If I could describe the readings today in one phrase, it would be “plot twist.” The readings are continually taking our expectations of what “should” happen and turning them on their head. Things do not go as we would expect from one sentence to the next, and it is confusing why things are turning out as they do.

We expect those who do good to be rewarded, and yet they are repaid with evil. Christ comes to save the world, and yet the world hates him for it. The sons of Zebedee ask boldly to be the first in heaven, one would think Jesus would chastise them for such a bold claim. To some extent he does, yet he still does offer them a place in his Kingdom and does not explicitly say that they were wrong to ask. Jesus concludes by upending the social order the disciples have known their whole lives and proposes a new way where the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

The ways of heaven are confusing to the world, in many ways at odds with the world, and this is because the logic of the world and the logic of heaven are not the same. If this earthly world is really all that there is, then it makes perfect sense to pursue wealth, to cheat others, to accomplish all we can in our finite time here. However, this is not the view of one whole believes in a home after this life.

What Christ is showing us in this passage is we need to see things not through the eyes of the world, but through the eyes of faith. This is not always easy to do, we spend our lives surrounded by and immersed in the world, and it is constantly bending our will to fit its own.

How then are we to learn the logic of heaven while surrounded by the world? The lessons of heaven are not intuitive, but this is the whole point of divine revelation. What we cannot intuit ourselves, we are taught. Through the Bible, through Christ’s teaching and parables and example, we are taught the logic of heaven. Through the development of our conscience and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can learn to discern right from wrong and see this world as God sees it. We strive each day to be more like Christ, and in this struggle, we see the world in a new way.

If we truly think differently than the world, it makes sense we would not be fully at home in it. When our logic clashes with that of a worldly mind, when the desires of the flesh conflict with the will of the soul, we will experience friction with the world. We will experience persecution, we will be outcast in certain situations, because we will not go with the flow as others might. When the sons of Zebedee ask for the kingdom of heaven, what Christ promises instead is that they will drink his cup, that they will bear his cross and suffer for him in this life. Through the accepting of this chalice, they will receive the place in his kingdom that they desired.

The world may hate us for what we do, but we are not here to win the love of the world. Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. If this kingdom of heaven is what we seek, we must learn to think with the logic of heaven, practice the ways of God over the ways of the world, and stay true to our course even when that course feels against the wind. Christ does not promise an easy life, but he does promise a warm welcome home at the end.