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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.

Genesis 21:8-21

“God was with the boy, and he grew up.” – Genesis 21:20

Abraham and Sarah do not look good in this story. This story (and its “Part 1” back in Genesis 16) lay bare the power that this couple has over the people they enslave. Abraham, the father of nations, is willing to discard Hagar once she is no longer useful (and willing to blame Sarah for it). The patriarch of all Peoples of the Book acts no different from any other slaveholder or lord: Benevolent as long as it serves him, cruel and death-dealing when the situation changes.

Hagar’s story has long been a source for Black feminist and womanist theological criticism of white theologies that would seek redemption in the substitutionary suffering of racialized women, most famously in Dr. Delores Williams’ Sisters in the Wilderness. 

For Williams, there is nothing redemptive about unchosen suffering. Jesus does not die as a surrogate for us. Rather, “The cross is a reminder of how humans have tried throughout history to destroy visions of righting relationships that involve transformation of tradition and transformation of social relations and arrangements sanctioned by the status quo.”

Picking up on these themes, Patrick Reyes writes in his memoir that, “I am not seeking a judge to save us from oppressive rulers. I am not seeking a prophet in the wilderness calling for unflinching faith in the face of adversity. I am not seeking a king to rule a new, more faithful kingdom. I am seeking a Jesus who accompanies me on a journey to survive.”

But this is not, really, a story about Abraham (or Sarah). God is with the boy, Ishmael. God is with Hagar. The God of Hagar and Ishmael accompanies them on a journey to survive. God does not ask them to turn their suffering into a learning opportunity for Abraham and Sarah. “God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow.”

Sometimes liberation and reconciliation do not operate on the same timeline. The Black radical tradition in and beyond the United States teaches all of us that self-determination for the oppressed can be found in the wilderness, away from the centers of power. And in these maroon communities (which might dismissively be called “bubbles”), God and God’s people are journeying together towards freedom.

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.

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person–though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Romans 5:1-8 NRSV

     In the Barnard Center’s video The Modern Roots of Transformative Justice, Shira Hassan talks about the realization that they could build a context for accountability through developing relationships with people who harmed others. She says, “building relationships with people was the most TJ thing we could do.”¹ This enabled them to enact strategies, like encouraging drug dealers to distribute narcan, that would reduce harm. She reminds us that, though our impulse is to push people away who are doing things that harm others, finding ways to increase relational and communal connections is ultimately the only way to create a context where people are able to take accountability for, repair, and prevent harm.

The first half of Paul’s letter to the Romans, which culminates in chapter 5, is best understood through that lens. Paul describes the way death and wrath² as a response to sin only increases sin in the world. They will never produce justice. Furthermore, he reminds us that no one is simply an offender or a victim, we are all caught up in a system in which sin increases through retributive logic. The only way out of this system is through faith in a life-giving relationship that offers grace.  Romans 5:1-8 summarizes Paul’s argument in chapters 1-4. He reminds us that this kind of relationship does not offer life without struggle or grace without the building of character. And in chapter 6 he assures us this kind of gracious relation is not an excuse for sin, it is the context for justification. Our suffering can be transformed when it is toward and in commitment to take accountability, repair, and prevent harm. 

Preachers should be careful to note that we “boast” in suffering not to apologize for remain in harmful, abusive contexts. No. We boast in the struggle, in the midst of great adversity, to communally maintain boundaries that protect ourselves without anathematizing or punishing another person. We boast in the suffering and struggle that comes from confronting the systems that harm our community. The work isn’t easy, but when we put our faith in the power of Christ’s TJ, the hard work produces endurance, character, and hope rather than despair. 

On the other hand, we also can boast about the suffering that comes from taking accountability for the harm we have done to others. We can boast in the “clean pain” (to use Resmaa Menakem’s term) that comes from working to repair harm we’ve done and prevent ourselves from harming others again. This is also a painful struggle, but it is work we can be proud of. 

We do this because God demonstrates to us through Christ that this is the path of salvation: of real, transformative healing and justification. God does this with us through Christ, who embodies God’s commitment to remain in loving relationship with God’s people and whose own struggle and suffering resulted from opposing systems of death and wrath.

¹  https://youtu.be/ZqMxNiKQLHc?t=224

²  Though you will read “God’s wrath” or “the wrath of God” in English translations. Paul always just says “wrath” in Romans, excepting Romans 1:18, where NT scholar Douglas Campbell argues that Paul is using speech-in-character. This is a rhetorical technique like satire, and Paul goes on to refute the claims made in that section. I tend to think Paul does not explicitly attribute wrath to God in latter sections because he is criticizing the use of “wrath” as a response to sin.

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

Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

“Go and learn what it means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’”

This line jumped out from the Gospel text this week as I read and wouldn’t let me go. It’s an arresting statement, an axiom of a different kind of world. We live in a world that requires sacrifice at every level of existence. Capitalism requires the sacrifice of our bodies, our labor, and our relationships with one another to continue to function, for example. The Prison Industrial Complex requires us to sacrifice the highest per capita rate of our neighbors in the world in order for it to function and — allegedly — for us to be safe. 

This sacrifice reminds me of the classic short science fiction story by Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” In the disturbing bit of speculative fiction, there’s a town called Omelas that is happy by every metric you could imagine and prosperous, too. But Le Guin reveals that the happiness of Omelas is dependent on the suffering of a child, locked away in the basement of one of the town buildings. Everyone in the town knows it, but only some choose to reject the arrangement and leave. Most are happy to live in prosperity thanks to the brutal treatment of others. 

Omelas is based on unjust sacrifice, not mercy. Our society is frequently the same. Popular understandings of safety, security, and even justice depend on the sacrifice of prisoners (guilty or not) and the sacrifice of policed communities (again, guilty or not). Jesus does not condone a world based on such unjust sacrifices and instead, in this passage, prefers the company of those often asked to sacrifice for the greater good. He commends the woman “suffering from hemorrhages” who reaches out to him for healing even though it would have been improper. To keep others ‘safe,’ it would have been better for her to sacrifice community and be isolated. But Jesus desires mercy, not sacrifice. 

What would a justice system in our society based on mercy, not sacrifice, look like? What could our world be like if our economics were based on mercy, not sacrifice? We need to decide, as Christians, if that’s a world worth fighting for or if Omelas is worth living in as it is. N. K. Jemisin, who writes stories that are already or will be considered science fiction classics, wrote a rejoinder to Le Guin’s story about Omelas called “The Ones Who Stay and Fight.” Instead of leaving the Omelas we live in, how can we stay and build a new world based on mercy? How can we be sources of healing, justice, and mercy  in a world that would rather sacrifice untold numbers to the prison industrial complex? 

Abolition is the ultimate answer to these questions, the framework for how we achieve that world. But what steps can you take now to make that world in your midst?

Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his) is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina.

Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost begins a process of prefiguring, a form of change-making that is often overlooked in the tapestry of organizers and activists in North America today. We can often call to mind the change-making strategies of activism and organizing and many of us work in one or the other. Activism in protests, marches, emails, phone calls, etc. gets us in the streets advocating for a change. Organizing involves building power to make change with policymakers and maintain coalitions. Prefiguring is something different entirely. More or less, it’s acting as if the world you want already exists and living accordingly. 

Peter’s speech and the radical acts of community-building that follow prefigure the kind of world God wants to see, that God intends for the world. Peter recalls one of the masters of prefiguring, the Hebrew prophets, Joel. Joel and Peter claim that God will pour out the divine spirit on all people, a great equalizing and liberating act, which is what happens not just at Pentecost but throughout the Acts of the Apostles. In the sharing of possessions, the inclusion of new people, and the literal demolishing of prisons, God’s reign breaks into the world in the midst of the apostles living as if it was already here. 

The same task is before us now. We won’t abolish the systems of prison and policing tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean we can’t start living in the alternatives we imagine today. What can your community do to live in the future God wants to see? How can your community live in a world beyond punishment and retribution? What can you put into place now that shows us the world God wants? 

Pentecost began early in the morning, so there’s no need to delay. 

Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his) is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina.

Acts 1:6-14

What is the Holy Spirit? It is mysterious, uncontained, uncontrolled. Though Christian orthodoxy declares the Spirit a coequal member of the Trinity, one with God, far less ink (and blood) has been spilled to define and defend the Holy Spirit.

I am struck here by these simple instructions from Jesus: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that God has set by God’s own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth.”

What is this Holy Spirit we have been given? It gives us power. It travels with us. It wills us to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. It draws our eyes from the skies towards the earth. 

I take immense comfort in the unknowability and invisibility of the Spirit. So much of our work takes place out of sight. Whether it is organizing in the depths of maximum security prisons, the confidential work of transformative justice that can never come to light, or just the boredom of meetings and Zoom calls and everything else that makes the movement turn. But nevertheless the Spirit is at work. Especially when we cannot see it or feel it. 

The “abolition spirit” (borrowing from Joshua Dubler and Vincent Lloyd) is not contained by one faith, in fact it is the remaking of faith traditions in the crucible of struggle. We do not have to look to heaven to find God’s Spirit, we turn our eyes to the earth and to each other. The Holy Spirit of abolition and transformation does not ask for our comprehension, just our acting in power and our witnessing to the truth.

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.

Acts 17:22-31

Continuing in Acts this week, we find Paul preaching to the intellectual elite in Athens. The rhetorical strategy in this sermon is worth reflecting on. First, he appeals to a point of connection, noting that they are religious and worship an “unnamed God.” When he describes the unnamed God, he uses philosophy they would recognize and admire, even quoting one of their poets. Basically, Paul is speaking “elitism,” showing them that he is fluent in their epistemological discourses. This is clearly a way to gain credibility with the crowd and secure their attention, but he doesn’t continue pandering to them. He uses his connection and credibility to unsettle their worldview, calling them to repentance in anticipation of the arrival of the person God has appointed to judge justly… a person their justice system had recently condemned. Finally, he up-ends their expectations by saying that the “proof” of this is God raising this man from the dead. 

That last statement would be shocking to them, because resurrection was not something the Greco-Roman educated elites hoped for. It was the hope of the uneducated masses and oppressed Jews, and represented a perspective that the intellectuals would deride as utopian, magical thinking. Resurrection was not an epistemological proof this audience would have recognized. Paul begins by wooing them, but quickly makes it clear that he is more interested in the kind of justice the oppressed hope for than their disembodied philosophies. His imagination is not fettered by their rationalism or pragmatism. His knowledge has been transformed and freed by the vision of a condemned, executed man vindicated and raised by the God who defines all reality and upholds all existence. There is no justice beyond God’s judgment, which is entrusted to a criminal. 

Abolitionists need to walk this kind of line as well. Even as we familiarize ourselves with the most current research, we cannot be afraid to look foolish. We must engage the intellectual elites. We must engage the pragmatists and rationalists. Yet we also cannot allow that to keep us from boldly proclaiming the gospel of the resurrection of an executed criminal, a man who will come in power and overturn the state’s version of “justice.” Abolitionists pay attention to the insights that can be gained from science, philosophy, and secular academic institutions, but we first and foremost give attention to the hopes, dreams, and knowledge of the people languishing in prisons and poverty.

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

Acts 7:55-60

It is not difficult to see carceral logic at work in the Acts of the Apostles. The frequent response of Roman authorities to the activities of early Christians was prison. Prison existed (as it does today) not just as retribution for alleged criminal activity, but to silence dissent, break up movements, and stifle leadership in marginalized communities. The same logic is at work in Stephen’s execution. The response to a potentially dangerous ideology is to destroy the source. In that way carceral logic comes for everyone, not just those we may consider different from us (i.e., s criminals, actually guilty or not). 

Before any further reflection in that direction, a word about the anti-Semitism present in the Acts of the Apostles is required. Throughout the Book of Acts, we see references to “the Jews” and their supposed spiritual deficiencies and even their “jealousy” of the Christians. The author is communicating these stories with a strong ideological bias and we need to be aware of it. Luke has a perspective that requires the Christian sect to be religiously triumphant and he wants it to become the main expression of Jewish faith (as does Paul who wrote most of the New Testament books). Over time, that has been used in anti-Semitic ways and has led to violence and persecution of the Jewish people. We need to critique Luke when preaching Acts in this respect, because much of the carceral logic at work Luke lays at the feet of the Jewish community rather than the ones actually practicing, enforcing, and supporting incarceration: the Roman state. Be cautious when critiquing the prisons and practices of incarceration in Acts so not to fall into anti-Semitism by mistake. The Jewish community was not in charge of the violent mechanisms of the state. 

Rather, consider directing the question of the persistence of incarceration and retribution at ourselves. Luke says that Stephen’s audience “covered their ears” to avoid hearing the truth of what Stephen had to say. How often do we neglect the cries for justice from prisons? How often is it more convenient for us to ignore stories from death row? How often do we cover our ears to avoid hearing the truth? Abolition of prisons is the inevitable conclusion of our Scriptures, especially in Acts where God is quite literally tearing down prisons. Often, however, it’s easier to cover our ears and ignore it.  

Wesley Spears-Newsome (he/him/his) is a writer and Baptist pastor in North Carolina.

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.