Shows / The Social Jesus Podcast
The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice, and what a first-century, Jewish, prophet of the poor from Galilee offers us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
Episodes
- The Social Jesus Podcast
When Leadership Becomes Self Serving
Matthew 23:1-12 A socially just understanding of Jesus’ teaching recognizes that compassion must involve more than expressing sympathy for people who suffer…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Questioning Our Confession
Matthew 22:34-46 In our reading this week, Jesus contrasts rulers who dominate others and service. The gospels do not measure leadership by the ability to…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Render Unto Caesar
Matthew 22:15-22 These words also challenge those who use religion to protect political power. Jesus’ opponents attempt to force him into a choice between…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
A Wedding Banquet and Participating in Justice
Matthew 22:1-14 Our reading this week invites us to examine what happens when those with privilege refuse an invitation to shared abundance and respond…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Who Owns the Vineyard? Jesus and the Politics of Justice
Matthew 21:33-46 Socially and politically, this is a story about what happens when people who hold power become accountable to no one. They can begin to…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Actions Over Words
Matthew 21:23-32 This story therefore warns against a faith that is satisfied with correct language, public declarations, performance, religious credentials…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Last Shall Be First
Matthew 20:1-16 Throughout history, human communities have experimented with economic arrangements that challenge the idea that justice requires everyone to…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Liberation Shared
Matthew 18:21-34 The story challenges the idea that forgiveness means allowing injustice to continue. The servant who refuses mercy is held accountable because…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Working Together for Liberation and Justice
Matthew 18:15-20 Our reading this week presents collective justice as a process: confrontation before condemnation, testimony before accusation, community…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
When Solidarity Comes with a Personal Cost
Matthew 16:21-28 The question has to be asked, “At what cost? What kind of person am I becoming?” This week’s reading points toward the deepest center of human…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Peter’s Confession and the Hope of Just World
Matthew 16:13-20 We can understand our reading this week as a call to create a community committed to justice rather than an institution built on power and…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Learning to Learn From a Canaanite Woman
Matthew 15:10-28 A disability-informed reading invites interpreters to distinguish between the intended target of Jesus’ criticism, the leaders whom he…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Walking on the Sea of Galilee and Standing Up to Injustice
Matthew 14:22-33 Jesus’ act of walking on the water carries more than mere theological significance. It also communicated profound political and social meaning…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Justice Lessons from the Feeding of the Five Thousand
Matthew 14:13-21 Faithful engagement in justice requires balancing action with recovery. Those who advocate for the poor, challenge injustice, or comfort…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Parables of Justice, Compassion, and Inclusion
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 These parables represent the wisdom of communities gone before us, while encouraging fresh understanding that we can bring to our world…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Parables that Harm
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 Throughout history, societies have repeatedly identified groups of people as "weeds" that threaten the health of the whole community…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Justice Lessons of the Sower and the Seed
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 Throughout Matthew's Gospel, understanding the kingdom means recognizing the Divine’s desire for a world where the hungry are fed, the…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Society as Children in a Market and Societal Rest
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30 Our passage this week eminds us that Jesus’ vision was not one of endless exhaustion, competition, and hierarchy. Jesus challenged…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Welcoming Prophets and the Justice Implications of a Cup of Cold Water
Matthew 10:40-42 In this context, the “little ones” are those who possess little social power, little wealth, and little protection. They are people whose…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Cost of Compassion
Matthew 10:24-39 Our passage this week is a warning against allowing loyalty to tribe, nation, class, or family to override loyalty to the ethics of justice…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Harvest Is Great, the Laborers Few
Matthew 9:35-10:8 This passage also teaches that justice requires action, not mere sympathy. Jesus doesn't simply feel sorry for the crowds around him. He…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
A Tax Collector, A Marginalized Woman, and A Sleeping Girl
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26 These stories also speaks powerfully to us, today. Many people still live at the edges of society because of illness, poverty, gender…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Great Commission, Doubt, and Post-Colonialism
Matthew 28:16-20 Recovering Matthew’s commission from its colonial misuse requires repentance, listening to marginalized voices, and separating the message of…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Lessons from Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21 The Pentecost story reveals that the Spirit of God is not confined to the powerful, the privileged, or the religious or political elite. People…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Luke’s Ascension Story and Our Justice Work Today
Luke 24:44-53 Change may arise from the margins, as Matthew suggests, where new possibilities are imagined from entrenched power. At the same time, as Luke…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Promise of the Holy Spirit
John 14:15-21 Our reading also challenges performative or superficial approaches to justice. It is not enough to claim love or alignment with a cause. The call…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Justice Lessons from the Gospel of John
John 14:1-14 Our imagery this week offers a vision of radical belonging. In a world structured by exclusion, where systems determine who is in and who is out…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Imagery of a Good Shepherd
John 10:1-10 As Christianity moved from the margins to the center of power, particularly after Constantine the Great legalized it in the fourth century and it…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Road We Walk When Our Hopes Have Been Deeply Disappointed
Luke 24:13-35 Our story this week speaks powerfully into our own lived experiences in justice work because it refuses to deny despair. The disciples are not…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
When Doubt Leads to a More Tangible Experience
John 20:19-31 Thomas offers an important lesson for us: authentic faith does not require suppressing questions or ignoring evidence. In Christian movements for…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Resurrection and Our Hope for Liberation
Matthew 28:1-10 Ultimately, Easter invites us to live differently, to embody resurrection in our daily lives, and to practice compassion, pursue equity and…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Justice Lessons from the Final Scenes of the Gospel Stories
Matthew 26:14-27:66 Our reading this week offers profound lessons for justice work today. Beyond the theological significance that so many have derived from…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
A Story of Hope for our Present Moment
John 11:1-45 The command Jesus gives at the tomb in our reading is also significant. Although Jesus calls Lazarus out of the grave, he then tells the…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Justice Lessons From Being Expelled
John 9:1-41 This week’s reading presents to us a story of standing up to the status quo and the risks involved in standing with the marginalized when doing so…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Justice Lessons at the Well
John 4:5-42 Jesus’ words echo all the way down to us today and affirm us as we challenge systems that restrict access based on race, gender, class, sexual…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Nicodemus Visits Jesus
John 3:1-17 Even though Nicodemus is coming to him “at night” as an attempt to save his privilege and status, Jesus knows that it is not possible for Nicodemus…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Temptations of Jesus and Our Justice Work Today
Matthew 4:1-11 This year’s season of Lent begins with Matthew’s version of Jesus’ temptations. Matthew’s version reminds us that the story of the temptations…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Justice Lessons from the Transfiguration
Matthew 17:1-9 For Matthew’s audience, following Jesus meant stepping into a living tradition of liberation and prophetic courage that stretches back through…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Extra: Tribulation Survival Guide: How To Stay Alive When Everything Else Is Dead with Stuart Delony
In this episode we interview Stuart Delony as he shares about his recent satirical book The Tribulation Survival Guide: How To Stay Alive When Everything Else…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Salt, Light, a City on a Hill and a Justice Oriented Faith
Matthew 5:13-20 Today, Jesus’ words caution against forms of Christianity that dismiss social responsibility in favor of spiritualized belief or personal…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Beatitudes in the Context of Social Justice
Matthew 5:1-12 To follow the Jesus of the Beatitudes today is to embrace a faith rooted in justice, compassion, and solidarity with those on the margins. The…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Following the Way of Love and Justice in this New Year
John 1:29-42 Jesus’ ministry emerged out of the movement John the Baptist started, and carried forward its core conviction: faithfulness to God is expressed…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Another World is Possible
Matthew 4:12-23 Where the assurance-of-heaven gospel often emphasizes individual belief, Jesus emphasizes collective or societal transformation. He calls for…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Jesus’ Baptism as Alignment with a Movement for Justice
Matthew 3:13-17 Jesus’ baptism by John signifies his identification with John’s vision. Rather than distancing himself from John, Jesus begins his ministry…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
New Beginnings and Our Justice Work Today
John 1:10-18 “These narratives proclaim that life, justice, and love outlast injustice and empire. In this sense, the Jesus story is God’s refusal to validate…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Christmas as Critique of Complicity with Empire
Matthew 1:18-25 “Our culture’s naturalistic worldview means that what catches our attention is the scientific impossibility of a virgin birth, and this has…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Advent as Good News for the Marginalized
Matthew 11:2-11 Advent rituals remind and call us, like John’s preaching of old, to return to the social justice practices of our various faith traditions, and…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Clearing a Path for Justice
Matthew 3:1-12 For us today, this invitation challenges us to examine the uneven roads in our own world—spaces where poverty, racial and gender based…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Liberation at the Heart of Advent
Matthew 24:36-44 “Today, too many Christians want to claim Jesus so they can go to heaven but leave Jesus’ politics alone because it threatens their privilege…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
A Political Execution: Beyond Atoning Sacrifice
Luke 23:33-43 “The Jesus of our story understood where his actions of standing in solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed could lead. And he had the…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
A World that is Just, Safe, and Compassionate for All
Luke 21:5-19 “Our present crises of growing inequality and the coming environmental collapse are both intrinsic symptoms of how we are choosing to shape our…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
A Gospel About the Living Rather than the Dead
Luke 20:27-38 “While the hope of heaven has historically been central to Christian belief, it still should never overshadow Jesus’ call to follow Him in how we…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Social Vision of the Gospel
Luke 6:20-31 & Luke 19:1-10 “In today's world, where income inequality is widening and economic systems often benefit the few at the expense of the many…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
Luke 18:9-14 “This group, even the more liberal among this group who interpreted all of the Torah through the lens of love and treating others the way they…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Persisting in Spite of Unjust Obstruction
Luke 18:1-8 “In the parable of the widow and the unjust judge, I can understand the challenges Luke’s author must have been facing by trying to inspire people…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Ten Lepers and Christian Xenophobia
Luke 17:11-19 “The word for foreigner here is xeno, from which we get the word xenophobia. The scriptures are far from univocal about the foreigner, though…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Christian Normalization of Social Evils
Luke 17:5-10 “One of the dangers of readings like the one we’re reading this week is that they normalize for Christians behaviors and societal evils that we…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Rich Man, Lazarus and Justice
Luke 16:19-31 “Future reversals of reward or punishment in an afterlife can be a strong motivation. I would rather live by a different motivation though. We…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
The Parable of the Dishonest Manager
Luke 16:1-13 “Our story this week is one that scholars have offered multiple interpretations of. They have spiritualized the story, taken it literally, and…
- The Social Jesus Podcast
Sheep, Coins, and a Preferential Option for the Marginalized
Luke 15:1-10 “The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin in our reading this week both challenge the notion that social justice can be achieved without…