Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 16: 9-15 Psalm 67 | Revelation 23: 10 – 14; 22:22 – 23:5 | John 14:23 – 29
How do you know God’s will for your life? Does God speak directly to you? Has an angel appeared to you? Or do you just have a deep sense of disquiet until you change your direction? Conversely do you have a deep sense of peace when you are doing what you think God wants you to do?
Few of us have direct communication from God and not everyone has a Damascus Road experience that turns our life around, but most of us know when we are/are not traveling in the right direction.
In our modern rational world, many of us tend to be suspicious even dismissive of intuition, visions and dreams. There is a temptation to place them in the same category as fortune telling or reading palms or tea leaves; as something that is incompatible with faith.
Yet unless we are attentive to our inner lives, how are we to know God’s nudging us to attend to the many and varied ways in which God might be trying to get our attention?
One thing is for sure; we should not be critical or suspicious of those who have a more finely tuned intuition than we might have, or of those whose vivid dreams are in fact a portent of what is to come. The Bible is quite clear that God ‘speaks; in many and varied ways’ and that includes through dreams.
Joseph’s dreams alienated him from his brothers and yet they came to pass in a way that saved his entire family from starvation. Joseph was also able to interpret the dreams of the baker, the cup-bearer and even of Pharoah – which ensured that Egypt survived a catastrophic drought. Daniel interpreted the dream of Nebuchadnezzar. In the New Testament we learn that a different Joseph moved his family to Egypt after being warned in a dream.
It is Peter’s vision of the unclean animals that convinces early believers that they should not exclude anyone on the basis of their diet and, in our reading today Paul is not the least embarrassed to admit that he changed his plans on the basis of a dream.
These dreams take us to the heart of what is necessary. Today, Paul’s dream of the Macedonia Call depicts the driving forces of our mission as Christ followers.
In seeing a man begging for help, our hearts are touched with compassion – just as Paul’s was but while we may immediately start thinking blankets / food, medicine, even the left overs from our Garage Sale, Paul sees the spiritual reality of the need in Macedonia. He sees that people need God and so need him to respond to that need on behalf of God’s realm – surely you remember the words in the letter of James where he talks about the need for action as well as faith.
Paul’s obedience to his call to share the Good News resulted in meeting not a man from Macedonia, but Lydia, a woman, a worshiper of God. God opens her heart to the message Paul brings, and she becomes a leader in her community.
It is God who is in charge of this mission, God who sets its direction and God who determines results. All that God requires of us is to have listening hearts and obedient actions.
The Venerable Valerie Hoare.