up this parable as a call for us to seek justice from the God who is just and good. We are to seek justice continually, not just now and then. We are to seek justice until justice comes.

This parable offers us an example of how to seek justice. To seek it from God first of all. As well, to seek it from structures in this world that lack justice. This parable offers us encouragement to continue even when faced with an unjust judge, and that if our call is first to God, justice will be done.

Let us be encouraged in seeking prison abolition. Our goal is not to find the perfect judge on earth and use them to further our ends. Our goal is to seek justice with the just and the unjust of this world. To seek God’s righteousness faithfully and continually and to receive Christ’s encouragement in this. God is with us and God will hear us.

Wilson Pruitt is a Methodist pastor and translator in Spicewood, TX.

Jeremiah 29:1, 4–7

Jeremiah’s prophecies are both disturbing and inspiring. They remind us of how embedded we are to systems of injustice and idolatry, and how difficult it is to untangle and release ourselves from these webs of oppression. Jeremiah preaches through-out the reign of five Judean kings. The first king, Josiah, was a reformer. The Judean people had fallen away from God, adopting the customs and practices of the oppressive Assyrians while under their rule, but King Josiah recognized his people’s faithlessness, instituting and promoting reforms outlined in Deuteronomy. Though initially encouraged (see Jer. 11:1-8) Jeremiah viewed these reforms as too superficial, too little and too late. When King Josiah died, Judah fell back into idolatry. Subsequent kings would not work to uproot the oppressive, idolatrous systems in Judah and radically re-orient the Judeans towards a faithful covenantal relationship with God and one another. Jeremiah warned that this would lead to the total destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the rising Babylonian Empire, the death of thousands of people, and the exile of the Judah’s political and religious leaders into Babylon. Relatively powerless and poor or rich and powerful, it didn’t matter, all suffered–in part–due to the political and religious leaders unwillingness to call their people to repentance and enact systemic change. 

And yet, I write “in part,” because Babylon was just as complicit in oppression as the Judeans. Despite Jeremiah’s recognition that the overthrow of Jerusalem and exile was a result of Judah’s imitation of Assyria, and despite God’s providential use of Babylon, no one in this drama is faithful or justified. Jeremiah also preaches God’s condemnation against the Babylonians. This prompts Daniel Berrigan in his book Jeremiah: the World, the Wound of God to wonder what difference there really was between idolatrous Judah and Babylon, speculating that “perhaps… psychologically, spiritually, a form of exile was underway long before the Babylonians ‘came like a wolf on the fold,’” (Fortress Press: 1999, 107). If Judah was acting like Babylon they may as well be ruled by Babylonians… Which leads us to the verse in our lectionary today, often referred to as “a disturbing hope,” where the exiled Judeans are encouraged to humbly accept their defeat, their status as exiles, and settle in Babylon for at least a generation, even praying for the well-being of the city of exile. This would not have been a comforting word for political leaders who were actively planning their next revolt. 

For the abolitionist preacher this context needs to be supplied to understand how this can preach in our time. While the Judeans are certainly an oppressed people in relation to Babylon, they are a people whose minds have been shaped by Imperial rule. The leaders are scheming with other powerful nations. They might seek reform and speak “peace, peace,” but their words are empty when the people are not committed to repentance and repair. The rule of Babylon is more blatant oppression, but it isn’t altogether different. And yet, in the midst of all of this, the poor suffer under political and military maneuvering. God is ultimately putting an end to this violent farce when he encourages the exiled leaders to accept their fate. God will work to renew and vindicate Jerusalem in a new generation under humbled leadership. 

Though it would be a mistake to totally equate King Josiah’s reforms with current reformist policies, Jeremiah reminds us that reforms are not enough if they don’t transform the root of a problem. For abolitionist organizers, this relates to the need to totally reimagine what community care and justice look like. Jeremiah also reminds us that we must be willing to speak truth about political maneuvering that ultimately is using the oppressed for political gain. Consider, for example, leaders who will claim to be concerned about the well-being of prisoners as a pretext for building bigger jails or police reform that simply increases police budgets. Our naysaying to these reforms might, like Jeremiah’s word, feel overly strident and condemnatory, and our predictions of how these reforms will only lead to further violence and systematic oppression might feel as unreasonably dire as Jeremiah’s predictions sounded, but may his example embolden us as we preach against the systems of oppression and idolatry we are enmeshed in today.

Sarah Lynne Gershon (she/her) is an MDiv/MTS student, DOC pastor, and lives at the Bloomington Catholic Worker.