Jacob's Ladder: Covenant & Promise, Visions & Dreams

I wonder whether, lying down asleep at night, you ever had a vision, a dream so vivid that upon waking you were not sure whether it was a dream or really happened?

The Bible is filled with visions. Jacob’s dream this morning gives us the campfire song, “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder, we are climbing Jacob’s ladder; we are climbing Jacob’s ladder, soldiers of the cross. - - Every rung goes higher, higher, Sinner, do you love your Jesus? If you love him, why not serve him? Soldiers of the Cross.”

Daniel has night visions of the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man. Ezekiel has frightening visions of God, a wheel, gleaming bronze, a throne, and fire. Joseph beloved son of Jacob has dreams of lording it over his older brothers, later is gifted to interpret dreams — of the palace baker, and pharaoh’s wine steward, ultimately the prophetic dreams of pharaoh himself. 

In his New Testament Revelation visions, John of Patmos is lifted into heaven to hear the seven letters, to behold the seven lampstands, a trumpet blast, and an open door into the throne room of God, to encounter Jesus the Lamb who was slain. 

Betrothed to Holy Mary Mother of God, Joseph in Matthew’s gospel has a dream where the angel of God appears, to instruct and guide him in his calling to be earthly father of the Christ-child.  

My own dreams have to do with loved ones who are gone. And anxiety dreams of reporting aboard a Navy warship as a newly arrived officer, confusion about what rank I am, uniform pieces missing, I cannot find my hat that is so essential in military life, as the 1MC, the ship’s public address system, screams for me to report to the admiral’s cabin on the double. My coat and my shirt have different rank insignia, and I still cannot find my hat, so I put on a khaki hat that’s all wrong for my dress blues meeting with the admiral, and I dash out of my stateroom only to realize I’m lost, I have no idea in this huge warship which way to turn, how to get to the admiral’s cabin. 

In my other principal dream I’m preaching as supply priest at some church I once knew. I drive up and park outside just as organ and choir start the processional hymn inside, but I cannot find my sermon notes, and I’m lost because they’ve remodeled and relocated the front door, and I cannot find a stole, and I realize I’m wearing underwear instead of a vestment: a night vision in the worst sense, ending with me in the vesting room pulling on a borrowed ill-fitting robe, and listening as the congregation sings the sermon hymn, and I still cannot find my sermon notes, and by the time I get vested and into the church, the pews are empty because everyone has given up and gone home and I head for the pulpit to preach my sermon to an empty church. My nightmare: a night vision several times a year.

Have you ever encountered God in a night vision? I have, years ago, an existential crisis when I was unsure of God’s call to me and I doubted my ordination as priest. I’ve told it at every church I’ve served, including from this pulpit several times over the years. It came in the midst of stress, anger, hostility, uncertainty and anxiety, came to me in my anguish, as The Voice: “I AM speaking to you, Tom Weller” and bringing shalom, the peace of God. More than thirty-three years ago, only that once in my life, and to this day I struggle with its reality though I was fully awake, God calling me back to God’s dream for my life. Me, a mortal speck of dust on the face of the earth, and the earth but a speck among galaxies and stars and the vast empty space of the universe: how can its Creator care about me? About you? About us? And can it be?

A ladder between heaven and earth, Jacob watches angels move up and down as God himself comes and stands beside sleeping Jacob to establish covenant: “I am יְהוָ֗ה YHWH, God of Abraham and God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” The call of Jacob. 

Have you met God in your dreams? Has God come present in your night visions? If my answer is yes, maybe yours also is yes. I ask you, I invite you this week, to examine yourself and your personal history deep within your Being where nobody sees but you and God, to stir your memories of love, and of dreams, and of God. Privately rehearse your life and refresh your memories, asking whether you are living up to, living up to, not only to your ambitions, but to God’s dream for your life.

Jacob has a dream in which God covenants God’s vision for Jacob’s life and destiny, witnessing that God is real, and accessible, and on our side against the perils of the darkness. If Genesis One is true, God created us free: God does not have a plan for my life or yours, but God does have a dream for you, a vision that only you can make happen, with God’s help. 

And God is at your side. 

God’s dream for you stirs with God’s covenant at Baptism: Do you believe? and then, believing, Will you? Will you, Will you, Will you, Will you? The “Covenant Will You’s” are the Way of the Cross, the Way of Jesus, the Way of Christ, that we may delight in God’s will, and walk in God’s ways, to the Glory of God’s Name. As a disciple, you covenant to “becoming Christ,” because that’s where the Covenant leads: God’s dream for you to return to the divine image in which God created you, and the divine image is Jesus Christ.

Our story today: God’s covenant with Jacob, is not about Jacob’s belief, but about God’s dream for Jacob’s life; God’s covenant with Jacob and you. Will you buy into God’s dream? Will you renew covenant with the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, page 292, as we stand. 

Our prayer for this day: for Gemma, a little girl eleven months old, who is in surgery as I write, and as i preach, and as I pray: Lord, have mercy.

Sermon preached Sunday, July 23, 2017, Proper 11A, in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida by the Rev. Tom Weller

Text:

Jacob’s Dream at Bethel. Genesis 28:10f

10 Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11 He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. 12 And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And the Lord stood beside him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; 14 and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed[c]in you and in your offspring. 15 Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16 Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” 17 And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

18 So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel

Picture: Linda Weller, "God in the Rainbow"