Dreamer
A Dream.
What do you think of when you hear that word?
Today, a lot of times, we tend to be dismissive of dreams and dreamers. When someone boasts inappropriately we say "in your dreams"!! When someone is flighty and unambitious in regard to making their way in the world we dismiss them as a "dreamer". When someone expresses unrealistic hopes or ideas that we think are unattainable we tell people to "dream on".
This morning in our study of Genesis, we move from the focus on the life of Jacob to the life of Joseph. Joseph was the second youngest son. He was also the first born son of Jacob's favorite wife, Rachel. The one that he fell in love with the first moment he saw her. He would work fourteen years for his father in law to win her hand. For many years she was barren. Then she bore him Joseph. She also is the mother of Benjamin. But Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin. So, Joseph was the favorite. And worse yet, it appears that Joseph knew he was his father's favorite.
Joseph had a habit of tattling on his older brothers. He annoyed them beyond words, as little brothers and sisters often do. And then their father gave him that coat of many colors. Or, as the play would say today, a Technicolor Dreamcoat. He was a favorite. He was a tattle tale. And then there were those dreams.
Some of us dismiss dreams. But for most people through most of time dreams had power. They have the power to lift up and tear down. They have the power to change things people believed. They have the power to create who we are and where our community is going. Those pesky dreams.
In Native American culture people went on a vision quests. They would go out to discover who they were supposed to be and what their calling was. They would come back with a new name and a new identity. Sometimes dreams are just dreams…just fantasies. But sometimes dreams define who we are.
In Genesis, what the promise was to Abraham, what the blessing was to Jacob, this covenant is communicated in terms of the dream when it comes to Joseph. Joseph's dreams come to define him and guide him.
Joseph's dream upset his brothers, and it is no wonder it did. He had these dreams about sheaves of wheat, and of stars in the sky. And in each of these dreams, somehow each of these dreams, which we learn later were prophetic, talk about everyone else in the family bowing down to him. He stands up, and everyone else bows to him.
In our world, we might just say "dream on" and dismiss Joseph's words as childish arrogance. But in the world of ancient Israel, like the ancient Native Americans, people's dreams had strength of meaning and power. Joseph's dreams were not simply fantasies. They were statements of belief and truth and intent. A vision for himself that he was going to live by, and a vision that might effect how they all live together. Sometimes dreams are a threat.
Forty five years ago last month, a 34 year old Martin Luther King Jr. stood up after a March on Washington. And he announced "I Have a Dream." That speech was voted the best speech of the 20th century by the Public Speakers Institute. It was, in my opinion, probably one of the most brilliant pieces practical theology that our nation has ever known. The part we remember is the end. It was about everybody holding hands and singing a song. We forget the challenge. Where King said that our nation was based on a covenant with God and one another. And that the promise that was due to black people in this country was marked "insufficient funds". The implication was that black folks were standing up and asking for what was owed to them. Respect yes. Freedom yes. And also the opportunites, wealth, and power that had been denied millions of people for hundreds of years.
Many of us were moved by this sermon. Many of recognized that God calls us to love people equally, and to not prejudge people based on the color of their skin. We recognized the end of the dream as very similar to the end of the book of Revelation, where people of every nation would be joined together in one family, one church, worshipping and serving God. And we recognized our call to bring about God's kingdom on earth.
Many others were threatened. Frightened. Angered. And several chose to lash out. There were threats. Attacks. And ulitimately Martin Luther King was assassinated. Killing him did not kill the dream. But some people thought it would.
Some dreams are harmless, and some dreams are threats. And when they are threats, they must be dealt with. This is what the racists against the civil rights movement thought. This is what the brothers of Joseph thought too.
So, when Jacob was sitting at home feeling old and creaky, he sent Joseph to run an errand to go find his brothers and check in on them. It took him a while to find them. And it so happened that they saw him coming from a long ways a way. When they saw him coming, they decided they were going to kill him. That will put an end to his dreams they said.
So they beat him up and they threw him in a well. And then a calmer head prevailed, and they decided to sell Joseph as a slave instead of kill him. They sold him as a slave to some traveling salesmen, who eventually sold him into slavery in Egypt. They went back to the father and lied to him. They told the father that Joseph was attacked by a wild animal and killed. They brought back his bloody coat of many colors as proof. They thought the dreams of Joseph died with him being gone. But the dreams God gives us don't die so easy.
Joseph thought the vision, the dream was all about him. We will learn later that it was not. God's call, God's blessings, God's gifts are always bigger than us. The dreams that center on us, when they come from God, are always a blessing so that we can be a blessing. Sometimes it takes us a while to figure out. Sometimes we needed to be reminded of that.
You will also notice that a vision, if it is from God, almost always requires suffering to make happen. We want our dreams to come true right away. We want to see our vision become a reality immediately. We forget that God sized dreams almost always lead us to a place where we have to suffer in some way. We have to face hard realities. We have to make sacrifices. We have to take up our cross, deny ourselves, and follow Christ.
Throughout the ministry of Jesus, Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is God's agenda for his people. It is God's vision for his people. His dream that he gives to us in to become the kingdom of God. Jesus communicates how we are supposed to be forgiving people. How we are supposed to look for those in the world around us that are rejected by everyone else because they are too annoying, too wretched, too poor, and too rough around the edges, and we are to transform our community and world through loving them. He shares how we are supposed to be discerning, but refrain from judging people. He shares how we are supposed to be on the look out for people who are lonely and hurting, and let them be healed with God's love. Jesus confronts his people, people like you and I, and tells us that it is not about us. He shows us that the church is for people that others forget and take advantage of. Single parents. Addicts. Drunks. He has come to bring transformation and healing to those that are hurting. And he chosen to use those in his church to do this. He said the church isn't about those people who give the most, or seem to have everything figured out. He said he came for the lost sheep, the lost son. He said church is not about those who attend church every Sunday being comfortable and right. It is about God's people having their hearts changed so that they can in turn be used by God to change the lives of those around them.
You will notice as you read the gospels that they talk a lot about God's people going out and making disciples, and stepping out and following. Very little about sitting still and expecting others to want to join us and be just like us as a church. God's vision demands that we surrender and sacrifice. Sacrifice our pride. Sacrifice our agenda. Sacrifice our desire to demand what we want when we want it.
Well, Jesus communicated this kind of message. And as you might know, it made more than a few people angry. He shamed people who thought they were better than everyone because they sinned less, and went to church more. He told them they missed the point.
And when he became more and more popular, they decided that his dream of the Kingdom of God was just a little bit too dangerous. It was a threat. It threatened their agenda. It threatened the power of those who were in power. And so the political and religious leaders of the day decided that they would best kill the vision, that they would best kill the dream, by killing Jesus.
That is what people do when they do not like a vision. They try to kill it by killing the one who speaks it and who shares it. They know dreams that come from God have power. And they think that killing them off is the easiest way to get rid of it.
The Bible says that they arrested Jesus.
And the bound Jesus up.
And they mocked him.
They thought that would kill his crazy ideas.
They took Jesus and they brought him to a hill.
And they put him on a cross.
And they put up a sign that mocked the truth that eventually, like sheaves of wheat, they would all bow down to him.
They put a crown of thorns on Jesus, and they disrobed him.
And they stole from him.
And they laughed at him.
And they tortured him.
And they killed him.
And they thought they had killed his vision.
They thought they had trampled his truth underfoot.
But those pesky dreams.
Those pesky visions.
When they are of God.
Well….
They do not die so easy.
Because what God sees
Is bigger than what we see
And when they thought they had defeated the Kingdom of God
Well…
That is when the kingdom of God just became stronger….
And that Jesus that they thought they had killed
Could not be conquered by death
They thought it was all over on Friday when Jesus died on the cross
But then Sunday came
And up from the grave he arose
And he went to his disciples
And then he went to the Father
And then he gave us the Holy Spirit
And Acts chapter 2 says
That the old men will dream dreams
And the young men will see visions
A PROMISE from the Old Testament
And he has given us the Holy Spirit
So that we can obey the vision he gives us
And not sit still
But go
Go to those forgotten by the world
Forgotten by the churches
And give our time
And give our love
And give our hope
And give our Jesus
And give our church
To them
Let us not just agree with the dream
Or believe in the ideas
But let us live the vision of Jesus. And let us commit to that as we remember him and come to his table.
1 comment:
Nice.
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