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September 28, 2008 sermon

Reflecting on the Congregational Retreat: The Dream - Giver
(Genesis 28: 10-22)

Reverend Minister Sally Harris

We gather in this place to experience the mystery of God’s presence, the sacredness of community and the possibility of renewed vision and hope. Last weekend members of Trinity’s congregation gathered in another place to experience these same things: the mystery of God’ presence, the sacredness of community and the possibility of renewed vision and hope. Today’s Scriptures were also the sacred readings that informed our retreat last weekend. We began Friday night by each bringing a stone to our time of worship. On Sunday we made real God’s presence by anointing each stone with oil creating a sanctuary for us as we trusted in God’s visitation.

Dream – Giver, as we come to this place of sanctuary grant us the courage to walk with you on unknown paths, paths that wander through dreams and conversation leading us to bread for our journey and a cup of blessing. Surely Your Presence is in this place. May we know it. Amen

Someone once wrote that “Religion means to be gripped by story. Faith is the willingness to stay in conversation with this story.” (W. Craig Gilliam)

Today we join a stony dreamer who is wandering away from his known world. Jacob is on the run from his brother Esau who he deceived out of his birthright. Their mother has sent Jacob off before Esau can kill him, on the pretense that he is searching for a wife. And so Jacob sets off alone, on foot, heading into the hill country with no more than he can carry, until dusk gives way to darkness and he can no longer see to walk. So at a certain place Jacob lays down with a stone for a pillow and falls into an exhausted sleep, the kind of sleep in which you sink through darkness for a long time before coming to rest someplace very deep and very, very still. In this place the dream begins, the dream of a ladder with its bottom step on earth, leading up and out of sight with the whole company of heaven passing to and fro upon it. If the Dream-Giver makes mistakes, this looks like one. There must be a hundred people back in the Promised Land who have prayed for a dream like this, people who kept their vows and done their duties, dedicating themselves to the service of God. Jacob is not one of them. He is on no vision quest; he has simply pushed his luck too far and has to leave town in a hurry. He is between times and places, in a limbo of his own making. The Promised Land is a memory; Haran no more than a name on a map. Jacob is nowhere, which is where the dream touches down. No sooner does the dream appear than the Dream-giver, God stands beside him, making almost as many promises as Jacob has fingers – nine of them in all: I am with you… I will give you… I will not leave you… I have promised you. It is so much more than is necessary, God. I mean a word of encouragement after that kind of dream would have done nicely, something like, I am keeping an eye on you. Choose wisely in Haran, okay? But no, God holds nothing back.

When Jacob wakes up, he is still is homeless and a fugitive, but he is also God’s chosen one, a visionary who does not mistake what he has seen. Surely the presence of God is in this place… How awesome is this place! Jacob needs this dream and what is more, he believes it. He accepts this gift of God, a true vision of the ladder connecting heaven and earth in the middle of nowhere.

Perhaps Jacob had heard of the dream that change the life of his grandfather, how angels came to Abraham years before his father was born and presented the vision of a smoking fire pot and flaming torch [see Genesis 15]. These dreams formed them. It plucked them from obscurity and made them a people of the dream in which the Dream - Giver became their God and asked them to bless all the families of the earth. For Jacob and his kin, a dream was a doorway into another reality – a spiritual dimension in which God spoke to men and women at the deepest levels of their beings, using symbolic language of the dream to tell them what they needed to know. It was as natural a way for God to act as any other way, and for those who dream and see they cannot help but say: How awesome is this place!. What seems like a lonely rest stop with a bunch of rocks turns out to be the gate of heaven – a holy place where heaven and earth are connected in the middle of nowhere…

We are climbing, Jacob's ladder
We are climbing, Jacob's ladder
We are climbing, Jacob's ladder
Yeah, we're brothers, sisters, all

Every rung goes higher and higher
Every rung goes higher and higher
Every rung goes higher and higher
We are brothers, sisters, all

Every new rung just makes us stronger
Every new rung just makes us stronger
Every new rung just makes us stronger
Yeah, we are brothers and sisters, all

Yeah, we are climbing, Jacob's ladder
Yeah, we are climbing, Jacob's ladder
We are climbing, Jacob's ladder
We are brothers, sisters and all

We are climbing higher and higher
Yeah, we are climbing higher and higher
Yeah, we are climbing higher and higher
Yeah, we are brothers and sisters and all

We are climbing, climbing Jacob's ladder
Yeah, we are climbing, Jacob's ladder
We are climbing, Jacob's ladder
We are brothers, sisters and all

Songwriters: Seeger, Pete, Springsteen, Bruce © SANGA MUSIC INC

Surely the Presence of God is in this place for as we journey the bread is blessed and broken; our eyes are opened and the Spirit of Gentleness guides us on. May it be so! Amen

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