The Transforming Power of Christ's Upside Down Kingdom

Introduction

When was the last time that you heard the phrase: “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”? It’s kind of an odd phrase isn’t it?! This idea that something that is totally useless to one person has a ton of value to another…Have any of you ever experienced that with your kids or grandkids, when they were young?… they’ll draw this lovely scribble on a page, and to them it’s like the best thing they’ve done all day, but when you look at it it’s just like this blob, it’s kinda funny. And then you have this awkward moment where they’ve made you like 40 different drawings this week already, and you don’t know whether or not to throw it out. I had that happen to me recently actually, my younger brother Zeke he really likes making sock monekys, he’ll take any spare socks he finds in my parents house and he’ll make something sort of resembling a monkey, and he does this all the time. But what’s funny about it is that the rest of us will regularly end up only being able to find one sock out of a pair because Zeke has made the other one into this monkey. And to him it’s like this pride possession and he gives them out as gifts, which is pretty cute, but to the rest of us, the sock was the treasure before it became the monkey. We didn’t really want a sock monkey, what we really want is our sock back. And the irony is that often time we end up just giving him the other sock because we have to throw it out now anyways, and so it becomes this cycle where his treasure comes from our trash. And actually that’s kind of the same principle that’s in the passage we’re going to read today.

Matthew 5:1-12

Matthew 5:1–12 ESV

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I’m willing to bet that most of you have heard this passage before at some point; but I’d also bet that it’s been a while since you really thought about how weird it is. Think about it for a second, Jesus starts his famous sermon on the mount by telling people that being poor, mourning, and being hungry and thirsty are all good things? That’s wild, normally we think of those as bad things… hold that thought for a second. So that we can see the whole picture let’s try to put this in perspective.

So first, who are the people in this passage?

We have Jesus, he’s the one speaking.

His disciples, are the ones that he’s addressing

And the crowds who he’s not talking to directly, but they can hear everything he’s saying

Ok great, but you may be thinking, wait go back a second, what’s up with the crowds? who’s apart of this crowd? And while we’re asking that, what does the passage mean by disciples? Because we often think about Jesus’s twelve disciples, but is that what the passage is talking about?

Great questions.

Who was apart of this crowd? Let’s take a look just a couple verses before this, and we’ll get a picture of who the crowds are. Matthew 4:24-25 “So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.”

The thing we need to keep in mind is that in the context of the Roman Empire, those with long term sicknesses, diseases, and disabilities were not able to work, and there weren’t really any social programs for people and so if they couldn’t work then they became poor, and then being poor they were treated as inferiors both by the Romans, and sometimes by their own people. This led to a cycle where the sick were poor, and the poor were mistreated, and looked down upon and it was nearly impossible for them to get a leg up in this miserable state of living.

But then Jesus enters the scence, healing and teaching and taking time for the hurting and broken people, and for the first time they have hope!

And the same goes for the disciples. Where this passage is located in Matthew Jesus has only called 4 disciples so far, right before the crowds start to follow him, Jesus calls the four fishermen: Peter, Andrew, James and John. And for the working class fishermen in the first century, they would have felt a similar sense of oppression from Rome and others in their society was felt by the disciples.

**build!!! p-f**

So when Jesus says blessed are the poor in spirit, he’s talking to people who are actually poor, who are oppressed, who feel insignificant, and in their insignificance they turn to Christ, he sees them, he hears them, he loves them and he teaches them.

Pause

What Jesus did is wild! He invites, these lower and even lowest class citizens to be his disciples, this didn’t happen. I found this quote to explain it better than I can; “A rabbi in the First Century would only choose a very elect few, highly promising young men from all the wannabes who asked to be his disciples. He selected only those who he thought could fully measure up to his standard and eventually become just like him. A rabbi did not want to invest in anyone who did not have this emulation potential.”(1) But Jesus didn’t do this, he knew that no one could ever live up to his perfect standard, but he didn’t care, he allowed all types of people to follow Him. And one of the details we see in this passage proves this. Jesus sat down to teach them. This seems like an insignificant detail in the passage, but it actually is the framework for the entire passage and the small action actually says a lot about how Jesus views them.

By sitting down and teaching, Jesus is participating in a common pracitce for Jewish rabbis. It was common for rabbis to teach the torah while sitting down. (2) This seems kind of strange to us because we’re so used to pastors standing up to teach and preach, but in the first century they sat down. So Jesus is participating in a simlar practice, but what’s really interesting is how Jesus adapts it. Rabbis would primarily teach in the synagogues (essecntially churches), but that’s not what Jesus does, he sits down on a mountain.

Why does this matter? Because of the way that sound works. Sound travels upwards, I don’t know if any of you have experience that before, but I know I’ve noticed it at my parents house. Growing up our play room was in the basement, and so whenever the kids would go and play the sound would travel up from the basement to us sitting in our living room, and you could always hear exactly what they were saying and doing. And the same concept worked for Jesus, one of the things I learned as I was looking into the context of the passage was that Jesus didn’t sit at the top of the mountain, he sat roughly halfway up the mountain, and the crowds sat above him. Jesus positioned himself in a way to be heard by the crowds. He didn’t try to get away from them, he didn’t try to be cliqueish or exclusive with his teachings, Jesus taught whoever came to hear him.

And by sitting on the mountain and teaching the crowds he does one more really important thing. He positions himself as the new Moses. As 21st century readers we don’t catch this similarity right away, but to his first century jewish audience a powerful teacher sitting on a mountain and teaching them God’s word reminds them of their first leader Moses who sat on the mountain and gave them the 10 commandments, and it was this moment with Moses where he teaches them God’s commands that defined what it meant for them to be the nation of Israel. And now as Jesus is teaching them, he’s doing something very similar, he is defining what it means for them to be a part of the kingdom of heaven.

And that’s why it’s significant that Jesus, it positions him as their teacher, it shows that Jesus chose disciples that no other rabbi would choose, and it puts him in the place to redefine what it means from them to follow God, as they live as a part of his kingdom.

So let’s take a look at this teaching that redefines what it means to follow God. I think the first logical question is what does it mean to be blessed? And what did it mean for first century Jews?

We first come across the word blessed in Genesis 1, God blesses Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28, which says: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it...” So God blesses Adam and Eve, He shows favour to them as they learn to fulfill their role as part of His creation.

The next major blessing comes when God chooses Abraham to be the father of God’s chosen nation. Abraham is 75 when God blesses him, and up to this point he and his wife Sarah have not had any children, and yet God promises him that he’s going to give him a child. When God blesses him he changes the way that Abraham understands himself and the world around him. By the world’s standards Abraham should have died childless, and his lineage would have faded away, but God doesn’t work with normal standards. When God blesses someone they are completely changed.

Let’s look at one more example: Abraham’s son’s name was Isaac, Isaac had a son named Jacob, and Jacob was a deceiver he cheated his brother out of his birthright, and he cheated his uncle out of a lot of wealth. Later in his life there’s a story, it’s in Genesis 32, where Jacob wrestles with God, and God blesses him and gives him a new name: Israel.

He becomes the father of the nation Israel, who all of the people listening to Jesus on the mountain were descended from. And so throughout their people’s history, the word blessing is really significiant, and it denotes 2 distinct ideas, that are in harmony together.

First, that when God blesses someone, He shows them favour, and He allows them to see, feel, and experience His presence.

Second, when God blesses someone, He completely changes them. Adam and Eve, He blessed and gave the ability to rise above the rest of creation, not to be the same as it, but to rule over it. Abraham, He blessed and changed from being a man with no offspring, to a man who was the father of God’s chosen nation. And Jacob, He blessed and changed from being a deceiver to being a man who wrestled with and worshipped God.

In essence, when God blesses someone, He shows them favour, He let’s them experience His presence, and His presence comepletely changes them for the better.

So in light of this what is Jesus saying to the poor, sick, hurting, broken and oppressed crowd in front of Him?

This is my paraphrase of what I think He’s saying:

***God’s favour is with the poor in spirit, He will change them from people who are poor and oppressed to people who are important in the kingdom of heaven. God’s favour is with those who mourn, He will comfort them and give them joy. God’s favour is with the gentle, the people who think of themselves as unimportant will become very important. God’s favour is with those who passionately desire to do the right thing, God will give them His righteousness, and they will be satisfied. God’s favour is with the merciful, God will show them mercy. God’s favour is the pure in heart, God will show them His heart. God’s favour is with the peacemakers, He will make them His children. God’s favour is with those who are oppressed and persecuted for righteousness’ sake, He will make them important in the kingdom of heaven. God’s favour is with you when others mock you and persecute you and lie, and say all kinds of evil things against you because of Jesus. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, you are enduring the same things as the spiritual leaders that came before you, God sees that, and He gives you His favour**

For a long time people have talked about this passage as if it’s this checklist of things that Christians are supposed to do, we need to be poor in Spirit, we need to mourn, we need to be meek, etc… and well a lot of that is true, I think that Jesus has a different point with this passage. Jesus has compassion for the crowds around Him, He sees how hurt, and sick, and broken, and oppressed they are and He tells them that He, as God, sees them, loves them, cares for them, and is here to make things better. Just not in the way they think. They want Him to heal their sicknesses, diseases and disabilities. He’s there to heal them from sin. They want Him to relieve them from their poverty. He’s there to heal them from their spiritual poverty: sin. They want to feel important by having the Roman Empire defeated, and by taking back their freedom. He’s there to give them a brand new kingdom where they will be important, but it’s nuanced, their physical state on earth might not change but he has come to announce a way to enter a new kingdom through Him.

And that’s the joy in the paradox of His kingdom. One of my favourite terms for the kingdom of Heaven is the upside-down kingdom. With the Beatitudes Jesus is showing how he has come to make the world right. Remember that phrase that we began with? “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, in Jesus’s kingdom the people that are deemed as trash by the world are treasured. It’s the same thing as his famous proverb, the first will be last and the last will be first. Under the reign of King Jesus you don’t need to be healthy, wealthy and well, all you need is to humble yourself, recognize your own brokeness, and cry out to Him to come, to fill you with His Holy Spirit, and to lead you into the righteousness that you know you can’t reach on your own.

Think about how liberating this claim would have been for the crowds listening to Him, they don’t need to keep struggling up the social chain to try to gain influence and importance, they don’t need to keep working far more hours than any person should to rise up the economic ladder, and they don’t need to fix their own brokeness before coming their King. Why? Because King Jesus is the greatest healer, the greatest doctor, the greatest comforter, the greatest liberator, and the greatest treasure. He is all that they need. The things that they could never acheive on their own, He has already acheived for them, and He welcomes them to join in the rewards, just as they are.

But the beauty of this message is that Jesus does the same thing for us. He sees us where we are at, he comes and meets us in our sinfulness and brokenness, and he invites us to receive a reward we can’t gain on our own. He invites us to be apart of a kingdom that we can’t get into on our own, nothing we do could ever make us good enough to be in God’s presence, so God came down as a man, Christ Jesus, to be with us and to pay the penalty of sin for us bridging the gap between our home on earth and His heavenly kingdom.

And once we accept Jesus’s invitation to be a part of his Kingdom, He sends the Holy Spirit to change us:

We become poor in spirit, because He allows us to recognize how much we are in His debt and as we recognize our spiritual poverty, he elevates us beyond what we could every achieve on our own and makes us important in His kingdom.

We mourn, because He shows us the brokenness and sin in the world around us, but He comforts us by showing us how He is fixing our broken world.

We become meek and gentle in how we act, when before we felt like we needed to use violence to fix things, He teaches us a new way to interact with the people around us: Christ’s way of gentleness and love, and it’s through love that we become important in this new kingdom.

We passionately desire to do the right thing, He shows us what things in the world are right and good and just, and through His eyes we learn to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God, and we are satisfied.

We become merciful, in our new nature our default isn’t anger and selfishness, instead we forgive quickly, and love others well. And Christ in turn shows us mercy, even though we continue to sin, Christ mercifully gives us His forgiveness, and frees us with His righteousness letting us be a part of His kingdom.

We become pure in heart, Christ gives us His heart and eyes, instead of seeking selfish gain, we learn to love God and love others well, and as we learn to love like Christ, we get to see God even more fully.

We become peacemakers, where once we used conflict to solve things instead we use love to melt conflict and hostility, just like Christ did. And we are counted as siblings with Christ: children of God.

We become people who are able to endure persecution, just as Christ was persecuted and endured, He gives us His strength to endure it, and once we’ve endured persecution on earth for a while, then God calls us home to be a part of His kingdom forever.

How amazing is that?!

God takes our trash, and He transforms us and turns us into His treasure.

This was a life-giving liberating message to the people who first heard it, and it should be a life-giving liberating message to us as well… entrance into God’s kingdom is something we could never gain on our own, so He did it for us! This is a message that we need to internalize, and it should stir up praise in our heart, in gratitude to King Jesus.

And we should be sharing this message with others. There are so many people in our community right here in the valley, in Canning even, that are broken, hurting, sick, oppressed, and dead in their own sin, and they need this message. They need to understand that there is only one person who can give them hope, only one person who can heal them, and only one person who can save them from their sin; our King, Christ Jesus. This message has the ability to save them, and to give them the same hope and transformation that we have received. But how will they gain this hope and transformation if no one ever tells them the message?

Our mission as the church is that same as Christ’s and His disciples. We need to proclaim this message to our community, and as we begin this new journey together, I look forward to being a part of this with all of you, to sharing this message with the community in Canning, and to supporting and growing alongside each of you, as we each are transformed by this message, and as we watch this message transform others, all for Christ’s glory.

Let us pray.

Bibliography

(1) “‘Follow Me’ A Contextual Reflection on Jesus’ Call”, Doug Greenwold, preserving bible times, reflection #908, https://preservingbibletimes.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Reflection.Follow-Me.pdf

(2) David A Collins, “The Rabbinic Method” (2004).