The Matrix (1999) is a science fiction film set in a future where most humans live unaware that their world is a digital simulation. The real world has collapsed, and intelligent machines now harvest human energy to sustain themselves. To keep people docile, the machines plug them into a lifelike virtual reality—the Matrix—where they go about their daily lives, believing everything is normal. The story follows Thomas Anderson, a quiet computer programmer by day and a hacker named “Neo” by night. Neo senses that something about his world is off, as if reality itself is glitching. His search for answers leads him to Morpheus, a leader of the human resistance who reveals the truth: the world Neo knows is an illusion, and humanity has been enslaved by the very technology it created.
Morpheus offers Neo a choice: Take the blue pill, and he will forget the conversation and return to the comfortable illusion of the Matrix. Take the red pill, and he will awaken to the real world, a world that has been degraded and dehumanized, painful, dangerous, but true, nonetheless. It would have been so much easier for Neo to choose the blue pill, to go back to his comfortable, albeit illusory, life.
Neo chooses awakening. He chooses to join the resistance dedicated to freeing the world from the domination of evil powers bent on reducing it to a lifeless wasteland, devoid of hope and purpose.
In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), I believe Jesus presents people with the “red pill” of his kingdom. The Creator made the world purposeful and good. He intended it to be a theater declaring the glory of God, but a discordant tone now threatens and undermines its harmonious unity. Humankind, created in God’s image, was meant to be formed by God’s wisdom through a learning process in loving communion with their Creator. Instead, in Genesis 2, they swallowed the serpent’s deception of instant knowledge of good and evil. Like choosing the blue pill, they reached for promised godlike enlightenment but ended up severed from the life of God that forms them in his wisdom. As a result, they gave way to the “formless and empty” of Genesis 1:2 back into the world as an ongoing menace that “unforms” God’s very good creation.
In the preamble to the Sermon (Matt. 4:23-25), Jesus ministers to all kinds of people who have been unformed by the formless and empty: diseased, sick, suffering, seizure-ridden, paralyzed, and demon-possessed. Even more astounding is that these people are drawn to him from all over, not just Jews but also Gentiles. Word about him spreads throughout Syria, Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan River. These ethnic and political divisions have manifested in the “formless and empty” for centuries. Yet they are all drawn to Jesus, and he is making them whole! He is forming them into a new community, a people who belong to him and to each other.
His Sermon begins with the language of belonging. It is a message of the kingdom, a word of new creation that re-forms them as his image-bearers, their vocation once again established as the theater of his glory in this world. Echoing the divine pronouncement “very good” of the creation poem of Genesis 1, Jesus blesses them after re-creating them.
When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain. After he sat down his disciples came to him. Then he began to teach them by saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
“Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely on account of me.
(Matt. 5:1-12)
What a blessing! This is certainly the opposite of what we would expect: Poor in spirit? Meek? Hungry and thirsty? Merciful? Persecuted? These are the blessed in God’s kingdom! Jesus is saying that these are the ones who will rewrite history and reform God’s deformed creation.
We can swallow the blue pill and believe that our lives and leadership will thrive in the power-over, cavalier way the culture around us lauds. Or we can take the red pill, with a hope that is not seen that the blessed in God’s kingdom are all the “wrong” sorts of people, those who abandon themselves entirely in trust into God’s re-creating, reforming hands.
Blue-pill leadership is the “knowledge is power” leadership; a system that “takes what you can, gives nothing back.” It may seem like wisdom in this world, but beneath it lie the dead bodies. In the end, it dehumanizes and unforms.
But red-pill leadership is the true kingdom wisdom that is, as Pastor Eugene Peterson says, “a long obedience is the same direction.” It is wisdom that is not taken by force but given by grace through loving communion with our Creator and Savior. It comes to us as we are formed as Christ-image schooled in the ways of his kingdom.
The language of kingdom leadership is belonging. It is communication that builds community, not the exploitation of a commodity labeled “human resources.” Jesus’ Sermon teaches us a new way to be human, even in our leadership, by inviting others to participate, setting a place for them at the table, and celebrating the beloved community that God is creating in our midst for his mission. In a beloved community, leadership communication is dialogic, fostering new meaning as people interact and leading to a transformative shared reality for their mission and relationships. It is poor in spirit, humble, peacemaking, and merciful. It hungers and thirsts for justice and blesses when others curse.
This is gospel-centered leadership. In upcoming blogs, we’ll continue to explore each beatitude to uncover what that leadership looks like in our contemporary world. But let’s begin with a challenge: are we willing to take the red pill, despite the “impracticality” or “illogical” nature of such an action, and lead as kingdom agents in this world?
