The Upside Down Kingdom

Abstract: Jesus defers to the poor, the homeless, the outcast, the dis-enfrancised.
We can choose to participate in this upside down kingdom or we can ignore Jesus imperatives and live as we want in our land of excess and on our beds of ease.

17 He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.

18 They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.

19 And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said:

A Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
A Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
A Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
A Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
A Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
A But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
A Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry.
A Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
A Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

I have wondered how Jesus would have gone over if he had done these deeds and spoken these words in my home church. Coupled with the words he spoke as he read from Isaiah at his church, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” I assume he would get much the same reaction that he did in Nazareth. All spoke well of him-except for some longtime church members who were sitting toward the back, which is where they liked to sit. Okay, I know. This story didn’t take place in a church. It took place in a synagogue, the synagogue in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth. But I’m trying to imagine Jesus coming to First Baptist Church, Loudon, Tennessee, my hometown. Or maybe to this congregation where I serve now, in the foothills of the Appalachians. You might picture a church in your own hometown.

So there’s Jesus way up in the front and he’s reading from the scroll of Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor….

Then there is Jesus teaching a group on a level place: Blessed are the poor. My hometown church were all the affluent Baptists attended. The Cumberland Presbyterians and Methodists had their dealerships close by. I would assume the all three congregations would have reacted about the same to Jesus= words. Some of them began to murmur. “He didn’t say anything about forgiveness,” one of them said. “And not a word about sin,” said another. But there was a seminary professor sitting with them who said, “Now wait just a minute; you don’t have to say everything you know in one sermon.” Some people laughed, but others didn’t think it was very funny. “But he did talk about preaching the gospel to the poor, didn’t he?” The voice came from the back pew and everyone turned around to see. “And aren’t we all poor in something?” Everyone brightened up considerably. “Yes,” they agreed, “we are all poor.” And soon they were engaged in a lively discussion about different kinds of poverty. “I’m poor in spirit!@ said one man. “I’m insurance poor,” laughed another woman. AI have a poor marriage, @ pouted an older man. “And Jesus came to set us free from all of this poverty,” said the person in the last row. “He was talking about salvation and forgiveness after all.” They were all very relieved and talked on and on until finally the custodian asked if they could go somewhere else so he could lock up. So they put on their coats and agreed to go out for coffee. The custodian picked up the discarded bulletins and turned off the lights, until only the lights at the very front were shining on the place where Jesus had stood to read. The words of Isaiah still echoed in the empty sanctuary. Standing at the very back of the room, the custodian heard Jesus’ words all over again: I have come to preach the gospel to the poor… Blessed are the poor…. Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. . .

“Can it be true?” the custodian whispered. Then he locked the doors and went out. Of course, I have no idea if any of this would really happen. I guess we assume that if Jesus came to any of our churches, everyone would listen eagerly and no one would murmur. This is Jesus’ first public appearance in Luke’s Gospel. It’s his inaugural address-not to be confused with the inauguration of our new president. Surely the choice of reading was not accidental for Jesus or for Luke the storyteller. Oh, it’s true they handed Jesus the scroll of Isaiah, but then Jesus found the place where it was written-that is, he found this particular place and read these particular words from the prophet. Though Jesus had been teaching in Galilee before, Luke doesn’t report anything that Jesus said publicly before this day in his hometown. Luke is a careful writer. Everything has a place and a time and a reason. When Jesus stood up to read, he chose to read these
words, and when he sat down, he said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Today is Jesus’ first public word, the first word remembered this side of the wilderness. Today this word is fulfilled. This word changes things. Dramatically. Nothing will be the same. Jesus is setting forth his agenda borrowing words from the prophet Isaiah. The Spirit has anointed him from the beginning for this mission, even as the Spirit descended on him in baptism and then led him in the wilderness. But what has Jesus been anointed to do? In Isaiah’s words, it becomes clear:

Bring good news to the poor. Proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. Let the oppressed go free and proclaim God’s jubilee year-when debts are canceled and land is returned. Today=s lesson echoes the same sentiment: Blessed are the poor. These are earth-shaking words, life-changing words. It’s no wonder that the imaginary people sitting in the back of the church had a hard time hearing what Jesus was saying. They had to re-frame Jesus’ words into something a bit more personal and a lot less literal. He didn’t really mean poor, like the homeless, the hungry, and the helpless. Surely he didn=t mean open the prison doors and let everyone inside go free. Jesus must have meant our captivity to spiritual temptations that harm the soul for eternity. It’s strange what we do with the words of the Bible. We insist on the literal meaning of things we agree with but when we come to something that’s too hard or too threatening, we look for a meaning behind the words or above the words or beyond the words. It’s very possible that the words of Isaiah do have many meanings. Recovery of sight can mean more than physical blindness for Isaiah and Jesus spoke of those who have eyes
yet failed to see. It’s certainly true that you and I can be captive to forces that are as strong as prison bars-addictions that trap and kill or materialism that keeps us on a treadmill working faster and faster but never, never getting enough. But isn’t it possible that Jesus meant what he said literally? He meant good news for the poor-the homeless ones still on our streets, though often hidden to make life more pleasant for the rest of us. And Jesus meant captives, including those imprisoned in his time for failure to pay debts or for standing up against Roman occupation.

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Does Jesus also mean today? Does Jesus mean ABlessed >are= the poor?@ Why does he seem to defer to the poor? The first answer I would give is that Jesus= affection for the poor is not new to Jesus. All the great prophets proclaim that it is the nation=s ill-treatment of the poor that has caused God to judge them as a nation. Isaiah preaches the fasting that God accepts is building houses for the homeless, providing food for the hungry, and clothing for the naked. (Isaiah 58).
Jeremiah preaches woe to those who build houses with righteousness and upper rooms without justice, who uses his neighbor=s and does not give him wages (Jeremiah 22).

Ezekiel proclaims that the sin of Sodom was: She and her sisters had pride, surplus of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and the needy (Ezekiel 16:49). The second answer is Ayes.@ Jesus did defer to the poor, the homeless, the outcast, the dis-enfranchised. We can choose to participate in this upside down kingdom or we can ignore Jesus= imperatives and live as we want in our land of excess and on our beds of ease?

William Sloane Coffin relates the story that when he moved to New York City, a well-todo man commented that New York City was a fabulous place to live. However, we also have problems – a lot of poor people. He relates that in the Bible it is always the rich
who are a problem to the poor, never the other way around. There are poor people because there are rich people. There is an entry in E. B. White=s journal, One Man=s Meat, dated for November 1939, which he wrote while living in Maine:

A friend of mine has an electric fence around a piece of his land, and he keeps two cows there. I asked him one day how he liked his fence and whether it cost much to operate. ADoesn=t cost a thing,@ he replied, As soon as the battery ran down I unhooked it and never put it back. That strand of fence wire is as dead as a piece of string, but the cows don=t go within ten feet of it. They learned their lesson the first few days. Apparently this state of affairs is general throughout the United States. Thousands of cows are living in fear of a strand of wire that no longer has the power to confine them. Freedom is their for the asking. Rise up, Cows!

Take your liberty while the despots snore. And rise up too, all people in bondage everywhere! The wire is dead. The trick is exhausted. Come on out! Come out wherever you are!

Jesus defers to the poor, the homeless, the outcast, the dis-enfrancised. We can choose to participate in this upside down kingdom or we can ignore Jesus imperatives and live as we want in our land of excess and on our beds of ease.