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Keeping the Word : Living the Word : Changing the World

Keeping the Word : Living the Word : Changing the World

Last updated on: September 19, 2026 at 12:49 pm by Jeff Hood

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Keeping the Word : Living the Word : Changing the World 2026-09-19T12:49:15-06:00 Jeff Hood

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Living the Word

Keeping the Word Luke 8:15

“Blessed are they who have kept the word with a generous heart and yield a harvest through perseverance.”

“Blessed are the people who hear the word of God and live it. They keep living it when it gets hard. They persevere until the world around them begins to change.”

Hear it. Live it. Keep living it. Stay until something changes.

Living the Word Begins with Hearing It

Hearing is easy. You have heard plenty. You heard that the poor are blessed. You heard that the stranger is to be welcomed. You heard that whatever is done to the least of these is done to Christ. You heard “release to the captives” read aloud in church, the way Jesus read it in Nazareth.

Then you saw the mother dragged from a courthouse by masked men while her children screamed. You saw the family on the curb with the sheriff’s notice on the door. You saw the man on the pavement with a knee on his neck. You saw the hospital in Gaza with its roof caved in. You saw the man strapped to a gurney with a mask over his face, fighting for air while officials watched the clock.

The word you heard says those people are the image of God. You heard it before you saw them. The question is whether you lived it while you were looking.

Most of us did not. We set it down. We told ourselves the situation was complicated. We told ourselves someone else was handling it. We told ourselves the people in charge must know something we do not. We kept the outrage for an afternoon. We did not live the word.

Living the word means making room. A generous house makes a bed for the guest who was not expected. A generous table sets a plate for the person who showed up hungry. A generous heart clears space for people it was told to keep out.

Most of the horrors we have seen came with an instruction attached. Do not make room for the migrant. Do not make room for the addict under the overpass. Do not make room for the Palestinian child. Do not make room for the young Black man. Do not make room for the murderer on death row. The instruction always sounds reasonable. It always comes from someone with authority. It always shrinks the heart a little, then a little more, until the word has nowhere left to live.

The person who lives the word refuses the instruction. They make a place large enough to hold the people the word is about. They do not ask whether those people belong there. They make room.

Living the Word when It Gets Hard

This is where most of us stop. Living the word is easy on the day of the march. It is easy when the crowd is big. It is easy when people are watching.

It gets hard when the friend says you are being divisive. It gets hard when the boss notices the sign in your yard. It gets hard when the cousin stops calling. It gets hard when the church gets quiet every time you bring it up. It gets hard when the vote fails, the appeal is denied, the family is deported anyway.

In July 2016, I helped organize a march in Dallas. We were grieving two Black men killed by police that week. Hundreds walked. As the protest was ending, a gunman opened fire on the police officers providing security for the march. Five of them died. I learned that night what living the word can cost. I also learned who kept fighting. It was not the crowd. It was a few.

I have walked with thirteen men into the room where they were killed. Every one of them had a crowd once. Petitions. Rallies. Reporters. By the night the state came for them, the crowd was gone. What was left was a handful of people outside the gate in the dark.

Keeping the word when it gets hard is not gritting your teeth. It is not pretending the weight is light. It is just refusing to leave.

Living the Word until Something Changes

Notice what the sentence promises. Not that the world will change all at once. Not that you will see the whole thing. Just that it begins to change. Something exists that did not exist before.

That change can be pointed to. A family that did not get deported because the neighbors stood in the doorway. A man who did not freeze because the church basement stayed open. A council vote that went the other way because the room was full. A man who is alive because the letters to the governor did not stop. A child who ate.

If nothing has changed, the word was not lived. That is not a judgment. It is arithmetic. The world is full of people who say they love the word. The change comes from the ones who live it.

Perseverance is the part of the sentence the world is counting on you to skip.

Every raid is planned on the assumption that you will be angry for a day. Every eviction is scheduled on the assumption that you will post, then forget. Every bomb is approved on the assumption that the vigil will be smaller next month. Every execution date is set on the assumption that the people who once cared have moved on. The people who run those systems have read this sentence. They know most of us do not finish it.

Blessed are they who finish it.

Blessed are the ones outside the detention center on the ninetieth day, when there are eleven of them instead of a thousand. Blessed are the ones who keep bringing water to the encampment after the city sweeps it, then sweeps it again. Blessed are the ones who show up at the council meeting for the fifth time on the same item. Blessed are the ones outside the prison at midnight, holding a candle for a man the rest of the world has agreed to forget. Blessed are the ones who kept saying the child’s name after the news moved on.

That is what the sentence is describing. Not saints. People who heard the word, lived it, kept living it when it got hard, then stayed until something moved.

The Gospel calls them blessed. Not because living the word is easy. Because living the word is how the world begins to change.

So the sentence ends where it started.

You have heard. You have seen. Now keep it.

Catholic

Politics and Religion

About The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood

The Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood is a Catholic priest (Old Catholic), theologian, and nationally recognized activist based in North Little Rock, Arkansas. A spiritual advisor to death row inmates across the country, Dr. Hood has accompanied more people to their executions than any other advisor in the U.S., including the first-ever nitrogen hypoxia execution in 2024. His work sits at the intersection of justice, radical compassion, and public theology. Dr. Hood holds advanced degrees from Auburn, Emory, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, University of Alabama, Creighton, and Brite Divinity School, among others. He also earned a PhD in metaphysical theology and founded The New Theology School, where he serves as Dean and Professor of Prophetic Theology. Author of over 100 books—including the award-winning The Courage to Be Queer—Dr. Hood’s writings and activism have been featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, NPR, CNN, and more. A frequent collaborator with men on death row, he sees theology as a shared, liberative act. Dr. Hood has served on the leadership teams of organizations like the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. His activism has earned multiple awards, including recognition from PFLAG and the Next Generation Action Network. On July 7, 2016, Dr. Hood led the Dallas protest against police brutality that ended in tragedy. His actions that night saved lives, and his story is now archived in the Dallas Public Library. A father of five, husband to Emily, and friend to the incarcerated, Dr. Hood rejects institutionalism in favor of a theology rooted in people, presence, and prophetic witness. You can read more about the author here.

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