Scripture: Psalm 84 and Acts 8:26-35
I lied. I said last week that I had resisted the temptation to make last week’s sermon part two of a three part sermon. That wasn’t exactly a lie because I thought it was true at the time, but I came to writing the sermon for this week and I had some other things I wanted to say about imaging God or dreaming God. I actually had a bunch of images of God that I didn’t get to last week, but I can let them go and let them appear randomly in other sermons at other times. There’s one though that I decided I wanted to talk about now rather than sometime. It’s really a bunch of images in one. So here’s one more dream I have of God.
There’s this road. It’s a dirt road, I think, dusty, not very wide, definitely not a superhighway or any kind of a road for cars, an out of the way road, kind of a lonely road, a walking road for humans and maybe an occasional donkey. There’s a figure along the side of the road, not too visible, or maybe not too noticeable is the way to put it, maybe in the shadow of some trees, or just looking sort of tan and blending in to the surroundings. The person’s head is either covered or down, so you can’t see the person’s face.
I’m a traveler along this road, and I’m sort of movin’ on down, movin’ on down the road, but when I catch a glimpse of this figure by the side of the road, I slow down. It’s clear in this dream that if you don’t slow down, you’re gonna pass this person, whoever it is, you’re gonna pass this person right by. Power walkers might not even notice there was anyone there. People who are in a hurry to get somewhere will hurry on by, maybe giving a nod or a wave as they pass. So in the dream I slow down at least long enough to take a longer look at this mysterious figure, and when I do, without saying anything or lifting his head, he kind of edges over in my direction, and I kind of edge over in his direction so that gradually we are walking down this road together—sort of together.
In this dream—it’s a waking dream, but it is a dream, a recurring dream—after we’ve been walking a ways together, this person finally turns so I can see his face, and it’s the face of Jesus. And that’s why I had to come back to this dream today.
When I was talking about my dreams of God last week, I didn’t mention Jesus. I didn’t feel I needed to particularly, and I was not much aware if at all aware that I was leaving Jesus out of the picture last week. I was focusing on my images of God that happened to be, didn’t have to be, but happened to be female. We began all this by talking about gender and God and that’s where my head and my heart was last week. I don’t believe Jesus is the only true image we can have of God. I don’t believe that Jesus has to be at the center of everyone’s dreaming about God, not even in a Christian church. I believe that it’s very important that we have other images of God, and I do, and so Jesus was just not an issue for me last week, and I certainly didn’t feel guilty for not bringing him into the picture.
But Jesus is at the center of my dreaming about God. I don’t suggest that he needs to be at the center of everyone’s, but he is at the center of my dreaming about God. And he is a traveling companion for me. And I came to feel this week that it would not be truthful of me not to say that and to spend a few moments exploring that image, this additional dream I have of God.
Having said that, I have to say that this image I have of Jesus is not in very sharp focus. It is misty if not mystical and I think it is no accident that I don’t see this figure by the side of the road very clearly, and that his face is mostly hidden from me. Jesus has an image problem, I think, largely because of those who see him a bit too clearly. Be that as it may, I do not have a clear image of Jesus and am perfectly content that it is that way. I know I need to dream Jesus in much the same way I need to dream God, and when I do dream Jesus, I am in some very non-rational, definitely non-theological way dreaming God.
And when I do dream Jesus, the image that seems to have the strongest hold on me is the one I described. It is not the image of Jesus on the cross. It is not the image of Jesus sitting at the right hand of God in heaven. It is not the image of Jesus walking on water, or standing in a circle of people listening to his every word, or spreading his hands out in blessing or healing. It is the solitary traveler by the side of the road who comes to join me in my solitary traveling.
And when the person lifts his face to me, I know it is Jesus but I don’t necessarily see any of the faces of Jesus we have seen on Sunday school walls or in the movies. I see a face that is dark, neither old nor young, weather-beaten, a face I would describe as strong, loving, but not in a mushy sort of way, accepting of me, but not willing to put up with any nonsense or pretending from me.
I know now that in this dream, when I encounter this figure, I know it’s Jesus, but sometimes when the figure looks up, the face I see is the face of a woman. Sometimes what I see when Jesus turns to me is not one face at all but the faces of thousands of women and men, on the road as refugees, fleeing from war, ethnic cleansing or hunger, forced to travel dusty roads away from wherever they have called home in the past. Sometimes it is the face of a man sleeping in a doorway, a woman who can’t go home because neither she nor her children are safe in their own home, a man with no family in a nursing home. Sometimes I see the face of someone I know. Sometimes maybe it is even my own face I see. The face of Jesus is many faces. Human faces. Holy faces.
This is the dream of God I felt I needed to speak of this morning, a dream that is one dream but also many dreams. Not a vision of God comfortable in heaven, but a dream of God at loose in the world. Jesus. Refugees. Exiles. Homeless ones. Pilgrims. Sojourners. You. Me.
And here is a thought I have about this dream. God is to be found, God meets us in out of the way places. Lonely places. Not well-traveled roads, but deserted, dusty roads. Places that are not so easy to get to. Places we may not want to go. If I am afraid to step out of the mainstream…If I am afraid to live as an alien to everyday life in the world…If I am afraid to visit the out of the way places in myself, afraid of the lonely places inside…I am probably avoiding an encounter with that figure by the side of the road. But if I am willing to travel that road—no guarantees—but that figure may be willing to walk the road with me and eventually reveal to me some of her many faces.
I was wondering what scripture to choose for this morning. OK, the general area we’re in here is traveling, journeying, being a pilgrim, being homeless, being willing to leave what is comfortable, that kind of thing. There are lots of scriptures that relate to that. The Bible is full of journeyers. I just wasn’t sure which one I wanted to lift up this week. Then I happened to be reading something that made reference to a passage that wasn’t even a candidate at that point, sort of an out of the way passage, and when I saw the reference, I knew I wanted to go with that one. You heard it earlier. “An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip and said, ‘Get up and go toward the south, down the road that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.)”
I have to make a quick aside here. The Lord is asking Philip to leave Jerusalem, the center of power, the center of just about everything including the young Christian community, and go to Gaza—a trouble spot—then and now a troubled spot. Gaza, then and now a place that is a symbol of Palestine, is one of those places Christians are still being called to be concerned about, and one voice I believe is very much worth hearing will be in Charlottesville three weeks from today. He is Arthur Waskow. He is somewhat controversial, out of the mainstream, but a sensitive voice for spiritual renewal within Judaism and a strong voice for justice for Palestinians and security for Israel. Sojourners has been asked to be a sponsor for his visit and I both invite your attendance at the event and invite your comments about our sponsorship to either John Wheeler or myself.
But back to the scripture. “An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip and said, ‘Get up and go toward the south, down the road that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ (This is a wilderness road.)” What a wonderful verse! Almost a throwaway. A verse which, if I had ever really noticed it before, I had forgotten. This is a wilderness road.
The church, I am sorry to say, almost never says this. I know “the church” is a big thing, and there are lots of voices in the church, and it’s really hard to talk about “the church”, but I still think it’s true. There are all sorts of voices in the church that say that a life of faith, believing in Jesus will win you salvation. There are lots of voices in the church that will say that being a person of faith will win you earthly rewards: success in various definitions, joy, contentment, strength, forgiveness, inner peace, statistically a longer life. There are lots of tendencies in the church that would make God comfortable, that would make the faith community warm, fuzzy, and cozy, that would imply that faith and/or the faith community will take away the fear, the loneliness, the anxiousness, the doubt, the sorrow. But all of that is not quite true. It’s not completely untrue, and since I am not too terribly hung up on consistency, there will be some Sundays when my voice will be one of those voices saying some of the things I just described. I do not believe that faith is without its rewards.
But what I do believe, and what I want to say today, is that there are too few voices in the church that are saying clearly that this journey of faith we are on, all of us in one way or another, this journey of faith, this road is a wilderness road. We need to remind each other of this, confess it to each other, among other reasons so that when we each of us find ourselves on that road that we don’t think we are the only ones going from Jerusalem to Gaza, the only ones on a wilderness road. We need to say this to ourselves so that we are not surprised or deterred from traveling that road or led to think that we are on this wilderness road somehow because of our lack of faith. The road of faith is a wilderness road. It is not without its rewards. It is not without joy. It is not without companionship, not without love. But it is a wilderness road.
The other scripture this morning was Psalm 84, which is one of those that I return to often. This week I found an unexpected treasure in it. Verse 5 is often translated as “Happy are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.” This never struck me much before. It’s not the reason I like them Psalm. Other verses appeal to me more. But this week I ran across a different translation. It said “Blessed is the one whose heart is set on you, whose heart is set on pilgrimage.” Blessed indeed is the one whose heart is set on pilgrimage. Amen.
Jim Bundy
April 6, 2003