Dreams Which Tell Stories & Stories Which Allow us to Dream

 

                                                                   Jacob's Dream -- Marc Chagall

1. Tell me the stories of Jesus I love to hear;
   Things I would ask Him to tell me if He were here;
   Scenes by the wayside, tales of the sea,
   Stories of Jesus, tell them to me.

During the past couple of nights I've had vivid dreams which involve 'ligion. Normally I have dreams which are so vivid that I'm sure I'll recall them later, only to have them drift off like wisps of morning mist. Theses two I was determined to remember, and while much of the context has faded there were specific aspects of each I willed myself to retain, one a scripture passage, the other an old childrens' chorus. 

In the latter I was exhorting a group of people about the importance of story-telling in faith, and I gave biblical examples from the Hebrew scriptures and from the life of Jesus. Of course, with Jesus there are the explicit stories he told which we call parables, a specific story form. But even the cerebral and theological apostle Paul told stories when he preached, and we have pieced together the "back story" of his journeys and the letters which followed them. The book called the Revelation of John is a sort of sci-fi vision which may also be code for the very real persecution of Christ-followers at the time. I hasten to assure you that I was not droning on with all these specific thoughts in the dream. 

Then, I attempted to conjure up the words of a chorus I learned as a child which was in the For Little Children section of the old blue Hymnary of the United Church, Stories of Jesus...please turn with me to number 605 in your books... Do any of you remember that one? It was cloyingly sweet, so no real loss from subsequent hymn books, but more than half a century later it is literally the hymn of my dreams -- go figure!

Since awakening I have been wondering what was going on, and it got me thinking about the narratives or stories of our lives. Individuals and families have stories which can "make or break" them. So do congregations of people, including religious communities and societies. there is the "greatest country in the world" narrative of the United States and the "kindest country in the world", both of which have been exposed as only partially true, if not outright fraudulent, in recent years. 

 I have realized over time that a common thread of religions at their truest and best are the narratives about their founders and their teachings, but also of the sub plots of kindness, generosity, humility, and forgiveness. Religion at its worst, including toxic Christianity, insists that the real stories are of dominance and superiority and rampant individuality. 

The narrative of individualistic, "I gave my heart to Jesus" Christianity, tied closely to the American Dream of prosperity, is imploding in the United States at the moment, and re-emerging as a selfish, controlling, and dangerous parody of our faith. We would be mistaken to think that similar threads don't exist on this side of the border, as we saw graphically during the pandemic when some congregations pouted and flouted about making choices for a greater good, not to mention the so-called Freedom Convoy. 

I wonder if the absolute nightmare in the US congress currently prompted my dream? Someone has said, "if you elect clowns you end up with a circus" and some of the those clowns claim to be Christians but are more like something from a Stephen King novel. 

As a Christian I'm glad to share basic principles with other religions, as a shared narrative for meaningful coexistence. Still, I continue to love the improbable particularity of God-with-Us in Jesus the Christ, and the power of the resurrection to overcome sorrow and grief and death itself. As a Christian I dream of a healed and hopeful world.