I caught grief from my mother yesterday (who was in church) indicating, "this is the first time I ever heard a preacher who didn't finish his sermon." That's what moms are for! So about that dream:
Saturday nights, rather than a full night of sleep, I end up taking a "nap" as I usually find myself awake the whole night wondering about the sermon and what changes need to be made. This weekend was no exception. I decided to lie down around 1AM as I was still discerning how this sermon would come to an end. Yet in the three hour nap, an amazing dream unfolded that perhaps answered my concern.
I dreamed of a Sunday morning. It was the Faith congregation, but the venue was my home church in Galesburg. The Galesburg First UMC is an old downtown church with a large traditional sanctuary (with at least 60 foot "cathedral" ceilings and a bell tower where bats love to live. A little secret about that church is that above the sanctuary and below the bell tower is a "corridor" (I am not sure of the correct architectural term) that allows maintenance to walk above the sanctuary and lower the lights to the floor of the sanctuary to be changed.
In that dream it was 8:15AM and my sermon was not complete for the 9AM fusion service. I was procrastinating, as usual, finding reason to explore the building where I once roamed as a child. As I made my way up the remote back stairwell, I came to a steel ladder that was attached to a wall. I climbed the ladder and came to a wooden door above my head, about the size of a manhole cover. I was convinced that this was the "corridor" above the sanctuary that I knew existed but never visited. I pushed open the door and climbed through. The room was more than a corridor, but a great hall with beautiful wooden arches of a light oak color and a lot of light.
There were people up there in this great hall watching down through the light fixtures watching the congregation below. They greeted me with a smile and welcomed me by saying, "We have been wanting to see you for a long time" (like a scene out of Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail). They were the faces of my Sunday School teachers and mentors from long ago who once attended mu home church but who are no longer living. We talked for a few moments, only to realize that it was now 8:45AM and I needed to descend the stairs and return to my responsibilities.
But it was one older woman who I revered as a child for her dedication to the church, who placed her hand on my shoulder as I began my descent and said, "Bradley, you are needed by the congregation. Stop worrying about how it all ends ...they love you for being the you God created you to be."
I woke up before I returned to the sanctuary. But as I turned off my alarm and headed to the shower, I thought about what was going on. My "Egypt" is my ongoing fear of failure. At times it renders me powerless. That idea of letting people down hold me captive and enslaves me to the perceptions of others. And if I ended the sermon in a rather weak manner, than I was also failure in my own eyes.
Yet in hearing those comforting words from that cloud of witnesses (though in a dream)...I stood before the congregation this morning at 9:58AM and said, "I could go on ... but time has escaped us."
And as I write this to share with you and officially end the Sunday sermon, I think this is one of those transformative moments in faith for me that has drawn me deeper in trust with the One I have wrestled with mightily for a number of years now. In my own deliverance of fear of failure ... may my weak ending be one of hope for you.
In Jesus Name, Amen.
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