The trouble is...it’s not always clear in our culture what form that victimhood will take. We know we’re supposed to be suffering for Jesus. But for the most part, we’ve had it pretty good. So a lot of American Christians have started to look for ways that we’re being oppressed, that our values are being co-opted, that the world is out to get us. We’re supposed to be persecuted. So we imagine we are.

Downside Up: Jesus' Vision to Right the World

Hungering for righteousness means having this insatiable ache to see things made right, in all places, for all people. It means having a desire so deep, so intense, that life isn’t possible without it.

Downside Up: Jesus' Vision to Right the World

Blessed are the people who pursue wholeness, completeness. Blessed are the people who make space for the gathering together of things that are meant to be whole, but aren’t yet. And that’s all things. Because all things - our relationships, our communities, our ecosystems, our selves and our minds and our ways of thinking about ourselves - they were all meant to be whole, to be sound, to be healthy and safe.

Downside Up: Jesus' Vision to Right the World

But what if the world doesn’t have to revolve around power, greed, violence and retribution? What if the world is actually designed to function in a completely different way? What if there is another way of looking at the world, a proverbial Earthrise, that provides the perspective to see that power, greed, violence and retribution are actually part of the decaying and corrupt Upside Down?

Downside Up: Jesus' Vision to Right the World

To put it succinctly: To be meek is not to disavow power or fail to use it or to be powerless — instead, it is to be both in control and mighty on behalf of the other.

Downside Up: Jesus' Vision to Right the World