The winter of 1780 and 1781 had looked bleak indeed for the American cause. If the English control of the seas continued; if the French did not move more decisively to help; if the supply arsenals could not be stocked and if the men did not keep their courage, all would be lost. Even General Washington feared the worst and confided in his diary that not only was he losing military engagements, he was losing the heart of the people. On the first of May in 1781, Washington wrote, "Instead of having everything in readiness to take the field, we have nothing; and instead of having the prospect of a glorious offensive campaign before us, we have a bewildered and gloomy defensive one. (All that we need), he wrote, is too contingent to build upon."
Now that was May 1, mind you, just as today is May 1, and the commander in chief of American forces was weary, tired, worn out from apparently fruitless endeavors. Now some things were soon to happen – too numerous and too complicated for me to elaborate on here. The arrival of the French fleet, some important strategic decision, some British mistakes. And by the middle of October, less than six months later, Lord Cornwallis and the British army had surrendered at Yorktown in Virginia. The image I have always cherished of that surrender is the picture of the British troops filing by to lay down their arms and their standards while the American military band played a tune popular in those days, a tune called "The World Turned Upside Down." The revolution had been won.
From defeat to victory in six months; from the depths of despair to ecstatic joy in so little time; from the first of May, May Day, to the world turned upside down. Wouldn't it be great if you could always count on that? Wouldn't it be grand to know the secret of that?
Today, as I’ve said, is May Day, the first of May. It is two hundred and seven years since Washington's May Day, for him a day of despair and hopelessness. And it is less than a hundred years since labor leaders and others around the world began celebrating the first of May May Day, as a day that would lift up the idea of revolution, of change, of struggle for the rights of the working man. Today on the streets of Moscow and in a dozen other capital cities around the world there will be May Day parades with a focus on revolution, change, a world in the making, in short, a world turned upside down. And if you and I find it hard to think that a Socialist state would really be a people’s paradise; if you and I strongly suspect that what May Day really means to many around the world is more oppression rather than more freedom, more despair, rather than more hope, well, that may be, but that does not dim the fact that this day, the first of May, has long-standing connotations of revolution and change, a world turned upside down.
Now in the 17th chapter of the book of Acts we learn something about the revolutionary spirit that wants to turn the world upside down. And we learn too what the world thinks about being stood on its ear. Maybe as we read this story on May Day we can learn something about the drive to turn the world upside down.
The traveling missionaries are Paul, Silas, and Timothy; they are on their way through the cities of Macedonia in the northern part of Greece. They had just spent a night or rather half a night in the pokey at Philippi, and now they are on their way to the city of Thessalonica. Listen to what Paul and Silas did and how they were received there in Thessalonica:
Acts 17:1-9 These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and they say that there is another king, Jesus.
I tell you, the world generally reacts to revolutionaries this way. Who do they think they are to upset what we have gotten so used to? Who do they imagine they are to suggest a new and different loyalty? Most of us are not very comfortable with visionaries and revolutionaries; and most of us have so domesticated the Christian faith that the farthest thing from our minds would be this business of being tabbed as those who have turned the world upside down. No, we would rather think of ourselves as those who set it right side up!
But Paul and Silas, preaching to the Thessalonians, claimed that their loyalties were misguided and that their allegiance to Caesar was off base, that there is another king, Jesus. And for that Paul and Silas were hounded out of town.
On this May Day, symbol of change and revolution, symbol of the quest for justice and peace, I have to wonder whether you and I are Thessalonians too. I have to wonder whether we have truly understood that there is a new king, Jesus. I have to ask whether we have received .the news that the world is to be turned upside down.
On this May Day, there is another King, Jesus, and he stands over against the gods of war and of militarism. He stands over against the conventional wisdom that nation should rise up against nation and fight and slaughter. There is a new king, Jesus, and he would turn the world of violence upside down.
On this May Day, there is another king, Jesus, and he stands over against the empire of getting and spending and possessing and ambition. He stands over against our need to acquire and to hold and to keep for ourselves, and he turns upside down the world of our values. There is a new king, Jesus.
On this May Day, you and I have built little private kingdoms, in which we have found it so easy to build a little comfortable nest, in which we have found it so pleasant to insulate ourselves from the troubles of the world; in which I for one have found it so comforting to work behind the stained glass windows and to dabble in things spiritual while hundreds destroy themselves with drugs and crime and all the rest; in which I have found it more pleasant to condemn than to be an agent of change … into this private kingdom a new king, Jesus, has come, and I don't like it. Do you? We don't like having our happy settled routines altered, and so like the men and women of Thessalonica we would like to run the radicals out of town. They are turning the world upside down.
But the haunting words of the Bible: "there is a new king, Jesus." And if I follow him, I need to have a hand in this May Day, revolutionary business, of turning the world upside down. If Jesus is the king in my life, then I need to have a hand in the monumental task of changing this world into his kingdom. It's not good enough just to accept things as they are, it's not good enough just to escape and feel myself to be safe and secure from all alarms, it's not good enough to trim candles in the temple while the world is on fire … not when there is a new king, Jesus. Not when on this May Day he summons me to turn the world upside down.
But, you know, Paul and Silas were heard in Thessalonica. Some folks heard them and responded. Look back at it: a church began there. The new king, Jesus, gained a following in the city of Thessalonica. And it wasn’t long before Paul was writing these believers to counsel them and to encourage them in their May Day faith, because already, apparently, some had lost it. Some had lost the urgency with which they had begun. They had responded to a new king, Jesus, they had adopted a revolutionary, world turned upside down commitment, but in a short time, something had happened. Listen to what Paul has to say to them:
II Thessalonians 3:10-13
If anyone will not work, let him not eat: the only verse of scripture quoted in the Communist Manifesto, by the way. And I do wonder whether the authors of that revolutionary document knew they were quoting this revolutionary document. But the key point, the punch line: "Brethren, do not be weary in well-doing." Do not be weary in well-doing.
You see, if I change my little image of May Day and I say it as one word, Mayday, the meaning changes, doesn't it? You've seen all those war pictures, and after the Nazis have shot at the plane the pilot is screaming into his radio, "Mayday, Mayday." It means, "I'm in danger." It means, "Help me." It means, "I'm caught in a life and death situation. Mayday, mayday, come to my rescue." The time comes even if you are committed to a new king, Jesus, and to a world turned upside down, that it just gets scary. It just gets frightening out there. Our commitment wanes and our energy dissipates, and they shoot at us. I mean, if you are on the front lines of this world every day, and if you are trying in the name of Christ to turn it upside down and claim it for the king, they are going to snipe at you and you are going to get desperate. May Day is going to become Mayday; belonging to the revolution is going to become battle weariness.
Some of you remember the peace movements and the civil rights struggles of the 60's. A lot of folks in those years thought they were doing the May Day thing, that they were working for a whole new world. But by the 70’s a weariness set in, a despair set in, and quite a few folks just burned out on the whole thing. They got weary in well-doing.
But the apostle Paul says to you and to me, "Your May Day faith is always in danger of turning into Mayday. Your commitment to a world turned upside down is always in danger of becoming despair and weariness, giving up. But brethren, do not be weary in well-doing." Do not be weary in well-doing. Do not give up, because the struggle is long and the rewards often seem few, but there is a new day coming. There’s a new world emerging, and He’s got this new world in His hands.
You see, once there was a May Day summons for a young man; for this young man there was a call to come out of obscurity and to change the world. In the space of three years he was to challenge the old ways and offer new ones, he was to plumb deep into the hearts and minds of men and women and to persuade them of a whole new way of thinking and living. It was May Day for this young man; he heard the call to turn the world upside down.
But at the end of that three years, had you listened closely, you might have imagined that May Day had become Mayday, that the summons to revolution had become a cry of despair and of fear. Had you heard him on one fateful night you might have believed that he had indeed become weary, exceedingly weary in well-doing, and that the world had succeeded in conspiring to put him to silence and to keep itself right side up.
Weariness … the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. And yet he did not yield to the easy way, the comfortable way, yet he did not give in to his weariness ... and when the tomb was emptied three days later it was not Mayday, Mayday, danger, weariness; it was May Day, revolution day, world turned upside down day.
Come to this table where we celebrate him. Come bring your reluctance to change this world and turn it upside down, and see him, hear him call you to May Day. Come bring your weariness, come bring your wounded hearts, come bring your Mayday mentality, your weariness mentality, and take heart. Do not be weary in well-doing. There is a new king, Jesus, and the world you are to turn upside down he holds in the hollow of his nail-scarred hand.
