Upside Down Series Planning Document

Series Overview

Throughout particularly the Gospel of Luke one theme is apparent, that the kingdom of God seems to be an upside down kingdom from ours. From the beginning of the book the messianic expectation strikes a contrast with the meek and mild baby Jesus. At the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry he launches into the sermon on the mount with a series you “you have heard it said....but I tell you...” The theme continues all the way to the final moments of the cross where an instrument of death is used somehow to bring life. This is certainly a larger narrative throughout Luke, but this series hopes to highlight some of the smaller moments throughout the gospel where we see Jesus teaching about the ways that what we think is up is really down and what we think is down is really up.

There is a creative challenge here to ask “what if all that stuff Jesus said he actually meant?” It can seem like everywhere we turn we are given images of what it means to be comfortable.

Luke 6 maybe keep that together.

This is a little harsher in Luke

Comfort to Blessings

Luke 6:20–26 NRSV

20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22 “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 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. 24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26 “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

This is perhaps the most quintessential “upside-down kingdom” passage. It is the total role reversal that no one saw coming. What would it look like if we took this incredibly challenging, and incredibly convicting message, and tried to embrace it as it is? It would seem much easier to mold it to our image, or to our understanding. Jesus didn’t come that we would have comfort, but that we would be a blessing. Perhaps a theme for this week could be something along the lines of comfort v. blessing. It seems to condemn those that are confortable and challenge them to something that is just a little bit deeper than comfort. The kingdom of God is not about our needs and our wants. It is not about constructing a God, or a theology, or a church method that conforms to OUR image. It is about conforming OURSELVES to the image of the kingdom of God. We are called to the upside down kingdom...or perhaps we are actually called to the right-side-up kingdom that we have just confused and messed up so much that for us it looks upside down.

This life to Eternity

Luke 12:13–21 NRSV

13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” 15 And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” 16 Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

Although this is a stewardship passage it seems to ring true for so much more than just our physical treasures. When we are thinking about just our small corner of the universe, Christ is inviting us to imagine what eternity looks like. We don’t just live for ourselves and for our time, our actions now will make investments not only in our relationship to God, but also in the long strain of people that will come after us. Our actions are not only connected to those that have gone before us, but also those that will go after us. We are invited in this passage to imagine ourselves in the midst of a timeline that is larger than the amount of time between our birth and our death date. Being rich towards God seems to mean avoiding stockpiling treasures here on earth.

The issue is greed, not an issue

relating to dividing the family inheritance

Shrewdness to Stewardship

Luke 16:1–8 NRSV

1 Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property. 2 So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’ 3 Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’ 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’ 7 Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’ 8 And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly; for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.

This manager has a bit of an ends justify the means attitude about his business practices. A “do whatever you need to in order to get to the top” frame of reference. Jesus tells this story as a hypothetical parable to illustrate that what the man was doing was wrong and that the kingdom of heaven functions in a quite different way. The kingdom of God is marked by caring for have having responsibility for our actions. The manager didn’t own the money and therefore did not have the ability to cancel the debt. Perhaps it was intentional that the manager was not the owner, in an attempt to remind us that the kingdom of God is not marked by “do whatever you need to in order to get to the top” it is marked by a sense of responsibility and stewardship of all of things that are gifted to us by God (our time, talent, treasure, relationship, authority, etc.)

Why is he being praised for what he is doing?

The manager’s job should be to make the manager money

The manager distributed the money which is what it was used for.

Judgement to Forgiveness Mother’s Day

Luke 6:37–42 NRSV

37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38 give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.” 39 He also told them a parable: “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? 40 A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. 41 Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 42 Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.

When we hear that word judging it seems almost like a curse word. If you ever hear someone say “are you judging me?” even the instigation that I might be judging them feels like an attack. In fact for the non-churched population one of the words that unfortunately gets paired most with the Christian Church is the word “judgemental.” How have we strayed so far? Often it seems that the opposite of judgement is acceptance, or openness. Those that are open and accepting are often accusing those “judgemental people” of being too closed off. And often those that are incredibly open minded are seen as willing to accept anything as true. Or in some way lacking in some sense of discernment.

In the kingdom of God the opposite of judgement is neither of those thing. In fact, the response to being judgemental is found right here is the Sermon On The Mount. What is the opposite of judgement you ask? forgiveness. Being judgy fails because if we were all judey we wouldn’t ever be able to get anything done. It would be as if the blind were leading the blind. The upside down kingdom invites us to first reflect on the ways that we have fallen short (the specks in our eyes) and instead of just dwelling on that and getting all down and out about ourselves, the upside down kingdom of God invites us to use that as a primary motivated for our forgiveness of others. When we practice forgiveness we gain a bit of a deeper understanding of God’s forgiveness for us. The best way to deal with hypocrites...is to realize that we might be one.

Yurgen Multman - what judgement will be like? Forgiveness is about the restoring of relationship

“both sides” are judgey in an attempt to hurry justice

Rights to Relationship

Luke 23:39–43 NRSV

39 One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

The mindset that the criminals had on the cross was one that many still have today: “I am unworthy, I have done too many bad things, salvation isn’t really offered for people like me, is it?” The criminals had come to a point of acceptance at this point that their deeds had gone too far and perhaps they were just getting what they deserved. Even in one of his last moments Jesus has this transformative moment with the criminals where, in a strange twist of event, he says that even people like them will be in heaven, and will have a place in the Kingdom of heaven. The shift in the passage is from a righteousness (or works) based salvation to a relationship based salvation. I imagine these criminals getting to the gates of the kingdom of heaven, and just saying something like “I know I have done far too many bad things to be here, but I know him” and pointing to Jesus. Throughout the whole gospel Luke is highlighting how the kingdom of God is big enough to include even the outcasts and this is perhaps the most clear example of that. Lukes gospel makes clear note to emphasize the stories of those that are on the margins, and also in relationship with Jesus. Regardless of what our stories look like or what our past consists of, we too are offered relationship with Jesus.

Because of how upside down relationship we are in with God

The urgency of TODAY we will be in salvation

This is not the most ideal of timing for Jesus