"Dreams while falling"
Knox, 13 November 2011 © Scott McAndless
Acts 20:7-12, 17-32, Psalm 91, Luke 8:41-42, 49-56
I came today because he’s leaving. I came because the time that he spent among us was important and meaningful to me and because he taught me some important things about who Jesus was and is, about what Jesus did for me and about what that means for my life. I came because I knew that I’d miss him.
But, you see, he had a lot of things to say. He had advice to give us and lessons to remind us of. He wanted to warn us about some things and encourage us in some ways and he wanted to tell us about a few things that we’d been getting wrong. And, well, what can I say: he was a preacher. He had a certain tendency to go on and on and on. And we lit a bunch of lamps in the room because it was getting so late and, what with so many flames burning so high, it was really getting stuffy in there.
But it was a very comfortable feeling. I found myself relaxing, my thoughts drifting. And then, like you know can sometimes happen just at that moment when you are falling asleep, I felt like I was flying, flying flying...
They say that when you are dreaming, time does funny things. You can be asleep for only a few seconds and yet somehow your mind can construct a dream narrative that goes on for hours or maybe even longer. And according to the Book of Acts, Eutychus went asleep in the window and then fell down three stories. If I understand the laws of physics, it would take a body about a second or maybe a second and a third to fall that kind of distance. That’s not much time in the real world, but it may have provided quite a bit of time to dream.
Neurologists and psychologists have suggested that dreams are very important to our physical and mental health. They allow our minds to sort through all of the information that we have received during the day – to separate what matters from what doesn’t. In particular, our dreams seem to be useful in helping us to work through the things that are worrying us or stressing us or that we are afraid of. And when our fears and stresses are big ones, it is not uncommon for them to turn up in our dreams as the creatures of nightmares: sometimes as monsters, sometimes as vague feelings of menace. It is never fun to meet them in our dreams of course, but I suspect that there are times when it is necessary.
So what were the monsters, I wonder, that haunted Eutychus’ dreams on the way down from that third floor window? One thing that he was probably worried about – that everyone there was worried about – was the question of meaning and meaningfulness. You see, while Paul had been there, the sense of ministry and mission in the church had been clear. It had certainly never been dull! It seemed that Paul was always talking to some new person – always pushing the envelope of who could be part of the church – Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, men and women – Paul just brought them all in and he didn’t care what people thought about it. And, of course, for that very reason there were always people who were upset and arguing with him over who should be allowed to join.
When Paul was around, things might be rather difficult, but they never felt unimportant. You knew that it mattered. But now he was going. And Eutychus was afraid that the meaning would just drain out of it all – that maybe they would go through the motions of being the church but they would never really understand why they were doing it any more. So the first monster that raged though the nightmares of Eutychus on the way down was the monster of meaninglessness – an expression of his fear that once Paul had gone they would just meander through life as a church together.
Now, it is a shame that, when the author of the Book of Acts tells us that Paul went on and on talking all night until morning light, he doesn’t tell us what Paul said. I mean, sure, if he had reported to us all that Paul said there, it would have made the Book of Acts as long as the whole rest of the Bible put together. But don’t you think that, if he had told us some of it, it would be a great help to us as we deal with the various transitions in our lives?
Well, fortunately Troas wasn’t the only church that Paul said goodbye to on that trip. A few weeks later he gathered with the leaders of the church in Ephesis to share his final words. And that time, it seems, nobody fell out of any windows to distract the author and so he told us some of what Paul said. And I think it is reasonable to suppose that Paul said many similar things there to what he had said in Troas. So I think that Paul did indeed speak to Eutychus’ (and everyone else’s) fear of meaninglessness.
He said, "And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.” He was saying that none of us knows what the future holds – whether the efforts that we make will lead to success or failure, victory or prison. But that is not what matters. “However,” Paul continues, “I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”
What Paul is saying is that there are some things that are more important than what you accomplish or even what happens to you. I don’t think that he is saying that it is inevitable, if you are a Christian, that you are going to end up doing jail time or even dying for the faith. But he is saying that we are hardly guaranteed that everything will always go well. But if we keep our eyes on the ultimate goal – if we never forget why we are here – we’ll be alright. And the goal is clear. It is “the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.” That is to say that we are to pass on (in word and in deed) the good message of God’s unsurpassed grace – that God’s love and compassion is without limit and available to all. When we do that, the monster of meaninglessness cannot disturb our dreams.
But meaninglessness was not the only monster that haunted Eutychus’ dreams on the way down. He was also afraid of what might happen to the church community without Paul’s clearly focussed leadership. Without a clear leader would they just dissolve into endless bickering and fighting? Or would they be vulnerable to someone who came along and started leading them in abusive ways – taking advantage of their trust for their own purposes. Both of these things do happen, I am afraid, when communities lose key leaders.
And Eutychus is not the only one to worry about this particular monster. Paul himself warns of this very threat: “Keep watch over yourselves,” he says, “and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock.”
It is indeed a legitimate fear and not just a phantom manufactured in dreams. And there is only one way to fight against this particular monster and it is found in the advice that Paul gives to the leaders of the church in Ephesus: “Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.” It is the leaders of the local church – the elders who, in our case, form the Session – who have the task of taking care of the church and being ever vigilant that this kind of thing does not happen. And the thing that assists them in that difficult task is the knowledge that the church doesn’t belong to them or to anybody other than Jesus Christ himself.
But there is one other nightmare that plagues Eutychus on his way down – and it is clearly the biggest nightmare of all. It is the nightmare that plagues all of our dreams when we get down to the deepest level – the fear of death itself. And it might seem to you that it is only natural that Eutychus’ dreams should manifest a fear of death since, after all, he is dreaming on the way down from a third story window. But Eutychus fear is not so much for his own personal and individual death. He (perhaps foolishly I know) is more concerned with the death of the church.
It is not an uncommon fear. When the life of any institution is disturbed by the loss of a key leader, people are always afraid that this will mean the death of the institution itself. And this was probably especially true with the loss of Paul – the man who had given so much of himself to bring the churches in Asia Minor into existence. These churches were faced with many dangers – living within a hostile society, not knowing who to trust or turn to for help. I’m sure that many of the people listening to Paul that night were very much afraid that they just wouldn’t make it without him.
And, of course, they all of a sudden found themselves dealing with their fear of death in a much more concrete and immediate way that any of them expected. An ominous thud was heard from the street and they all looked up to discover that poor Eutychus no longer sat in the window. It was as if their very worst fears had suddenly leapt out of their nightmares to attack them in the waking world. Already death had come to destroy them.
But even for this most dreadful of nightmare monsters, Paul had an answer. “Paul went down, threw himself on the young man and put his arms around him. ‘Don’t be alarmed’ he said. ‘He’s alive.’”
By the way, do you know what that poor young man’s name meant? Eutychus is the Greek word for “good fortune.” And you might say that Eutychus was very fortunate indeed. Sure he was unlucky in the extreme to get the window seat that night. But, if he had to fall, he was surely fortunate to do it on a night when Paul was there – and especially on a night when Paul had something to demonstrate and a point to make.
The resurrection of Eutychus takes place to remind the church what it is. The church is a community of resurrected people. We have all died – died to old ways of living, died to falsehood and hatred and hopelessness – and we have all been made alive again in Christ. For that reason, death should never be something to fear for us – not for us as individuals nor for the church as a whole. We’ve already been through it and it holds no fear for us.
But we forget that truth and whenever we do, death gains power over us. So Paul knew that the church in Troas had to be forcefully reminded of this truth. Eutychus, lying on the sidewalk, became the perfect demonstration piece.
Of course we fear and we worry in the life of the church when key people must leave us. Monsters do haunt our dreams, but Paul has reminded us again that none of those monsters have any real power over us. We are all Eutychus – we are all fortunate indeed to belong to such an extraordinary community.