Upside Down

Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
Proper 21, Year A
September 27, 2020
 
“You shall know the truth, and it shall make you odd.”
-Flannery O’Conner
 
A giant among preachers and theological authors, Frederick Buechner, was once asked to preach at the 200th anniversary of a Congregational Church in Rupert, Vermont, his childhood hometown.  As Buechner was preparing for the occasion, he reviewed the history of the church to get a sense of the place and its people.  And in his sermon, he zeroed in on one strange and entertaining feature of their story.  Apparently, in 1823, they raised enough money to build a steeple for a bell tower, and upon its completion, one member, a man named Lyman Woodard, was so delighted and excited that he went up in the steeple and stood on his head.  Buechner went on to say that Woodard’s act was a practical, theological, and faith filled—because he wanted to see the world anew.
 
James Anton Rowland, you are here to be baptized today.  And I have to tell you that you are joining a particularly odd fellowship of faith.  I am not making a commentary about Emmanuel Episcopal Church in particular, rather about the big “C” Church: that body of all faithful people who look to God as revealed in Jesus to shape our lives, interpret our stories, and guide our actions.  You see, we do not see the world as it may be presented most often:  a world where might makes right, winning is everything, and money makes for power.  What we are telling you, and reminding ourselves in the process, is that God give us a world turned upside down.
 
It all started in the beginning when God spoke creation into being.  God spoke and things happened.  It continued as God came to people and invited them to love God and love one another.  It continued through the rise and fall of empires with some great leaders and some lousy leaders, and all of them imperfect.  Then came perfection: God became one of us in Jesus.  He wandered the earth for a time showing and telling who God is and what God does.  But human power brokers were stuck in their view of the world, and could not handle Jesus kind of perfection, mostly, because he claimed and established a deeper authority than their notions of power.  He changed the story.   He flipped the narrative.  He challenged shallow assumptions. Through love and deep listening, he changed hearts and minds.  He still does.
 
As we listen to the Gospel for today, it has two movements.  In the first he challenges worldly assumptions and assertions about power.  In the second, he tells a story that ends with his statement that the least, the last, and the lost are headed for the Kingdom of God ahead of those who think they have it all figured out.  This is the kind of stuff that got him in trouble, because Jesus is an includer, a welcomer, a blesser, and a healer – of all, not just a select or like-minded group.
 
In Jesus’ way, losing becomes finding, crying becomes laughing, the last become first, and the weak are really strong.  In the end, life always overcomes death.  As the Church, we live this out.  We take care of each other.  We pray for each other.  Sometimes we cry together and sometimes we laugh together, and sometimes we must just learn to let each other alone. In short, we ground ourselves in loving each other.  And because we follow the includer, the welcomer, the blesser, and the healer, we do the same for folks who may not be part of our local branch of the Jesus Movement, but are part of us because of our common humanity in sharing this world.
 
James, in a moment we will recite the baptismal covenant.  It is a summary of all that I am telling you we strive to do, and we will not get it all right all of the time, but it is the place where we start, and it is where we look for guidance and a gentle reminder that we live up-side down in this world.
 
Old Lyman Woodard had it right.  With our feet planted in heaven and our head down here on earth, we are called to be peculiar, odd, and unique children of God.  James, thank you for being here today, for reminding us that God is not finished with this world because in every child, hope is reborn, creation is made new, and you present us with the need and the cause to care and love without condition.  Today, you give us a chance to remember our story, to see our world anew, and hold fast to the odd truth that God’s love is the only power that matters.  Welcome home.  Amen.