Last week here at
Mount Hebron Presbyterian Church we were considering the call the
Jesus gave to the first disciples to be His followers in turning the
world upside down. Our sermon “Fishy Business” can be found here.
This weeks lesson, from Luke 6:17-26, goes into the details of how
Jesus saw that radical transformation taking place.
Have you ever seen people get
something they didn’t deserve—while someone else didn’t get
what they did
deserve? Ever seen the right person passed over for a job, just
because they “played the game,” or were a particular gender, or
lied? Ever see people succeed even more because they were already
successful? Ever seen a poor or vulnerable person slip even further
into difficulty—or get picked on by someone who should know better?
There are so many power structures
which seem to reward all the wrong people. “It’s the way of the
world,” you might say, and that may well be true. But it’s not
the way of the Kingdom of God.
We know this because Jesus made the point, again and again. Not
only did He confront those who maintained the power structures and
attitudes of the day, but He also lived
out what’s called the “Great reversal”—turning
inside out and upside-down people’s values and understandings about
who mattered and what success was and who God wanted to bless.Here was a man who spent time with society’s “worst” outcasts: the lepers, the mentally ill, the crooks, the prostitutes, the adulterers. A man who talked endlessly about the poor, and about children and widows. Who didn’t invite Himself into the homes of the rich and famous, but the hated tax collectors.
No wonder people around Jesus were confused! Those who were willing to listen to Jesus and think about what He said and did, began to understand that the Kingdom of God isn’t like the world at all. They started to see that it’s the poor, downtrodden and vulnerable who are particularly of interest to God (until then, it was assumed that these people must be being punished by God).
It is those who see themselves as
successful (by worldly reckoning) who struggle to accept this
reversal, as did the rich young man in the Bible—who wanted to
follow Jesus, but couldn’t give up his material wealth. Jesus
Himself said, “So the last will be first, and the first will be
last.”
In the Kingdom of God everything will
be turned inside out and upside down. This is especially true when it
comes to power, privilege and wealth... in God's Kingdom those who
struggle in life now, those who are at the bottom or on the edges of
human society, will suddenly find themselves at the top and in the
center.
So if you’ve
ever been vulnerable, or struggled, or seen others rewarded for doing
wrong, remember that it’s not Jesus’ way. There is a special
place in God's heart for you.
For some music, a modern version of a
classic hymn, “Near to the Heart of God.”
(Parts
of this article adapted from Church of England Website “Church in
the Net”)
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.