Bert Newton, who’s worked with agencies assisting people with re-housing, and currently works for MHCH (Making Housing and Community Happen) for housing advocacy and activism — began by reminding us that the passage of the day, Mark 10:17-31, is a lectionary selection rather than his own topic — a passage being read by many churches around the world on this day.

While we generally focus on the beginning of the passage, where Jesus asks a rich man to distribute his wealth and describes the difficulty of a wealthy person entering heaven, but Bert wanted us to look at the end of the passage. In verses 29-30: Jesus said, “I assure you that anyone who has left house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, or farms because of me and because of the good news will receive one hundred times as much now in this life—houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and farms (with persecution)—and in the coming age, eternal life.

Rather than individual wealth, Jesus is talking here about common ownership. This was through redistribution of goods in the early church, common ownership, or alternatively through radical hospitality. Jesus is teaching that in the kingdom of God — God’s new society — we are all one family. We share houses and fields so that every is housed and no-one is landless. And the church remained engaged in the world — with the desire to transform it. And lest we think this is too radical to be true: there was precedent in the ancient world.

Bert spoke about how churches are attempting that today, and how the campaign to help churches build affordable housing continues that vision. He also describes how Jesus and his disciples spoke up in their city councils (synagogues) and how we can do that today.

Bert also invited Dr. Gilbert Walton to talk about the North Fair Oaks Empowerment Initiative formed by a group of Pasadena churches — as well as to share his own powerful background story.

Hear more through the audio below.