I had a dream the other morning.
I had woken up for a little bit when the sun first came up, and then I fell back into a deep heavy sleep with vivid dreams. In the dream, I was doing many things: driving a car, taking bags of trash to a dumpster, and having dinner at a restaurant with three people.
At the end of the dinner, in my dream, someone asked me a question: they asked what I hope the next three pastors at Newman Church will say were our successes.
Then I woke up from my dream, laughing at myself for this big question that had bubbled up from my subconscious. I didn’t have a chance to consider the question in my dream, but the question has been staying with me around this week as I go from meeting to meeting, visit to visit, and during worship prep and sermon writing.
My first instinct has been to say to myself: Where is this dream question coming from? This is my tenth week. It’s too soon to start thinking so far down the line.
I still need to figure out how to use the church copy machine, and turn on sanctuary microphones if Tom Lima isn’t here, and learn all the Washington Bridge workarounds if I have to go anywhere but Seekonk and Pawtucket.
Thinking about how I hope we will be seen by the future is too much.
It’s human nature to live in the current moment. It’s been engrained in us all as we’ve grown and evolved in God’s good creation:
- Do we have food enough to survive?
- Do we have water access right now to drink?
- Do we have the right shelter to keep us safe?
- Do we have clothing for warmth, healthcare for wellbeing, social connections for community, in the here and now?
The ability to think about the future is a blessing that comes if and when our physical and emotional needs are met. It takes a certain amount of security and groundedness in order to think about the future.
But of course, following along to the movements of the Spirit as we prepare for worship each week is a wild ride. And scripture challenged me to keep an eye to the future. Michael J. Himes of Boston College, in his book Doing the Truth in Love, opens his final chapter by quoting from Proverb 29: “Without a vision, the people perish.”
This wisdom literature invites us to put vision at the base of Maslow’s pyramid of needs right alongside food, water, shelter, and clothing.
For those of us who have spent any time studying the Book of Revelation, it’s easy to overlook the fact that Revelation is itself a vision. In this final book of the Bible, written down by a man named John on the island of Patmos, John writes — with evocative images of beasts and horsemen and floating cities — what he expects to happen in the future.
John wasn’t trying to predict word for word what would happen in the future; rather, he reveals his vision through symbols, poetry, and dream sequences. John “heard voices, paid attention to dreams, and prayed through the images,” sort of like an ancient dream journal that he recorded for others to be able to share and experience his vision.1
Many Christians don’t know what to do with this apocalyptic vision. Yes, visions can be scary. But they can also help us channel our hope for justice into future action and enduring hope in the here and now. Revelation doesn’t need to be seen as destruction; instead, we can receive it as a text of enduring hope despite the forces of conflict that confront us humans as we go about our being human.
The vision of Revelation sees that “the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more” — that’s destruction if you end there — but then a voice comes from on high, saying “the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples . . . pain will be no more for the first things have passed away.”
The vision of Revelation is that, no matter what comes, the people will always be with God, and God with us, even as the earth turns, and changes, and crumbles, and rebuilds, we have God with us.
So, to step back into my own dreamscape: What do I hope the next three pastors at Newman Church will say were our successes? I hope they say it is evident that a spirit was at home here in this season, pouring out God’s Spirit on all people; As it says in Revelation: I hope they will see that our young ones could speak of their visions, and that our elders could dream dreams, and that together we all helped to make them real.
I hope the next three pastors at Newman Church will say we, here and now, were pulled deeper into Jesus’s vision, and that we helped to make the kingdom of God more real in our time with vulnerable friends and followers at the center, and that through us, hurts were healed, hopelessness eased, hatred tamped, persecution rejected, swords beat into plowshares, and that we did simple things well.
And as the Gospel reading for today says, I hope the next three pastors at Newman Church will know we were Christians by our love. They know we were Christians by our love for LGBTQ siblings . . . by our love for Indigenous siblings . . . and incarcerated siblings . . . and refugee siblings . . . and Black and Brown siblings . . . and our white siblings . . . and our ill siblings . . . and our interfaith siblings . . . and they will know we were Christians by our love for our enemies . . . and for our neighbors . . . and for our environment . . . and they will know we were Christians by our love for understanding the past, and our ability to set them up well for the future.
In that spirit: what is you’re vision? I hope we will continue to come together in the love of the Christian tradition to make these visions into reality.
Jesus said, “Little Children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, but where I am going you cannot come. So, just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. When you do this, everyone will know that you follow in the way of Jesus, if you have love for one another.”
May we be so known.
Even as the old sea is swept away from us, let us go with God who holds us fast amidst the peril of change, and goes with us into the future.
Amen.