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Questions Concering a Liberation

Questions Concering a Liberation

Last updated on: October 21, 2026 at 5:33 pm by Herb Montgomery

Questions Concering a Liberation 2026-10-21T17:33:00-04:00 Herb Montgomery

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Questions Concering Liberation

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Next in our reading, Jesus asks the Pharisees a question that challenges their understanding of the messiah: “Whose son is he?” They answer, “The son of David.” Jesus then quotes Psalm 110, where David refers to the messiah as “lord,” asking how the messiah can be both David’s descendant and his lord. The religious leaders cannot answer him, and Matthew concludes that no one dares to question him further.

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This is Part 1 of the series Questions That Reach Beyond Religous Debate

(Read this series from its beginning here.)

Although this passage is often interpreted as a theological discussion about Jesus’ identity, it also carries important social, political, and economic implications. In the first century, the expectation of a messiah descended from David was closely connected to hopes for restored national sovereignty, righteous leadership, and deliverance from oppressive powers. Under Roman occupation, the question of who the messiah would be was inseparable from questions about authority, power, liberation, and the kind of society God desired.

Jesus challenges his listeners to reconsider not only who the messiah could be, but also what messianic leadership should look like.

The title “Son of David” carried royal significance in Jesus’ time. People remembered David as Israel’s great king, and so the promise of a messiah from his lineage could evoke expectations of a restored kingdom. Yet royal power, in both ancient and contemporary societies, became associated with domination, privilege, and preservation of established hierarchies. Jesus’ question about David’s descendants unsettles simplistic assumptions that God’s anointed leader must merely reproduce familiar patterns of political authority.

Throughout Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus presents a vision of community and human society rooted in compassion, justice, inclusion and care. In Matthew 20:25–28, he contrasts rulers who dominate others and service: those who wish to become great in Jesus’ eyes must become servants. Jesus does not measure leadership by the ability to command, accumulate wealth, or maintain control. He measures it by a willingness to serve, to give, and to place the well-being of others before personal privilege.

Read through this lens, the question of the messiah becomes a question about the purpose of power. Does authority exist to protect the interests of the powerful, or should it be used to create conditions in which everyone can experience dignity, security, and abundant life? Does leadership preserve unjust arrangements, or does it challenge the structures that leave people impoverished, excluded, and vulnerable?

Jesus’ challenge to the Pharisees also belongs to a larger pattern in Matthew 21–23, where he repeatedly confronts religious leaders over their understanding and exercise of authority. His questions expose the limitations of religious knowledge when it becomes disconnected from justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Knowing Scripture is not the same as embodying its liberating vision. Authority loses its moral credibility when it protects institutional privilege while neglecting the suffering of those institutions are meant to serve.

These implications extend to our own communities. We must ask whether our religious, political, and economic institutions reflect the values we claim to honor. We must examine whether our understanding of God legitimizes existing hierarchies or inspires us to challenge inequality, resist exploitation, and share the resources necessary for everyone to thrive.

Jesus’ final question leaves the leaders of his own society without an answer. It also challenges us today. For Jesus followers, our beliefs about what our society should look like must be tested against the life and teachings of Jesus himself. If we claim to follow Jesus and his teachings while tolerating systems that deny people their dignity, we must reconsider what our confession means.

To follow Jesus is to take seriously the way he taught us to live. It means following a Jesus who calls us away from domination toward service, away from exclusion toward inclusion, justice, and belonging, and away from protecting privilege toward practicing righteousness and equity.

Ultimately, our reading this week invites us to ask a question that reaches beyond religious debate: What kind of world would emerge if we organized our communities around the values of the Jesus we profess to follow? What if we stopped using faith to justify the way things are and began embodying the justice, compassion, love and shared humanity that comprised the gospel Jesus proclaimed?

Begin each day being inspired toward love, compassion, justice and action. Free.

General Christian

Politics and Religion

About Herb Montgomery

Herb Montgomery, director of Renewed Heart Ministries, is an author and adult religious educator helping Christians explore the intersection of their faith with love, compassion, action, and societal justice. You can read more about the author here.

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