Author: Hannah

Matthew 25:1–13

The parable of the bridesmaids which we read this week always presents a challenge for me. I’m angry at the wise bridesmaids for refusing to share their oil, even at the risk of everyone running out! Wouldn’t it be better to engage in mutual aid and insist that we can only all find safety and salvation together, even if we risk somehow “failing” the expectations of an outside authority figure?

I found help this week in Aaron J. Smith’s reframing of the parable. Smith’s key conclusion is that the point of the parable — Jesus’ admonition at the end — is not about the oil at all, but is to stay awake. “Staying awake would have changed the story,” he writes. It’s because all the bridesmaids fall asleep that the crisis with the oil arises at all. Maybe, then, the point of the parable isn’t about how to hoard our own oil to have “enough” — maybe it’s about how we can stay awake to each other in order to find new ways for all to have enough.

I do think the questions raised by this parable about how to have “enough” to carry on are deeply relevant to our work for abolition. A conversation with a friend and fellow organizer this week got me thinking about how so many movement campaigns and organizations seem to be struggling or slowing right now. It feels like reactionary elements are ascendant against the abolition movement. It feels like many of us are in what Carlos Saavedra calls a “winter” season in movement work: a time to regroup and focus on our own values, and a time to “keep our lamps trimmed and burning.”

The question posed by this parable is how we get through seasons of winter, seasons when the end is not in sight and victories are few and far between. Do we see the answer in the oil, and finding ways to reserve sufficient oil for ourselves by stepping back to refocus on what brings us life? Do we see the answer in doubling down on our values, insisting that what the parable provokes is really the insistence that the bridesmaids should have shared and stayed awake in faith to see what would happen? Do we see the answer, as Smith suggests, in “staying awake,” being present to one another as we make what Andrea Ritchie calls “critical connections” in her new book on abolition and emergent strategy and wait to see where they lead?

What is it, the parable of the bridesmaids asks but (I think) does not answer, that sustains us all as we wait?

Hannah Bowman is the founder and director of Christians for Abolition.

Micah 3:5–12

The prophet Micah explicitly connects the injustice by which the rich and well-connected receive different justice than the poor as infidelity to God in today’s reading:

“Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob and chiefs of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all equity, who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong. Its rulers give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets give oracles for money; yet they lean upon the LORD and say, “Surely the LORD is with us! No harm shall come upon us.”

Micah promises divine judgment against Israel, its destruction allowed by God, because of this inequity: the giving of judgment for a bribe. (As well, of course, as the restriction of religious knowledge to those who can pay!)

We see this inequity in our modern justice system as well. As attorney and activist Bryan Stevenson has famously said, “We have a justice system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent.” Examples of the inequality in our justice system abound. Money bail is a particularly heinous example of the economic inequity in our system — poor defendants languishing in prison while rich ones do not — and one that is explicitly addressed elsewhere in scripture as an obligation.

Like the rulers of Israel who heard the words of Micah, we cannot claim not to know the inequity of the system. Abolition calls us to seek the end of systems of prisons and policing for many reasons: because of their racist basis and effects; because of the inherent inhumanity of incarceration and the affront to human dignity of punishment, exclusion, control, and state violence; because they are ineffective responses to harm. But we must always remember that inequity toward the poor is also always at the heart of systems of policing and prisons. “Good news for the poor” may be “bad news” for these systems, just like the harsh news proclaimed by Micah.

Hannah Bowman is the founder and director of Christians for Abolition.

Isaiah 25:1–9

As we prepare for worship on Sunday, especially those of us who preach, I know that each one of us is wrestling with what word to offer regarding the war in Palestine. For anyone who speaks of good and evil publicly—and with social media, that is all of us—we can easily become overwhelmed with the anxiety of choosing the right words, anticipating the counter-arguments, and not disappearing into empty discourse. 

This week my social media offered me a plethora of positions. First, the ‘stand with Israel’ crowd which itself ranged from ‘Israel has the right to self-defense’ to explicit calls for genocide. Second came ‘we grieve the violence on both sides,’ that ahistorical appeal to ‘peace.’ To the left of that are organizations and individuals trying to hold the grief and suffering of Israelis alongside a larger critique of the occupation and apartheid and/or Israel as a settler-colony. And finally, some have called for liberation by any means necessary, considering murdered Israeli civilians unavoidable collateral in the anti-imperial struggle.  

How we talk about violence, resistance, colonialism, anti-semitism, anti-Arab racism, genocide, the US war machine, and Christian Zionism matters a great deal, but in times like this our words (and our infographics) feel deeply inadequate for the task of creating justice.

Instead of moral righteousness, mostly I feel grief and complicity. This past Sunday, I told my church that the blessing and burden of pacifism (we’re Mennonites) is that we grieve all violence, and we grieve our own complicity and our failure to prevent death and suffering. 

This Isaiah passage is deeply disturbing and timely in its vision: ‘For you have made the city a heap…. you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress…. And God will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever.’ I am wrestling with Isaiah, alternately moved and horrified.

I cannot read these words without picturing Gaza bombed. I cannot read these words without picturing the shroud of fear cast over children in Gaza, or my friends trapped in their homes in Al Khalil, or my Jewish friends grieving relatives in Israel who have been killed. I cannot read these words without wondering where this God of refuge was when early US settlers displaced and ethnically cleansed the Lenape people on whose land I currently sit. I cannot read these words without feeling the ties of complicity and solidarity that bind my body and heart to the white phosphorus being dropped by the Israeli parents, the grieving parents on both sides, or the Gaza children climbing over the broken prison walls to touch the dirt of a homeland they have only known in stories. 

Hope is hard to come by right now. Rather than replacing it with righteousness, I am seeking out a God who will ‘wipe away the tears from all faces’  while still proclaiming the inbreaking end of settler-colonial violence. This God does not keep me passive—as I finish this, I am preparing to head downtown to a Palestine solidarity rally. But hopefully my wrestling with Isaiah and my seeking of God will lead me to humble action on the side of liberation for all people, that larger vision of God swallowing up death forever. May it be so.

Rev. Jay Bergen is a pastor at Germantown Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, and a volunteer organizer with the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CADBI), a campaign fighting to end life sentences and heal communities across Pennsylvania.

Jonah 3:10–4:11

Today’s (late and abbreviated) Abolition Lectionary points us to the prophet Jonah. This excellent post by Rabbi Dr. Liz Shayne points out the possibilities of reading Jonah as neurodivergent, and in particular how that sheds light on his particularly dogged devotion to justice.

I love the idea of Jonah’s anger with God, at the end of the book, being a form of his insistence upon justice. Shayne concludes that God’s commitment to justice and God’s duty of care for the citizens of Nineveh are in tension at the end of the text; that God does not bring consequences upon Nineveh (as Jonah, according to Shayne, rightly calls justice) because of God’s commitment to care.

I wonder if we can see in that tension God’s gently changing Jonah’s notion of what justice is, as well. With abolitionist eyes, we can insist on the necessity of disentangling accountability from punishment, and of looking for forms of accountability which begin from a place of care and healing. I might go further than Rabbi Shayne’s conclusion to suggest that God is presenting to Jonah a different form of justice to be as fiercely committed to: a justice that relies on “reciprocal care” rather than punishment or consequences; a justice that provokes change in ways that do not necessarily satisfy our punitive impulses. In any case, Jonah’s commitment to justice helps reflect God’s own such commitment.

Hannah Bowman is the founder and director of Christians for the Abolition of Prisons.

Matthew 18:21–35

(Editor’s note: Apologies that last week’s post was skipped!)

This passage from Matthew marks the end of an entire chapter on accountability, restorative justice, and forgiveness (as Ched Myers and Elaine Ends note in their book Ambassadors of Reconciliation, vol. 1). The parable here provides a stark contrast between a culture of debt-holding and retribution and a culture of forgiveness and restoration.

As Luise Schottroff reminds us in her book on parables, it is important to resist the tendency to read parables like this one and place God in the role of the king, supporting a view of divine retribution — even when, as in this case, the final verse seems to imply it. Surely, in what Schottroff calls an “eschatological” reading of the parable, which is to say reading it from the perspective of a community waiting for divine vindication, the point is not that God will punish you if you are not forgiving enough! Instead, the stark language of the parable is expressing the utter gulf between a community dedicated to restoration and mercy and a community contributed to retribution. 

I am always hesitant to insist upon forgiveness as an ethical Christian imperative because of the ways that forgiveness language is weaponized against survivors of harm. But there are a number of actions and ways of being that fall under the term “forgiveness”: reconciliation, or restoration of relationship with someone; forgiveness in your own mind, that is, letting go of your own anger for your own sake regardless of how that affects how you relate to the other party; transactional forgiveness, that is, the willingness to accept restitution made to you without any further desire for relationship; and more. Each of these is different; none are required. But I wonder if underlying all of these is a commitment to what I might call mercy: a commitment to a kind of non-punitiveness or compassion, to what is often referred to in transformative justice/community accountability work as the recognition of the humanity of everyone involved (e.g. in this toolkit from CARA). It’s this way of being that I think this parable is calling the Christian community to — communally. 

The point of this parable is that a community structured around non-punitiveness and a community structured around debt payment and retribution are entirely unalike, and God calls Christians to experience and practice a commitment to mercy. The way that works out in any particular situation of harm depends on the harm, the needs of the survivors, and the willingness of those responsible to take accountability and make amends. (For a fantastic and complementary Jewish perspective on this topic, see Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s book On Repentance and Repair.) A commitment to mercy, though, opens new possibilities for creative and life-giving forms of non-punitive accountability in line with compassion and dignity for all people.

Hannah Bowman is the founder and director of Christians for the Abolition of Prisons.

Romans 12:9–21

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. – Romans 12:21

Let’s start with the hard part. The next verse after this one is a troubling one: “Obey all earthly authorities.” And as usual we have been taught to misread this text.

Most early churches grew in the in-between spaces, cities full of war refugees and contested loyalties. Rome had its share of instability, but it also had the center of the imperial metropole and a landscape of local neighborhood governments that operated as a parallel form of collective decision-making. 

It is this parallel structure that Paul references in the next verse. Paul isn’t talking about Emperors. Paul’s call to harmony and noble action is a call to care for neighbors by building and supporting local leadership and community power.[1] 

Most early churches (certainly an anachronistic word) were a blend of Jews and “God-fearing” Gentiles. But the Romans were a predominantly-Gentile church adjusting to a returning marginalized Jewish community in their midst. Prior to Paul’s writing, most if not all of the Jewish people had been forcibly removed from Rome and only recently allowed to return. 

In the face of this, Paul asks that the church offer hospitality to strangers and the lowly amidst the temples of Roman wealth, to avoid the temptation to allyship with the forces of Empire.

“Bless those who persecute you” is not acquiescence. It is a radical call to have hope in the slow, patient work of building neighborhood power and turning the tide. Even in the belly of the beast, we can act with integrity, trusting that our God is moving within our work to bring vengeance and transformation. Another world is not only possible, “the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor.” (Romans 8:22). That is how we overcome evil with good.
[1] See this interview with scholar Robert Mason: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/law-order-and-romans-13/id1441649707?i=1000544881770

Rev. Jay Bergen is a pastor at Germantown Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, and a volunteer organizer with the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CADBI), a campaign fighting to end life sentences and heal communities across Pennsylvania.

Romans 11:1–2, 29–32

For a preacher, the complexity of the epistle to the Romans and the way it has been misinterpreted through an individualistic, spiritual, and anti-Jewish lens makes it difficult to preach a concise and compelling sermon. Furthermore, scholarship on Romans remains vast and diverse and Paul’s argumentation is confusing. He employs forms of rhetoric that are less familiar to us today and addresses social, religious, and political problems that are unique to his context. Nonetheless a central point emerges in this passage: God’s gifts are irrevocable. 

Without getting in the weeds, providing some context is necessary to unpack the force and contemporary application of that claim, and this discussion will largely emerge from Jewett’s Romans: A Short Commentary. Paul’s purpose in Romans is not purely theological. Looking to the end of Romans will help readers understand his goal. Paul believes he has been called to preach the good news of salvation and unity with Israel through Christ to the Gentiles (see also, Eisenbaum’s Paul Was Not a Christian) and he wants the support of the Roman churches. Conflict within and between churches stands in the way of that mission. These diverse conflicts are rooted in Imperial honor/shame social structures that lead members in various factions to judge and despise one another. Not only does that hurt the unity of the churches, but it makes them less interested in supporting Paul’s mission to Spanish barbarians, a group that the Romans would have little interest in unity with. In response to that bias, Paul, using extreme caricatures at times (like the one who only eats leafy vegetables in 14:2 for example), broadly addresses various forms of class, ethnic, and religious differences that suggest that God’s mercy and salvation through Christ is limited in any way. In particular Paul is concerned with social respectability and self-righteousness. An important point to make is that Paul is not concerned with individual salvation and belief. He is concerned with the collective superiority or condemnation of social groups, which are reified and heirarchialized under Empire and through the law. In this section though, we find the culmination of Paul’s grappling with a concern that is very personal to him as a Jewish Pharisee. Paul is in conflict with his fellow Jews regarding Jesus’ status as Messiah, the full inclusion of Gentiles as people of God through Christ, and the coming resurrection. Should Paul thus reject his Jewish kindred or does he continue to affirm God’s saving work through them, and God’s work even through this conflict and their differences? 

Paul is adamant about the latter. God’s gifts are irrevocable. God does not abandon God’s people. When we find ourselves in conflict with one another, we must remember the end of the story: resurrection and grace extended to all in Christ. When we are tempted to feel superior, we are reminded that all are bound up in disobedience, sin, and death. When we are tempted to despise others, we are reminded that God extends mercy, freedom, and justice to all. This faith does not lead Paul to disagree less with his Jewish family. It isn’t a call to conflict avoidance. It is a call, when faced with social and ideological realities that divide us, to discern when and how we struggle together without dehumanization or condemnation. The community organizing phrase “no permanent friends and no permanent enemies” comes to mind. 

For the abolitionist preacher, this is a call to conflict resolution and broad-based community organizing that holds the centrality of grace, the dignity and humanity of everyone involved, and the faith that God can bring about an end that is life-giving to all.

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

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” – Genesis 37:19-20

But they did not kill Joseph. They did not kill the dreamer. The dream did not die. 

The world was not kind to young Joseph, that boy with the rainbow dress, that one with the dreams that defied their lowly position. Being the favorite child of Jacob, who now goes by Israel, doesn’t help in the eyes of the brothers. They conspire to kill Joseph.

There is some act of kindness that changes the story—Reuben “delivered him out of their hands.” But this kindness is thwarted by Judah in his desire to profit off selling his sibling. The story takes another turn towards pain.

The road ahead will be rough. Enslavement, sexual harassment, and incarceration. Reuniting with family in the midst of a famine. The story will end in glory, but we’re a long way from that. And Joseph doesn’t know that. The brothers don’t know that. 

The dreamer does not die, and the dream does not die. 

This story reminds us that ultimately those who seek to kill freedom dreams will not succeed. Though dreamers may be killed, though they may undergo incredible pain and suffering, the dream of freedom survives. Though dreams may be forced underground, though we may think they are dead, God’s promise to us is that liberation is never dead. The struggle continues. Life continues. Do not give up on the dream of freedom. God hasn’t.

Rev. Jay Bergen is a pastor at Germantown Mennonite Church in Philadelphia, and a volunteer organizer with the Coalition to Abolish Death By Incarceration (CADBI), a campaign fighting to end life sentences and heal communities across Pennsylvania.

Romans 8:12–25

This passage from Romans promises the liberation of creation. In the promise that the creation will be set free from “bondage to decay” and will “obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (8:21) we see the abolition of death-dealing systems and powers such as policing and incarceration. Ruth Wilson Gilmore reminds us that abolition requires “changing everything.” Changing everything is the picture painted in this passage of the creation that is being renewed — although the form of renewal we see right now is that of the struggle for justice we are engaged in, “groaning in labor pains” (8:22). The acts of resistance by which incarcerated and criminalized people stand up for their own dignity, by which allies support them, and by which we all demand better systems of communal care rather than criminalization and “organized abandonment” are the labor pains of new creation. The renewal of creation encompasses more than prison-industrial complex abolition, but it does not encompass less. The abolitionist struggle is a making-real and visible of the labor pains of the new creation.

Renewal is not yet accomplished. Abolition puts us in the business of “hoping for what we do not see” (8:25). But what does it mean to wait for it with patience (8:25)?

Surely it does not mean that we cease our striving. Justice delayed is justice denied! Our patience is not a willingness to wait for the world to catch up with the demands of justice. Instead I wonder if patience here goes back to the Latin root of the word, suffering (like the Passion of Jesus). We hope for what we don’t see with the willingness to endure the suffering that is part of the labor pains.

I’ve given birth twice. My experience of the nature of labor pains is that yes, while they cause great pain, they are also unstoppable. The process proceeds whether you are ready to endure it or not. As we hope for the world we don’t yet see, I hope our patience takes the form of enduring that unstoppable force. As we participate in the building of a world without police or prisons, we are sharing in the unstoppable labor of God; we are groaning as we suffer under state violence and in solidarity with those targeted by state violence but all our groaning is part of an unstoppable wave of liberation. And our endurance makes us willing to stay in solidarity, to remain committed, to keep demanding a better world of accountability and care rather than becoming resigned to death-dealing systems of control and punishment.

Hannah Bowman is the founder and director of Christians for Abolition.

Psalm 32

As we enter Lent, Psalm 32 offers a beautiful picture of confession and forgiveness. Besides the classically-theological elements of this psalm, such as its emphasis on God’s mercy, the psalm shows us a way into the pathways of accountability as a positive practice that is helpful for building alternatives to carceral ways of thinking, being, and responding to harm.

After the psalmist tells the truth about their sin to God, God responds not only with deliverance (v. 7) but also with instruction and counsel (v. 8). God’s response is not to forgive, but to guide the sinner into paths of accountability. Following God’s counsel is (theologically) a form of repentance; it is also an empowerment for an accountable way of living in community.

It feels important to always emphasize that accountability is an ongoing practice, and one which is fundamentally about how we live in ways responsible to one another, and to God. Even the more direct work of taking accountability for harm we do is grounded in the ongoing practices of accountability to each other, as Mia Mingus describes. As she poignantly asks, “What if accountability wasn’t scary?”

I think Psalm 32 offers, in theological language, a picture of accountability that isn’t scary. It shows one way of practicing accountability in “joy” and “steadfast love” (v. 10–11).

A further resource for thinking about accountability specifically in response to harm is Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s book On Repentance and Repair, and this guide for Christians studying that book during Lent is a helpful resource. Each of these tools exist to help us conceive of accountability as a liberating, joyful way of moving forward when we have done harm. They let us feel, along with the author of Psalm 32, the joyous, powerful response of God to each of our tiny, halting attempts to turn from harm and make things right.

Hannah Bowman is the founder and director of Christians for Abolition.