My pastor preached a sermon about Peter raising Tabitha from the dead. He said something to the effect of, “If you want to see Jesus at work, you should look to those who are considered last.” 

For most of the people listening, he didn’t need to directly quote verses like Matthew 20:16: “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” (See also Mark 9:35, Mark 10:45 and Matthew 10:31, for starters). Most Christians are familiar with the concept.

Anabaptists are especially fervent in the pursuit of being last — or, as I was taught to call it, God’s upside-down kingdom. I will always envision Don­ald Kraybill’s (author of The Upside- Down Kingdom) two ladders. The world’s ladder has the powerful and wealthy folks at the top and the poor and marginalized on the low rungs. Right beside it is God’s ladder, which is flipped upside down.

This concept is revolutionary, a starting point to change the world. 

It is also a bit of a bummer for people like me.

Our financial security, U.S. passports and White skin place us near the top of the world’s ladder. So, one might think, it stands to reason that in Jesus’ kingdom, these attributes are undesirable. What the world says is good, Jesus says is bad.

In fact, whenever I hear a sermon or read something about the last/first dichotomy, I feel guilty for being the person I am in 2025.

I am in no way arguing for this teaching to be sidelined. I’m convinced a faith without the upside-down model is biblically impoverished and disregards a central tenet of who Jesus is.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I feel guilty.

Guilt is a positive emotion if it leads to change. But this guilt is tricky, be­cause I don’t see where the change is possible.

First, I have no control over the fact that I was born into a society that privileges my skin color. Yes, I could give all my possessions to the poor and revoke my U.S. citizenship, but I don’t think Jesus is asking me to do those things.  

Jesus didn’t have an inherent problem with people the world would label as successful and influential. Jesus had wealthy, powerful friends. Having money in the bank and the opportunity of education are not automatically sinful.

Why have I always assumed the goal of the upside-down kingdom is to achieve equality? To move the firsts down to the low rungs or the lasts to the top?

I’m guessing the Enlightenment and Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (we all have a right to liberty, property, security) played a part. But I don’t know that Jesus would have agreed.

When Jesus said the last will be first and the first last, he wasn’t speaking about equality. After James and John asked Jesus to seat them on his left and right, Jesus admonished them. He did not, however, tell them to share. He told them to serve.

Jesus didn’t tell utopian fairy tales of universal equality. Instead, he preached the good news that in service and sacrifice comes strength and power.

Those on the low rungs of the world’s ladder have no choice but to serve and sacrifice. On God’s upside-down ladder, they are the most blessed.

Some people, like me, must choose to serve. We aren’t asked to strip away our power but to sacrifice ourselves through it.

For example: Non-U.S. citizens, including green card holders and legal migrants, are vulnerable in our society, particularly since January. They are continually under threat of detention or deportation.

What if “firsts” like me used the power of our citizenship to speak for these people when they are silenced? What if we picked up their placards and chanted for them, signed their peitions or sponsored their activities?

Perhaps we would be arrested. Perhaps we would be blacklisted, our names added to a watch list. Yes, we’d be slipping down the world’s ladder. But that’s good news in the kingdom of heaven.

As my pastor suggested, often Jesus’ best work is among the least of these.

As he spoke, I looked out on the congregation from my perch in the choir loft. There were several hundred earnest, law-abiding, White faces. People dressed in proper church clothes with driver’s licenses in their back pockets and credit cards in their purses.

Those of us who have reaped the world’s rewards are not excluded from Jesus’ best work. Like the first son in the prodigal son story, we are invited to join the party.