My children ask a lot of strange questions. "What if everything was upside down?" they once asked. While waiting for me to answer they said, "I would be standing on the sky right now!"

"What if right was wrong, and wrong was right?" they asked another time. "Then I could do whatever I want!"

I don't remember engaging in these sort of metaphysical dilemmas when I was six years old. Maybe I didn't watch enough television. Or maybe I watched too much television.

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus tells us that the kingdom of heaven is just this sort of altered state my children have imagined. "Blest are you poor," he begins. "Blest are you who hunger…Blest are you who are weeping…Blest are you when men hate you." He continues "Woe to you rich…Woe to you who are full…Woe to you who laugh now…Woe to you when all speak well of you."

In our world, most of us would probably do just about anything we could to avoid being poor, hungry, weeping and hated. And we are taught to celebrate, and even covet being rich, full, well thought of, and, well, generally happy. In this world, the rich are considered successful, and the poor are considered failures.

That is not so in the kingdom of God. Jesus suggests that those of us who live well without regard for others will find the immediate gratification we desire, but nothing more, "for your consolation is now." But if we make ourselves poor in Christ's name, then "Blest shall you be when men hate you, when they ostracize you and insult you and proscribe your name as evil because of the Son of Man. On the day they do so, rejoice and exult, for your reward shall be great in heaven."

Today's Gospel makes me ask myself what I am looking to be rewarded by. Is it in the comfort of material success? The approval of my friends, neighbors and co-workers? Or is it in service to the neediest members of my community? I have to admit that I spend a lot more time trying to be rich, full, and well thought of than I do trying to become poor, hungry, weeping and hated.

"Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the Lord," the prophet Jeremiah tells us in the first reading. "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is in the Lord."

Jesus is asking us to consider what we are trusting, where we are placing our hope for a lasting source of spiritual health and happiness in our lives. Clearly, following Jesus Christ will not necessarily put us on a path that leads to popularity and wealth. We are called to advocate for the powerless, which will often generate conflicts with the powerful.

The kingdom of God is mostly invisible. We glimpse it when courageous women and men put their hope in the Lord rather than in "flesh," and experience the truth that the reward of heaven is far greater than the rewards of this world. For my part, I pray for the courage to join their ranks, and to live more fully in the "real" world, where the poor are blessed.

Bill Peatman writes from Napa.