“John Newton’s Dream”

November 26, 2006

Scripture Reading: John 18:33-37

Rev. Dr. Carol  L. Kerr

 Blue Point Congregational Church

 John Newton lived from 1725 to 1807.   He wrote the words to the well known hymn “Amazing Grace.”   Amazing grace!  How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!  I once was lot but now am found; was blind, but now I see.”  Before his conversion to Christianity and before he became an Anglican clergyman, he was first an English slave ship master.   It was at the beginning of his life as a slave ship master that he had the following dream: 

It was night and Newton was doing watch on a tall ship, a square rigger.  The ship was at port in Venice.   He stood watch through the hours of the night while everyone else slept below.  The moon was full.  The tide was coming in.  All was quiet.  Suddenly a man came up to him.  Newton didn’t know where the man had come from or who the man was exactly.  None the less, the man knew all about him, and seemed as warm and familiar as a close friend.  The man opened his hand, and in it he was holding a golden ring.  The gold glowed from a light source contained within itself.   The man handed this marvelous ring to Newton as a gift.  His only requirement was that Newton be very careful with it.  If he did so the man said that the ring would bring Newton happiness and success in all things.  However, if Newton lost or parted with the ring someone how, he would have to expect misery and trouble all my life.  Of course, Newton wanted the ring.  Who wouldn’t?  He quickly promised that he would in fact take very good care of it.  Without any more questions the man handed the ring to Newton.  The man disappeared.  Thrilled, he slipped it on his finger.  He felt a warm rush and now knew had control of his own happiness.  He was in charge of it.  He no longer had to worry about circumstances beyond his control. Whether those circumstance be the lack of money, poor employment, long hours, broken heart, illness – it didn’t matter as long as he had the ring.

Newton was admiring the ring on his finger when a second man suddenly appeared.  Likewise, he did not know who this man was either.  He, however, seemed to know Newton like a long lost friend, although, he seemed slightly annoyed and disappointed in Newton which is why he came to see him in person.  He saw the ring on Newton’s finger and asked about it.  Newton told him everything that it was promised to do for him.  The man looked at Newton with some surprise in his face.  He pointed out to Newton that it was “just a ring.”  He had Newton take it off his finger, and showed him his error at thinking that it glowed by some power within it.  Rather, he held it at arms length up to the night sky and demonstrated that it was just the moonlight reflecting upon it.  Although he admitted that it was well polished.   He questioned Newton some more.  Particularly about the man who had given the ring to him.  He pointed out that that first man was a stranger really.  After all, Newton could not tell him his name, or where he had come from, or exactly why he had given me the ring in the first place.   After that the second man told Newton to throw the ring in the ocean and get rid of it.  At first Newton said, that he couldn’t possibly do that!  He loved the ring.   He convinced Newton that it was “just a” ring.  The two poisonous words “just a” had a way of making Newton feel childish for having any hope in something that was just a  ring.  The man looked at Newton with  eyebrows raised, as if surprised, as if unbelieving in me, as if alarmed?  Finally Newton took the ring and threw it into the ocean. 

As soon as Newton heard the plunk of the ring hitting the surface of the water a terrible volcano exploded from a mountain range which appeared in the distance beyond Venice.  It spewed fire and sulpher and flames leaped a mile high.  At that moment Newton realized what he had done.  Newton looked at the man in alarm crying, “Nooooo!”  The man laughed cynically  and said,  “It looks like that ring was special after all.  In fact, that ring was all the mercy God had in reserve for you.  And you threw it away!  Weren’t you suppose to take good care of it?  The only thing left for you is to go to the mountain which burns on account of you.”

There is more to the dream which I will tell you at the end of this sermon.  Newton felt this dream was a premonition of everything that was to happen in his life.  The levels of debauchery, greed and cruelty that he would descend to.   It was as if the dream was trying to warn him about what he was doing and what he was throwing away. 

John Newton’s dream also reminds me of the dynamics we find in today’s scripture reading.  The Jewish authorities in the Temple had brought Jesus to Pontius Pilate who was the Roman governor of Judea.  They did this because by law only the Roman governor had the authority to put someone to death.  Pilate was a very practical man.  He was not particularly philosophical.  He definitely was not interested in the ins and outs of  Jewish religion.  Passover was a touchy time for Pilate.  It was allowed as a religious festival of the Jews, however it was a time when the Jews remembered throwing off the yoke of the Pharaoh like they wanted to throw the yoke of Roman rule off.   Pilate had a long list of duties he had to accomplish that morning.  Only one of which was deal with the country bumpkin of a Jewish rabbi named Jesus who the Temple priests said had made the outlandish claim that he was the king of the Jews.  He sighed and thought he had better ask the man, “Are you King of the Jews?”  At which point the man, Jesus, made some obscure and impractical remarks about how he was not a king in this world.  He talked about how he had come to testify to the truth.  He went further to say that everyone who belongs to the truth listens to his voice….   If Pilate had been in Newton’s dream this is the part where he was handed the ring and told to slip it on and he would have all happiness.   Instead,  Pilate listened to the voice of the second man.   Pilate looked at Jesus and used the two deflating words that kill all insight into the holy.  Those two words are … ‘just a…’  Pilate looked at Jesus and thought this is “just a” religious zealot, just an idealist, just an inflated guy, and like so many other Jews he just hates Rome.  Pilate’s wife had warned him that she had had troubling dreams about this man.  But, a dream is just a dream and he had to just do his job.  This was just a job. Pilate could not see this man Jesus glow from inside.  So he rubs his eyes to stave off a headache and says, “What is truth?”  He thought Jesus was just another scam.  He had seen it all.  So Pilate threw the ring into the water.  He gave Jesus back to the Jews to decide if he should live or die.    

John Newton’s dream, reminds me of what happened to Pilate, which reminds me of a joke I once heard. It is a joke that always unnerves me some.  It goes like this:  An impoverished old man applied for membership in a rich church.  The pastor attempted to put him off with all kinds of evasive remarks.  The old man, becoming aware that he was not wanted, finally said that he would pray on it.  Several days later he returned, “Well,” asked the pastor, “did the Lord give you a message?”

“Yes sir , he did.” Was the old man’s answer.  “he told me it wasn’t any use.  He said ‘I’ve been trying to get in that same church myself or ten years, and I still can’t make it.’”   

I laugh at the joke.  But, it always leaves me wondering.  Do we do what Pilate did?  Do we do what John Newton did in his dream?   Are we offered a ring that will make us happy forever if we only wear it, but then using those same two words…”it is just a…” and so throw the ring away.  How many times to do we encounter the holy?  How many times to do we encounter Jesus and throw it away with the quick assessment that it is “just a…”  (fill in the blank).  Do we encounter Jesus and say, oh that is “just a” bagger at Hannafords.  Do we encounter Jesus and walk on by saying, “oh that is just an alcoholic.”  Do we hear of the love of a friend and say, “Oh that is just Myrtle.”  How many times have we been offered a glorious sunset and thought that means we are late for a meeting.  How many times did we have a creative idea and then forgot all about it because we thought it was strange.  How many times have we looked at the peeling paint on the church door and thought, “This is just a church.”  How many times have we been offered this ring which will insure all happiness and almost slip it on our finger, but then we convince ourselves that in some way some how there is nothing special here, and after all “it is just a ring’ and throw it away in the ocean?

The dream of John Newton’s did not end where I left it.  It continued.  He writes that as he stood condemned without a plea and without hope, suddenly the first stranger appeared again.  He asked Newton why he was grieving?  Newton told him what had happened.  He told him how he had willingly thrown the ring away and ruined himself.  Then the man did something astounding.  He, of all things, blessed Newton.  He even blessed the fact that Newton had acted so rashly.  He then asked that if Newton had the ring again, if he got a second chance would he throw it away this time?  Newton could hardly believe his ears.  Did he really have a chance to get the ring back?   It was too good to be true.  He was about to respond when at that moment the stranger dove into the water right where he had thrown the ring.  He surfaced holding the ring above his head.  At the moment he came on board the volcano in the mountain died out.  With joy and gratitude Newton approached the stranger calling him more than kind and calling him friend.  Newton reached out to receive the ring again but the stranger refused to give it to him.  He explained:  “If I should trust you with the ring again, I am sure you would very soon do the same thing, and bring the same anguish upon yourself.  No, you are not able to keep the ring.  But, I will save it for you and whenever you need it, happiness and good fortune, I will produce it for you.” 

Right after this Newton woke up.  He could hardly eat or sleep or go to work for two or three days because the dream had so unnerved him.  But, little by little he forgot the dream.  Like Pilate, after all, it was just a dream.   However, over the years one thing happened after another until as the dream foretold he stood on the brink of an awful eternity.  He was on the brink of the fiery volcano but that Jesus retrieved the ring and saved it for him.  Returning to England Newton encountered a severe storm aboard his ship.  He awoke in the middle of the night and as the ship filled with watered he prayed to God for mercy.  This was the point when he begged for the ring back.  And even while the ship limped home Newton began to read the Bible and by the time they reached Britain he had slipped the ring on his finger for good and had converted to Christianity and eventually he became a minister.  It was around this time that Newton remembered the dream he had had so many years earlier and saw it as a message from God.  Later he wrote the words to the hymn, Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see!

We have a chance to ask for that grace.  We have a chance to slip that ring on our finger.  We too can live in faith and see all of life as holy and life itself as a sacrament given to us from God.  I once was lost but now am found was blind but now I see!