Jesus said that life in the Kingdom of his Father is often the polar opposite of how life works in the world around us. This kind of teaching was hard for Jesus’ original listeners to understand, and it is equally hard for followers today. We are always deeply tempted to go-with-the-flow and to live as everyone else lives.

As we approach this season in our country where a pandemic rages, racial strife is rampant and a contentious election looms, it is more important than ever that the church, and all who follow Jesus, revisit Jesus’ upside-down Kingdom ethics. And not just revisit them, but commit to practice them in our everyday lives.

Now, as always, we are called to live out the seemingly nonsensical teachings of Jesus as a sign of faith, as a sign of trust, and as a sign to the world of the beauty and power and sheer goodness of the Kingdom of our God.