Author: Jed Tate

Matthew 25:31-46

Reflecting on Matthew 25 during Reign of Christ Sunday gives us the opportunity to envision the kind of kingdom Jesus proclaims for the future while also seeking to understand his calling for us to live out that kingdom now. And as abolitionists we examine this text through the particular lens of ending imprisonment. Therefore, we get to wrestle with the question: what does it mean that Christ the King declares himself Jesus the prisoner?

This passage opens with the proclamation of Christ’s coming reign and judgment. He will gather all nations – all of creation – as he sits on his throne of glory. Thomas Stegman notes, “Matthew draws on imagery from Daniel 7:13–14—where the Ancient of Days, enthroned in glory, bestows on ‘one like a son of man’ (RSV) dominion and glory—to set forth the full manifestation of God’s reign.”¹ Many of us are uncomfortable with this language of dominion and judgment so the preacher may want to take care here. Perhaps it would be helpful to emphasize that the reign of God means the end of the unjust rule of present, oppressive powers. If Christ is king, then oppressors are not. And if Jesus is judge, then our systems of judgment and punishment will be replaced by something else altogether. This new kingdom will be marked instead by compassion and justice.

Care for the “least of these” (v. 40), the people Howard Thurman described as the disinherited, is central to this passage. Compassion for people who are hungry, poor, sick, and incarcerated is so important to Jesus that he says how people have treated them is how they have treated him. When Christ returns and reigns, the question of compassion will be a (the?) primary concern. Our calling, then, as Jesus’s followers is to serve people in need with works of mercy, here and now, trusting that God’s coming kingdom will bring about complete liberation for the “least of these.”

And so, with compassion and care, we visit the prisoner knowing that we are somehow visiting Jesus. This is what it looks like to live into God’s kingdom now. But I tend to believe that, in addition to compassion, Jesus is also calling us to the work of justice as well, which includes the abolition of prisons. After all, if the Son of Man, Christ the King who will one day come in glory, has chosen to be enfleshed as the prisoner, then shouldn’t we have hope that he will, in time, set the prisoner free and end incarceration itself? And as his followers, as people living into the reign of Christ right now, don’t we have a calling to participate in the building of the prison-less Kingdom? What if we built houses and hospitals and community centers and even churches with the bricks of the prisons we dismantled all because we knew that Jesus was behind those walls?

I think any preacher would do well to highlight themes of compassion in a sermon on Matthew 25; however, I believe there is also a declaration of justice. Jesus is proclaiming the good news of the coming kingdom, and inviting us to participate in its construction through the work of mercy for the oppressed. How might we, as preachers who are abolitionists, inspire wonder and spark imaginations about what it might look like to follow Christ the king who is Jesus the prisoner?

Jed Tate is a United Methodist pastor in North Carolina.

1. Thomas D. Stegman, “Exegetical Perspective on Matthew 25:31–46,” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year A, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, vol. 4 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 333. ↩︎

This Gospel passage tells us that the Pharisees and Herodians were trying to entrap Jesus. “Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” (Matt 22:17, NRSV). With this question, they tried to force Jesus to choose between loyalty to his people and loyalty to his government. Paying taxes meant supporting the oppressive Roman regime, with its military-police who bully and abuse residents; incarcerate, torture and execute dissidents; and wage wars of colonial expansion. That was a betrayal to the colonized people of Judea. Encouraging people not to pay taxes was a surefire way to provoke Roman wrath and be labeled a criminal who deserves to be incarcerated, tortured, and executed — as Jesus would soon experience. (Remember that this text is set during Jesus’ final week, between his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his Last Supper, arrest, and crucifixion.) Jesus very deftly skirted the trap by telling his interrogators to show him a denarius coin and asking them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” (Matt 21:20, CEB). They identified Caesar Tiberius’ face on the coin. Jesus famously told them, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” (Matt 22:21, CEB). 

The key word that the Common English Bible translation makes plain for us is “image” in verse 20 (Gk. eikōn, literally “icon”). The 3rd century north African theologian Tertullian interpreted this to mean that we should give “the image of Caesar, which is on the coin, to Caesar, and the image of God, which is on [humans], to God; so as to render to Caesar indeed money, to God yourself” (Tertullian, On Idolatry, chp. 15). In other words, we owe God our very lives because we human beings are made in the image of God.

What does this have to do with the abolition of prisons and police? First of all, this question about taxation is very relevant to contemporary conversations about defunding and divesting from prisons, police, and other harmful aspects of the criminal-legal system. As Jesus teaches elsewhere, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21). It is right to question the morality of paying into systems that control, abuse, and destroy lives. 

Secondly and relatedly, the way we treat the accused and incarcerated is dehumanizing. It defaces the image of God in each one of its victims. Police and prisons function to strip so-called “criminals” of their God-given dignity and human rights. But Jesus calls us to offer our whole selves, souls, and bodies to God because we belong to God. Belonging to God means that we do not belong to jailers, wardens, judges, governors, presidents, or Caesars. Even if they take our money, they should not and cannot take the image of God that is fundamental to who we are. 

It is easy to use dehumanizing and demonizing language to describe criminals and enemies to justify the evils of police, prisons, and war. Demons and monsters don’t need to be treated with mercy or respect, after all; they simply must be destroyed at all costs. Right now, we are hearing about the dehumanization of Palestinians and Israelis alike (depending on your source) in the reports coming from this month’s brewing war . We are regularly exposed to the dehumanization of criminals in sensationalist, fear-mongering local news. But even those who commit heinous, dreadful, evil behaviors are not monsters. They are no less our siblings because we were all made in the image of God and God declared all of us “very good” (Genesis 1:27, 31, NRSV). God does not allow us to distance ourselves from other members of the human family. Offering ourselves up to God must lead to a recognition of the divine spark in every other person on earth. It must lead us to more compassionate responses to violence and crime in our neighborhoods and around the globe. It must lead to abolition of the United States’ violent, dehumanizing prison and police systems.

The Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda is the rector of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Savannah, GA, and the Missioner for Racial Justice of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.

In a field not too far from my home, a grapevine struggles to survive. The field wasn’t always just a field; wildflowers and fruit trees grew there not too long ago. At one time, the landowner allowed others to plant vegetable gardens there as well. But eventually he decided he preferred the look of golf courses instead. The gardeners were told to leave. The fruit trees were cut down. The flowers were replaced with grass. That single grape vine still lives at the edge of the property. Occasionally, one of the former gardeners sneaks by to harvest some of the grapes, but the vine isn’t as fruitful as it used to be due to neglect. Where there was once abundance, the landowner’s abuse has produced barrenness. 

In Isaiah’s parable, the prophet sings of his beloved who planted a vineyard and did not neglect the vines, but nurtured them with care and provision. Despite the love and nourishment poured into the vineyard, though, something went wrong. The vines produced wild and rotting grapes. Eventually, the one who planted the vines, seeing they were not fruitful, allowed them to go to waste. 

If the metaphor is unclear to his readers, Isaiah explains in verse 7 that the vineyard and grape vines represent Israel and the people of Judah, but where the Lord expected justice (mishpat) among them, there was bloodshed (mispakh), and where God expected righteousness (tsedaqah), there was a cry of need (tse’aqah). God loved and nurtured God’s people and expected fruitfulness from them but found corruption instead. Where God intended abundance, instead there was violence and oppression.

Perhaps we can see examples in our own communities of the ways in which God’s abundant provision has been neglected in favor of oppressive violence. Where there could be community centers and community gardens, instead there are prison cells. Funding that could support municipal housing pads police budgets. Resources that could provide for mental health services are redirected to systems of incarceration. Where God desires abundance, we find injustice. 

And there, a prophetic word is needed to spark the imaginations of God’s people. In barren landscapes, can we envision abundance again? Where we hear desperate cries of need, can we proclaim hope? I have heard that if you spread some seeds in the corner of a grassy field, the birds and wind will spread them even further until that field is covered in wildflowers (although I’ll never admit to having done that myself). How might we spread seeds of hope that invite God’s people to imagine and help build a world with fewer prisons and more vineyards?

Jed Tate is a United Methodist pastor in North Carolina.

Isaiah 51:1-6

These verses in Isaiah can provide solace and encouragement for the abolitionist faith community. Those of us working toward freedom for people who are oppressed and imprisoned may find ourselves weary from the difficult struggles necessary for meaningful change in the world. Perhaps we mourn losses or suffer exhaustion or hear disheartening voices. Yet, the prophet turns our attention to the Lord who promises comfort, justice, and salvation.

“Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the Lord.” These words spoke to God’s people who were exiled from their home. Now, their exile was ending, and yet they had lost so much. Surrounded by the wreckage of loss, they must have wondered how they could ever rebuild and restore. 

Here they are reminded though – and so are we – of God’s saving work in history. Where do we find hope in desperate times? We look to the stories of our ancestors, and see how God was blessing and empowering them. “Look to the rock from which you were hewn.” Learn from and find hope in the stories of those who taught you. See the different ways that God was working with and through them to plant gardens in deserts. God liberated before; God will liberate again.

Who might you look to? Whose story can you tell? Are there stories from people in your church (or their ancestors) that might help renew and energize the congregation in their work toward restorative and transformative justice? 

We engage with history to learn from history because God moves in history. The goal here, then, is not nostalgia, but education and inspiration. We look back as we step forward, holding onto God’s promises of justice as a light to the people (v. 4) and salvation that will be forever (v. 6). We remember the story thus far to help us find the courage to imagine and write the story to come.

God liberated before; God will liberate again.

Jed Tate is a United Methodist pastor in North Carolina.

Genesis 22:1-14

From a transformative justice perspective this story is particularly challenging. Human sacrifice, whether for cultic purposes or in the name of “justice” is directly opposed to the aims of TJ. The preacher has a decision to make when faced with this story then; they can either preach against the text, ultimately condemning the whole situation or they will have to help their hearers accept that the ethics of human sacrifice is not really what this passage is about. How worthwhile that is will depend on what the preacher pulls out of the text. In any case the horror of God’s command must be addressed. 

In the first case, one might present an explanation that lulls the audience into accepting the thinkability of human sacrifice in the context of this passage, and then draws connections to the way horrors today, in our prison and policing systems, are all-too-thinkable. In a world in which people were confronted with the capriciousness of death and suffering in nature, sacrificial systems became a way to exercise control, work for some kind of safety, and protect as many lives as possible. Human sacrifice was always a last resort, tried in the most dire circumstances, an attempt to stay the devastation. Aren’t we all too willing to create systems of violence in the name of safety? 

The preacher could go on to point out the way systems of harm and violence begets more harm and violence in this narrative. The preacher could look at Sarah and Abraham’s pattern of harm: He pretends Sarah is his sister and allows other men to take her, he has sex with Hagar without her consent and allows Sarah to abuse her, and Sarah pushes out Ishmael and Hagar in fear and jealousy. Is it any wonder that Abraham would be willing to sacrifice his son? And what would this mean for Isaac? Traumatized at a young age, he seems to re-enact many of his father’s sins, is eventually betrayed by his wife, and tricked by his youngest son. The solution is not more harm, more violence. We must break the whole cycle. 

On the other hand, a more positive reading of the text could acknowledge these problems, but remind the hearers that this is not a story about the ethics of human sacrifice. As all three of the Abrahamic religions have traditionally asserted, this is a story about Abraham’s faith and how Abraham became the patriarch of innumerable people of faith. 

Retelling Abraham’s story through the lens of faith, we find that Abraham’s faithlessness consistently led to harm and violence. Abraham was clearly willing to pursue the promise God laid before him, leaving his home at God’s command, but as soon as he entered foreign lands his faith wavered, leading to the lies and schemes discussed above. God continually cleans up the messes Abraham’s (and Sarah’s) faithlessness makes, and reassures Abraham that God will give him innumerable prodigy, making him the father of a great nation. 

Even after Isaac is born, it isn’t clear that Abraham has placed his faith in God and God’s promise. It’s clear that he desires God’s promise and will do whatever it takes to attain it, but can he act in faith that God will uphold God’s covenant with him, even when God asks him to do something that seems to go against that very same promise? Abraham’s response to Isaac reveals that he does have this kind of faith, “God will see to it, my son.” 

There is a sense in which this experience doesn’t just reveal Abraham’s faith, it helps him become a person of faith, and while the preacher needs to be careful to note that this story doesn’t justify violence (it has, in its interpretative history, actually been understood as the end of human sacrifice), for a Christian, faith is a meaningful part of transformative justice work. 

In pursuit of justice, the reduction of harm, and communal well-being, we will be accused of working against justice. The closure of jails and prisons, the defunding of police and the willingness to work with people who have been criminalized for harming others (at times in almost unthinkable ways) will feel risky to many, but God has promised us that prisoners will be set free and lions will lay down with lambs. Do we have faith in God’s promises? 

The author of Hebrews, in the beginning of his reflection on faithful ancestors, writes that “Faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don’t see,” (11:1). Just as Abraham’s faithful act made him the father of three faiths, this story suggests that when we embody our faith, we will be the reality we hope for and the proof of what we don’t see. 

In this fraught story, there is much to fret over, whichever interpretative direction you choose. Whether you choose to preach against or with the text this story does not reach an easy conclusion. Much like our work in the world, it is a risk to work with a story of potentially (and too often actually) great harm. May your words transform the harm in this story into a message of hope and healing.

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

John 10:1-10, Psalm 23, Acts 2:42-47 

What is the Reign (Kingdom) of God like? When Christ comes again in glory, what do we expect that eschatological future to hold? What do we imagine God’s paradise is like, in which Jesus, the Lamb of God, is finally enthroned as eternal Ruler? And, for the purposes of this blog, do we imagine that there are police or prisons in God’s dominion of heaven?

Jesus points us toward the Rule and Reign of God throughout his earthly ministry, preaching about it not only as a future reality, but a present one (e.g., Mark 1:15; Luke 17:21). This Sunday’s scripture passages never use the phrase “kingdom of God” but they each point to that reality in their own way. 

In John 10:10, Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” The second sentence is quite famous, but abundant life is presented as a direct contrast to stealing, killing, and destroying. These are the properties of all the tendrils of the prison-industrial complex. Police and prisons do not fundamentally exist to keep people safe, but to maintain a status quo social order that is unequal in race, socio-economics, gender, sex, and more. The criminal-legal system is designed to steal, kill, and destroy people’s lives toward those ends. Even when the individuals involved wish for better outcomes, the system is rigged. It does not pursue abundant life.

The abundant life that Jesus calls us to is like the world of the early church in Acts 2:42-47. As this community shared in God’s Word and Sacraments, they also shared possessions and goods for the wellbeing of all. They cared for all so that none were in need. Even if Acts’ idyllic depiction was a very short-lived historical reality, the point remains that this is the dream for how Jesus-followers will live. Similarly, Psalm 23 imagines God providing peace and reconciliation with one’s enemies. The godly will share tables and break bread even with those who have trespassed against them. In such a world, there are no prisons because there is no need for prisons.

People may call this an unrealistic dream, but it’s hard to argue that it isn’t God’s dream for the world. And again, it isn’t just God’s dream for a far-off future. The Reign of God is “already, but not yet.” It is both a thing we pray and hope for God to realize when Christ comes to judge the earth and a goal for our human communities, as modeled by the church in Acts 2. If we truly believe that God desires abundant life for creation, we must reject all systems that steal, destroy, and kill, including police and prisons.

The Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda is the rector of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Savannah, GA, and the Missioner for Racial Justice of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia.

1 Peter 1:17-23

In Break Every Yoke: Religion, Justice, and the Abolition of Prisons, Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd claim that one of the problems with US American’s conception of justice is that it has become too small. Instead of identifying justice with a divine yet to be fully realized law that we struggle to make real in our world, justice has become equated with the unbiased application of current criminal law. They argue that this is why the eventual obsolescence of prisons went from an almost foregone conclusion (the expected end to the pursuit of justice) in the early 70s, to an almost unthinkable utopic vision. 

The lectionary passage today speaks to the need for Christians to believe in a utopian vision, conforming their minds and their lives in obedience to a law that is beyond the current legal social order. In doing so, they remain sojourners in their land, forced to struggle (and at times suffer) within the tension of a certain, but not yet realized, just and loving community. As they attempt to embody this vision in Christian community, they provide a witness to the world God is working to bring into reality through Christ. 

The abolitionist preacher can highlight the theme of obedience to God as our Father to bring this message out of the text. The preacher can also remind hearers of Jesus’ command “Don’t call anybody on earth your father, because you have one Father, who is heavenly,” (Mt 23:9 CEB). In a legal system that was structured around the power of earthly fathers, the command to give obedience to God as our father undermined their obedience to unjust human fathers and the paterfamilias system. This is why the author of 1 Peter states that they were liberated from the futile ways inherited from their ancestors (1:18). The Greek term, often translated as “ancestors,” is related to the word for father, making the subversion of earthly fathers’ authority clear. Likewise, we are not called to obey and maintain our current justice system, but to seek the fullness of divine justice. This divine justice liberates us from bondage to our current (in)justice system. 

The author of 1 Peter acknowledges that this is difficult. It puts us in tension with a world that seeks power, stability, and safety through a broken, abusive system. We must tolerate the tension, conflict, and at times suffering that living with integrity and pursuing God’s vision for the world can provoke. At the same time, our difference offers a witness to the world. We are called to embrace our otherness, our strangeness and state of exile in this world because our communal witness speaks to the kind of justice that is possible. When we live in obedience to God’s truth and have faith in God’s justice our relations with each other will be “marked by genuine affection and deep and earnest love,” (1:23). Our churches then, should be communities where God’s transformative justice is imagined and worked out. 

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

John 11:1-45

Just imagine. Imagine that new creation, that resurrection is actually possible. Imagine, even, that not only is resurrection possible, but God has already begun bringing about the restoration of the world, all of creation, and our invitation is to participate in this Missio Dei. 

Of course, this renewal can be hard to picture when we’re surrounded by systems of death and imprisonment. Perhaps as abolitionists, you and members of your faith community have been struggling against the ongoing expansion of policing and incarceration, and there are times when you feel discouraged. Oppressive forces have a way of making themselves seem inevitable; meanwhile, the damage they inflict causes so much pain and harm in our communities. We lament the death that surrounds us, as we should, and yet we do not grieve alone.

When Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha dies, his sisters and his community mourn the loss of someone they loved so dearly. When Jesus and his disciples eventually join them, Martha says to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (v. 21). She is hurt, and understandably so; when we suffer the grief of death, we want to cry out to God, “where were you?”  And yet Jesus has drawn near. He loved Lazarus and his sisters (v. 5), and he mourned with Mary and Martha, weeping over the death of his friend and their brother (vv.33-35). We are reminded that God is with us in our despair, and grieves alongside us. But despair is not the final word, and neither is death.

Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life” (v. 25). Resurrection is present now in Jesus. Restoration and renewal are here now. New creation is beginning now. Jesus calls out to Lazarus to come out from the tomb, and the man who was dead and still bears the cloth strips of one who was buried now walks. Jesus says, “Unbind him, and let him go” (v. 44). This is his word for us too. Our calling is the same: to work alongside Jesus as he unbinds the bound.

We are right to mourn the death that surrounds us, and to lament the injustice caused by systems of incarceration. God mourns with us. However, we continue to hope because God promises resurrection – this is the good news that the preacher must proclaim. And we are empowered to participate in God’s work of renewing the world. We continue to do the work, alongside Jesus, of unbinding the bound. This is our invitation, our calling.

In his book, The Spirituals and the Blues, James Cone quotes these lyrics from a Black Spiritual¹:

Children, we shall be free
When the Lord shall appear.
Give ease to the sick, give sight to the blind,
Enable the cripple to walk;
He’ll raise the dead from under the earth,
And give them permission to talk.

Just imagine.

Jed Tate is a United Methodist pastor in North Carolina.

[1] James Cone, The Spirituals and the Blues, 34.

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

How do you feel about the book of Romans? Whether you were raised in dominant American Christianity or just absorbed it through osmosis, it is very hard to open Paul’s letter to the church in Rome and not hear it in the voice of modern evangelicalism, contrasting “faith” and “works” and proclaiming a Jesus who “frees us from ‘the law.’” The supersessionist replacement theology of Paul the American Christian would be confusing to Paul the 1st-Century Jew, and to his Gentile and Jewish audience. 

Thankfully, in recent decades there has been an abundance of scholarship asking, in essence, “What if Paul wasn’t a self-hating Jew?” At the risk of summarizing an entire academic library in a few sentences, this new perspective argues that for Paul, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus acts to welcome Gentiles into God’s family without replacing or reducing the Chosen-ness of the Jewish people. And this happens, crucially, not because of our own “righteousness” in faith (as the NRSV translates this passage), but because of God’s righteous commitment to us. Our faith doesn’t “save” us Gentiles, God’s love has already redeemed us. God leaves no one behind.

We can continue to debate this, but for me this reading helps us see and understand Paul the incarcerated organizer. Here, God does not ordain punishment—human or divine—for our unbelief or our bad works. If all people are now inheritors of God’s Chosen-ness, we all “inherit the world” through the righteousness of God’s belief in us. Whether or not we keep the faith or behave well, God has faith in us. God is rooting for all of us, collectively as a species. As Jewish poet Aurora Levins Morales writes,

This time we’re tied at the ankles.

We cannot cross until we carry each other,

all of us refugees, all of us prophets.

No more taking turns on history’s wheel,

trying to collect old debts no-one can pay.

The sea will not open that way. 

This time that country

is what we promise each other,

our rage pressed cheek to cheek

until tears flood the space between,

until there are no enemies left,

because this time no one will be left to drown

and all of us must be chosen. 

This time it’s all of us or none. 

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.