Permission to Dream [Waking Into Mystery, Part 5]

Psalm 67

Rev. 21:10; 21:22-22:5

Did anyone have a dream last night?  Any weird dreams you’d like to share? 

Our reading today involves a strange dream.  It begins when an angel leads the dreamer up to a “mountain great and high.”  Being up high is a signal that this dream is going to communicate something profound and meaningful, a breakthrough to a different way of seeing the world. 

 

This is a dream about moving to a new place.  It’s a dream about life lived in a holy city that descends from heaven to earth.  Before we reflect on the symbolism of this particular dream, I want you to put your own imagination to work. 

Suppose you have to move.  Or, if you like, suppose you have to choose some place for a second home, a getaway where you spend part of your year.  Now of course some of you already have places where you live part time.  So choose your place.  Imagine your second home.  It can be anywhere in the world.  You get to buy this house with fake money, so don’t worry about that.  And we won’t hold you to your choice tomorrow, so don’t overthink it.  So just go with what comes to mind right now.  Ok, now let’s hear from several of you where your other home will be . . . .

Partly I’m interested in how many of you chose a solitary place where there’s not many people, and how many chose a densely populated city.  How many of you dreamed of a farm or beach or peaceful, quiet setting?  And how many of you dreamed of living in an exciting, crowded city?

Did you notice in The Revelation’s final dream of home that it is both a city and a lush garden at the same time?  One of the central images is of a crystal clear, life-giving river flowing from the throne of God and from the Lamb, running right down the main street in the city.  This is an odd image – a river and trees right in the same place as a busy thoroughfare where people are walking in and out of coffee shops, news stands and shoe stores. 

Our dreams often traffic in hard to understand imagery.  One night this week I dreamed that I was riding a bike on a very thin path along a steep cliff, but the steep cliff also felt like I was riding along the slanted roofs of buildings.  And I would ride as fast as I could across these roofs, trying not to plummet to my death.  And there was a place where I had to jump between one roof and another.  Each time I just barely made it.  And each time I would jump my bike to the other side I would come within inches of careening over the side to my death.  And within the dream, I was thinking to myself, “I’m afraid of heights.  Why do I keep doing this?”  And then on around I’d loop and do it all again.  (By the way, the best interpretation of my dream will receive an FPC t-shirt as a prize!).

Dream images don’t always make sense when you come at them directly.  And this image of a river in the middle of a street appeals to us, if at all, only if we open ourselves to the depths of our lives where we want not one thing but many things.  Part of us wants the bustling, exciting city, feeding off the energy and culture of densely populated space.  But another part of us wants the peacefulness of nature, of trees and rivers and wildlife.  What if this desire for two kinds of things cannot be granted now, but will find some kind of resolution in resurrection glory at the end of time?  What if God can weave together a reality that sustains all the different parts of who we are?  What if the new earth and the new city of light is a place where none of the parts of who we are has to be left behind?

The holy city symbolizes not a crowded and dangerous place full of vices and secrecy, but instead a place where human beings can develop and flourish together, a site of interdependence, where neighbors can trust one another and count on one another, a place of safety and welcome for all.  The cities we all know are plagued with problems.  But here the image is of a shared life of delight and joy.  And lest you feel robbed of pastures, woodlands, nature and open space – note that the city is also imaged as a garden with a crystal clear river running through it and fruitful trees abounding.

I’ve told you before about my friend Susan McFeatters from New York.  A group from our church went on retreat.  And during the long van ride, the question was, you have to move tomorrow, where are you going?  And Susan said, I want to live all by myself in a country house on top of a mountain with astounding views of the landscape all around me.   But down at the end of a long driveway there is a Barnes & Noble.  She wants space, simplicity, solitude, quietness, beauty.  But she also wants friction, excitement, ideas, culture, imagery, and connection.  She wants to interact with the world and other people, but she wants the kind of interaction that nourishes her life and guards her need for quietness.

Is there a kind of place, a kind of home, a kind of life – that nurtures and protects us, that brings out our very best, that makes possible a kind of generous sharing of life, that attracts all people of all times and nations to bring their very best into a new population where our differences are valued and appreciated? 

Is there a place where all politics is collaborative and generous?  Where all the world’s power and ability is brought together in a great act of sharing?  Where all is light and God’s presence is so real that there is no need for Temple or church?  A densely populated city where there are no threats and no dangers?  Is there a place of eternal rest and eternal beauty that doesn’t depend on my track record, my achievements, my performance, my status, my ability to keep it all together?  Is there a place where our belovedness is due simply to the way we have been loved at great cost by the Lamb of God, with our names written in the Lamb’s book and God’s name written on our foreheads?

The life-giving trees that grow on both sides of the river produce their fruit each month.  Unlike trees we know, with seasonal periods of dormancy and lifelessness, the trees in this place abound with an abundance that never ends.  Here is an image that invites us to imagine that the joy and delight we experience here and there, now and then, will one day become the uninterrupted melody of our lives.  On this Memorial Day weekend – when so many of us remember those we love and have lost – the dream invites us to hold out hope for a life without loss, without grief, without pain, without tears.  In the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, God is leading us into a life where love is never cut off by loss.

Last Sunday evening I drove to Kansas City for Synod meetings.  We ate dinner together at a place we’d been to before.  It’s a great Mexican place called Ixtapa.  (It’s right on the Barry Road Exit near the Zona Rosa Shopping District).  Our waitress was a no-nonsense Mexican woman about five feet tall.  When people ordered things she didn’t like, she said, “No, you don’t want that.  You want this other dish.”  I asked her which shrimp dish I should get, and she told me that she would bring me the shrimp in cream sauce with poblano peppers and corn.  She was so authoritative that I didn’t dare question her. So I said, “I’ll take that.”

When she brought our meals, mine looked great.  She delivered everyone’s meals and then came back around to me and said, “Do  you want me to bring you corn torillas for that?”  I wasn’t really ready for the question.  I thought for a minute, then said, “No thanks.”  She said, “Are you sure?  I can bring you corn tortillas.”  I am a little slow, so I said, “No I’ll be ok.  Thanks, though.” 

I should have known to just listen to her.  After my second, “No thanks,” she still didn’t leave.  She stood behind my chair with a look on her face that conveyed something like, “Who is this idiot?”  So finally, she says, “Well when you change your mind, let me know.”  At this point, the whole table was enjoying watching our exchange.  And they all broke into laughter when I finally said, “You know what, I think I’ll take those corn tortillas.” 

That little cultural hiccup over how to properly eat a meal was a symbol that we were from different cultures, with different experiences.  And the dream of a city to call home that ends The Revelation is a dream of a place with gates open on all sides, welcoming different kinds of people.  The gates, we’re told, are never closed.  And so when you dream of a place to call home, make sure you dream of a place with short Mexican women who look like they might punch you if you disrespect their authority about how to eat a shrimp dish.  Make sure you dream of a place with all different colors of people, different shapes and sizes and languages and customs and all religions.  In this final city, the ongoing feast includes everyone from everywhere.

Several years ago, I began receiving texts addressed to parents of children at the  Nelson Mandela School in NYC.  I have a New York cell number and so I didn’t think much about it.  But they kept coming.  And after awhile, I began to enjoy these weekly updates on what was going on at the school.  Then I got on another text thread.  This time the texts were coming to me as the parent of a child in a particular class.  There were invitations to parent meetings, requests to help with field trips or fund raisers, and attempts to figure out who was bringing what to the class potluck dinners.  Just for fun I once responded that, yes, I’d bring a fruit tray to the meeting that afternoon. 

For over two years, I have been enjoying my relationship with the administators, the fellow parents, and the children at the Nelson Mandela School.  Up until this week, they communicated with me by text.  But on Tuesday I received a voicemail from Mr. Mara needing to talk to me about the behavior of my son Laquan.  I did briefly consider calling Mr. Mara in order to defend Laquan’s behavior, because - as I was planning to argue – “my children would never do that.”  But it finally dawned on me that there is some parent at the Nelson Mandela School who, for two years, has not been getting any texts about school fundraisers and class field trips. 

And so I called Mr. Mara.  I said, “Hi Mr. Mara, you called me about a student . . . “ 

He said, “Thanks for calling me back.  I made several calls today, which student was it?”

I said, “Laquan.”  And he said, “Oh yes, so about Laquan . . .”  Then I had to go into a thing about how I wasn’t Laquan’s parent, and that it was a wrong number.  But I didn’t tell Mr. Mara that I had been receiving texts from the school for over two years.  And I really do hope he can get in touch with Laquan’s parents.  But another part of me hopes that I don’t get removed from the school’s system.  I have loved being a part of that community.  I’ve been reading those texts more closely than I read the texts from the school my children actually attend!  I has been a nice level of involvement in that community.  They kept me up to date on everything going on.  And I felt connected without ever feeling drained by commitments and obligations.

The fact that I so enjoyed being part of a community that didn’t ask much of me probably doesn’t speak well of me.  They way we dream about the places we live, the places we’d like to live, and the people we hope to belong to – these things say a lot about us.  We criticize "day dreamers" for not staying in the moment.  We scoff at people who "waste" time dreaming about another reality instead of living practically.  And yet the vision-like poetry of Scripture's final book invites us to dream.

The Revelation ends with a dream about a beautiful city where God dwells with us.  Would you choose this city as a place to live?  Is this the kind of place that would convince you to pick up and move?  You don’t live there yet.  But that city is already taking shape right around you.  And you are called to imagine that holy city in a way that inspires you to make our own place a little more like that, until the time comes when the God who breathed us all out breathes us back in, and settles us into the city-garden full of light that will be our eternal home.