A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream
Genesis 28:10-22
I found myself standing before a pile of rocks this week and began to wonder what it might be like to just lay down, rest my head on one of them and fall asleep. I admit to being pretty tired and needing a good night’s rest – but even then a pile of rocks as a pillow just wasn’t all that inviting.
This was no ordinary pile of rocks – they were at the center of a labyrinth at the Holy Cross Monastery in West Palm, New York where I spent a few days this past week at a retreat. I had discovered the circle of rocks early in the morning and had stepped into its circle and very slowly and prayerfully made my way around it until I reached the center. This particular pile of rocks invited the sojourner into a holy place – a quiet place – and a restful place with God.
I sat down in the center and spent a few moments in prayer. As I inspected the rocks and looked at the pile - I wondered about all the others who had arrived at this place carrying along their burdens and had then left them there in the hands of God.
There was quite a pile of rocks in the center. A good sized rock was the anchor on the bottom and it held a variety of other larger stones, objects and tokens. There were smaller stones and pebbles that were various shades of grey, pink and orange and those that showed off patterns and intricate layers. Scratched into three stones that were placed towards the front of the pile were the words Live, Laugh and Love.
And then scattered amongst the pile were various coins, two piece of blue glass – one a royal blue and the other a lighter and paler blue. There was a feather, a token, two tiny rosaries and a small scrap of paper tucked into a crack that said “still mind - peaceful heart.”
By then I was relatively confident that I would never be able to fall asleep with my head on a rock – and I have to admit that this was running through my mind simply because of the Biblical story from Genesis which I had read the day before. The story was about Jacob falling asleep with his head on a rock and his midsummer night’s dream and it was no coincidence that God had led me to this pile of rocks very early on Wednesday morning.
Jacob had a dream in which he saw a stairway - or a ladder stretching between earth and heaven and the angels of the Lord were coming down and going up upon it. The Lord stood above it all and said to Jacob in his dream: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."
When Jacob woke up he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” And Jacob was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven." Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. He called that place Bethel.”
Following this midsummer night’s dream – and this significant promise from God – Jacob takes the stone and sets it up as a pillar, anoints it with oil and names it. Naming something in the Hebrew Scriptures was a very holy and very significant act. Names of people and names of places meant something. Names were very symbolic – there was a holy power within the name and so it’s important to understand the depth and significance of a name that is found in the scriptures. I think this is similar to the naming of a song by a musician, a title by an author, a sermon by a minister, and of course the naming of children or the naming of our animals. Many people still find the act of naming something - a very spiritual and symbolic practice for them.
And Jacob called this place Bethel, meaning the House of God.
This midsummer night’s dream was very significant for Jacob in his time of angst as he traveled away from his Father – whom he and his mother had just tricked. Jacob the schemer and trouble maker – was emotionally paying his dues and so he was pretty much filled with dread and anxiety about the future. However God appears to him in this dream and reassures him of his heritage and his future. The important thing is that God assures him and it becomes one of those holy moments where the presence of God was made known without a doubt.
Jacob proclaims that when he says; “Surely the Lord was in this place and I did not know it”.
A holy moment – a God moment – a sacred moment.
These holy and sacred moments can come to any of us and probably have. They are those moments where you have this sudden awareness that something larger than yourself, which you identify as God or the Holy Spirit, was at work in your day, in a certain situation or in your relationships. And you were aware of it and found yourself saying something like; “Surely the Lord was in this – and I did not know it.”
These moments and times are often liminal or threshold moments. Liminal meaning the thin places, the places betwixt and between heaven and earth. They are threshold moments where we are not in the space from where we came but we are not quite in the place we are going. A threshold moment. Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that in Celtic spirituality there is a belief that there are "thin places" in the world where "the veil between this world and the rest is so sheer it is easy to step through.[1]"
This was one of those moments for Jacob and I know that many of us have had those types of moments in our own spiritual journeys as well. The ironic thing in this Biblical story is – that even though Jacob symbolically named a certain place as the house of God – God came to him in his own dream and say that God would be with him wherever he went. God’s promise to us is not tied only to a certain location. God says to us “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go and I will not leave you.”
Sometimes those moments do come in the form of dreams. I don’t remember my dreams. When I wake up - I usually have just a brief moment when I remember and then it is gone and it doesn’t really come back to me. However at lunch that same day at the retreat center in New York – a woman who was also a guest there, started talking about the dream that she had the night before. This became a holy moment for me – as I listened to her talk about her dream - still having the story of Jacob on the edge of my mind.
She was a writer of fiction and during the night she had a dream that gave her clarity and direction for her story. The meaning of the dream was so clear to her – that she woke up, wrote down some notes and was able to write all the next morning. The dream really enriched the particular portion of her story. It was a holy moment for her – because it was a moment where God came and spoke to her about something that was very important to her and gave her direction.
“Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it.”
God is still speaking. God still speaks to each one of us and those holy, sometimes simple moments change us. Sometimes those moments are very profound – but most of time they are about the everyday stuff of our lives.
Jacob entered into a different phase of his relationship with God after his dream. Jacob makes a vow and even though we might hear the conditional requests within the vow itself – Jacob the schemer and troublemaker – is making progress as he becomes closer to God. He says:
"If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear so that I return safely to my father's house, then the LORD will be my God and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God's house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth."
Where have you heard God speaking to you? We already know that God is not at all confined to our sanctuaries and our churches – even though it is so good to come together every week to worship and praise God with those who seek God and with those who love God.
Where might your God be speaking to you? It could be anywhere and at any moment.
I pray that this week in your own spiritual journey – that you simply may have moments in your life where the presence and love of our Creator God, the friendship of our redeemer Jesus Christ and the presence of our sustainer the Holy Spirit - may bring you direction and assurance and you will find yourself saying:
Surely God was in this place and I did not know it.
Thanks be to God.
Amen
[1] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Thin Places”, Home By Another Way
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