Jesus’ preaching picks up right where he left off in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth. There he declared his mission “to bring good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18) and here he continues in the same vain “Blessed are you who are poor” (Luke 6:17-26).

Luke’s gospel places this familiar teaching of Jesus down on the plain among throngs of people from all over who have heard about him and have come for a piece of him and his healing power. In this setting, in the nitty gritty of these common folk, and their every day struggles Jesus meets them, heals them, and begins to teach them.

The words in Luke 6 are so familiar to many of us that they’ve lost the surprise that the people who first heard them would have experienced. The preacher, Barbara Brown Tayler reminds us that what comes out of Jesus’ mouth contained “a shocking substitution of bad things for good things, in which blessedness was equated with the very things people did their best to avoid — poverty, hunger, grief, hatred.” And as if that wasn’t already enough, Jesus speaks a word of woe upon the things we spend our time and energy seeking to achieve — wealth, food, laughter and esteem.

Jesus’ words make clear that his values and the world’s values are not aligned. But what is easy to forget is that Jesus is not making a recommendation on how to live our life. Jesus is not saying that we ought to become poor, hungry, sad, or outcasts.

Jesus’ values are shaped by the Hebrew scripture that he learned in that same Nazareth synagogue and it taught him that in God’s realm, “every valley will be exalted and every mountain and hill made low.” In preaching a message of unexpected blessing and woe to the crowds on the plain that have come for a piece of him, Jesus rejects any idea that will be their step up. Jesus’ teaching reveals that God’s realm is more like a ferris wheel than a pyramid in which we’re climbing over each other to to get to the top. This is not judgement, it’s truth. The way things are is not the way they always will be. If that leads us to think less about which step we’re on in some hierarchy and more about expanding the seating at God’s table where there is more than enough for all, then that is the conversation Jesus is interested in having with us!

For those who follow Jesus, the ups and downs and reversals that are part and parcel of God’s good world cannot and will never separate us from God’s great love. So when God’s ferris wheel circles, when transitions threaten us, when change erodes all that we know and all that we have worked for, we live in confidence that the One who claims us has promised to love us, be with us, and bless us.