Category: Bible (Page 1 of 3)

a conspiracy of love

a conspiracy of love

July 9, 2025 / / 0 Comments

at the heart of the Gospel

At the heart of Jesus’ gospel is the kingdom of God. This phrase sums up Jesus’ entire ministry and life’s work. The “kingdom of God” points to God’s active rule over human social relationships.

When we read the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we see that every thought and saying of Jesus was directed toward one thing: the realization of God’s reign—marked by love, compassion, justice, and peace—within human society.

a vision of transformation

The kingdom of God, as Jesus preached it, envisions a profound transformation of both human beings and human institutions—social, political, economic, and religious—so that they express the character of a God of love. It brings together personal and social transformation in both spiritual and political realms.

Through metaphors and stories, Jesus described the kingdom as the work of a social and political movement inspired by divine love, restoring what he believed to be God’s intention for humanity from the beginning. Rather than longing for a divine restoration of political and religious power, Jesus painted a vision of God changing the world from within—by creating a new community bonded by egalitarian relationships.

Jesus took the long-awaited dream of a just and compassionate society and made it a living vision that could transform the world.

a vision is like a seed

A vision is like a seed planted in the hearts and minds of people. When it takes root and is nurtured, it can grow to produce astounding results. Jesus used this imagery for the kingdom of God.

He asked, “What is the kingdom of God like? It is like a mustard seed”—the smallest and seemingly most insignificant of seeds—“that someone took and tossed in the garden.”[1]

Some scholars note that in first-century Judaism, a mustard plant—really just a common weed—was forbidden in household vegetable gardens because it spread rapidly and disrupted order. In Jewish thought, order symbolized holiness, while disorder symbolized uncleanness. Rabbinical law forbade mixing certain plants in the same garden. So, when Jesus said someone threw a mustard seed into a garden, his audience understood he was sowing disorder and subverting rule-based holiness.

Like an invasive mustard plant in a tidy garden, the kingdom of God takes root in the world’s domination systems, spreading its subversive message even today.

the enduring domination system

Throughout history, nearly every society has favored an elite minority at the expense of the majority. For thousands of years, economic elites have rigged systems for their own prosperity and control. They extracted wealth from the sweat of slaves, peasants, and laborers, while contributing little to the common good. Social control was maintained through violence and military might, often with religious support. Such societies were patriarchal, with men dominating the lives of women and children, and they often favored one race, tribe, or ethnicity over others.

Biblical scholar Walter Wink (1935–2012) called these societies manifestations of an enduring “domination system” that has shaped human history since civilization arose in the ancient Near East. Wink described it this way:

It is characterized by unjust economic relations, oppressive political relations, biased race relations, patriarchal gender relations, hierarchical power relations, and the use of violence to maintain them all. No matter what shape the dominating system of the moment might take (from the ancient Near Eastern states to the Pax Romana to feudal Europe to communist state capitalism to modern market capitalism), the basic structure has persisted now for at least five thousand years, since the rise of the great conquest states of Mesopotamia around 3000 BCE.[2]

We see the domination system in kingdoms, empires, and dictatorships. Patriarchy has been enforced through customs and religion. Even democratic societies, when controlled by the wealthy and powerful, reproduce the same injustice: massive tax cuts for the rich, bloated military budgets, corporate welfare, vast prison systems, and cuts to social services for the poor are all signs of a corrupt system.

overcoming the domination system

Walter Wink argued that Jesus’ teachings were a prescription for dismantling the domination system of his time. The kingdom of God is an antidote to its injustices—a vision that turns the domination system upside down.

In God’s reign, domination values are reversed: the first shall be last and the last shall be first; the greatest will be servants; the powerful will be brought low and the lowly lifted up; the hungry will be fed and the rich sent away empty.

The kingdom belongs especially to the poor, the hungry, and the grieving because they long for its arrival. The rich, entrenched in the domination system, find it nearly impossible to enter.

Every act of resistance against unjust laws, every effort to transform oppressive structures for the common good, is a sign of the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed.

a people and a task

The kingdom of God is more than a vision—it calls forth a people inspired to transform society through small daily actions. “Kingdom people” lead radically different lives that challenge injustice and disturb the status quo. Their actions form a conspiracy that persistently prods the powers and principalities toward social transformation.

The kingdom of God thus involves a VISION, a PEOPLE, and a TASK. Continue reading

Windswept and Woke: a sermon by Rev. David Felten

June 8, 2025 / / 0 Comments

David Felten is the pastor at The Fountains United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, AZ. I originally became aware of him when he emailed and then phoned me in late 2020 to say that he wanted to preach a sermon series based on my book “A Conspiracy of Love.” I was flattered by the gesture. That series grew to 19 sermons from January through June in 2021. I eagerly watched each Sunday when the church “studio” service appeared of their YouTube channel. Then in 2024, he preached another 12 sermons based on my book “People of the Way” from January to May. (You can see them all at www.followingjesus.org/videos.)

I have come to regard David as my pastor and my friend because he speaks to me about what it means to be a progressive follower of Jesus in our contemporary situation. He is passionate about justice, equality, and human dignity. I regularly follow his sermons on YouTube (www.youtube.com/@FountainsUMC).

On June 8, 2025, Pentecost Sunday, David titled his sermon “Windswept and Woke” in which he compared the Jesus followers in Jerusalem on Pentecost to the current situation in the United States. It is a powerful sermon and deserves to be more widely heard.

In it, he paraphrases John F. Kennedy’s “I’m proud to be a liberal” statement with this comment:

“Stay Woke”

“If by ‘woke’ they mean someone who
chooses to stay awake rather than
sleepwalk through injustice . . . someone who
listens to new voices instead of cling to
old prejudices . . . someone who believes that
health care, housing, education, jobs, civil
rights, and human dignity matter —
then I’m proud to say I’m woke.”

David’s preaching style is warm, casual, conversational, and frequently humorous. Enjoy and be inspired.

Does That Complete Your Order? / The Feeding of the 5,000 / A Sermon

June 6, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Pastor of The Fountains United Methodist Church in Fountain Hills, AZ, Rev. David Felten delivers his studio sermons in a casual, conversational, and often humorous manner. This sermon on the feeding of the 5,000 is entitled “Does That Complete Your Order?” David relates that he once worked at a McDonald’s and he was taught to up-sell an order. As we hunger for justice in a world of poor, sick, malnourished, and marginalized people, how would we complete our order?

For more of David’s sermons, check out www.followingjesus.org/videos to see his sermons based on my books “A Conspiracy of Love” and “People of the Way”.

The Biblical Understanding of the Resurrection of the Dead

May 28, 2025 / / 0 Comments

(This post is an excerpt from An Unorthodox Faith: A New Reformation for a Postmodern World by Kurt Struckmeyer)

 

In spite of nearly universal Christian belief about a heavenly afterlife, Jesus never proclaimed a message about life after death. It was not as if it was a foreign concept to him; the belief was widespread in the Roman Empire of the first century. The Egyptians believed in a shadowy existence after death and had for thousands of years. Likewise, the Greeks believed that an immortal soul continued after earthly existence ended, as did the Zoroastrians in Persia. From the south, north, and east, these ideas prevailed among the peoples surrounding Palestine. But for Jesus, otherworldliness and a future life in heaven was not a central part of his ministry or mission. His proclamation of the kingdom of God was about a transformed life on this side of the grave. It was all about how we live today, not what happens after we die.

So why is there this widespread belief—shared by most clergy—that the message of Jesus was a message about a heavenly afterlife? Perhaps uncritical acceptance of a centuries-long tradition of doctrines created by ecclesial committees and a fundamental lack of interest in serious biblical scholarship is part of the answer. But being afraid to speak the truth to laity is the major issue. Letting people believe what they want to believe is the easier path to take. After all, clergy stand by their parishioners at the graveside when a loved one dies. Comfort, not challenge, is a requirement of their job. Still, at some point it becomes necessary to tell the truth about what is really in the Bible, if in fact the Bible is to be a foundation of Christian faith. And one thing is sure—a heavenly afterlife was not central to the message of Jesus in the gospel accounts.

One confusion about a heavenly afterlife is the concept of the resurrection of the dead. People often assume that the resurrection spoken of in the New Testament is an immediate transition from the moment of death into a glorious heavenly existence in the presence of God (or Jesus). But it’s not. Biblical resurrection is the idea that the dead will someday return to a renewed life here on earth, not to a heavenly dimension.

In the first century, the idea of the bodily resurrection was a fairly recent innovation in Jewish thought, espoused primarily by the Pharisees—including the Apostle Paul who claimed he was educated as a Pharisee. The Pharisees believed that those who had died as martyrs for their faith would be raised by God to experience new life in an earthly messianic kingdom and would be allowed to enjoy the fruits of their martyrdom in a renewed life as vindicated heroes. Resurrection was an issue of justice for the faithful but was clearly a concept based on wish-fulfillment.

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God

December 3, 2023 / / 1 Comment

God is a verb, not a noun.

—R. Buckminster Fuller

Let me begin by saying what God is not. God has no preferred pronouns. God is not a he, she, they, or it. God is not a transcendent, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, interventionist, supernatural being who can intercede in history, answer prayers, or perform miracles. There is no observable evidence for any of these claims. The continual presence of war, widespread gun violence, an epidemic of drug overdoses, the existence of massive poverty—all these put a lie to an interventionist, supernatural being acting for the good.

It appears that everything I learned in catechism classes about God was wrong. It reflected a God of the Old Testament as influenced by Greek philosophers and then interpreted by Medieval theologians.

Instead, according to the First Letter of John, “God is Love.”

God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in them. (1 John 4:16)

In Greek, the language of the New Testament, the phrase “God is Love” is “theos ein agapē” (THEH-ohs ayn ag-AH-pay). Agapē (ag-AH-pay) implies a selfless love, a self-giving love, often an unconditional love. It is a love directed toward others, putting the needs of others ahead of oneself. This is the kind of love people saw in Jesus. And for the early Christian writers, it described the love of God.

When the Bible declares that God is Love, it means that these two language symbols—God and Love—are identical. If God is Love, then the converse is also true: Love is God. God is not a loving being. God is Love itself.

Scholar Don Cupitt has written:

In the New Testament, in the First Letter of John, we are told that the words Love and God are convertible. You can’t slip a knife between them. If you love your fellow human being, you know God and are in God, whereas if you don’t love, you don’t know God . . . The word God doesn’t designate a distinct metaphysical being; it is simply Love’s name.

Therefore, the word “God” is a name we give to the spirit of selfless love found at the depths of our humanity and experienced in the relationship of human love toward one another.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer commented on our relationship to God:

Our relation to God is not a religious relationship to a supreme being, absolute in power and goodness, which is a spurious conception of transcendence, but a new life for others, through participation in the being of God.

The radical message of the New Testament is that God is no longer an external being who dwells in heaven. Instead of a transcendent God, God is immanent—within humanity. God has come to dwell among us, not just in the person of Jesus, but within the heart of every human being. Indeed, God has always—and only—been a part of humanity, located deep within human consciousness and projected as a divine actor in the human story.

God, in the form of compassionate love, is a latent presence within each of us, but this God remains hidden until humans outwardly express love toward others. Loving one another is the full expression of God on earth.

No one has seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is brought to full expression in us. (1 John 4:12)

God becomes an immanent reality within our hearts, within our minds, within our relationships, and in our actions. Selfless love is a divine reality that animates us, empowers us, and transforms us from self-centered and selfish individuals to self-giving people.

That means you cannot pray for divine intervention in life. Prayer cannot persuade God or change God’s mind. Instead, prayer is meant to focus our thoughts, to change us into more compassionate people, and to cause us to act on behalf of others.

God cannot act independently from humans. God has no power other than the relatively weak power of human love. Love represents the highest, deepest, and most powerful force in human life. It is the energy that fosters human growth and change. Love is the impulse behind empathy and concern, and the fuel that drives compassion and justice.

What we need is a much more powerful understanding and experience of a love that reorients our lives and transforms us into fully-human beings, fully-human agents of the selfless love we call God. If we allow it to be unleashed, the divine love within us will not let us remain the same. The radical love we see in Jesus pulls at us; it pushes and prods us out of our insular shells. It forces us to become more than we are, more than we are comfortable with, and ultimately all we are meant to be.

This means we have an enormous duty: to join with others in a conspiracy of love. Alone, we can do little. United, we have the power to change the world. The conspiracy of love is a small movement at the margins of society prodding the powers and principalities of an unjust world toward transformation. It is a network of people in our communities and around the globe who are connected by a common vision and mission. It begins small, working from the margins and from the bottom up, but the whole purpose is to effect great change over the lives of many people who are hurting and suffering under the way things are. It involves feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned, caring for the sick, accepting the unacceptable, and ultimately transforming the politics of our day.

This is the conspiracy initiated by Jesus—people of compassion and good will engaged in the unending transformation of themselves, their families, their communities, their nations, and the world at large. The vision of Jesus can best be described in the words of philosopher Charles Eisenstein as “that more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.” Not only does Jesus envision a more beautiful world, but it is more peaceful and just as well. It promises the poor of the world access to the fundamental means of life—food, clothing, shelter, health care, and education for a better tomorrow. And it allows us to address the powers of death: the devastation of war, repeated gun violence, increasing drug overdoses, and the massive poverty found everywhere around us. All in the name of Love.

 

the creators

March 18, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Their relationship remains unclear.
They may be unlikely brothers,
or perhaps like Oscar and Felix,
they are simply an odd couple
sharing the same high rise apartment.
But Elohim and Yahweh—
the two gods of Genesis—
have competing stories
about how they did it,
how they created all that is,
each one claiming the honor
and vying for our adoration and worship.

Elohim, a man of few words,
created the heavens and the earth
by the power of the spoken command.
“Let there be light,” he said
and there was light.
I imagine him seated in a director’s chair,
gesturing broadly with his hands
as he speaks clear and simple instructions
to the dark and formless void.
A firm believer in evolution,
Elohim has watched his simple creation
of a flat earth covered with a dome
become a vast expanding universe
of stellar clouds and dark matter.

Yahweh, in contrast,
always prefers a hands-on style,
sculpting creatures from the earth,
breathing life into muddy forms,
tending gardens,
planting orchards,
setting boundaries,
sewing garments,
and evicting disobedient tenants.

Elohim prefers the big picture,
the grand scheme,
the massive expanse of the untamed cosmos.
Yahweh, on the other hand,
believes that god is in the details.
A micro-manager of earthly affairs,
Yahweh spent centuries on a singular project
parting waters,
planning conquests,
dictating rulebooks,
demanding justice,
admonishing kings,
and controlling the destiny
of the Hebrew people
like tokens on a game board.

Today, many years later,
I imagine them in their retirement,
Elohim sitting at his telescope
watching the movement of the heavens
and Yahweh in his basement workshop
crafting a new species or two.
At the end of the day,
they sit together side by side,
Yahweh with his knitting,
and Elohim reading Carl Sagan,
bickering over the remote control.

 

(copyright © 2014 Kurt Struckmeyer)

 

the workers in the vineyard

the workers in the vineyard

August 31, 2022 / / 1 Comment

Jesus told his disciples this parable:

The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning, around 6 o’clock, to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage of one denarius, he sent them into his vineyard.

When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, “You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So, they went.

When he went out again about noon and about three o’clock, he did the same.

And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, “Why are you standing here idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You also go into the vineyard.”

Around 6 o’clock, when evening came, the lord of the vineyard said to his foreman, “Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.”

When those hired about five o’clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage of one denarius. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more for their twelve hours of labor; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”

But he replied to the ringleader, “Friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not make an agreement with me for one denarius? Take your denarius and go! I wish to give to this last one the same as I give to you. Is it not permissible to do what I wish with the things that are mine? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

So, the last will be first, and the first will be last.

(Matthew 20: 1-16)

historical context

Knowing the historical context in which this parable was told can lead to some unusual and even disturbing conclusions about its meaning. In first-century Palestine, work was scarce and poverty widespread. Day laborers were peasants who had lost their land through indebtedness. If they were no longer needed as tenant farmers for the new landowners, they would become part of the “expendable” class. They were on a downward spiral and were desperate for work to survive. They did not have many options. They could choose between day labor or robbery. If they were too weak for either of these, they would become beggars at the gate (like Lazarus) until they died of hunger and disease. When Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), reflecting on the fate of peasants in a time of war, said that the life of humanity was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” it could aptly apply to the expendable class in the time of Jesus.

Jesus brings together the social extremes of an agrarian society: the elites and the expendables. And he arranges this meeting at a time when the elites were dependent on the lowliest of laborers. To ensure a timely harvest, the landowner needed their labor.

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the judgment of Jesus - sheep and goats

the judgment of Jesus

February 3, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

—Jesus, according to Matthew

I have recently received feedback from people who feel I am judging and shaming those who hold political views that harm marginalized people in our society. Many people believe that Jesus taught only spiritual truths and did not care about the politics and economics of his day, even though they had a great impact on the poor peasants and fishermen who followed him. A close reading of the gospels tells a different story. Jesus was very concerned about oppressive political regimes and an economy of commercialized agriculture that was impoverishing the peasants of Palestine at an alarming rate, and he offered a contrasting vision of society—the kingdom of God.

moral choices

Throughout our lives we are faced with moral choices, both personally and politically. According to Matthew’s gospel, Jesus will someday judge between those individuals who choose to practice compassionate action (the righteous) versus those whose indifferent inattention does nothing to help the conditions of poor and marginalized people. His judgement was not meant solely for interpersonal interactions, but also for the corporate actions of social groups—the “nations.” Surely no follower of Jesus believes that their personal charity and service can be separated from their social and political actions. You cannot serve two masters.

The word righteous in this text may need some clarification because the common understanding of righteousness is 1) being morally right, or 2) being right with God. But a more holistic biblical understanding of righteousness is standing up for what is right—doing what is right and just. Righteousness means seeking justice in human society. A righteous person is one who seeks economic and social justice for poor and marginalized people.

The terms righteousness and justice are often linked in biblical texts. That is because they are synonymous, redundant terms. In the original languages of the Bible, the word for justice also means righteousness. The Greek word dikaios (DIK-ah-yos) in the New Testament and the word tzedakah (tze-dah-KAH) in the Hebrew Bible have this dual meaning. Righteousness implies a personal and individual dimension, while justice implies a social dimension, but they both have the same objectives—acting on behalf of those suffering from hunger, poverty, sickness, injustice, discrimination, and imprisonment.

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cmpassion in action: charity, service, and justice

compassion in action: charity, service, and justice

November 18, 2019 / / 3 Comments

This post is an excerpt from  A Conspiracy of Love: Following Jesus in a Postmodern World. © 2024 Kurt Struckmeyer (See Chapter 11: “Contemplation and Action”)

 

Compassion is a feeling of empathy with the suffering of others, the capacity to feel how others feel. The Latin root of the word compassion is a compound of com (with) and passio (suffer), which gives us the meaning to suffer with. Compassion is entering into the pain of another. It is feeling the suffering of someone else—experiencing it, sharing it, tasting it. It is identifying with the sufferer, being in solidarity with the sufferer.

True compassion is being so moved at a gut level that we are moved to the point of action. Jesus was moved by compassion for the poor. We are told that, “He had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36) And in the parable of the Good Samaritan he demonstrated that the one who loves the neighbor is the one who shows compassion on the one who suffers, even if that person is culturally defined as the enemy.

Marcus Borg (1942–2015) has said that, “For Jesus, compassion was the central quality of God and the central moral quality of a life centered in God.” The Pharisees represented a theology of holiness, according to Borg, which was based on holiness as a defining characteristic of God: “Be holy for I, Yahweh, am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44) Jesus proclaimed a theology of compassion based on an alternative characterization of God’s essence: “Be compassionate as your Father in heaven is compassionate.” (Luke 6:36) These differing theologies led them to different ways of living.

compassionate action

Compassionate action usually takes three forms: charity, service, and justice. Although some would include service under the first category, charity more specifically involves gifts of money, clothing, food, or other material goods, but does not necessarily involve an investment of our time and talents. Charity is important, but writing a check to a worthy does not really change us in a fundamental way. Although charitable giving demonstrates a generous nature, we often remain distant from those we seek to help. Service, however, involves us face-to-face with those in need. It can be an immensely transformative experience that can change us from our natural state of self-centeredness into increasingly selfless people. Perhaps it is the only thing that will. Although generosity sometimes leads to self-satisfaction, service often becomes a very humbling experience.

Charity and service are both personal forms of compassionate action. Their objective is to alleviate the effects of suffering in the world. Justice, on the other hand, seeks to eliminate the root causes of suffering. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) said:

We are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed as they make their journey through life. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring.

Justice is focused on transforming the social structures and systems that produce poverty and suffering. Justice is the social form of compassionate action. It is the political means of caring for the least of these. The difference between charity and service on the one hand and justice on the other is this: charity and service seek to heal wounds, while justice seeks to end the social structures that create wounded people in the first place. William Sloane Coffin (1924–2006) has said: “The bible is less concerned with alleviating the effects of injustice, than in eliminating the causes of it.” Still, all three of these are necessary components of what German martyr and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) described as righteous action in the world. Together, righteous action and contemplative prayer would form the essence of a  “religionless Christianity” in our day.

Our being Christian today will be limited to two things: prayer and righteous action among [humanity]. All Christian thinking, speaking, and organizing must be born anew out of this prayer and action.

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the kingdom of God: an introduction

August 1, 2019 / / 7 Comments

The time is fulfilled, the kingdom is at hand. (Mark 1:15)

The kingdom of God has come upon you. (Luke 11:20)

The kingdom of God is among you. (Luke 17:21)

The kingdom of God is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it. (Gospel of Thomas 11)

At the heart of the gospel of Jesus is the kingdom of God. This one phrase sums up the entire ministry of Jesus and his whole life’s work. Jesus spoke in Aramaic and the New Testament was written in Greek. The expression kingdom of God—basileia tou theou (bas-il-EH-ah too THEH-oo) in Greek and malkutha d’elaha (mal-KOOTH-ah dehl-ah-HAH) in Aramaic—points to the ruling activity of God over human social relationships.

As we read the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we see that every thought and saying of Jesus was directed and subordinated to one single thing: the realization of the reign of God’s love, compassion, justice, and peace within human society. Although Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God frequently, he never clearly defined it. Instead, he spoke of it in parables, comparing something familiar (mustard seed, leaven, lost coins, a man who sowed a field) with something unfamiliar.

Then he said, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it?” (Luke 13:18)

a variety of interpretations

Therefore, we must always test any proposed definition or meaning of the kingdom against the parables. Over the centuries, a variety of interpretations of what Jesus meant by the kingdom of God have been put forth. We will briefly examine six of the most common explanations: the reign of God as 1) heaven, 2) an inner spiritual experience, 3) the church, 4) a separate society, 5) a new state, and 6) a new world. Continue reading

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