Service July 19, 2020 Leighmoor Uniting Church
-Rev Barbara Allen
Hymn suggestions
TIS 134: Praise my soul, the king of heaven
TIS 128: Sometimes a light surprises
TIS 398: Come down, O love divine
TIS 564: O God of Bethel, by whose hand
TIS 651: Take, take off your shoes
TIS 547: Be thou my vision
Call to Worship
Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it!” (Genesis 28:16). God is indeed in this place…wherever we are during lockdown. We may offer God our praise, and listen to God’s word-wherever we are. God is indeed in your living room, or in your kitchen, or sitting outside with you in the garden. The Lord is in those places too.
Prayers of Adoration, Thanksgiving and Confession
Eternal God, how great you are!
On the first day of the week, we commemorate your creation of the world, and all that is in it.
We also praise you for raising Jesus from the dead, on the first day of the week.
We give thanks that you sent your Holy Spirit on your disciples, on the first day of the week.
This day is, indeed, special: from Genesis to the Gospels, to the book of Acts…remembered by the church, making this day, Sunday, our Sabbath.
O God, you are our holy parent.
We, your children, are thankful that you gather us around you, that you cover us with your love.
We come trusting in you, as we quite often struggle, trying to live together as human family-in the home, in church, in our community, and in the world.
As we reflect on the biblical family story-seeing it as our own story too-help us to be aware, and then thankful for, your patient, forgiving love.
O God, you are a dream maker.
You have shown us your vision and spoken your word through prophet and angel, and you have revealed the fullness of your dream for all of us in Jesus Christ.
Help us to grow into the dream you have for each one of us.
And yet, O God, we confess that we do not always want to hear you, or listen to the dreams you have for each one of us.
At times we prefer to follow our own desires.
Forgive us.
Sometimes we run away to avoid hearing you, in case your dreams for us are different from what we want, in case you ask of us that which might make us uncomfortable, or risk unsettling our comfortable lives.
Forgive us.
Forgive us when we return your love with apathy,
Forgive us when we return your dreams and hopes for us with a sense of unworthiness.
Forgive us when we neglect our neighbours, when we have become self-consumed.
And in a time of silence, we remember other things for which we seek forgiveness…
God is love.
Through Christ, our sins are forgiven
(thanks be to God)
Take hold of this forgiveness and live your live in
in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
Bible Readings
Genesis 28: 10-19a
Psalm 139: 1-12, 23-24
Matthew 13: 24-30, 36-43
Sermon: Dreams are more than just wishful thinking
Genesis 28: 10-19
[It was hard to choose between the Genesis reading, and Psalm 139, which is one of my favourite psalms. Maybe I will preach on it another time.]
A student went to a famous old rabbi and said,
“Master, in the old days there were people who could see God. Why is it that nobody sees God nowadays?”
The old man answered- “My child, nowadays nobody can stoop so low.”
-“nowadays nobody can stoop so low!”
v.16 ‘Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place-and I did not know it!”
The story of Jacob’s dream at Bethel is remarkable, all the more remarkable when one considers the character of Jacob.
-from birth-Jacob is a ‘grabber’.
In last week’s reading: ‘Afterward his brother came out, with his hand gripping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob.’ (‘he takes by the heel’, or ‘he supplants.’)
He has duped his brother Esau out of his birthright-Esau sold his birthright -for a bowl of red lentil soup. Now, I think my lentil soup is pretty tasty, but would I expect someone to give me their inheritance-that’s what Esau’s birthright meant-for a bowl of soup-or even for the recipe?
Jacob is a shrewd, conniving, trickster!
Jacob isn’t named ‘Heel’ or ‘Grabber’ -for nothing.
Jacob also deceived his father Isaac; when Isaac was blind and on his deathbed, Jacob dressed up in animal skins and tricked his father into blessing him-giving him the blessing, or the inheritance that is for the eldest son
–grabbing the inheritance that should have gone to Esau.
Not a likeable person
A shady character
A trickster.
Poor Esau-the not so smart brother.
We feel for him-
In Genesis 27, after he realizes what Jacob has done:
‘ …he cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry, and said to his father, :Bless me, me also, father!” and “Have you only one blessing, father? Bless me, me also, father!” And Esau lifted up his voice and wept.
Later,
‘Esau said to himself. “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.’ (Gen 27:41)
Jacob gets out in time.
-slips out the back door.
Jacob, a shrewd, conniving trickster- flees his homeland, pursued by his estranged brother.
A fugitive.
He had wanted, more than anything-
-to inherit the estate
-to have it all
-to supplant his older brother in the process.
Now he’s ‘out there’
-out between Beersheba and Haran-
Which is another way to say
‘nowhere’
Between the ‘known’-his family
And the ‘unknown’- the future.
-He is without family protection
-He is without family support
-banished, alone.
Alone. Vulnerable. Nowhere.
It is night, time when wild beasts roam.
Jacob prepares to sleep with nothing but a stone for a pillow.
In an interview with the actor Richard Pryor, Pryor told of his lifelong struggle with drug addiction and depression. The interviewer asked “What do you dream of doing now?”
He answered: “I try not to dream. Dreaming is too painful for a man in my condition.”
“I try not to dream. Dreaming is too painful for a man in my condition.”
The sleep of the exile is a restless sleep.
A long night-vulnerable.
Between nowhere-and no place.
Far from home-with a stone for a pillow,
With his defences down.
Now, not the striver, the grabber, the heel-but the naked, defenceless one alone in the night.
Jacob sleeps, tosses and turns and dreams!
And what a dream.
There’s an old Afro-American spiritual: ‘We are climbing Jacob’s ladder.’
Some of you might know it.
Freud noted that one of the functions of dreams is to recall past events in our lives, especially painful events which tend to bubble up from our subconscious as we sleep.
If that’s true-what a dream Jacob should have had!
Yet-he sleeps like a baby, and has a magnificent, awe-inspiring dream.
A great ladder, or stairway is thrown down from heaven right to where Jacob sleeps.
‘And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.’
Angels: messengers of God.
-ascending and descending.
It was a two-way staircase with angels travelling from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth.
These messengers are not only carrying messages from earth to heaven (we call that prayer)
but also from heaven to earth (words from God)
Much of our dreaming is a one-way street-we are trying to catch an angel who will take a message up to God.
We are told to have a dream-and to follow it.
-we hear this at school, when we attend graduation ceremonies and the like.
Woodrow Wilson said: ‘We grow by dreams. All big people are dreamers. Some of us let dreams die, but others nourish and protect them, nurse them through the bad days-to the sunshine and light which always comes.’
Patch Adams said: ‘When a dream takes hold of you what can you do? You can run with it, let it run your life, or let it go and think for the rest of your life what might have been.’
And yet-there are times when we stop and say
-dreams are only wishes
-dreams are only wishes.
In the film Cinderella, Cinderella says ‘A dream is what your heart wishes…when you are fast asleep.’
There is a sweet little film from the 1980s called ‘Electric Dreams’. It has a great sound track. It is about a computer who has a malfunction, and becomes human like. As he turns off the light in order to go to sleep, the man says to the computer , “Sweet dreams.”
Then he has to try to explain to the computer what a dream is-and he uses this quote from Cinderella:
‘A dream is what your heart wishes…when you are fast asleep.’
And if that is so-then even our best dreams are only projections of our best wishes. (repeat)
–still the longing of ourselves as we are-as we are at best
(we can only hope to achieve such dreams-not to be transformed by them) -repeat
So that’s why it is important to note that in Jacob’s dream there are angels ascending AND DESCENDING!!
Jacob already had a dream.
-from the moment of conception, still in the womb-he’s had a dream-
-to be running the family
-to gain the inheritance, the blessing.
Jacob’s been sending heaven that message for a long time-
“God get me…God make me…
God give me…”
Isn’t that a little like ourselves at times?
When we pray, we talk mainly about ourselves and our needs
-the fulfillment of our dreams and desires
-and that’s part of valid prayer.
BUT the angels were descending on that ladder.
-God will not let Jacob go until he has his way with him.
-until Jacob is transformed.
Jacob is a dreamer
BUT
SO is God!
Jacob had thought that he was alone
-fleeing from Esau
-a stranger in a strange land
BUT NO!
God is with him.
God speaks to Jacob-not a word of rebuke-but, instead, words of hope!
A promise, almost identical to that which grandfather Abraham, was given.
Jacob’s descendants will be as numerous as the specks of dust.
Jacob is overcome-by the promise and by God’s blessing.
He creates a shrine there-as a memorial.
Bethel-‘house of God’
God’s steadfast commitment to him,
God’s promises.
-the descending angels, messengers of God.
Jacob said “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
And that’s a nice, fitting ending.
-where the story ends, in today’s reading.
BUT
Vs 20-21, which were not included in the lectionary are: ‘Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God…’
If…then!!
Is Jacob grasping again?
Is Jacob grabbing God’s heel?
-putting conditions on God’s promises to him?
-requesting proof?
But-for Jacob-there will be another night
-beside a dark river
-when Jacob shall encounter -not a dream about a ladder of angels
-but God!
Jacob wrestles with God!- but that’s another story!
For today-let us note how the story reminds us that God is always present.
-we are not abandoned-even the worst of us.
-there is always two-way traffic going on
-earth-heaven
Heaven-earth.
Some of us are in church today because of reaching out to God.
But God is also reaching out to us.
Our dreams are more than just wishful thinking.
Sometimes our dreams are notions that only God could put into our heads.
Only dreams, even the best of them-are subject to divine intervention.
-to God’s intrusion-to re-orientate our dreams to God’s dreams.
-to be transformed by our dreams rather than to achieve our dreams.
Jacob was to be transformed.
As Jacob wakes with a shudder, realizing that here earth and heaven meet
-he is not alone on this journey.
Somewhere on our own journey through life, we have had a similar experience.-that heaven has invaded our ordinary life, letting us know
-that we are not alone in our world, but that we are accompanied on our pilgrimage by a mysterious presence
Jesus Christ, and by God.
We get or receive the message:
‘I am with you, I will keep you, I will bring you home, I will not abandon you…’
-might be late at night at home, by the hospital bed of a loved one, at a grave site, or at the kitchen sink.
Heaven descended to earth in a special way in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and now he walks the road with us, as we go on our journey.
Do we believe that God descends to us?
-that God has plans/dreams for us?
Remember the opening story-
‘Why is it that nobody sees God nowadays?’
‘My child, nowadays nobody can stoop so low.’
Be transformed by God’s dreams for you.
To lie down, to wait prayerfully is to stoop-and to be surprised-for
‘The Word has become flesh and dwelt among us, and we have its glory.’
Or, as Jacob said,
‘Surely the Lord was in this place and I didn’t even know it.’
Amen.
Prayer.
Lord, give us the grace to awaken to your intrusions among us, the eyes to see clearly those holy moments when you stoop to us, and touch us, and bless us with a vision.
In the tug and pull of everyday life, while sitting in church, while standing over the kitchen sink, while at work-you come to us.
Help us to expect, to look for, and to celebrate your gracious disclosure of your will for our lives. How often have we been moved to exclaim, with our ancestor Jacob, “Surely the Lord was in thus place, and I did not know it!”
Above all, give us the courage to hold fast to our dreams, the dreams we have for ourselves, the dreams we have for a better world-dreams planted in our hearts by your love. Amen.
Prayers of the People
(today I have incorporated a prayer from the World Council of Churches, which addresses the covid-19 pandemic)
Loving God, we pray for the world, for all countries struggling with covid 19:
In prayerful silence, we remember other issues in the world which weigh heavily on our hearts, or people we know who need our prayers…
(time of silence)
And in the words our Saviour taught us, we are confident when we pray to say…
‘Our Father in Heaven…’
Amen
Blessing
May the blessing of the Holy Trinity be upon you:
the fire of the Spirit ignite you,
the love of God encircle you,
and the wisdom of Christ enliven you,
today and always,
Amen
19.7.20
-Rev Barbara Allen, Leighmoor Uniting Church