Holy Week lament is not a detour from the Easter story, it is the part we keep skipping. In this episode, we slow down and walk the full arc of Holy Week: two processions entering Jerusalem from opposite directions, the compression of a week that was always going to end at the cross, and the devastating silence of Holy Saturday, a silence the church has nearly forgotten how to inhabit.

This is an episode for the justice-weary, the deconstructing, the waiting, the Saturday people living in the in-between and handed platitudes instead of presence. We look at the cross not as a transaction but as exposure, sit with James Cone's theological connection between the cross and the lynching tree, and name the contemporary pattern of Scripture being weaponized to protect power while the actual teachings of Jesus about the poor, the stranger, and the marginalized get treated as political opinions.

Then we stay in Saturday. We sit with the disciples behind locked doors, with the lament Psalms that the Western church stopped singing, with Job's friends who got presence right before they got theology wrong. We look at what the Black church has always known about Saturday theology, a faith forged not as a spiritual discipline but as a survival necessity under four hundred years of suffering. And we reclaim the not-knowing, the unanswered prayers, the grief that doesn't resolve, as the oldest and most honest place in the story.

You are not behind. You are not broken. You are Saturday people. And Saturday is holy.

Next week…resurrection. But maybe not the resurrection you were taught.

SCRIPTURE REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Luke 22:39-46 — The garden of Gethsemane
• Luke 22:44 — Sweat like drops of blood
• Matthew 21:12-13 — The temple clearing
• Matthew 26:26-28 — The last supper
• Psalm 22:1 — My God, my God, why have you forsaken me
• Psalm 13:1 — How long, O Lord, how long
• Job 2:11-13 — Job's friends sit in silence
• Job 38 — God speaks from the whirlwind
• Zechariah 9:9 — The king comes on a donkey
• John 20:1 — Mary Magdalene at the tomb

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

· The Many — Lament (spoken word, scripture, and music. A beautiful place to sit in your Saturday.)

· The Cross and the Lynching Tree — James Cone (deep end of the reading list: it will cost you something. Read it anyway.)

· Beyond Faith as Usual Reading List | Click Here!

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.kristenannette.com

Holy Disruption: Reclaiming a Justice-Rooted Faith course info and interest list

Justice Coaching options!

"Find your justice mindset" quiz!

Scripture used against women has been one of the most damaging tools in evangelical culture, and today we're naming it directly.

What if the church didn't just get it wrong? What if it used scripture to make sure you blamed yourself? In this episode of Jesus, Justice + Mercy, Kristen takes a hard look at three passages that have been weaponized against women, Ezekiel 34, Matthew 18, and 2 Corinthians 5, and shows what they actually say about harm, accountability, and repair.

This episode is for the woman who has been told her hurt was less important than institutional peace. For the woman who was sent back to a room that was hurting her, with a Bible verse attached. For the woman still carrying something that was never hers to carry.

What Ezekiel 34 Says

God's indictment of shepherds who scattered the flock instead of protecting it, and what that means for churches and institutions today. Real accountability looks like leadership willing to step down, outside accountability that isn't self-selected, and policies that protect people instead of reputations.

Matthew 18

The text most used to demand silence was actually written to give power to the wounded. Jesus hands the entire process to the person who was wronged, and he never asks them to rush.

2 Corinthians 5

The ministry of reconciliation was never meant to put the burden on the wounded. God moved first. The powerful one initiates. That is the theological logic of repair.

Repair vs Return

Repair and return are not the same decision. You get to make both on your own terms. A marriage, a church, a friendship, repair can happen, and return is still your choice. Always your choice.

In this episode:

• The verses used to silence women reporting abuse, assault, and affairs, and what they actually mean
• What Ezekiel 34 says about institutional failure and what real accountability requires
• How Matthew 18 was flipped from a text about the harmed person's power into a tool for institutional protection
• Why 2 Corinthians 5 puts the burden of repair on the powerful, not the wounded
• What real repair requires: truth-telling, accountability, and changed conditions
• The difference between repair and return, and why you get to choose both
• What healing looks like when the other party won't come to the table

Scripture referenced: Ezekiel 34 | Matthew 18:15–17 | 2 Corinthians 5:18–19 | Micah 6:8

Resources: RAINN: rainn.org National Domestic Violence Hotline: thehotline.org Church abuse accountability: GRACE, netgrace.org

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.kristenannette.com

Holy Disruption: Reclaiming a Justice-Rooted Faith course info and interest list

Justice Coaching options!

"Find your justice mindset" quiz!

Christian mercy and justice don't begin with grand gestures or perfect plans. They begin with a morning. A cup of coffee. The weight of a world that feels too broken to fix. And the question so many of us are carrying right now: what could I possibly do that would matter?

In this episode of Jesus, Justice + Mercy, Kristen starts exactly there - on her back porch, holding the weight of a bombed school in Iran, draft-age sons, a friend whose lights are on for now, and the creeping numbness around gun violence. From that honest, ordinary place, she makes the case that Christian mercy and justice were never meant to be big, dramatic, or perfect. They were meant to be faithful. Present tense. Today.

Through Micah 6:8, Zechariah 4:10, the mustard seed and yeast parables, and the extraordinary story of Fannie Lou Hamer, this episode answers the question: what does faithful actually look like on a Tuesday?

In this episode:

· Why we've gotten mercy wrong - we've made it grand and dramatic and paralyzed ourselves in the process

· Micah 6:8 as a present-tense call - not to solve, but to act, love, and walk

· Zechariah 4:10 and the word God spoke to a discouraged people rebuilding in rubble

· The mustard seed and the yeast - two images Jesus chose to show us how the kingdom actually moves

· The story of Fannie Lou Hamer - a sharecropper who showed up to register to vote and changed history

· The SAVE Act and why Fannie Lou's story is a present-tense warning

· What everyday mercy looks like: cooking a meal, folding clothes, sitting with someone

· Why proximity transforms you - and how showing up leads to city council meetings you never planned to attend

· What it means to follow a God who pitched a tent and moved into the neighborhood

Scripture referenced:

Micah 6:8

Zechariah 4:10

Matthew 13:31-33

John 1:14

This episode is part of Movement 3: Re-Build - Repair as Christian Witness

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.kristenannette.com

Holy Disruption: Reclaiming a Justice-Rooted Faith course info and interest list

Justice Coaching options!

"Find your justice mindset" quiz!