Kingdom Upside Down

Alice Cooper, Katy Perry, Rick Warren, Denzel Washington, Nat King Cole and Jane Austen share one thing in common. They’re preachers’ kids. PKs. You may be a PK if:

• Family vacations involved a preacher’s conference.
• You’ve ever been used as a sermon illustration.
• You and a sibling used to baptize each other in the bathtub.
• You’re pretty sure “don’t run in church” is the 11th commandment.
• You ate potluck leftovers 5 nights a week.

My children are not PKs, but they’re the next best thing—AKs. Authors’ kids. When they were young, I began writing books. When possible, the kids came along when I spoke somewhere. They would field questions: “Do you guys laugh all the time?” “Are you as funny as your dad?” One day I heard Jeff say, “He’s fun. And he’s around just enough so we’re not tired of him.” Rachael told me, “I’m supposed to be funny, Dad. And if I do something funny people say, ‘you’re just like your Dad.’” Then she said this: “When people find out who my dad is, they treat me differently.”

On an elevator at an author’s convention, a well-known author stepped aboard. I said hello, but he ignored me until he noticed a nametag a publisher had pinned on me. “Oh, you’re an author,” he said, apologizing. “I thought you were just one of the workers.” Before stepping off the elevator I pushed the buttons for all 34 floors. No I didn’t. But I knew I was just as guilty of showing special attention to the jillionaire rather than the janitor. Position and prominence still impress me.

Our culture is obsessed with celebrity. Small fortunes are spent on backstage passes. And many Christians know more about our favourite celebrity preacher or Christian band than we do about our next-door neighbour. We place people on pedestals; our demeanour changes when they enter the room. But shouldn’t we save our adoration for the one who deserves it? The one who honoured the poor, the lowly, and those the world had cast aside. God’s kingdom is a kingdom of reversals. Jesus takes the world’s values and turns them upside down. He favoured the lowest of the low—shepherds and fishermen and servant girls. Jesus made Himself nothing, choosing to turn the world on its ear through ordinary men and women who were broken, bullied and overlooked.

I thank God for great thinkers and singers and preachers, but we must never forget Psalm 115:1 (NIV), “Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory.” I sometimes pray a strange prayer for my children. That God will spare them from stardom or celebrity. Because the greatest hazard of notoriety is that you start thinking about you. Even when you set out to point others to Jesus.

May each of us, rich and poor, known and unknown, live for God’s glory, looking forward to that day when we will lay our trophies at the feet of the One who came not to be served, but to serve.