[Propertalk] Great Vigil homily

[Robert P Morrison]

Here's what I've set down, and will look at closer to Saturday!

One more to write!

Peace for maundy Thursday.

Bob

EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY              GREAT VIGIL OF EASTER
9 O.T. READINGS		                     3rd APRIL, 2010	
LUKE 24:1-12 

	We ALL dream. Only some of us remember our dreams. But we DO all dream. Somehow, it’s necessary for our mental health. I’d guess it’s good for our spiritual health too, depending on whether one dreams about Brad Pitt, or Liam Neeson, or Angelina Jolie, or Sigourney Weaver. But dreaming IS necessary for all of us. So if I’ve lost you for the rest of the sermon, I guess I’ll just have to live with it.
	Seriously, dreaming is one of the major gifts God gives us. Not only do dreams expand our imaginations and help us to consider things we may be too timid to consider in our more rational, waking hours, but God can and does speak to us when our guard is down and when we’re more open to suggestion. More’s the pity, then, when we may not remember our dreams. Possibly this is a skill which we may wish to try to brush up. Look through the Bible and you’ll find God helping individuals and societies discovering and growing their faith through the way they think about their dreams.
	Here’s what someone wrote me last week.
	“Things I wanted to do when I was ten.
	1. Make a wagon into a restaurant & travel around the world having adventures with my invisible pet dinosaur. Most of the adventures would start with people buying food from us.
	2. Light things on fire to see how they would burn. 
	3. Dig an underground fort & live there except at mealtime & at night because I hate dirt in my food & my pajamas.
	4. Discover a continent or an island & not tell my parents where it was because they'd just make me clean it.” 1
	These sound pretty reasonable to me, actually. We all like to eat, and most of us enjoy company, especially at meal times. And if we can provide for someone else’s comfort, if we can travel at the same time and discover new recipes, well that’s just icing on the cake.
	Lighting things just to see if they’ll burn – well maybe that’s pushing the limits of acceptable behavior a little far. But controlled fires – seeing flames leap up into the dark sky as if to touch the stars – there’s a primitive pleasure in that, something which speaks to us about our ability to communicate, to send and receive messages, as well as to warm ourselves and to cook up the food we may have considered in the first part of our dream.
	I have mixed emotions about the third one also – digging and underground fort and living in it. I’m with the person who says she doesn’t like dirt in her pyjamas. That’s worse than cookie crumbs in bed! But think about what may be behind that suggestion about living underground, for however long or short a time. For so much of our lives and activities we’ve distanced ourselves far too much from Mother Earth. We cut down trees because they block views, forgetting that trees are an integral; part of the view itself; we pave over the earth so that we don’t have to weed or track parts of creation all through the house on our shoes. Then we discover the most simple weeds, plants and trees can push their way through the toughest blacktop or cement. We put in four or five lane highways – well, you don’t need me to overdo this image!
	Digging out some place to live where we actually touch this created world with our bare hands gives us a point of contact with the Creator. It might remind us of relationships, as we share our secret places, the places where we find spiritual nourishment and respite from the noise up above. This part of our dream may bring us closer to God as we remember where it is we are and who we have the potential to be.
	That last segment, though – well, it DOES sound appealing to find some unexplored territory where we can get in touch with everything that’s important to us. We ALL need to be able to have someplace into which we can invite those who nourish us spiritually as well as emotionally, then, if need be, we can ask them to give us some space and let us think about what we’ve been talking and doing. But NOT telling our parents – I know there have been some terrible parent-child relationships; I know there ARE times when you’d rather talk about something with a best friend. But translate this dream-segment into the religious sphere and think about not telling God where you are and what you’re doing. Well, it’s not possible, for one thing, but God wants us to tell us where we are in life, what’s going on in life, what’s too scary to talk about to another human being, no matter how close or compassionate. 
	It seems like only yesterday – it WAS just yesterday, that we heard Jesus say “It is accomplished”. I give Myself into Your care. 
	Eating and sharing food; watching fire be kindled again; establishing contact with creation; finding a safe space – perhaps not quite in that sequence, but these Dream Pictures are EXACTLY what we’re about this night. These describe the Love of God which simply won’t allow something like torture and death to be or have the last word. These are the elements on which our faith is built. We can ALWAYS find Light for our darkness, whatever it may be, and that Light shows us how we are to relate to Creation and all within it. Perhaps in the silence before this liturgy began, as we struggled to face the dark we also found a safe place – possibly a space next to Jesus in His tomb, where we can reveal to one another what frightens us, what diminishes our humanity.
	Then, together, we find ourselves drawn out of the darkness, away from loneliness and uncertainty. We live out an echo of George Herbert’s wonderful mystical poem as we see that we now have “such a light as shows a feast; such a feast as mends in length;” such a feast that awaits us in a few moments, a Feast that will not end but will be consummated in Jesus’ nearer Presence. 
	I feel I have a personal need to respond to that dream-desire not to clean my island, though.
	The other day I heard an interview with one of my favourite radio and classical music commentators. He was discussing his special room – actually an insulated and well-designed shed at the foot of his garden. It was filled with books and CDs, from which he drew inspiration and with which he designed his radio programmes. He said, though, that he never used a filing system. He never fully shelved his books or CDs, just stacked them up wherever he could – on shelves, on chairs, on the floor, wherever. He said he never failed to find incredible delight in coming across a book or a CD which he knew he had, but hadn’t seen for a while. His face lit up when it became apparent how recently he’d had such a discovery of God’s enlightening. 2
	God IS present, God IS revealed, even in the most messy, uncoordinated, unpromising-looking situation imaginable. From the most unbelievable of conditions – the rubble of Haiti, the disorganization of Chile, the inhumanity of the most corrupt political authority – even the room of a parent’s worst nightmare – from ANY situation God can and will being new life, and hope, and love. This night promises that we can depend on that.
	OK, all of you who’re still picturing Brad, or Liam, or Angelie, or Sigourney – you can come back to earth now. Maybe find an image of Jesus, at least for a few minutes, and see how we can picture Him at Heritage Mall, or Costco, or Little Caesar’s across the street. Dream on THAT, ACT on that, and you may discover the effects of Jesus’ resurrection are already working in your lives.

NOTES:
1 	StoryPeople 30th March, 2010. Annette at storypeople.com
2	Rob Cowan, BBC Radio 3 producer, commentator and musicologist.



--
Robert P. Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban,
P.O. Box 1556,
Albany, Oregon, 97321

541-921-1076 (cell)
541-967-7051 (church)