A Reflection for the 2nd Sunday of
Christmas All Saints Church,
Southern Shores, N.C. January 5, 2014 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
Last week I told you that it was the 5th
day of Christmas and I asked you how you might reply. You looked like I had
slipped a bit and I sang – “Five golden rings, four Colly birds, three French Hens,
two Turtledoves and a Partridge in a Pear Tree.” So, today is the last day of
the Christmas season, the day of Twelfth Night, the Eve of Epiphany, the 12th
day of Christmas and I warned you I would ask you to respond to today being the
12th day of Christmas. So what will you say?
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me.
3 French Hens
Steve and I had agreed that we would celebrate this
day as the Feast of the Epiphany (transferred) with the story of the Wise Men.
But I had a dream on Monday morning this week and I told Judy that we were
changing the Gospel lesson to the 2nd Sunday of Christmas about the
dreams of Joseph. I still haven’t figured out the dream but I thought that I
might tell you about it and see if it speaks to you. One of the things I am
learning in dream group work is that sometimes dreams which the dreamer can’t
figure out might be good for another member of the group when it becomes their
dream. Dreams are meant to be prayerfully shared; I think that is why scripture
uses so many dreams for all dreams are meant for healing and wholeness.
Monday morning I stirred when it was time for me to
wake up and then I decided not to go to work out and turned over to get some
more sleep. I had awakened in the middle of the night thinking about the sermon
for today and was getting nowhere and I was tired. In the dream I am presented
with a board with several options for the name of the dream I wanted. I am
confused because this has not been a part of any dream I have ever had- but one
of the choices was “Kansas” and I picked that one. In the dream the scene
shifts to a small room with a man sitting across the table from me. He has
olive complexion and a big nose and is about 5 feet 2 inches tall. I know
immediately his name is Joseph and he is the father of Jesus. I ask him; what is he doing in Kansas? To
which he replies that this is not Kansas but Egypt.
Joseph goes on to tell me that he had a dream which
told him to go to Egypt after the wise men show up and drop off “the loot”. I
ask him to tell me about the dream.
Joseph says he was dreaming of a river of blood
coming close to the house in Bethlehem, threatening to flood the house. In his
mind, I see the river, dark red and threatening, I smell that copper metallic
odor. There is no river in Bethlehem so this river of blood does not appear in
nature. He sees this as a sign that danger is coming and he talks with Mary
about this dream. He tells her there is some good work in the Jerusalem area
and maybe it is time to leave and go there to work. She tells him that she had
a similar dream about her son being in danger and the Magi had told her that
they did not trust Herod. She does not trust Herod either because he had
executed one of his wives and several of his sons. She says he is a man who has
shed a lot of blood and she wants to stay away from him. The only other river
of blood she is aware of is told about in the Exodus story when the Hebrew
children were in bondage in Egypt and Moses made the Nile run with blood in his
struggle against the evil Egyptian pharaoh. Mary and Joseph decide that they
need to get out of Herod’s reach and go to the Nile to exchange one river of
blood for another.
Joseph says that the trip was hard but they made it
and since the Romans had ruled Egypt since they defeated Antony and Cleopatra
there had been peaceful times there and there was work to be had there. They do
fine in Egypt but it is hard to raise a child to be a faithful Jew in a strange
land. He tells me that he has had a new dream and he is worried about it. He
shares the new dream.
The river of blood has come back into his dream
which he knows has been a sign of needing a change in his life. He sees Moses
spread his rod over the river and it becomes clean and flows northward toward
the sea. Moses turns to Joseph and tells him that the one who caused the river
of blood in Bethlehem is dead and it is now time for the new Moses to be taken
northward to take his people out of Egypt to the land of their destiny. But Joseph
is worried about going back. He knows that the dream told him that Herod is
dead but they have not yet received direct confirmation and it takes weeks for
news to spread down from Jerusalem.
Joseph and I start walking down some paths and I am
not sure where we are going. Joseph is talking in Aramaic and I don’t understand
what he is saying. All I know is that I am walking and I do not know where my
destiny will take me. I tell him I understand what it is to not know where you
are going. Maybe all we can do is to go one step at a time trusting that God is
with us and will redeem all things. Joseph says that it is hard to believe that
all the time but so far God has been faithful to him.
We arrive back at the house and we sit back at the
table and he tells me that he has been talking with his angel as we were
walking. I had not seen the angel but I knew that he was talking in Aramaic. He
made the decision that they would take the family closer to home, but to play
it safe he would go to the nowhere town of Nazareth in Galilee. The angel told
him that there would be work for him in Sepphoris. I told him that I had been
to Sepphoris during my study in Israel and the ruins looked like it had been a
prosperous city.
I ask him about Mary and Jesus and he told me they
were out and he had to get back to work, just like I had to in my home. Joseph
turns into Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and clicks her Ruby Slippers to go back
to Kansas.
I wake up. What have I learned? I know that I every
person or thing in the dream is me and I know that I identify with Joseph, that
clueless man who takes a task way above his pay grade to nurture a child, not
of his own blood but of his own heart, to grow into the full stature of Christ;
which is how I see my own ministry as an reenactment of Joseph’s ministry with
Jesus. I am reminded that it is time for me to leave the infancy of Jesus
behind me and get to work listening to the Risen Christ? I am aware I am going
to have to walk for a while into new territory. I am aware of my age bringing
my blood closer to flowing into the sea of life. I am reminded that it over
conversations at tables with others on the path that I will be able to find my
way. I think also of the
blood of Christ which pours from his side to nourish the people of the earth;
am I really becoming what I eat and drink every week; the body and blood of
Christ or am I trying to run away from it?
1)
Who or what are you (name and describe yourself as the dream image)? I am a
river of human blood and I am coming from life flowing to the sea of life.
2)
What is your purpose or function? I give life by bringing in oxygen to allow
parts of the body, the brain, the heart, the hands, the legs to breathe deeply
and to run free and by picking up the garbage in the body as I course
through, cleansing it to keep disease away.
3)
What do you like about what you are? I like that that I am useful and necessary
and have meaning.
4)
What do you dislike about what you are? I am icky.
5)
What do you fear most? That I will be wasted.
6) What do you desire most? To run free and
unimpeded.
Every part of the dream contains the images which are part of the dreamer. All
dreams have many levels of meaning and they have multiple meanings. When I make
Joseph's dream mine, I look at a meaning for me. I see my ministry and the struggle
to continue in my ministry; am I necessary or useful or am I wasting myself?
In
a group the dreamer gives over the dream to the others in the group for them to
make it their own. When you take my dream as your own you need to ask yourself
more questions to find out where the energy is for you? What do the images mean
for you? Where is the Joseph in you? Where is your Egypt? Where is your river
flowing? What does blood mean to you? What is the Spirit is saying to you? If
it were your dream, what is the depth of your soul, where God’s angels dwell,
telling you?
No comments:
Post a Comment