Sleep Well…and Dream
Grace to you and peace from God our Creator, from our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and from our Sustainer, the Holy Spirit. Amen
He was a crook. He was a con man. He was a cheat, and he was on the run. He was scared for his life. His story is worth telling repeatedly not because the intriguing twists and turns of his story could be made into a fascinating limited series on Netflix but because of the reaction to this crook, this con man, this cheat. His name is Jacob and he is the subject of one of the most vivid scenes in all of scripture. However, before we get to that incredible scene let’s learn a little about Jacob – in the words of one of my favorite storytellers, Frederick Buechner:
“Twice Jacob cheated his lame-brained brother, Esau, out of what was coming to him. At least once, he took advantage of the blindness of his old father, Isaac, and played him for a fool. He outdid his double-crossing father-in-law, Laban, by conning him out of most of his livestock and, later on, when Laban was looking the other way, by sneaking off with not only both the man’s daughters, but just about everything else that wasn’t nailed down…
Jacob was never satisfied. He wanted the moon, and if he had ever managed to bilk heaven out of that, he would have been back the next morning for the stars to go with it. Then one day something marvelous and unexpected happened that changed his life forever.
It happened just after he had ripped Esau off for the second time and was making his getaway into the hill country to the north. When sunset came and nobody seemed to be after him, he decided that it was safe to camp out for the night and, having left in too much of a hurry to take his bedroll with him, tucked a stone under his head for a pillow and prepared to go to sleep. You might think that what happened next was that he lay there all night bug-eyed because of his guilty conscience or, if he did finally manage to drop off, that conscience-stricken dreams, but neither of these tormented him was the case. Instead, he dropped off like a baby in a cradle and dreamed the kind of dreams you would have thought were reserved for the high saints.
Jacob dreamed that there was a ladder reaching up to heaven and that there were angels moving up and down it with golden sandals and rainbow-colored wings and that standing somewhere above it was God. In addition, the words God spoke in the dream were not the chewing-out you might have expected, but something altogether different. God told Jacob that the land he was lying on was to belong to him and his descendants and that someday his descendants would become a great nation and a great blessing to all the other nations on earth. In addition, as if that was not enough, God then added a personal P.S. by saying, “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.”
It wasn’t holy hell that God gave Jacob (though he deserved it) but holy heaven, not to mention a marvelous lesson thrown in for good measure. The lesson was, needless to say, that even for a dyed-in-the-wool, double-barreled con artist like Jacob there are a few things in this world you can’t get but can only be given, and one of these things is love in general, and another is the love of God in particular.
Jacob didn’t have to climb his ladder to bilk heaven of the moon and the stars, even if that had been possible, because the moon and the stars looked like peanuts compared to what God and the angels were using the ladder to hand down to Jacob for free.”
For free – it was being handed down from heaven to Jacob for free – the gift of a promise – promise God made. Promise God kept “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” After all Jacob was the grandson of Abraham and Sarah. He was the son of Isaac and Rebecca. He was the brother of Esau, and Jacob himself would become the father of 12 – the 12 tribes of Israel – Jacob’s new name, and one of this sons would be Joseph – the many times over grandfather of Jesus himself. “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” Promised God made. Promise God kept.
I got home from Phoenix late Thursday night after attending the Rostered Ministers Gathering. The first gathering like this one, which is for all ordained folks – pastors and deacons in the ELCA– in our church all across the country – was in 2017. It is supposed to happen every three years but the pandemic put an end to the one scheduled for 2020. So this one in Phoenix was the second effort to gather clergy for a time of renewal. “Rekindling of the Gift Within You” was the theme – rekindle, renew, reenergize, refresh – you get the idea – but it was kind of hard to feel refreshed when the temperature outside was 118 degrees! A couple of mornings I got up early – before the sun rise to swim laps in the hotel pool which was like swimming in a pot of almost boiling water!
One of the speakers – a minister from the Reformed Church in America named Jason Chu began his talk by sounding a little like Jacob himself – Jacob who was on an exhausting journey. The first words out of Jason’s mouth to all of us ministers was this, “I am a weary pilgrim – just like so many in your pews and maybe like you too.” I am a weary pilgrim, he said – just like all of those faithful people in the pews on Sunday morning – and perhaps weary just like you. He went on to describe in detail how these are not the best of times in our country, in our world and in our churches.
It’s a tough time to navigate through all the challenges. Gun violence, hatred for people who are different, the drive to build walls rather than bridges, increasing numbers of people who are hungry and homeless, political polarization, a planet that is literally burning up, wars that seem to be escalating whether they be in Ukraine or Sudan or Syria or Palestine.
Then there are the challenges of being the church in today’s world. Jason Chu said to all of us ministers something that is nothing new to us or to any of you. It’s a tough time to be the church. How the church used to be is behind us. It no longer exists. How the church is right now is different. How the church will be in the future we cannot see.
Yet like Jacob despite all that weighed him down, despite all his faults – and there were many, despite his doubt, despite his betrayal, despite his brokenness, despite his sin, God made a simple promise, “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go.” Martin Luther – the founder of our church – over 500 years ago says this,
“You say that the sins which we commit every day offend God, and therefore we are not saints. To this I reply: Mother love is stronger than the filth and scabbiness on a child, and so the love of God toward us is stronger than the dirt that clings to us.”
The love of God toward us is stronger that our past mistakes. The love of God toward us is stronger than the traditions that weigh us down of which we have a hard time letting go. The love of God towards all of creation is stronger than the wars that rage, the hatred that hurts, the planet that is burning, the walls that divide.
Jacob woke up from that beautiful and inspiring dream and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it!” Then he said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
Tonight you will all go to sleep (I hope!). Tonight you will sleep with a pillow under your head (I hope not a rock!) and you may dream. You may envision your own Jacob’s ladder reaching into the heavens with angels descending and ascending. In your sleep, you may be filled with wonder and awe and then you will wake up tomorrow morning knowing that God was hard at work all night creating a new day just for you. All night long while you were sleeping and dreaming, God was hard at work creating a new day just for you, and, perhaps like Jacob you will wake up, look around your home and say, “Surely the Lord is in this place…how awesome is this place!” Perhaps you will open your blinds and look out into your neighborhood and say, “Surely the Lord is in this place…how awesome is this place.”
In the words of today’s psalm, your morning prayer after you wake up may include these words, “I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name. For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.” Amen.
Sources:
“Peculiar Treasures” by Frederick Buechner
“Table Talk:” by Martin Luther