First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
July 12, 1998
Scripture: Genesis 28:10-19
After a number of Sundays removed from the vantage point of this pulpit, it’s good to see you. And it’s good to hear you….especially when you sing like you have this morning. To be sure, you always sound decent. But some mornings, you sound positively vibrant. Especially when you know the songs. And like the songs. Which can surely be said of one of this morning’s hymns, the one about Jacob’s ladder.
You like it when we sing it inside. You like it when we sing it outside. You like it sung to the piano. You like it sung to the guitar. You like it when Robyn bounces it off the back wall of the balcony. And you like it when hummed quietly by the shores of some lake. Which was probably where many of you first sang it….at some camp….around some fire….while seeking to connect with the God reigning above you, and with the teenager of the opposite sex singing beside you.
The last time I built a church building, we created a capital campaign around the rallying cry “Climbing Higher.” Which image I modified, two years into my tenure here, for a stewardship campaign that we entitled “Ladder Climbers.” In both churches….and on both occasions…. “Jacob’s Ladder” served us well.
For me, however, both the slogan and the song are moderately uncomfortable….albeit eminently singable. For I have some personal reservations about climbing. I’ll do slopes, but not peaks. I’ll do stairs, but not ladders. And I don’t do trees. Never did. Even when I was a kid. Two churches ago, there was an 84-year-old Scandinavian who was forever wanting to show me something on the roof. He was fearless. He was tireless. And he wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. The roof of that church was reachable, only by a steep ladder. And I spent more time than I wanted up there. When I knew that I was leaving, the only saving grace was that I would never have to follow Vern Nyman up that ladder again. And I never have. I try to believe everything Jesus tells me. But one thing I have no trouble believing is his promise: “Lo (low), I am with you always.”
I suppose the thing that troubles us non-climbers is the fact that we might fall. In my case, I am sure of it. I like heights when my underpinnings are secure. I like the actual act of climbing. I like the adrenaline of escalation. And I especially like the views from on high. I just don’t like the prospect of falling. I’m not sure where that comes from, given the fact that (to my knowledge) I have never fallen. I suppose I am mildly acrophobic. But I don’t know why.
In my younger years, I had a recurring dream that disturbed more than a few nights of sleep. I would be walking along comfortably when I would feel myself stumble….lose my balance….or step on something that could not hold my weight. I would fall. And while the falling was terror enough, the worst was yet to come. As the ground (the floor….the bottom….whatever) would come closer to me, and me to it, I would tense every muscle in preparation for the crash. But there would be no crash. For, at what should have been the moment of impact, there would be no bottom. Instead, in a frenzied state of free fall, I would awaken with heart pounding and sweat glands pouring.
Those dreams are largely behind me. Thankfully, I have a better understanding as to what they once meant. The part of the dream having to do with slipping and falling was a response to my not-insubstantial insecurities. The other part of my dream, the part having to do with a non-existent bottom, betrayed my fear that no one would be there to catch me, once I fell. Subsequent assurances of support have now minimized those fears and largely eliminated those dreams. Yet, I am told that the dream is widespread, and that the fear (in good Jungian terminology) is archetypal….meaning that it is a part of the collective psyche of the human race.
Al Capp, beloved cartoonist of an earlier decade, dealt with this fear in a somewhat comic way. Whenever he wanted to get rid of a character in his comic strip, “Lil’ Abner,” Capp would have that person fall into Bottomless Canyon. Such persons did not die. They were never crushed by any rocks at the bottom. From time to time, there would be a scene featuring the character continuing to drop….while engaging in casual conversation (though falling) with the folks whose homes were built into the walls of this unending crevasse. All of this was meant to be funny. And it was….until we learned of Al Capp’s lifelong battle with severe depression.
I suppose that institutions sometimes suffer from the same psychic malady. What if we stumble or slip? What if we fail or fall? What if we dream it….and then can’t do it? Or do it….and then can’t pay for it? Or what if we dream it, do it, pay for it….and then don’t like it? Or don’t like each other? Or what if we like these people….but not the new people (if there are any new people)? Or the new minister (whenever there is a new minister)?
“Count the costs,” the Bible says. And if ever a biblical passage was over-heeded by most churches, it is this one. Most churches count the costs every Sunday….and then every-which-way-from-Sunday. But even after churches count….and recount….they find themselves unable to be sure. And it is this “lack of guarantees” which explains why most churches never do anything….why precious little movement ever takes place in them….and why precious little climbing is ever done by them. It’s safer not to.
I can name twenty United Methodist congregations who had it going their way….not all that many years ago. They were not past their prime. They were not old and antiquated. They were not demographically disadvantaged. Quite the contrary. They were strategically placed to benefit from the rolling river of history. In short, there were more people moving toward them than moving away from them. If even one of those churches had seized the opportunity to buy land….build an addition….add a staff person….or launch a new ministry….they would be attractive and viable today. But they didn’t. So instead of singing institutional doxologies in their worship services this morning, they are singing the “shoulda, woulda, coulda blues.” They were safe….and sorry.
Let me illustrate with a recent experience. Last Saturday morning, Julie and I availed ourselves of a four-hour walking tour of Berlin. In reality, it covered the whole city. Not that we had to walk it all. From time to time, we hopped the underground. It was a tour designed with the “backpack set” in mind….meaning that everybody who took it was younger than me. Before she accepted my 15 deutschmarks, the guide (also wearing a backpack) looked at me and said: “You do realize, sir, that this tour is rather strenuous.” Which made it a virtual certainty that I was going to take it….maybe even jog it….just to prove something. But it was a great experience and I managed to keep from falling behind.
Our last stop was at the Berlin Wall….or, at least, the one remaining segment of the Berlin Wall. Given the excellence of our guide, I now have several “Berlin Wall” stories. But this may be the best. To understand it, you have to realize that there were two walls, not one. There was an outer wall….at which the West Germans looked from the outside. And there was an inner wall….at which the East Germans looked from the inside. In between was dead space. I mean, literally, dead space. Which was why so few people escaped. Because you had to cross not one wall, but two. And you had to cross the “dead space” in between the two walls. And that interior space was patrolled by armed guards. And dogs.
When the wall came down, everybody wondered what to do with the dogs. Altogether, there had been 10,000 German Shepherds trained for “wall duty.” Now they were jobless. The initial plan was to put them to sleep. But then the German government….remembering all the unpleasant publicity from World War II….decided that gassing 10,000 dogs was probably not a good move. So they decided to retrain some of the dogs for guard duty in the subway system. Even today, you can see German Shepherds in the U-bahn. But there were still thousands left over. So they gave them away to families.
Alas, when the families took them home, they discovered that these dogs were not very comfortable with large open spaces. Having lived their lives between the narrow confines of a pair of walls, they didn’t take to yards and fields. And when nightfall came, they needed a wall to sleep against….preferably a cement one. Fortunately, however, this condition lasted (in most cases) less than a month. Or, as our guide said: “That’s how long it took the German Shepherds to lower the wall that was in their heads.” Which is where the highest walls usually are….in our heads.
But it’s not only a fear of failing that thwarts would-be climbers. Sometimes, it’s a fear of succeeding. There are people who are, quite literally, afraid of success and will do any number of things to sabotage it. I have seen students quit on the eve of graduation. I have seen teams quit on the threshold of victory. And I have seen people who managed to engineer their own dead ends, just after turning significant corners.
We know that married couples sometimes have hard times with success. Just when they’re on a roll….just when they’re coming off a mountaintop experience….just when some longstanding problem has been solved (or some barrier, hurdled)….just when they’ve enjoyed a moment of great closeness and intimacy….one of them will pick at something until it bleeds, just to reestablish the distance.
Churches do the same thing. I have seen it happen over and over again. In the wake of a great victory….or in the aftermath of a great moment….people tend to get weird. Not all of them. But enough of them to be puzzling. And they go looking for scabs to pick or fires to fan. It’s not that they are against mountains….or didn’t like the last climb….but, somehow, the very success of the effort scared them. Hence, they felt a need to “pull back here”….“throw a little cold water there”….or simply take a seat for awhile, the better to see if the troops really would go on without them.
But whether we are sitters or climbers, I think it is important to take a second look at the song and story that undergird our central image. For when we do, we will discover an interesting thing. The story of “Jacob’s Ladder” does not begin with Jacob climbing. It begins with Jacob sleeping. And the ladder does not represent a means by which Jacob can get close to God, but the means by which God can get through to Jacob.
You remember Jacob. Not a very nice guy, really. Twice he shafted his brother. Remember Esau? At least once he played his feeble old father for a sucker. Remember Isaac? Then he out-conned his father-in-law, sneaking off with both of the man’s daughters by night, as well as with everything else in the house that wasn’t nailed down. Remember Laban? Jacob was insatiable. He wanted the moon. And had heaven been willing to yield it, he’d have been back the next morning for the sun and the stars, just to augment his collection.
Which provides the context for this business about “the ladder.” It happened just after he’d ripped off Esau for the second time and was making his getaway to the north. He’d left so quickly, he hadn’t taken the time to assemble a bedroll. Using a stone for a pillow, he prepared to go to sleep. And contrary to our belief that the guilty should toss and turn all night on account of their conscience, Jacob drifted off quickly and slept like a baby.
Which is when he dreamed of the ladder. It bridged the distance between earth and heaven…. with the rungs being used by a bevy of angels, racing up and down. And beside Jacob stood God, apparently having descended the same ladder. But instead of giving Jacob the “dressing down” he deserved, God told Jacob that, not only would He hang-in-there with him, but that He (God) would make a great nation out of him. In other words, just when Jacob should have looked to the ladder and gotten “holy hell,” he got “holy heaven” instead. Which was not so much God’s way of telling Jacob it’s all right to be a shyster, as it was God’s way of telling Jacob that there are still a few things in this world you can’t climb up and get, unless you are ready to open your arms (and your hearts) and receive them as a gift. And Jacob….bless his cheating little heart…. not only got the message, but was so grateful for it that he built a church on that very site, so that neither he (nor anybody else) would ever forget what the message was, or where he got it.
Which, I’d like to think, is what we are doing here….building the kind of church that we will never forget what the message is, or where we got it. I’d like to think that we are building a church for God’s people to lodge, in response to the God who has already chosen (quite amazingly) to lodge with his people. Which means, don’t you see, that there is more here (much, much more) than meets the eye.
* * * * *
Years ago, when I was just starting out, I walked down the street and chanced to meet a man who was working with bricks. They were perfect bricks. They were all rectangular and squared at the corner. Every brick was sized, shaped and colored exactly the same. So I asked him what he was doing. And he said: “I am building a church. This is what you need to build a church. Nice square-edged bricks, all sized, shaped and colored exactly the same. Least that’s what people say.” And he went about his work. But when I came back that way a few weeks later, that church had already fallen down. Don’t ask me why. It had just fallen down.
But on another of my walks (or maybe it was the same walk….I don’t always remember like I used to), I saw another man working with stones….rocks was what they were. None of them were the same size. Neither were any of them the same shape or color. Some of them were chipped. A few were even cracked. So I said: “What are you doing?” And he replied: “I am building a church.”
“But you can’t build a church that way,” I said. “That church will never hold together. That church will fall down.”
“No it won’t,” he said. “Not as long as I keep using this stuff here.” And he pointed to something he had in a wheelbarrow that looked, for all the world, like cement. Except he didn’t call it cement. But I noticed that every time he put one rock next to another, he kinda slapped some of that stuff from the wheelbarrow (the stuff that looked like cement, but that he didn’t call cement) in-between the rocks. And 30 years later….miracle of miracles….that church is still standing.
So I sought him out and said: “What’s the secret? It can’t be in the rocks.” “It ain’t,” he said. “You can pretty much use any kind of rocks.” And he was right, of course. You could. For the secret was in the other stuff….the stuff that he had in his wheelbarrow….the stuff that kinda looked like cement….’cept he didn’t call it cement.
But, hey, why am I telling you this? You know what he called it.
