Pentecost Meditation on Joel 2:23-39
Frequently in the morning, after I’ve walked the dog, I’ll come in, get a cup of coffee and sit down on the kitchen floor; and then, when my wife joins me, I’ll ask her what she dreamed about. Most of the time, Ann says she can’t remember. But I remember what I dream about; and I enjoy relating the vivid things that come to me in my sleep. (Well, some of them, at any rate. A few I keep to myself.)
Where do they come from – the things that we dream? Whence do dreams arise? Apparently, some dreams reflect recent events from our conscious life – sights we’ve seen, conversations we’ve had. Others, I’m told, are the result of indigestion. Still others rise out of the joys, questions or anxieties at work within us.
Whatever is going on, however, it certainly doesn’t seem to be anything we control … not consciously, anyway. To work a change on that famous bumper sticker, dreams happen. They happen to us. And so it appears that our role in dreaming is to be receptive, to receive and reflect on our dreams, to discern what is being communicated to our conscious mind. Are we being given a nudge, some instruction, insight, or inspiration, something from within that we should respond to? Some times I think we are; at other times – maybe not. Recent events, last night’s spicy supper, our lurking anxieties and up-front joys all make their contributions to our dreaming.
But some dreams rise from yet another source. Some, if you believe the biblical witness, are the result of the Holy Spirit’s activity, of God’s own inspiration. There was Jacob at Bethel dreaming of a ladder to heaven; Pharaoh in Egypt envisioning lean and fat cows; Peter at Caesarea seeing a sheet full of animals coming down; and Paul at Troas being called to cross to Macedonia.
God-inspired dreams would someday rise within all manner of people, the prophet Joel proclaimed. And on Pentecost, Simon Peter declared that day had come. It was starting even then among Christ’s followers in Jerusalem who certainly seemed to be seeing and responding to a powerful vision of a world being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, of nations and peoples being reconciled, with themselves the appointed messengers of that world-transforming news!
The God-inspired dream is a powerful dream, one not likely to fly forgotten as soon as one pours that first cup of coffee. The God-inspired dream is a staying dream. It seems almost to inhabit those to whom it comes. It resists being dismissed or ignored – although sometimes we may want to ignore such dreams because God-dreams often unsettle or ask things of us. They call for hope, faith, love. They call for action, a change of our priorities, a change of direction, a change in the way we view other persons and ourselves. God-dreams are demanding. I think that when God-dreams are given to us, we can never afterwards be satisfied with things simply as they are.
When I hear Martin Luther King’s God-dream of a world in which black and white children are playing together peacefully and naturally, I simply cannot happily accept it when someone points to present racial antagonism and says, “That’s just the way it is. Some things will never change.” Through the dream, God gets me in God’s clutches, and I cannot get away; though, in fact, I really do not want to get away.
Have you seen those little spider web-like things they sometimes sell at craft shows? Dream catchers, they call them, saying that if we put them up they will catch dreams before they get to us at night … or maybe before they get away from us in the morning. One way I think of the Church is as a community of dream catchers – as catchers of the dreams God is sending into our slumbering world. God-dreams are visions of a world where things are different from the way they are now, of a world where walls have been torn down and antagonists reconciled; where no one goes hungry, and refugees can all go home; where swords have been beaten into plowshares and nations and peoples dwell together in peace; where the solitary are enfolded in community and caring; where differences are respected and recognized as part of God’s grand design; where life is lived with hope and is rich with satisfaction; where no one teaches neighbors about God, because God is known and trusted, loved and lived with joyfully.
You know the sort of dreams I mean – for you belong to that dream-catching community, don’t you? You’re part of that community of persons who share their God-dreams, who talk about them passionately, exploring them together, who are excited and motivated by those dreams. Through the grace of God, this is who you are, is it not? So, instead of all the sterile, self-defeating dreams our wider culture promotes, you teach God-dreams to your children and pray that they also will become dreamers and doers. And you do whatever you can to help others as well with the hard work of living into the dreams that God has given.
And it is hard work, sometimes, as we all of us know. It is hard work breaking patterns of behavior that prevent us from being at peace with God, with others, and with ourselves. It is difficult resisting the pressure to accommodate, to give in, to accept a lower standard. It is costly putting ourselves on the line for justice, for peace. It is a real stretch to love those who hate us, or to care for those who couldn’t care less about us or what matters to us. It is a struggle entrusting God with ourselves, our loved ones, our money and possessions, our churches, our denomination. Being formed in the image and the likeness of Christ is no picnic. It is long, hard work. But it is good work, too, the best work, actually, that we ever could get.
You are dream-catchers, are you not, some of the persons God has poured the Spirit out upon? I think you could be dream-catchers. I’ve seen evidence over the years as I have labored in the Church – little indications, here and there, that the great kingdom of heaven is coming, is being claimed and celebrated, acknowledged and lived into. I’ve seen indications of the resurrection power at work in you, in our congregations and our denomination. I’ve seen the evidence, although I suppose it could simply be something I am dreaming! I suppose it’s possible that I’m asleep and dreaming that the kingdom of heaven has been coming into life in amazing little ways, here and there, through you. I could be dreaming. But if I am, I’m pretty sure that it’s a God-dream!
So, friends, what do you say you find a few others who also have been dreaming God-dreams. Pour a little coffee, sit down together somewhere, and talk about what God has shown you. And then, friends, let it drive you! What do you say?
I say, even if it’s decaf that you’re drinking, you’re going to be flying, and doing some terrific stuff as you live into those dreams together; through the marvelous grace that we’ve been shown in Jesus Christ our Lord.
WILLIAM W. NICKELS III is a member of the Presbytery of the James.
