Prayer and Politics, Part 2

I need to get back to this theme. I have been reading Obery Hendricks' book The Politics of Jesus : Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus' Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted

It's a wonderful book, and I'll write more about it soon (promise!). For now, however, I shared some of the facts in the book in my sermon today, on the Widow's Might. It's an example of being political in the pulpit, in the sense that Jesus took sides on political issues - siding with poor widows against rich scribes. It is simply a factual and historical error to say that Jesus was concerned only with individual sin and private piety. When you read the gospels' accounts of his last week in Jerusalem (and the rest of the gospels) in the light of what we know about 1st century Israel under Roman rule, Jesus' very political and economic critique of structural injustice and inequity becomes clear.