THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

A sermon for the Second Sunday of Pentecost Season
Sunday, June 2, 2024 St. Saviour Church, Penticton BC
The Very Rev. Ken Gray

[Singing]
1 Hushed was the evening hymn,
the temple courts were dark;
the lamp was burning dim
before the sacred ark;
when suddenly a Voice Divine
rang through the silence of the shrine.

[Spoken]
2 The old man, meek and mild,
the priest of Israel, slept;
his watch the Temple child,
the little Levite, kept;
and what from Eli’s sense was sealed
the Lord to Hannah’s son revealed.

The Former Bishop of Yukon, Ron Ferris used to open every sermon with the words: “Speak Lord, for your servants are listening.” Good line, which I sometimes use, though not today.

The words I just sung, penned by the nineteenth century Scottish presbyterian minister James Drummond Burns remind me of evensongs I led in the 1980s. It was a musical and poetic favourite of the church I served at the time. Burns is described as a man in whom “there was a vein of kindly humour,” whose poems “are distinguished by vivid colouring and poetic imagination, along with directness, delicacy of execution, pensive sweetness, and tenderness. In his narrative poem Hushed was the evening hymn we enjoy a metrical setting of today’s text from 1 Samuel, the calling of a young prophet to voice and leadership at a time in the history of Israel when “the word of the Lord was rare” and “visions were not widespread” though “the lamp of God had not yet gone out.” Some suggest this is an apt description of our church in the present moment. I don’t agree; our times feel fragile, but in and through such times, light can and will shine.

Both the passage and the accompanying hymn have me thinking of “things that go bump in the night.” When the distractions of the day have faded, when the interruptive noise of daily life recedes, when the body— though not necessarily the mind—rests, things still happen. God still speaks. I have often tried to remember my own dreams, sometimes successfully, though most often not. My dreams often concern an unmet expectation, a late essay or unexpected exam in memory of school days. They sometimes form a narrative of guilt from which I am glad to wake and leave behind. Dreams however can  open up our hearts and minds to new opportunities and realities. For some, they recall  and helpfully rearrange truth as if comes to us.   

Prior to being made deacon and ordained a priest I was blessed with two separate pre-ordination retreats, both at the now-defunct Prince of Peace Priory at Chemainus on Vancouver Island. All retreatants were greeted by Fr. Cyril with the same message. Find your room;  settle in; and as you are likely stressed out and tired, take a nap for as long as you need and like. God speaks though your conscience, and likewise in your dreams.

Carl Jung is considered by many as  the “father” of dream interpretation. His book Memories, Dreams and Reflections (1963) remains a staple of academic study: “In dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare from all egohood. It is from these all-uniting depths that the dream arises …”

Writing in the journal Psychology Today, Dale M. Kushner explains  his own homage to Jung: “Using the imagination as a tool for transformation is what drew me to Jung and, later, to work with active imagination. As a writer, I inherently trust the wisdom of my unconscious mind to lead me to the story inside the story. To show me what I am not looking at, what escapes my awareness but wants to be seen. What a revelation to discover that the nightmares that wake us, shaken and despairing, might indeed be coded messages of a healing source within!”

Active imagination, passive imagination, dreams in the light and in the dark, all are for a for God’s nudge, hunch, and in some cases, speech. In life, and in scripture, dreams are everywhere. Joseph, was a “dreamer” (Genesis 37). I love Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s oratorio text. Joseph’s brothers chant together:

“The dreams of our dear brother are the decade’s biggest yawn
His talk of stars and golden sheaves is just a load of corn
Not only is he tactless, but he’s also rather dim
For there’s eleven of us and there’s only one of him.”

Equally dramatic is the Book of Acts, a testimony of the formation of a new movement of Jesus-followers. Echoing earlier prophecy from the Book of Amos, we hear: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” (2:17) Old men, this is your cue, to nod off, and get dreaming. See you at the coffee time.

In a slight fancy, Paul connects waking and sleep, light and dark: “We proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (1 Cor 4:5-6)

Psalm 139 offers a hint of Godly connection and care: “Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb; all of them were written in your book; they were fashioned day by day, when as yet there was none of them.” So if God watches, God likewise speaks in so many ways, as William James described in his 1912 Gifford Lectures: “The Varieties of Religious Experience.”

There is likely no better example of an active dreamer than Martin Luther King Jr. The text of his great speech in Washington in 1963 is worth re-reading from time to time. “So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” And my favourite quip: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

So savour, follow, and as you are able, interrogate  your dreams. Write them down; share with others; open yourself up to new possibilities; bring them to life.

Speak Lord; for your servants are listening.

[Singing]
3 Oh! give me Samuel’s ear,
the open ear, O Lord,
alive and quick to hear
each whisper of thy word;
like him to answer at thy call,
and to obey thee first of all.