Poet and playwright W.S. Gilbert wrote about a strange place called Topsy-Turveydom:

The other night, from cares exempt,
I slept—and what d’you think I dreamt?
I dreamt that somehow I had come
To dwell in Topsy-Turveydom!—

Where vice is virtue—virtue, vice:
Where nice is nasty—nasty, nice:
Where right is wrong and wrong is right—
Where white is black and black is white.

In Topsy-Turveydom, the king revels in his servants’ hatred of him, chandeliers jut out from the floor, chairs are suspended from the ceiling, “sound common sense is simply disgusting”, and people age in reverse. Little babies know calculus, and become more ignorant as they get older. Everything is based on principles that are the exact opposite of how we know them in our world.

Even though we understand that Gilbert was satirizing, the idea behind Topsy-Turveydom made me think about a verse from the Bible. In Acts 17:6, a vocal contingent of the Jews living in Thessalonica complained about the effect that Paul’s preaching was having on their community. They exclaimed, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.” To them, the Christian faith was upside down, out of place, and disruptive to the lifestyle and worldview they cherished. But even in their vitriol, there is a powerful lesson for Christians in every age or locale: Have we turned the world upside down? What is it about the faith that we proclaim that seems so wrong to the world? Is there one sticking point, in particular, that represents this difference most fundamentally?

The Messiah Was Not What Anybody Expected

Jesus managed to subvert just about everybody’s expectations about Him. They thought their Messiah would become their king on an earthly throne. Instead, He turned down the crown and ran away from such earthly glory (John 6:15). They thought He would come and enforce their interpretation of the Law. He actually came to fulfill the Law in its purity (Matthew 5:17) and abolish the traditions and doctrines of men that supplanted (or, at least, supplemented) the Law (Matthew 15:1-14). They expected a conquering hero, and got a man who died on a cross with thieves. I have always appreciated the surprise presented to the apostle John when he was observing the Revelation unfold before him. When he turned around in Revelation 5:5-6 expecting to see the “Lion from the tribe of Judah,” he discovered nothing but a slain lamb standing there. One wonders if Jesus might have been a secret citizen of Topsy-Turveydom, the way He turned everybody’s preconceptions and expectations upside down!

It was Jesus’ ideas about greatness and authority, perhaps more than anything else, that stood out from the world around Him. While unbelievers have all their ideas about what it means to be great and powerful, our Lord taught His disciples the exact opposite, saying,

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:25-28).

When it comes to authority, the Christian must see things from a different viewpoint. It seems odd to the world to say that the greatest is the least, and the least the greatest. It seems strange to urge service and humility when aspiring to greatness. The one who seeks the least recognition in his work is the one who is honored by God the most. “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 6:1). Whether it is alms-giving (Matthew 6:2-4), prayer (6:5-13), forgiveness (6:14-15), or any other area of spiritual discipline and service, our deeds should be for the sake of God only. We are not honorable because we have it heaped upon us by other people, but because we have the quiet recognition of our God who sees every deed done in secret.

We come to this mindset because we observe the way it worked in the life of our Master and Teacher, Jesus Christ. He never sought the honor and glory of the world, but confidently proclaimed that His kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36). Whatever the world thinks about power, authority, or “lording it over” somebody else, Christ’s kingdom would be opposed to it in every form. Having emptied Himself of whatever seems like greatness to the world (literal equality with God), He humbled Himself and came in the form of a bond-servant. The apostle explains in Philippians 2:5-11 that we should have this attitude in ourselves also. But notice something else about that text: the more Christ humbled Himself, the more God exalted Him. When He could go no lower – reviled as a criminal, cast out of the city, killed by heathens – God “highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Jesus was God, but became a servant. Jesus was humbled, and God exalted Him. It is upside down. It is Topsy-Turveydom to our world.

The One With All Authority

But it gets loopier! The One who was humbled to the point of the cross also acknowledged a truth that we should never lose sight of. “Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee, even as Thou gavest Him all authority over all mankind, that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life” (John 17:1-2). Also notice Matthew 28:18, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” The fact of Jesus’ authority is tied directly to two things: His death and our salvation. He was glorified in a humble death in order to bring about salvation to all who obey Him. All authority was granted to Him (all authority means all authority) even as He was being drained of physical life on the cross! This is important to remember because we may have a tendency – as we struggle to reconcile the Gospel with how we understand greatness in the world – to conclude that Jesus emptied Himself of authority in His great life of service. If we are still holding on to the world’s viewpoint, then we have failed miserably to understand a key Gospel concept:

It is in service that our true greatness is shown

If your idea of greatness and authority gives you a picture of Jesus sitting on the top of the heap, bossing everybody around, then it is back to the scriptures for another revealing life lesson from the Master and Teacher of all the world:

“So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined at the table again, He said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them’” (John 13:12–17).

Jesus is saying that if you can “get” this concept, your whole life will be blessed. You are a truly blessed person if you have discovered the strange, unexpected treasures of humble service to others (even our enemies). You are blessed if you have experienced how close to Jesus a person becomes when modeling His life. You are blessed if your greatest pleasure is the ache you feel in your back after a long day of proverbially washing other people’s feet.

Upside Down Greatness Applied

  • Mutual submission in a marriage is one way that almost any Christian can live greatness in the mold of the Savior. While the submission of a wife to her husband is obvious enough from the language of Ephesians 5:22, notice that the corollary is not “And husbands practice authority over your wife.” Rather, husbands are told to “Love their wives, just as Christ loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25). If I am to love my wife as Christ loved His people – and He showed that love through submission in the form of self-sacrificial death and feet-washing – then is there really any inequality in a Biblical marriage when it comes to subjection and service? Even in the context, Christians are commanded to “be subject to one another” (Ephesians 5:21). The apostle also makes a provocative statement about mutual subjection in 1 Corinthians 7:4.
  • Being subject to a government, even if we disagree with its practices. We do not submit because a government has any actual authority over us (remember, all authority is given to Christ). Rather, we submit for the “Lord’s sake” to these institutions (1 Peter 2:13-17).
  • We are subject to an employer for the same reason. We work, not for men, but for God (Colossians 3:22-24).
  • We are subject to each other because the spirit of “lording it over” somebody else is to never exist among God’s people. Even elders, to whom we are commanded to be subject, are to be the consummate servant after the model of Christ (1 Peter 5:2-3). If I want to lord it over anybody, I am trying to steal a position of greatness and authority that belongs to Christ alone.

We are free, but that freedom should be used to serve each other (Galatians 5:13-15). True greatness recognizes the freedom we have in Christ – He has all authority, which means I am not mastered by a government, an employer, a slave-driver, or Satan himself – but uses that freedom to serve. But since we do not submit and serve out of obligation, that means we are free to submit and serve just because we want to, out of love. Since we are not obliged to make payments, we can give gifts. We can serve others not because they have authority over us, but because Jesus has authority over us, and Jesus expresses that great authority in humble service and love.