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A Pentecost Dream
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| 5/31/2009 |
The lessons for Pentecost Sunday are found here.
How do I look?
I must have dark circles under my eyes. Last night, I had fitful sleep. A dream kept waking me up. I want to tell you about the dream.
I dreamt that it was Sunday morning, my alarm hadn't gone off, and I was very late. In the dream I jumped out of bed, threw on some clothes, put on my priestly collar, and ran out the door. I ran as fast as I could for the church.
But, every few steps someone would stop me. First there was a man hungry, asking me to give him some food.
I told him, “I can’t right now, I’m late for church.”
A block or so later, there was a man on the corner just babbling. His clothes were torn, I could see he was a person of the streets who probably had far too many problems than I could solve. I was smart and crossed to the other side of the street so he wouldn’t see me. After all, I was late for church.
Soon, I was in front of a CVS pharmacy. In truth, there is no CVS between my house, and the church, but my dream was taking me all over the city. A woman and her children stopped me, and asked if I would help them get medicine.
“I’m late for church,” I said as I kept running.
All of a sudden I was walking by the high school, and the teachers were outfront looking for tutors, but I couldn't stop. I was late for church. I walked by the gun store where the people of faith have been witnessing against gun violence; some of them called out to me to join the throng, but I pretended not to hear. I was late for church. I ran by a community garden, and the gardeners there were looking for help, but I didn't want to get my hands dirty. I was on my way to church, and I couldn't show up with dirty hands.
After the longest time, I finally arrived. I turned the corner to make the final dash and I just stopped in my tracks. To my shock and horror, the church was gone! No walls, windows, tower or steeple. There were no pews, only the brick paving remained.
Even though the walls of the church were gone, I could see that you all were here. In my dream, I could see you all huddled together, in a large circle. Something, or someone was at the center, but I couldn’t see who or what.
I ran up to see what was going on. I arrived at the back edge of this human circle, but I couldn’t breakthrough. The people were just too thick. On one side of me stood the Rector’s Warden. He just said, “You’re late,” and put a piece of bread in my hand.
On the other side, stood an acolyte; not an acolyte I knew, but she seemed familiar. She put a piece of dried fish in my hand. I said, “Thank you.”
She said, “You’re welcome.” That common phrase sounded different than usual. I felt welcomed, right in the midst of my own congregation. It didn’t seem to matter anymore that I was late.
I could see that all the other people in the huddle were breaking off pieces of their bread and fish, and eating them. When I did so to mine, they didn’t get any smaller. Everyone else was passing their leftover pieces up into the center, so I did so, too.
In the dream, I again tried to push myself through the crowd. But I couldn't. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I spied our organist John Binsfeld. Shockingly, he was wearing a red velvet cape, studded with rhinestones, and he was even wearing big Elvis sunglasses. In his hand, he held the Curtis Memorial Electric Guitar. He started pushing his way into the center, shouting all the way, “It's time for our closing hymn.”
I knew I was dreaming when he said, “We’re going to sing ‘Fire,’ by the funk band, The Ohio Players.”
In the next moment, John swung the electric guitar around his neck, and started picking out that unmistakable, soulful groove that makes “Fire” such an irresistible song.
Again, I knew I was dreaming when all of you started singing, “Fire, boom-boom-boom; Fire, boom-boom-boom."
I knew I had to put a stop to this craziness, so I forced myself through the congregation.
Suddenly, I fell right into an empty grave. The walls of church were gone, but the floor was here, and all of the graves were empty. I had fallen right into the grave of Bishop White. “Where was he?” I wondered. I could just peek out over the edge, and I think I saw Bishop White dancing with the congregation!
“William White!” I shouted, “It says in your official biography that you frowned on dancing. What’s going on?” He didn’t hear me.
I kept peering out; you all kept singing, “Fire!” One of you kept shouting, “The church is in the house!” which didn’t make much sense, since all of the church—at least the building—was missing.
Then I noticed that one part of the church was still here. Our beautiful spire, handcrafted in 1754, was hovering, without its tower, over the big huddle where you were dancing and singing “Fire.” I looked closely, and could see that Bishop William White was not the only one who had come out his grave. Benjamin Franklin had climbed out of his grave in the Christ Church Burial Ground, and he was climbing up the outside of the steeple, removing all the way the lightning rod he installed in 1754.
I shouted up, “You can’t do that! You can’t make alterations on a historic building without a permit from the Historical Commission. You can’t make any changes without permission!”
He didn’t hear me, either. He kept climbing, ripping off the lightning rod as he went, and when he got to the top, he started to fly that famous kite of his, on the silk string, right into thunder clouds up above. He tied the string to the top of the steeple, and then jumped down into the congregation. You all kept singing “Fire!”
Then, a blast of lightning charged out of the cloud, hit the kite, came down the string, and exploded the steeple into flames. I said to myself, “Good thing we installed that new fire suppression system on the steeple, with the high-power water pumps, and the 3-phase electrical power. It will put that fire right out, and at least we’ll save the steeple.”
In my dream, I could hear bells go off and sirens ring, and then the fire sprinklers did start spewing out water in their well-engineered cascading torrent. The fire didn’t go out, though. Instead, you all were drenched in water, and this seemed to make you dance all the more.
Then, John started singing the third verse of “Fire,” but I think he changed the words some.
“You gotta shake what you got, and we really got a lot, so go forth now.”
Then, I could see Carol and Susan holding the babies whom we are baptizing today up into the water, and they were singing the fourth verse.
“I can tell by your name that you’re gonna start a flame, so go forth now.”
And then everyone sang together:
When you’re hot, you’re hot, so we will take our shot, and go forth now.”
And then, with the precision of a marching band, you all turned around 180 degrees, and started to march out of here. You fell into groups of two. I could see that some of you were carrying the baskets of bread and fish, and some had sheaves of wheat up upon your shoulders. The Accounting Warden was even carrying the full collection plate out of here, which seemed very foolish, with all of the rebuilding we would have to do.
And it wasn’t just you, interestingly. I saw Alice of Dunks Ferry walking with William Penn, and Absalom Jones walking with Benjamin Rush.
I had to see what would happen next. Down in my grave, I found boxes full of the Book of Common Prayer, the Constitutions and Canons of the Episcopal Church, and uncompleted pledge cards, so I stacked them up and climbed out. The steeple had stopped burning, and the water had stopped flowing. I looked all around. I could see you all, in the distance.
Two of you were sharing from the baskets with the man who was hungry who stopped me in front of my house. Others were helping the woman and her kids outside of the pharmacy. Some of you were treating the crazy, babbling guy like a human being, not an inconvenient threat. Some of you were getting your hands dirty, working in the garden right here to make it beautiful for the neighborhood. Some of you went to tutor, others to witness against violence. Some went to the hospital. Many of you, I noticed, didn’t get any further than the coffee shop, where you sat together, and shared the struggles of your own lives with each other, asking for prayer and guidance. Others of you were at home, praying for the rest who were scattered. Some of you, I could see, had to go to work, but you were going to work, differently.
In my dream, I stood here, all alone, feeling lonely and scared. Only the acolyte, who had given me the fish earlier, stayed behind. She said, “Don’t worry, they’ll be back, in a week, maybe sooner.”
“What does this mean?” I cried.
The acolyte said, “It’s Pentecost.”
What a dream, what a dream I had.
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