May I speak in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

There are many things that this [upside down tree] could represent.

I wonder what you think it might be…

Today, it represents a kingdom. We start down here with layers of ordinary people and then work our way to the top where we find our king.

In our gospel reading today, most of the people Jesus was speaking to were these people, down here. They were the poor, those who were outsiders, who had low social status, who had little power in an occupied Israel. They were those who knew hunger and loss.

We have just heard [C] read the beginning of Jesus’ sermon on the plain, which speaks to what is expected of those who are in the kingdom of God. It’s not an instruction manual of how to get in, but how to live a life filled with the eternal realities of the coming kingdom. Our verses today preface this sermon by demonstrating that this kingdom is for everyone. It’s not just for the rich and the powerful, but for all people, no matter their place in life.

Jesus brings a vision of a different kingdom to what his listeners experienced in their day-to-day lives. He speaks of a reversal – something we can see in the parallels between ‘blessed’ and ‘woe’. We have the poor on one hand and the rich on the other; the hungry and those who are full; those who weep and those who laugh. We have those who are hated, excluded, and reviled, and those who others speak well of.

It’s shocking because we expect the rich, the well-fed, the happy, the well-spoken-of to be the ones who are considered blessed, not the other way around!

This paralleling of the ‘blessed’ or ‘happy’ with the ‘woe’ is nothing new to the biblical account, we can find it in the prophets and in wisdom literature such as in the wisdom poem we read earlier where there is a parallel between the righteous and the wicked.

While we can think of each of these examples, the poor, the hungry, and the mourning, as different groups of people, perhaps it’s more helpful to think of them as a single group – those who follow after Jesus. And the examples of the rich, the full, and the laughing as those who do not follow after Jesus.

Through the use of these parallels, Jesus flips the idea of what a kingdom is upside-down on its head. It’s not about exploitation or subjugation, where only the powerful survive. He paints a vision of a place where the kingdom belongs to the poor and the outcast. A kingdom where those who hunger were satisfied and those who weep, laugh. It is a vision of flourishing for all types of people.

In our Psalm today, there is a beautiful picture of flourishing. It’s a picture of a tree by a flowing stream growing tall and strong with bright leaves and rich fruit. It is a tree that is fulfilling the purpose for which it was created – to be full of life and give fruit in its season. This is the opposite of the dry chaff that has no life and blows away in the wind. For us, this purpose could be summarised as relational authenticity or “the process of becoming the person you are, imaging the relational God” (L. Taylor). Or, to think of it another way, it is to be in healthy and whole relationships with God, with each other, and with creation. 

It is such flourishing and fruitfulness – a living out of the fullness of our being – that Jesus is pointing towards when he states, ‘blessed are you who are poor, blessed are you who hunger now, blessed are you who weep now.’

To represent this flourishing, I wonder if we could have some fruit to add to the kingdom-tree. And when you’ve done that, could you collect all the leaves around the church for the tree? There should be one for each person because this kingdom is for all people.

But, Jess, I hear you ask, what of the king in this kingdom?

When we began, the king was at the top, but now…not so much. And who is the king of this kingdom?

Jesus.

As the king, Jesus didn’t say far above us but lowered himself. Like the strong trunk and deep roots of a tree, he is the one who supports us; he is the foundation of this kingdom. Jesus has brought this kingdom in his first coming, but we wait for its full completion in his second coming.

Perhaps it is because Jesus knows we are in this time of the ‘now-and-not-yet’ that he adds: Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you and insult you, and reject you as evil on account of the Son of Man.

Jesus knows that living as a follower of him in this time of anticipation isn’t always easy. He knows we can find it hard to see the restoration and reversal he points towards. He knows that we can experience persecution, as do many of our brothers and sisters in Christ experience across the world.

So he reminds us that his kingdom is here and it is coming. And we are encouraged to hold onto that hope of heaven – to live in the light of the kingdom. We are encouraged to set our eyes on God and seek to have him at the centre of our thinking and doing – to live in the truth of this upside-down kingdom and seek to live it out.

Amen.