We are in the 6th week of our “Light It Up” series, in-which we have been exploring Romans 12 and some other perspectives of being a “city on a hill” and lighting up our communities and world with the love and grace of Jesus. Last week we heard from our awesome kids the story of Jesus and His life on Earth in such a unique and fresh way! This week we will zero back in on Romans 12 and the foundation of the Kingdom that Jesus came to build.

Romans 12: The Practical Paul

Paul’s letter to the church in Rome can largely be divided into two parts. The first half of the letter is mostly theological in nature. Paul labored for the first several chapters to help the Romans understand the nature of the mankind’s sinful, fallen state and the “how and why” of God’s redemptive plan to bring us back to Him. By the time we get to Romans 12 we have moved mostly from the theological part of the letter to the more practical part. It is here that Paul challenges and encourages the church in Rome and us today of what our lives and choices need to look like, now that Jesus has freed us from our sin and given us new life.

“Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” —Romans 12: 14-18

Verses 14 through 18 all have to do with our relationships to the various people around us, both friends and enemies. Blessing someone who “pursues you with malice intention”-(definition of persecution), is the opposite value of the ancient world, which valued justice and retribution against one’s enemies. To make the active choice to rejoice with someone who is already rejoicing means that you are genuinely happy for them and have no trace of envy or jealously. To weep with those who weep requires us feel what they feel with them. Living in harmony with others is the very definition of thinking not only of yourself but of others as perhaps more significant than yourself. This leads directly into the next verse, which echoes verse 3 from a few weeks ago; do not live in pride but with humility including who you surround yourself with and how you relate to the world around you. Never being wise in our own sight forces us to listen to others, especially if their throughts, feelings, and circumstances differ from ours. All of this lays the ground-work for verses 17 and 18, that being honorable (respectful) and kind rather that being evil towards someone who has been evil toward you is the best way to live. And ultimately, all these practices speak into this last challange: that with all the effort we can muster, we should strive to have peace with all people, regardless of differences.

Two New Lenses: Mercy and Compassion

I could go on for DAYS about these verses but ultimately they speak to how we live and treat others, how we view and feel about others in regards to ourselves. Just like a few weeks ago, Paul challenged us to live life through the lens of humility, now he adds the lenses of mercy and compassion.

Verses 14 through 18 all describe relationships of either a needing or antagonistic nature. And regardless of which, Paul is saying to the church that all relationships with people require mercy and compassion. To be merciful to someone is to spare them justice or judgment. To offer forgiveness and grace instead of what we may think they deserve. To be compassionate to someone isn’t just being sypathetic to their circumstances but to seek to understand so much of what they are experiencing that you actually feel and experience what they are going through. To put yourself in their lives.

For the time period of the early church, these concepts went against the mainstream flow of culture. Mercy and compassion were viewed as weeknesses, foolishness, folly. Life was about only the strongest will survive. If you were going to get ahead in life and gain wealth and status, you did so by crushing the weak and less fortunate, taking from them to give to yourself. The lowly, the humble, the meek, those who where different, they were meant to be avoided and rejected. War was about winning and defeating your opponent, not so much about peace. Peace was won by subjucating others. Entire kingdoms were built on the back of slaves, the broken, and belittled. If you weren’t taking advantage of others, then someone was going to take advantage of you.

Paul knew that the only answer to a world so built on selfishness and hate was for the people of God to respond with mercy and compassion. And he knew this because Jesus, from the very beginning of His Earthly ministry, had a different kingdom in mind.

An Upside-down Kingdom

Very early on in Jesus’s ministry, scripture records that Jesus looked upon the crowds and had compassion for them, because they were harrassed and helpless, like sheep without a sherpard (Matt. 9). It’s in light of His great compassion and mercy for the world that Jesus started His ministry with a very specific address of what His Kingdom would be like.

“And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” —Matthew 5: 2-12

The “kingdom of the world” is like a vast pyramid. At the very narrow top are the rich, the powerful, the beautiful, the fortunate, the strong, the winners. The kingdom of the world values selfishness, entertainment, sex, greed, and appearance. At the wide bottom of the pyramid are the broken, the pure, the mourners, the peacemakers, the selfless, the humnble, the different or undesirables.

But with this first teaching in His ministry, Jesus flips the kingdom of the world around and transforms it into His kingdom, the Upside-down kingdom. Because Jesus views the world through the lenses of mercy and compassion, He designs His kingdom, His people to be a people that both need and reflect the values that Jesus values. The wide part of the pyramid that was at the bottom is now at the top. The last have become the first.

So there are two ways to understand these beginning statements of Jesus:
1.) Those who are poor in spirit, who mourn, who seek peace and righteousness, who are merciful, who are rejected, broken, and lowily are now blessed because they will recieve the love, the mercy, the peace, the comfort, the righteousness, and the compassion of God.

2.) The people of God are meant to reflect and live out these blessings. We are meant to be meek and humble, people who strive for peace with others, who practice purity and righteousness, who comfort those who are poor in spirit and mourning.

Does that make sense? The kingdom of heaven, the upside-down kingdom, is made up of people who see themselves and the world around them throught the eyes of Jesus. With mercy and compassion for all who need it. Even and especially for those who may be our enemies.

A Story of Mercy and Compassion

A parable we find in the gospel of Luke I believe best exemplifies the upside-down kingdom of mercy and compassion:

“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” —Luke 18: 9-14

Here’s the thing, both of these people are sinners in need of God’s mercy and compassion. And God looks at them both with mercy and compassion. But the Pharisee did not recognize his own sin or his own need for the mercy and compassion of God. He was so convinced of his own high place in his society because of all the good things he had done. But he was unwilling to look at the tax collector, a person who was obviously broken and hurting, with any of the mercy and compassion of God. To offer forgiveness without want of anything in return. To climb down into the circumstances of the tax collect in order to understand and feel what he was going through and so to help the tax collector out of his problems.

Whereas the tax collector knows he is a sinner. He knows his low position in his society and with God, he knows he is in desperate need of mercy and compassion and does not disparage the Pharisee of his position. And it is he, the tax collector, a bottom, lowly, rejected, enemy of the Jewish people that Jesus says is show mercy and compassion.

It is my hope that we as a people and a church would seek to have the eyes of Jesus. To be apart of the upside-down kingdom of broken and battered and beloved. And to take the mercy and compassion that we have recieved from God and seek to give it to others in need. Especially our enemies.

You are loved! Believe it!