Turning the World Upside Down

"Turning the World Upside Down"--May 30, 2017

"When they could not find [Paul and Silas], they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, 'These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.' The people and the city officials were disturbed when they heard this, and after they had taken bail from Jason and the others, they let them go." [Acts 17:6-9]

The charges here are pretty serious--but notice: nobody contests them.  There is no plea bargain.

In this scene from the early life of the church in Acts, no less than the apostle Paul, as well as Silas and someone named Jason, and the rest of the Christian community there are accused of "turning the world upside down," and they have been announcing "another king," the Lord Jesus.  This is subversive stuff--not violent revolt, but a clear statement that for the Christian community, ultimate allegiance goes to the living Jesus, and not to Caesar--to the living Jesus, and not to local authorities; to the living Jesus, and not to their own self-sufficiency.  These are weighty allegations--and, yet, surprisingly enough, Paul and Silas do not dispute them.

At least they do not dispute the charge that they have come to announce the Reign of God and the Lordship of Jesus, and I hardly suppose they would dispute that their message really is turning the world upside down.  Just at the most basic level, the news of the risen Lord Jesus turns the world upside down in the sense that the news shakes up the nice and quiet order of life-as-we-know-it.  And then on top of that, the actual Christian message itself is pretty subversive stuff the more you dig into it.  The God who raises Jesus from the dead is, as the Scriptures insist, the same God who lifts up the lowly, who deflates the inflated proud, who calls "blessed" the ones everyone else labels "losers," and who uses weakness and foolishness to shame the strong and the wise.  There is no getting around it--the Christian message IS aimed at turning the old order of things upside down. The crowds and the authorities are spot on when they accuse Paul and the other Christians of "turning the world upside down," and they are right on the money when they accuse the believers of announcing a new king.

I can remember as a teenager the first time I came across these words in the Bible and thinking, "This doesn't sound like church as I've seen it!  We never talk about turning the world upside down, and we hardly have much enthusiasm for talking about Jesus as our king."  There was surely a good bit of adolescent foolishness and naïveté in that reaction, but that doesn't mean it was wrong.  I think it was nevertheless an accurate read of church as I had seen it.  We Christians--at least by and large in America--have for a very long time lived with a sort of gentleman's agreement with the orders of the day, saying that we would not rock the boat if they would let us religious folks be.  We would not raise the question of whether being a good follower of Jesus and a good citizen were always the same, and in turn, churches would not pay taxes.  We would agree to get comfortable with the order of the day--even if it meant comfort at the expense of others who get bombed, or turned away, or exploited--and in exchange, well, we could live in that comfort.  We would promise not to mention that the emperor had no clothes on, and in return, we would get front row seats for his parade down the street. 

We have not talked much about "turning the world upside down," maybe because we either believe that everybody has already heard the News about Jesus (which is incorrect) or because we believe that the News of Jesus isn't really earth-shaking stuff (which is also incorrect).  Sometimes, the closest we can muster is playing church, where we all agree to be in worship on a Sunday and we smile at the presence of children and will occasionally mention to friends and acquaintances about "what a lovely church we attend," and invite them to come, with the same casual whimsy as inviting someone to join you for a concert or a movie. 

But Paul and Jason and Silas, none of them find the message of Jesus to be so insipid, so tame.  They don't protest when the accusations are read, "They have been turning the world upside down!"  Paul doesn't stop the proceedings and plead, "But you've got us all wrong!  We don't want to affect people's actual lives, just to make them feel a little more spiritual!"  And Silas doesn't say, "You've misheard us--Jesus is our Lord, but that doesn't actually affect they ways we buy or sell or act or love.  No, we're still good subjects of the emperor on those counts!"  And you don't hear Jason saying, "All of this Jesus-is-king business is just spiritual--we don't really believe what Jesus said, or live under the way of life he taught us!  No, he's just our ticket to heaven, not our way of life on earth!"  Nope--not a word like that from any of these holy troublemakers.  They seem to believe that the charges fit--or at least, they reflect how you would hear the message of Jesus if you thought in terms of the Roman Empire's legal system.  Any other "lord" is a threat to the unquestionable rule of the emperor. Any other "logic" than Rome's might-makes-right is treasonous.  Any other allegiance than to the authority of Caesar threatens to subvert the whole system.  And any claim of a risen Messiah who has defeated the one threat Rome was really good and making ("We'll kill you if you cause trouble!") is going to sound like it's up ending the order of the day. And yet in the face of that, here are these followers of Jesus, who do not protest at the charge that they are "turning the world upside down." Instead, they kind of shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, yeah, I guess that is exactly what we are doing after all. All hail king Jesus!"

Could we hear the Good News that way again?  Could we let it sink in today that the news of God's free gift of grace in Christ Jesus up-ends all the earning-schemes and winner-take-all ways of life as we are used to it?  Could we see again that if Jesus--the one who defeats death by dying--really is lord, then he has exposed every emperor's need for dominating others with bigger guns and bigger treasuries as just naked aggression?  Could we recognize that if Jesus really is Lord, then our priorities and finances and commitments are all subject to re-ordering--and yet that it is good news, because the old rat-race system we lived in no longer has power over us?  Could we be the kind of Christians who do not try to soften the charges when people say we are "turning the world upside down"?  What could that look like for you and me today?

Or, to put it in these terms--if someone accused you of "turning the world upside down" because you were living your life in allegiance to "another king, named Jesus," would there be enough evidence to convict you?

Our Lord and King Jesus, we teeter between naive and adolescent rebelliousness at the good structures around us on the one hand, and quiet complacency in a world that pretends it is god on the other.  Keep us restless, then, dear Lord, so that we can give our allegiance to you and find the freedom you give living in your Reign.  Grant us the courage needed for the day, if we are to live this day as people in the Kingdom of God that is rippling out all around us and among us.