7/19/20 “A Dream to Remember” by Nancy E. Petty
Genesis 28:10-19a
REMEMBRANCES
Today, we remember two civil rights legends: Rev. C.T. Vivian and Congressman John Lewis, both of whom “pushed America closer to our founding ideals.”
C.T. Vivian – Born July 30, 1924 – Died July 17, 2020
American minister, author, and close friend and lieutenant of Martin Luther King, Jr during the Civil Rights Movement. He resided in Atlanta, GA, and founded the C.T. Vivian Leadership Institute.
President Barack Obama in 2013 honored Vivian with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. In his remarks, President Obama said of Vivian: “he shrunk the gap between reality and our constitutional ideals of equality and freedom.
And in the words of Rev. Vivian: “Leadership is found in the action to defeat that which would defeat you…You are made by the struggles you choose.”
John Robert Lewis – Born February 21, 1940 – Died July 17, 2020
U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death
American civil rights leader.
In his book, Across that Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America John Lewis writes:
“You are a light. You are the light. Never let anyone—any person or any force—dampen, dim or diminish your light. Study the path of others to make your way easier and more abundant. Lean toward the whispers of your own heart, discover the universal truth, and follow its dictates. […] Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won. Choose confrontation wisely, but when it is your time don’t be afraid to stand up, speak up, and speak out against injustice. And if you follow your truth down the road to peace and the affirmation of love, if you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of all the great dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself.”
In a speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, on September 6, 2012 he said: “My dear friends: your vote is precious, almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have to create a more perfect union.”
And on March 1 of this year, 2020, standing atop the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, the same bridge 55 years earlier that he was bloodied and beaten by police on, he said: “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”
To this man: civil servant, civil rights leader, disciple of justice love, defender of democracy, suffering servant, prophet and proclaimer of truth, portrait of America’s greatest virtues and values – to him we pause and in a minute of silence we offer both our gratitude for his life and our grief in his death.
SERMON
When I was about 6 or 7 years old, my parents bought me a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. I know. I’m shaking my head too. God only knows what I did to convince them or wear them down enough to actually buy it for me. Times were different back then. 1970. Rural America. Family Farm. Closet neighbor a mile down the road. How much harm could I really do with a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun? Well, here’s what happened.
I was spending the night at my grandparent’s home and had taken my prized BB gun with me. Uncle Earl, a lost soul and family rebel, was also spending the night. He often showed up at his parent’s home after a brief stay at the county jail. Anyway, Uncle Earl was about as excited for my Daisy BB gun as was I and all the eager to teach me how to aim and shoot. Before bedtime he had said, “Now when we wake up in the morning I’m going to teach you how to aim at things.” Sure enough, that next morning after breakfast Earl gave me about an hour long lesson on how to take aim at a target. As my lesson was coming to a close, Earl announced that he had to leave to go get a haircut. Now Earl didn’t have a car so that meant he was borrowing my grandfather’s car to go get his haircut. He went into the house for the car keys, jumped in the car and hollered back at me, “Sis, keep practicing I’ll be back soon.” As he backed out of the driveway and headed down the road in front of the house, I took aim. To this day, I don’t know what I was aiming at. It really doesn’t matter. What happened next was possibly my first real life trauma. I aimed, squeezed the trigger and the next thing I heard were brakes squealing, the crashing of glass and my Uncle Earl screaming. After what felt like an eternity but was, I’m sure, seconds, everything went silent. As Uncle Earl stepped out of the car and I got a good look at the shattered car window, fearing the wrath of my grandfather, I threw that Daisy Red Ryder BB gun down, ran into the house and locked myself in the bathroom and refused to come out until my father arrived. The instinct to run and hide when one is guilty of wrongdoing is strong. For nights thereafter, I would have these crazy dreams about shooting out that car widow. I thought of this story when I read our biblical narrative for today: Jacobs dream at Bethel.
Our text begins: “Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran.” It’s not obvious from where we enter the story why Jacob has left his home and family and headed east toward Haran across the Jordan. The answer though is familiar. He’s in trouble. He has taken aim and shattered the windshield of family trust and honesty.
“Jacob is running for his life from his family because he has stolen both birthright and blessing from his doltish brother Esau—the first theft the result of his bargain with Esau, birthright for stew; and the second theft the result of disguise and bold-faced lies in the presence of his dying father.”[1] Esau is furious at his brother and has threatened to kill him as soon as their father dies. Protecting her favored son, Rebekah creates her own lies and convinces Jacob to flee to Haran to find a wife suggesting to him that he was better than mixing with and marrying the locals who were mostly Canaanite women.
So, fleeing from trouble, Jacob heads toward Haran. As night falls the narrative says, “He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set.” Then we read that he takes one of the stones of the place, and he put it under his head and lays down. As he sleeps, he dreams. He dreams that there is a ladder set up on earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. In this dream, the Lord stands beside him and says, “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; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and 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.”
Now I will admit that I wasn’t using a stone for my pillow on those night after my Daisy Red Ryder BB gun, but I can assure that my dreams after shattering my grandfather’s car window was nothing like Jacob’s dream. My dreams were filled with the various scenarios of what could have happened as described by my parents. Uncle Earl could have been badly hurt, even blinded as the glass shattered on his face. Another car could have been coming down the road and Uncle Earl could have run into it. Even worse, I could have shot the window out of someone else’s car. As I faced my wrongdoing in my dreams these were the themes that played out. But not for old Jacob. He dreamed of ladders and angels and of God’s promises to him.
I wondered, as I lived with this text this week, what I expected and even wanted God to say to Jacob in his dream. Maybe for starters I expected or wanted God to say to Jacob, “Really Jacob, after all the trickery and lying you’ve done you expect me to keep my promises to you? Just how deserving do you think you are? You have not so much as said you are sorry. And yet, you are dreaming of my steadfast faithfulness and love. That’s not how it works Jacob.” But we get none of that. Instead, what we get is an affirmation to Jacob of God’s promise and blessing. “Know that I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go…I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.”
As I read those words again and again, I remembered what my grandfather said to me after I shot out his car window with my Daisy Red Ryder BB gun. After my parents had finished with me, my grandfather, a man of few words but a strong presence, said to me: “We all make mistakes. The window can be fixed. But you must remember that you are responsible for what you do with that BB gun. And know that I still love you.” I loved and admired my grandfather. As I think back on that experience, while I couldn’t have named it at the time, my biggest fear was that my grandfather would be mad at me or not love me anymore. Hearing his words of his promise of love for me, when clearly I had messed up, was indeed a blessing and a gift.
There is a Jacob inside all of us. We make mistakes—some are small and insignificant and have few consequences; some are big and significant and have many consequences. Most often when we mess up, our instinct is to head east toward our Haran or to lock ourselves in our symbolic bathrooms. Our dreams are filled with our fears and insecurities and guilt. We see neither angels or hear God’s voice reminding us of God’s promise and blessing to not leave us until God has done what God has promised. In these moments, we are looking for the God created in our image rather than seeing ourselves as created in the image of God.
This week I came face-to-face with the Jacob inside of me. I could tell you the story but it’s not really about the story. The point is that I recognized Jacob in myself. I was wrong in how I treated another human being. I could justify my actions, and you might even understand why I acted as I did. You might even agree. But the fact would remain that I was not the person I want to be nor the person I believe God longs for me to be. As I laid my head on my stone that night, all I could think about was how deeply I must have disappointed God. But I remembered Jacob’s dream.
“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.” Know that I am with you…in your joys and your suffering, in your wrongdoing and in your desire to live in kindness, in your confessions and in your redemption. I will keep you wherever you go…in your despair and in your hope, in your longings and in your fulfillment, in your highs and in your lows. I will bring you back to this land…not a physical location on a map. But the land of God’s compassion and kindness – the land where all are welcome, the land where all are accepted, the land of plenty where all have enough, the land where the sick are cared for, the land where justice partners with mercy and compassion, the land where love drives out hate, the land of freedom for all. This land I will bring you back to. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised…God has promised that every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. God has promised to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of yoke, to let the oppressed go free. God had promised that justice shall roll down like the waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. God has promised that when we pass through the deep waters and through the rivers, God will be with us; and when we walk through the fire the flame will not consume us. God has promised abundant life to all. Oh, may we dream this dream until it is America’s and the world’s reality.
One could argue that Jacob’s time at Bethel wasn’t a great moment of change for him. Jacob throughout his life, like so many of us, keeps forgetting God’s promises and lives as though he can make things happen by hook, by crook, by sheer force of will. In the words of John Lewis, he forgets “the battle is already won.” Like so many of us, Jacob keeps relying on himself, grasping for what he thinks he needs or deserves, trapped in an ego that blinds him to the promise of a loving God. But underneath those waking actions is an unconscious that knows, and that reminds Jacob that God’s blessing can’t be bought, sold or stolen.
Jacob has left us with a dream to remember. A dream that both invites us and challenges us to remember that God’s promises and blessings are with us until that day when we become the fulfillment of God’s beloved community here on this earth. As we do the hard work that lies before us, the work that John Lewis and C.T. Vivian gave their lives for, it will serve us well to remember Jacob’s dream. And it might be well to remember my grandfather’s words with one correction. We all make mistakes. AND, (not but) we must remember that we are responsible for what we do. Through it all, God does not leave us!
[1] Holbert, John. Forgetting Leads to Exile: Reflections on Genesis 28:10-19a
