Épisodes

  • Following the Way of Love and Justice in this New Year

    Following the Way of Love and Justice in this New Year
    Jan 22 2026
    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 through concrete love for others. So Jesus did not appear in a religious vacuum. He began his public life by aligning himself with John’s baptism and signaled continuity with John’s call to the kind of repentance that was social transformation rather than private piety. Whereas John announced justice as a way to prepare for God’s reign, Jesus embodied and expanded that vision proclaiming that reign had drawn near. Like John, Jesus confronted those who relied on religious and political status while neglecting justice. Yet Jesus went further by forming a community that practiced this ethic in daily life: sharing resources, breaking bread across divisions, and embodying God’s love in public, visible ways. In continuity with John the Baptist, Jesus defined true fidelity to God not by religious performance, but by love enacted as social justice, transforming relationships, and challenging unjust structures at every level of society. As I read the Gospel of John’s account of the first disciples called to follow Jesus, I’m struck with what it may mean to follow Jesus today. For more go to renewedheartministries.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    18 min
  • Another World is Possible

    Another World is Possible
    Jan 15 2026
    Matthew 4:12-23 Where the assurance-of-heaven gospel often emphasizes individual belief, Jesus emphasizes collective or societal transformation. He calls for repentance not as private guilt management, but as a turning away from participation in unjust systems. “Good news to the poor,” “release to the captives,” and “freedom for the oppressed” are not metaphors for the afterlife in Jesus’ inaugural sermon in Luke; they describe real conditions in the world he inhabits. Salvation, in this sense, is liberation—healing bodies, restoring community, and challenging concentrations of power that crush human flourishing. The gospel of the kingdom that Jesus preached also redefined righteousness. Instead of ritual purity or doctrinal correctness, righteousness is measured by care for the vulnerable: the hungry, the sick, the imprisoned, and the foreigner. Judgment scenes in Jesus’ teaching do not hinge on confessions of belief but on whether people fed the hungry and welcomed the stranger. In Jesus’ gospel, faithfulness to God is inseparable from justice. For more go to renewedheartministries.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    18 min
  • Jesus’ Baptism as Alignment with a Movement for Justice

    Jesus’ Baptism as Alignment with a Movement for Justice
    Jan 8 2026
    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 proclaiming the same kingdom message as John did, and he gathers a community shaped by similar ethical demands. Jesus expands John’s work by centering it on the poor, the sick, and the socially excluded, and by intensifying its critiques of wealth, domination, and religious hypocrisy. Seen in this light, Jesus’ connection to John is not incidental but foundational. Jesus inherits and radicalizes John’s social justice movement, transforming prophetic protest into a sustained, embodied challenge to systems that dehumanize, exploit, and exclude. This challenge was an inheritance that ultimately led to Jesus, like John, being executed by the social power they both confronted. Following Jesus today cannot be separated from a commitment to social justice, because Jesus’ life and teachings, like John the Baptist’s, consistently confronted systems that harmed the vulnerable and concentrated power in the hands of a few. The Gospels portray Jesus not only as a spiritual teacher but as a public figure whose message of God’s reign challenged economic exploitation, social exclusion, and religious complicity with injustice. To follow Jesus, then, is to take seriously the ethical and political implications of his vision. For more go to renewedheartministries.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    20 min
  • New Beginnings and Our Justice Work Today

    New Beginnings and Our Justice Work Today
    Jan 1 2026
    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 systems that oppress and do harm. The gospels affirm that the way of Jesus was solidarity with the oppressed, resistance to injustice, and courageous love. This way began in a manger in Bethlehem, traversed the countryside challenging injustice and mitigating harm, and ultimately, after standing up to systemic injustice in Jesus’ own societal context, Jesus’ way was not defeated by a Roman cross, but was resurrected to live on in the lives of his followers. To follow Jesus today is to take his liberating call seriously. It means recognizing that injustice is not only personal but also systemic and woven into economic, political, social, and yes, even religious structures. Discipleship involves naming those injustices, standing with those harmed by them, and working for change even when such efforts are costly. Just as in Jesus’ time, movements for justice will unsettle comfort and provoke resistance. Yet the call remains the same: to seek a world shaped by compassion, equity, and shared thriving. This second weekend of the Christian Christmas season, and the first weekend of the new year, let’s embrace the call to believe and live out the gospel truth that justice work is sacred, necessary, and, ultimately, life-giving.” For more go to renewedheartministries.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    22 min
  • Christmas as Critique of Complicity with Empire

    Christmas as Critique of Complicity with Empire
    Dec 23 2025
    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 distracted us from the political point that the author of Matthew’s gospel is making. That political point has parallels in our time. In the United States today, certain sectors of Christianity have become closely aligned with nationalism, blending religious identity with political power and national loyalty. This alignment often frames a nation as uniquely chosen or divinely favored, and so transforms faith into a marker of cultural belonging rather than a call to ethical discipleship that follows the values and teachings actually found in the Jesus story, values such as nonviolence, inclusion of the marginalized, welcoming the migrant, and taking care of the poor. Christian symbols and language are sometimes used to legitimize policies that prioritize dominance, exclusion, or fear of the ‘other,’ especially immigrants, religious minorities, and dissenters. In this framework, loyalty to the nation can eclipse core Christian commitments to peace, justice, and love of neighbor. National success is interpreted as divine blessing, while critique of the state is portrayed as unfaithful. This fusion risks turning Christianity into a tool for preserving power rather than a prophetic voice that challenges injustice. When faith is subordinated to nationalist goals, it loses its capacity to speak truth to power and to stand in solidarity with the vulnerable.” For more go to renewedheartministries.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    22 min
  • Advent as Good News for the Marginalized

    Advent as Good News for the Marginalized
    Dec 19 2025
    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 to renew our commitments to shaping our present world into a just, safe, compassionate home for us all. John chose a radically different calling. Rather than serve within the structured Temple State system—deeply intertwined with political and religious authority—he withdrew to the wilderness. He chose a path of challenging the status quo, calling his society to repent for complicity with Rome and to return to the practice of justice toward one another, all of this outside of institutional control. In the gospels, “the wilderness” symbolizes the margins of society. It represents those places far from centers of power, wealth, and political/religious control. It is in these edges that God’s presence is revealed most clearly. This narrative details speaks to every person who finds themselves doing justice work along the edges of our communities today. For more go to renewedheartministries.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    20 min
  • Clearing a Path for Justice

    Clearing a Path for Justice
    Dec 19 2025
    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 injustice, LGBTQ discrimination, environmental harm, and economic inequality bend the path away from God’s vision. To “make his paths straight” is to engage in the slow, committed labor of reforming institutions, amplifying marginalized voices, and redistributing resources so all may flourish and thrive. It means choosing solidarity over indifference, advocacy over silence, and compassion over convenience. For more go to renewedheartministries.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    17 min
  • The Liberation at the Heart of Advent

    The Liberation at the Heart of Advent
    Nov 28 2025
    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, their power, or their social standing. Advent reminds us that Christianity’s gospel is rooted in a Jesus who proclaimed the advent of liberation for the oppressed and the beginning of a whole new world where injustice, violence and oppression are replaced by loving one’s neighbor as oneself and relating to our neighbor as we would like our neighbor to relate to us. Anything less is a failure to grasp Jesus in his entirety.” For more go to renewedheartministries.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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    16 min