The readings appointed for today are full of the upside-down, inside-out, bottom up, whole-making ways of God. In the lesson from the Hebrew scriptures, the prophet Micah tells the people they’ve got it all wrong; God is not interested in their rituals, their sacrifices. What the Holy One wants, not only from them but also from us today, is for us “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God.” Is that how we picture the Divine will for us here and now? Is that the foundation on which we base our relationship with the Beloved in our daily lives? Or have we forgotten all Jesus’ teachings on acceptance, non-violence, forgiveness, and love?

The apostle Paul in our epistle lesson makes no bones about how differently God works in comparison to what is important to our culture. He points out: “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are…” Not many of us prefer to strive for such a life—if we are honest, we want to be on top, with the winners, not low and despised, cast aside, ignored, rejected. And then we come to the gospel to what we call the Beatitudes in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. While they may provide some hope that eventually there is light at the end of the tunnel, the thought of persecution, of being reviled and attacked, of suffering, doesn’t seem very appealing, hardly a cause for rejoicing and happiness in the meantime.

Perhaps we are the ones who have gotten everything upside-down, trying to climb the ladder of success, power, and prestige, when God wants us to serve right where we are, to manifest divine love to each and all of God’s precious creatures right now, “to bring good news to the poor, . . . to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.”(Lk.4:18) Jesus recognized his call in those prophetic words from Isaiah; may we also.