Jesus, Justice + Mercy: Bold faith, radical love and justice for the church

In the third week of Advent, we turn toward joy, but not the surface-level version we’re often handed. Isaiah 61 and Jesus’ first public declaration in Nazareth reveal a different kind of joy: joy rooted in liberation, healing, and God’s restoring presence among those who carry the heaviest burdens.

Kristen explores:

• Isaiah’s vision of joy as God lifting what crushes the poor and the brokenhearted
• Why Jesus chose Isaiah 61 to declare His mission and why it nearly got Him thrown off a cliff
• How joy and justice are inseparable in Scripture
• The political implications of joy in a climate shaped by fear, exclusion, and power
• The witness of Hanukkah and what it teaches Christians about holding hope in the shadows of empire
• A real Advent practice: stand with someone pushed to the margins, especially when it stretches your comfort

Whether you’re carrying grief, exhaustion, shifting faith, or the weight of the world, this episode offers a grounded, honest invitation into the kind of joy Isaiah promised and Jesus embodied - joy strong enough for weary people in a weary world.

Scripture: Isaiah 61:1–3, Luke 4:16–21, Philippians 2

For women who stayed small and called it faithfulness : a reading list to start finding your way back. Get it here!

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
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• Wrestling with faith and justice and not sure where to start? 
• Grab my free theological reading list, Beyond Faith as Usual, HERE!

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenabrock.com

Advent Week Two centers on Peace, but not the thin, polite version we often settle for.
Kristen guides listeners through Isaiah 2:1–4, where peace is not the absence of conflict but the reshaping of violence into nourishment. Isaiah imagines a world where people choose formation over fear, learning new instincts that unmake the cycles of harm.

From there, we turn to Joseph in Matthew 1, often overlooked, rarely celebrated as the first person in the New Testament to embody this peace. He holds legal and social standing, yet chooses mercy in the dark, before he understands the full story. This is power used protectively, not defensively. Peace in practice, not just intention.

Then Kristen widens the lens to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose nonviolent resistance demonstrates what peace looks like when it transitions from private choices to public witness. Drawing from Letter from Birmingham Jail, we hear King’s challenge to “negative peace,” the kind that avoids tension instead of confronting injustice. Peace shaped by Jesus is something entirely different: disciplined, courageous, and unwilling to mirror harm.

This episode is trauma-aware at every turn, naming how our survival brains often override our desire for peace. Isaiah’s formation language reminds us that peace is something we learn, unlearn, and practice, not something we magically feel.

Finally, Kristen offers two concrete Advent practices to embody peace this week:

Peace is never just the absence of conflict.
It’s the presence of courage, truth, and love that refuses to harm even when harm would be easier.

KEY SCRIPTURES and more

• Isaiah 2:1–4 – Swords into plowshares
• Matthew 1:18–25 – Joseph’s mercy
• Selections from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail
• Poem "Peace at the Door", author unknown

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN (episode highlights)

• • The difference between biblical peace and cultural “niceness.”
  • Why Isaiah 2 calls for dismantling harm, not avoiding conflict
  • How Joseph became the first peacemaker of the New Testament
  • How trauma shapes our instinctive responses and why peace must be learned
  • How Dr. King’s disciplined nonviolence embodies Isaiah’s vision
  • Two practical ways to practice peace this Advent: repair and protection

For women who stayed small and called it faithfulness : a reading list to start finding your way back. Get it here!

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes
• Wrestling with faith and justice and not sure where to start? 
• Grab my free theological reading list, Beyond Faith as Usual, HERE!

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenabrock.com

In this episode of Jesus, Justice & Mercy, Kristen opens the season with “The Advent of Justice: Hope in the Dark,” an invitation to the kind of hope Isaiah and Mary proclaim, honest, grounded hope that rises in the very places where injustice tries to suffocate us.

Kristen explores the surprising history of Advent and Epiphany, then walks through Isaiah 9:1–7, including the beloved lines, “For to us a child is born…” a radical promise spoken into a world under empire. She then turns to Mary’s Magnificat, where a young woman echoes Isaiah’s vision with bold defiance, announcing a world turned right-side up: the lowly are lifted, the hungry are filled, the proud are scattered, and oppressive power is disrupted.

To close, Kristen offers a simple practice for the week.

No perfection. No pressure. Just the courageous honesty Advent requires.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

• The surprising history and purpose of Advent
• Why Isaiah 9 speaks hope from within oppression, not outside it
• How “For to us a child is born…” became both a comfort and a challenge
• How Mary’s Magnificat echoes Isaiah’s vision of justice and liberation
• Why Advent hope is active, honest about darkness and rooted in God’s movement
• A simple weekly practice to live hope with intention

Key Themes & Scriptures:

• Isaiah 9:1–7 — Hope, justice, and a ruler who breaks oppression
• Isaiah 9:6–7 — “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace”
• Luke 1:46–55 — Mary’s Magnificat and the world turned right-side up
• Advent as awakening, courage, and justice
• Hope as resistance
• God’s presence in the dark

For women who stayed small and called it faithfulness : a reading list to start finding your way back. Get it here!

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes
• Wrestling with faith and justice and not sure where to start? 
• Grab my free theological reading list, Beyond Faith as Usual, HERE!

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenabrock.com

In this Thanksgiving Bonus Episode, “Truth with a Side of Potatoes,” Kristen tells the more truthful story of Thanksgiving, one that honors Indigenous history, names the myth of the Pilgrims, and makes room for complicated families, shifting faith, and gratitude that doesn’t require pretending.

We’ll explore:

• The real history behind Thanksgiving and why the myth persists
• Why telling the truth is an act of Christian faithfulness
• How to hold grief and gratitude in a world that feels on fire
• Setting boundaries with family who think you’ve “lost your mind.”
• A prayer for grace, courage, and presence at the holiday table

This is gratitude that sees the whole story, rooted in justice, humility, honesty, and love.

Land Acknowledgment
Jesus, Justice + Mercy acknowledges that we live and work on the traditional land of the Coastal Miwok people.
If you’d like to learn whose land you are inhabiting, there’s an easy way to start:
Text your zip code or your city and state (separated by a comma) to (907) 312-5085.
A bot will respond with the Native lands connected to that region.
(This service currently works for U.S. residents only.)

For women who stayed small and called it faithfulness : a reading list to start finding your way back. Get it here!

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes
• Wrestling with faith and justice and not sure where to start? 
• Grab my free theological reading list, Beyond Faith as Usual, HERE!

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenabrock.com

What do you do when the ground shifts beneath your faith?
When the system that taught you about God starts to crack?
When the people meant to protect the vulnerable instead protect their own power?

This week, we turn to Jeremiah, the prophet who didn’t command attention or seek power. He wept.

Jeremiah steps into a collapsing world: corrupt leaders, religious rituals masking injustice, a nation convinced the temple would save them even as everything fell apart. He names what’s broken and teaches us what honest faith sounds like when the pressure finally gives way.

And right in the middle of the ruins, Jeremiah hears God promise something new, a covenant written not on stone, but on hearts.
Centuries later, Jesus picks up that promise and completes the story.

In this episode, we’ll explore:

• Why lament isn’t weakness, it’s the beginning of truth
• How Judah’s “false confidence in the temple” echoes today
• Jeremiah’s imprisonment and courage when truth cost everything
• Babylon’s strategy of exile and what it reveals about modern empires
• The “Book of Consolation” and God’s promise of restoration
• How Jesus fulfills Jeremiah’s hope and rebuilds faith from within
• What to do when religion fails you and God meets you anyway

This episode is for anyone carrying church hurt, wrestling with inherited faith, or standing in the rubble wondering if anything good can come from what’s been lost.

God is still writing.
Even in the fault lines.

For women who stayed small and called it faithfulness : a reading list to start finding your way back. Get it here!

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes
• Wrestling with faith and justice and not sure where to start? 
• Grab my free theological reading list, Beyond Faith as Usual, HERE!

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenabrock.com

When faith fights for power instead of people, it stops looking like Jesus.

In this episode of Jesus, Justice + Mercy, Kristen unpacks Micah’s call to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly alongside Isaiah’s daring vision to beat swords into plowshares.
Set against the backdrop of empire, fear, and misplaced trust, these prophets reveal what God requires in a faith that’s forgotten its purpose.

From Christian nationalism to performative religion, Kristen explores how humility and imagination can heal what fear has fractured, and why true peace begins when we lay our weapons down.

And this week, she steps onto her soapbox (with love) to challenge white women to join the work women of color have been carrying for generations, leading, organizing, and voting toward justice even when it costs them.
Because justice won’t move forward on borrowed courage.

You’ll walk away challenged and grounded, ready to let your worship sound like justice and your faith look like peace.

In this episode:
• What Micah 6:8 really means in a culture obsessed with control
• How Isaiah’s vision of peace redefines strength
• Why fear and power still shape modern faith
• What it looks like to live justice daily, not just declare it
• How prophetic imagination still rebuilds hope today
• A call for white women to move from silence to solidarity

For women who stayed small and called it faithfulness : a reading list to start finding your way back. Get it here!

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes
• Wrestling with faith and justice and not sure where to start? 
• Grab my free theological reading list, Beyond Faith as Usual, HERE!

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenabrock.com

In a time of booming worship and deep injustice, Amos steps into the crowd and says, “God isn’t impressed.”
This episode explores the book of  Amos and the prophet’s critique of a nation that sings songs while silencing the poor.

Kristen unpacks what God’s justice (mishpat) and righteousness (tzedakah) really mean, why systems matter as much as hearts, and how faith that never leaves the sanctuary can’t change the world.

Amos wasn’t condemning music or devotion; he was exposing a faith that sang louder than it served. Through this ancient text, Kristen explores how God’s anger is not rejection, but rather a fierce love that defends the vulnerable and restores what has been broken.

Together, we’ll explore:

• Why God rejected Israel’s festivals, songs, and offerings
• The real meaning of “Let justice roll down like waters”
• What the “city gate” meant then, and where that gate stands today
• How injustice hides in systems and why charity isn’t enough
• Why voting, integrity, and economics still belong in the conversation of faith

Because Amos doesn’t just call out hypocrisy, he calls us back to wholeness: a faith honest enough to sing and brave enough to act. You’ll walk away challenged, grounded, and ready to let your faith sound like justice.

For women who stayed small and called it faithfulness : a reading list to start finding your way back. Get it here!

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes
• Wrestling with faith and justice and not sure where to start? 
• Grab my free theological reading list, Beyond Faith as Usual, HERE!

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenabrock.com

Many Christians say, “The church shouldn’t be political.” But Jesus and politics were never separate. His ministry directly confronted empire, exposing how faith rooted in love and justice will always challenge systems built on power and fear.

In this episode, Kristen confronts the myth of a neutral, apolitical faith and exposes how empire-shaped Christianity has confused control for holiness. Drawing from Obery M. Hendricks Jr.’s The Politics of Jesus (2006), Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited (1949), and Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination (1978), she reclaims the radical truth that Jesus’ ministry was, and still is, a political act of compassion, justice, and liberation.

We’ll explore:

• Matthew 22:15–22 | “Render unto Caesar” as a coded act of resistance, not compliance.
• Matthew 21 | The Triumphal Entry as protest, not pageantry.
• Mark 11 | Flipping tables in defense of the poor, not in the name of outrage.
• Psalm 24:1 | “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,” a reminder that every empire answers to God.

Kristen unpacks how:

• Christian nationalism is what happens when empire shapes our theology instead of the Gospel.
• “Kingdom politics” restores people instead of protecting power.
• Fear, nostalgia, and moral performance have replaced compassion in much of modern faith.
• Post-Roe laws claim to defend life, yet the same systems cut food aid, healthcare, and childcare, protecting the unborn while abandoning the born.
• Jesus’ politics still expose every empire’s lie: that power can save us, that violence can secure peace, that fear can sustain faith.

This episode traces three prophetic voices that still speak today:

• Obery Hendricks | Jesus as a revolutionary of compassion, justice, and liberation.
• Howard Thurman | Fear, deception, and hate as the “hounds of hell” that enslave the disinherited.
• Walter Brueggemann | The prophetic imagination that awakens us from numbness to grief and hope.

Because Jesus didn’t run for office.
He redefined what power looks like.

References:

• Obery M. Hendricks Jr., The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering the True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus’ Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted (Doubleday, 2006).
• Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited (Abingdon Press, 1949).
• Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination (Fortress Press, 1978; revised 2001).
• Matthew 22:15–22; Matthew 21; Mark 11; Psalm 24:1

For women who stayed small and called it faithfulness : a reading list to start finding your way back. Get it here!

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes
• Wrestling with faith and justice and not sure where to start? 
• Grab my free theological reading list, Beyond Faith as Usual, HERE!

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenabrock.com

The word prophet can make us squirm. For many of us, it’s loaded with baggage, misuse, mystery, or even manipulation. In this episode, Kristen names that tension and reclaims the word from fear and hype. What if being prophetic isn’t about predicting the future but echoing God’s heart in the present?

Drawing from Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Bonhoeffer’s After Ten Years, Kristen explores how faithful discernment moves us from fear to courage, from judging to showing up with love. She unpacks what Scripture actually says about prophets, those who confront power, speak truth, and call us back to justice and mercy, and how we can listen for the same Spirit in our own lives today.

Together, we’ll talk about why the word prophet still matters, how discernment leads to courage, and why the way of Jesus is never about power or withdrawal, but courage and compassion in motion.

If you’ve ever hesitated at the word prophecy or wondered whether God still speaks, this episode will help you listen without fear and follow love’s voice with confidence.

Key Scriptures: Jeremiah 23 | Ezekiel 13 | Deuteronomy 13 & 18 | 2 Timothy 1:7–9, 14 | 1 Corinthians 13:2 | Matthew 10:16 | John 10:27
Mentioned: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s After Ten Years, Rev. Traci Blackmon, Walter Brueggemann, Beth Moore

For women who stayed small and called it faithfulness : a reading list to start finding your way back. Get it here!

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes
• Wrestling with faith and justice and not sure where to start? 
• Grab my free theological reading list, Beyond Faith as Usual, HERE!

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenabrock.com

How we read Scripture shapes how we live it. In this episode, Kristen walks through exegesis, learning how to think with the Bible, not just what to think. We start with why names and narratives matter (think Columbus Day → Indigenous Peoples’ Day), then watch Jesus reframe a weaponized text in John 8. From there, Kristen equips you with the 6 C’s (Context, Characters, Canon, Christ, Community, Consequence), quick skills, red flags, and a 60-second demo on Jeremiah 29:11. The invitation: reread, repent, repair, and discover faith that moves from control to liberation, from proof-texts to good news.

Scriptures

• John 8:1–11 — Jesus and the woman caught in adultery
• Matthew 5–7; Luke 4:16–21 — Jesus’ baseline for reading and living
• Jeremiah 29:1–14 — hope in exile
• Galatians 5:22-23 — the fruit test
• Micah 6:8; Hosea 6:6 — mercy/justice over ritual

In this episode

• Why interpretation is never neutral (naming = narrating)
• Exegesis vs. eisegesis (how to think, not what to think)
• Case study: how Jesus disarms a weaponized text (John 8)
• The 6 C’s for everyday reading
• Quick skills, red flags, and a fast demo (Jer 29:11)
• Why this matters: from control to liberation

The 6 C’s 

• Context: Zoom out & zoom in—genre, audience, history, paragraph flow.
• Characters (Power): Who’s acting/acted upon? Who’s protected or exposed?
• Canon: Let Scripture interpret Scripture; keep the center on love/Jesus.
• Christ: Hold every reading up to Jesus’ life, teaching, cross & resurrection.
• Community: Borrow eyes beyond your bubble—especially from the margins.
• Consequence (Fruit): If lived, who is healed or harmed? Check the fruit.

For women who stayed small and called it faithfulness : a reading list to start finding your way back. Get it here!

If this episode was meaningful for you, the best way to help others find the show is to:

• Text this episode to a friend who might need it
• Leave a 5-star rating and review
• Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes
• Wrestling with faith and justice and not sure where to start? 
• Grab my free theological reading list, Beyond Faith as Usual, HERE!

Here’s to a faith that tells the truth, refuses silence in the face of harm, and follows Jesus all the way into healing and justice.

RESOURCES:

www.kristenabrock.com