As if you don’t know up from down

A spread from my son’s current favorite book, “An Awesome Book!” by Dallas Clayton. You can read the whole book here: https://www.veryawesomeworld.com/awesomebook/

Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A (January 22, 2023).

View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Preached at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. A video of our whole 10 am service for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany (Jan 22nd) is available here.

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“For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18

“As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” Matthew 4:18-22

Edited Transcript

May only truth be spoken here and only truth be heard. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Please be seated.

Read An Awesome Book! here: https://www.veryawesomeworld.com/awesomebook/

Today I brought a prop. This is my son's current favorite book. The title is "An Awesome Book!" My husband bought this for him a few years ago. I have memorized this book because we read it every night. But I think sometimes a little repetition is good. This is a book about dreaming and what dreams are for, and it's to encourage kids of every age not to stop being people who dream.

And as I was thinking about our readings this week, a line from this book came to me. The author writes, "If they say that your dreams seem too big to come true, you tell them that, I told you: That's what dreams are meant to do! They're meant to make you seem as if you don't know up from down. Because dreams are dreams, and that's why dreams are worth having around."

"Dreams are meant to make you seem as if you don't know up from down." When St. Paul says, "The cross of Christ is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God," this is what he's talking about. He's talking about... and note that it's being saved, not saved one time... People who are participating in the ongoing process of being saved by following Jesus; people who are experiencing the liberation that comes from being part of God's community may seem foolish: like we don't know up from down.

Think about all the things that the Bible says that mix up "up" and "down:"

• “The things that are being cast down will be raised up.”

• “God has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.”

• “God has filled the hungry with good things.”

Next week, our Gospel will be Jesus teaching the beatitudes: Blessed are the meek, the poor. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst. The whole Gospel is filled with dreamers who seem like they don't know up from down. And that's what dreams are meant to do. They're meant to make us seem as if we don't know up from down, as if we don't know the way the world works.

And as I've probably preached before, in a world where so often, whether for us or for people we see on the news or people we see on the street, or people we know in our own lives, the world can look so much more like a nightmare than the dream we know God has for this world. But as disciples of Jesus, as people who follow Jesus, we have come here to be part of God's dream: Which doesn't seem to know up from down. And we are discovering the power of God.

Now, I think this matters not only to understand what St. Paul is talking about, but also to answer a question that's been bugging at me a little. Since we have two readings in a row, this week and last week, where Jesus calls people. And they answer right away! They leave behind what they were doing and they follow him. I said to our Bible study group this week as we were studying this passage: I can't even stop writing an email when it's time for noonday prayer! And these guys left their whole livelihood and follow Jesus when he walked by and said, come with me.

And I think it may be true that there was something about the person of Jesus that was compelling, but if we think that it's about personal charisma, I don't think we get the whole story. I think more than that, what was happening and what made these men say yes was that they were ready to turn the world on its head. They were ready to be part of a new dream. The hymn [we just sang—They Cast Their Nets in Galilee] talks about "happy simple fishermen," "contented, peaceful fishermen," but as a friend of mine says, for who is life really that simple? Who of us is contented and peaceful?

Understand that this Gospel has Jesus beginning his ministry after the arrest of John the Baptist. The Gospel puts this call in this context of a nightmare: where good people are being arrested without cause because they threatened the Roman Empire. Just like today, Jesus walked and lived in a world where there was nobody who was unscathed by pain and suffering. There was nobody who wasn't hurt by violence. People were being cast down and oppressed. That is the context that Jesus in which Jesus began to dream a new dream. That is the context in which Jesus began to work with other people, to imagine a world where down was up and up was down, and everybody could share together in God's love.

And for us too: when we look around us and we see that this world looks more sometimes like a nightmare than it does, like the dream that we know God has for us, we become more willing to say "Yes" to Jesus when he says, Come, let us dream a new dream. Let us become people who have hope, who know that God loves everyone and who know that sometimes we have to seem like people who don't know up from down in order to bring God's good dream closer to us here and now. Amen.