Sermon: The Rev. Leah D. Schade

Reformation Lutheran Church, Media, PA

July 1, 2007

“Dream a Little Dream for Me” Sermon Series

Climbing Jacob’s Ladder

Today we’re starting a sermon series on dreams and dreamers in the bible. It’s always been a fascinating subject to me because I’m the kind of person who dreams a lot and actually remembers them. Just out of curiosity, how many of you remember your dreams? How many of you write them down?

Now I realize not everyone is into dreams. For many people, if they, perchance dream about George Washington playing rugby with them on a purple field with tiny rhinoceroses running around, they’ll just assume that they ate too many spicy tacos for dinner.

But there are times when you have a dream that just takes hold of you and doesn’t let go. It doesn’t fade with the morning light. It stays with you, haunts you, seems to stick with you because it has something to say to you. Have you ever had a dream like that? Have you ever had a dream that you felt was trying to communicate something to you? A dream that had a message for you hidden in the crazy images or bizarre plots that ran through your mind while you slept. Sometimes our dreams are just dreams - ephemeral musings of the unconscious. But sometimes there are deeper meanings to our dreams, and if we pay attention to them, they may reveal to us a truth about ourselves or the world that we wouldn’t be able to hear any other way.

People in biblical times placed great stock in dreams. It was believed that they were a mode of revelation - a way for God to communicate to people. In fact, there are nearly forty stories of dreams and dreamers in the bible, five of which we’ll explore during this month of July.

One of the earliest and most famous dreams is that of “Jacob’s Ladder.” This scene of Jacob sleeping in the desert and having this vision is a pivotal plot line in the overarching story of Genesis. Jacob is the grandson of Abraham, the venerable ancestor of the Israelite nation. But he is a tricky fellow. Before this scene in the desert, Jacob’s story was defined by several acts of cunning and sneakiness. He once took advantage of his brother Esau who was returning from a hunting trip. Esau was starving to death, and traded his birthright for a pot of beans from Jacob. Later, Jacob tricked his father into thinking he was his brother Esau and stole the right to the eldest son‘s inheritance. He usurped his older brother and underhandedly secured the blessing and birthright from his father. When the plot was discovered, Isaac’s disappointment and Esau’s rage were so threatening that Jacob had to flee his home. He left behind his mother, Rebecca, whom he loved deeply. And for the first time in his life, he was alone.

He was in the desert, on his way to the land of Haran and his Uncle Laban’s tribe far across Middle East. And one fateful night, Jacob has this famous dream of the ladder. I want us to try to experience what it might have been like for Jacob, out in the desert on that night of his vision. So we’re going to do a guided meditation. I’d like you to comfortable and close your eyes, if you so wish. We’ll take a few deep breaths in quietness. Then we’ll begin. . . .

You are in the desert. What do you see around you? What colors are the landscape? How does the air feel? What do you hear? Do you detect any smells? Reach down and run your hand across the sand. How does it feel beneath your fingers?

You have been walking for many days in the desert, alone. You see that the sun is beginning to set in the west. You are exhausted and look around for a place to lay down for the night. You find a stone to put under you head as a pillow. You wrap a cloth covering around it and lay your head down. You fall asleep instantly.

No sooner have you closed your eyes than you are awakened by a light and a noise. You open your eyes and see a most unusual sight. A few feet away from you is a kind of ladder. Your eyes follow it up, up, up to the sky - so high that it’s lost in the clouds of the moonlit night. How does this ladder look to you? What is it made of? What color is it?

Suddenly you see movement on the ladder and sit up with a start. Hundreds of figures are moving up and down the ladder. You watch them, fascinated, until you hear a voice beside you. “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham, your father, and the God of Isaac.” How does the voice sound to you?

You turn and look at the figure standing beside you. What kind of person do you see? Is it male? Female? What is the person wearing? How do you feel as you gaze upon this being?

You hear the voice again, saying, “The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth.” The being takes your hand and moves it across the surface of the sand. How does it feel compared to when you touched it earlier?

“You shall spread abroad and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Suddenly the figure vanishes. You look around and see that the ladder is gone, too. You stand there in a daze for a few minutes, trying to comprehend what just happened to you. Was it just a dream? Was it real? What was that being who spoke to you?

Then in a rush of understanding, you recall the being’s words: “I am the Lord.” You were in the presence of God! You say out loud to no one in particular, “Surely the Lord is in this place - and I did not know it! How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!”

You see that the sun is now beginning to crest in the east. You look around for the stone on which you had laid your head. You unwrap the covering and set the stone up as a pillar. You take some oil from your pack and pour it over the stone, anointing it.

“I call this place Beth-el, House of God,” you say solemnly. You stand up and look to the sky where the ladder had been. You put you hand over your heart and address God: “If You will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I may come to my father’s house in peace, then you shall be my God. And this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be your house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one tenth to you.”

Once more you run your hand across the surface of the sand. God had said that your descendents would be like the dust of the earth. You break camp and set your eyes toward the east, placing your hand on the pillar before taking up your journey once again. . .

Begin to come back to this place. Open your eyes.

So . . . how does God get through to you? It took this kind of powerful dream to get through to Jacob. Up until this point in Jacob’s story, there is no mention of his relationship with God. God does not show up in the biblical account of Jacob’s life until that night in the desert. It took this dramatic vision to break through all of Jacob’s lies and deceit, to disarm his cunning and trickery, and start him on the right path.

Jacob’s story is so important for us today, precisely because of the content of his dream. Ladders are archetypes, meaning that they are a significant symbol in all cultures and throughout the history of humankind. Ladders symbolize the link between the abode of the gods, and the abode of humankind. And there are quite a few ancient stories from other cultures of certain individuals climbing these special ladders to ascend to the heavens and attain special spiritual wisdom. It is a feat of bravery, endurance, and supreme accomplishment to get up the ladder and get to the gods.

But this story of Jacob has some interesting twists that turn the archetype upside down. At the point in his life when Jacob has this dream, he is neither brave nor athletic nor an admirable person. He was cowardly, wimpy, and morally questionable. “He was a fugitive without right, resource, or sanctuary,” (Breuggemann, 25).

And yet God loved him and chose him anyway. In this vision, Jacob does not climb the ladder to get up to God; God comes down the ladder to get to Jacob. This is stunning! Because, in my readings, I came across no other story where the god-head actually descends to earth to encounter the human. It is always up to the human to be strong enough, smart enough, heroic enough to make their way up to God.

In a few minutes, we’ll be singing that beloved Sunday School hymn, “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder . . . Every step goes higher, higher.” Indeed, we are on ladders, but not to God. We’re climbing up to what we think will give us what we want. We climb the ladder of success. We climb the academic ladder, the professional ladder, the ladder of achievement in sports, business, wealth and all other forms of competition. But when we get to the top of those ladders we do not find God. We find only ourselves. And we find ourselves as alone as Jacob was on that night in the desert.

Maybe you’ve had one of those desert nights at one time or another. Those times when you thought that, like Jacob, you had outsmarted your opponent, bested your competitor, beaten your enemy, finagled your way to the wealth and success you crave. But at the end of the day, all we’re left with is a lonely stretch of desert and a stone for a pillow.

Those are times when we’re not thinking about God at all. We’re in survival mode, on the run, trying to escape the consequences of our decisions and actions. We’ve only been thinking about ourselves. We’ve given no thought to God.

But God has given plenty of thought to us. And in those lonely desert-night moments when we are most vulnerable, that is when God may choose to come down that ladder and surprise us with a vision that is totally out of context, out of character, and, literally, out of this world.

Interestingly, it is a vision crudely echoed in another lonely place thousands of years after Jacob sets up his pillar. It is a vision of another ladder reaching up to heaven. But this ladder had only one rung. When the disciples gazed tearfully upon that cross at Golgotha, they didn’t realize it then, but they, too, were looking at a ladder. And the words of the Jacob would be mouthed by a centurion standing guard, “Surely this man was the Son of God.” “Surely the Lord is in this place - and we did not know it! This is the gate of heaven.”

We cannot possibly ascend the heights to meet God. We are no better than Jacob, without right, resource or sanctuary. And so God has to come down to us. The words spoken by God to Jacob are repeated to Jesus at his baptism, are again repeated by Jesus at the commissioning of the disciples, and are heard by us in our baptism: “Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this place. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

In this story, “Jacob has encountered the promise-maker whose promises endure” (Brueggemann, p. 25) no matter what opposition may be encountered. And that promise changes Jacob. “[Many years later] On his return to Canaan, there will be another night encounter with the Deity before his reentry into the land [one in which he actually wrestles with God]. The conclusion of the promise is the blessing that will come upon the nations of the earth through contact with Jacob and his descendents.” (Harper Collins, 104.)

And for Christians, that promise is expanded in the person of Jesus Christ who ascends that ladder for us and brings the promise of eternal life down to each of us.

And it all began with a dream.

Over these next few weeks, I’d like you to pay attention to your dreams. Even keep a journal at your bedside to record a dream that stays with you. And join our Wednesday bible studies beginning next week, where we will look deeper into the symbols and meanings of the biblical dreams, as well as our own dreams. God uses all kinds of ways to communicate to us, to get through to us, and get us on the right path for God’s purposes.

And so I’ll say. . . Sweet dreams!

Sources:

Harper Collins Bible Commentary

Brueggemann, Walter, The Land, Fortress Press, 1977.