"Living upside down means being generous to the point that it annoys people, making sure people have enough to live on, embracing GRACE!, recognising the servant-hood and suffering required in following Jesus, being prepared to be unpopular and last but not least, showing compassion without conditions."
OK, so this passage (Matt 20) seemed quite abrasive to me at first. I totally thought it WAS unfair that the workers were all paid the same and I would certainly express a similar feeling that the workers employed first expressed!
Of course, all is not as it first seems... and with the first part of this passage there are a number of things that can be learned about the character and Kingdom of God:
-It's all about GRACE.
It's clearly not about time served / work done (eg earning!). That totally defeats the point of God's Grace. An interesting question about this is: are we willing to embrace ALL those in the Kingdom? Even if they are not as 'deserving' (forbid we actually think that!). Do we (we as Christians) see ourselves as more important / deserving as others?
-What's the real injustice here?
At first I thought it was the fact they were all being paid the same... no matter what work they have done. Once the payments are explained (ie the early workers agreed to that amount and therefore it was fair they received it) it does seem 'fairer'.
BUT... here's what's interesting: if the late workers had been paid a portion of the wage (it wasnt a big wage... just enough to live on), they wouldn't have been able to feed their family. Now THATS injustice and very unfair. The thing that we're missing here is the generosity. The grace. That's how the Kingdom of God is. That's how we should be living - transforming this world to be more like the Kingdom of God.
The next section I also found quite strange... with a seemingly random statement by Jesus about his future, followed closely by 'A Mother's Request'.
What this seems to be about is the mother being put up by her sons to ask Jesus for a special place in his Kingdom for them. There seems to be some discussion about this being an act of ignorant faith... but it seems more like focusing on the wrong thing. The focus was on the throne, rather than the serving and suffering in on the way. Just a second ago, Jesus was talking about what he will have to go through soon (his reward!) and here is this lady (well, probably her sons) asking "I want to be with you". Jesus of course says: "you really have got no idea!"
The cross of Jesus is not made of polystyrene... it's made of heavy, hard, splintered wood.
Finally, there is the act of compassion by Jesus towards the two 'annoying' blind men.
They really made fools of themselves, and were very unpopular with the crowd. BUT... this is what it takes!
An interesting point with this is the question Jesus asks... "What do you want me to do for you?"
He doesnt ask: "what can you do for me?" Can we apply this in our lives?
They also hadn't seen anything of Jesus or his miracles. What faith they had! They had the faith right from the word go too... ("Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!") By this we can assume that the end of this story (they followed Jesus) actually means following him and not just joining the crowd, which is cool because there was no preaching involved.
SO... living upside down means being generous to the point that it annoys people, making sure people have enough to live on, embracing GRACE!, recognising the servant-hood and suffering required in following Jesus, being prepared to be unpopular and last but not least, showing compassion without conditions.
