Upside down and inside out
“Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Don’t you know that the good and godly, the truly righteous people don’t associate with sinners? And here you are dining out with prostitutes, inviting alcoholics into our homes and places of worship. And not only that, the RULES say, ‘You DON’T work on the Sabbath,’ and here you are healing and gathering wheat on the Sabbath.’”
Jesus’s notion of the Kingdom of God and the notion held by the leaders of religious life — well, there was a chasm a mile wide and deep between them. But Jesus insisted that the kingdom of God is a world (yes, world, not somewhere “up there in the sky bye and bye”) right here and right now. A world where the poor hear (and live) the good news. A world where prisoners are set free, where the blind have their sight restored and where the oppressed are set free. The kingdom of God is a place that insists that the rules don’t take precedence over caring for the sick, where loving your neighbor — and yes, even your enemies — is a command.
The Kingdom of God sets all of our “this world” expectations on their heads and turns them inside out. It’s where the poor in spirit are blessed, where those who mourn are comforted and where the meek (not the most powerful) inherit the earth.
The Kingdom of God is a place where those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled, where the merciful receive mercy, where the peacemakers are called children of God, not the warmongers. The kingdom of God is the place where sinners are forgiven.
Jesus challenged everything the religious elite said God’s kingdom is like. To the Pharisees, holiness was all about rule keeping, not people keeping. To which Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of extortion and rapacity…Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs” (Mat 23, 24,27,33). All nice and clean on the outside but filthy on the inside.
It was a clash of cultures … and the ones with power did not take kindly to the challenge. I think Jesus family understood that. I imagine the family conversations: “Are you crazy? Keep your mouth shut and your head down. Stop antagonizing the status quo.”
To join God’s kingdom work is to confront evil and all of its iterations. It takes the courage to be willing to turn over tables, challenge the status quo, say no to the amassing of power. In short, to see the world from inside out and upside down.