The Value of Dreams
By Charles Rush
September 13, 1998
Genesis 37
ot has happened since we've all
been together last June. Hopefully all of us got to go somewhere that
we could let our hair down, sink into the summer moment, sipping one of
those drinks with the little umbrellas in it, and spend our time
chasing small children up the beach at night. Hopefully, you, like
Stella, got your groove back.
And then, there have been some
serious events too. The world financial markets have lurched down, our
own up, down, down, back up and the only thing that appears predictable
is some fairly wide swings in the coming weeks and months. The
President went from being whispered about to hooted over and in real
trouble. We have opened a fairly wide, new front on terrorism with the
missile strikes in Afghanistan and Kahrtoum. The Asian economies
appear incapable of substantive reform and Russia is sliding towards
real economic melt down and political chaos, not unlike the early
thirties in Europe, before the fascists came to power. All that in
just a few short weeks and the school year begins again under this
umbrella of real concern, calling forth a scosh of anxiety, mixed with
a slight tightening of the stomach muscles, concentration on our jobs,
and a dash of worry about the bottom line and our place in the firm,
and whether we can juggle the new demands of our kids, our volunteer
work, and the social calendar.
But this week, for just a moment on
Tuesday night, all of our temporal concerns were taken up in the great
axis of eternity for an inning of time, by the wonder of baseball.
Ordinary men became heroes for a second, when the mystical 61 was
replaced by 62, on a 340-ft. line drive over the left field wall.
There was a palpable sense of relief when Mark McGuire crossed home
plate and picked up his son. There was a real note of hope when he
jumped into the stands and hugged Roger Maris's kids that our stars
might also be honorable. There was even transcendent surprise when
Sammy Sosa, only 4 homers behind McGuire, and living in his shadow the
last half of the season, came in from right field and shared a moment
of real congratulations, that true winners exemplify. Whatever our
cares, our concerns, for a moment it was baseball that pulled out and
beyond them and gave us back our dreams from childhood about the ideals
that were embodied by those legendary hero's in the hall of fame that
our grandparents spoke of with such wistfulness.
My roommate from college called me
on the phone and said 'this is too good I'm half expecting to read that
McGwire's been bopping the other bat boy in tomorrows paper'. You can
see the headlines now in the National Enquirer 'I was Mark McGwire's
love slave: Exclusive Interview'.
We like to think that we live in
world come of age but lately wonder We like to think that we are mature
and realistic. But there is another side to this generation that looks
just adolescent, jaded and cynical, overly preoccupied by titillating
sex, underdeveloped in the caring and sharing of real love making,
unable and unwilling to be in touch with our child like sense of wonder
and play. On the other hand we do not seem old enough to have
developed any values or character that can withstand any serious
deprivation or long term challenge or that can really give beyond our
callow selfishness. Believing nothing, we make fun of everything. And
really, who is Jerry Seinfield (the personification of the values of
our age), who is Jerry Seinfield if not Holden Caufield twenty years
older and none the wiser?
No, we need dreams more than we
know. I was struck this week by the jaded cynicism evoked in almost
all of us by the Starr report and the simple return to child like
wonder by a new home run hero. We need our dreams. We need to strive
towards the ideals that are embodied in great dreams. We need a vision
that is bigger than ourselves. The bible says that 'without a vision
the people will perish'. And it promises us that when the Spirit of
God is fully present amongst us, in the words of Joel 'Our young women
will dream dreams and our old men will have visions.' The bible is full
of characters like the disciples that are encouraged to live out of the
dream of the coming Kingdom of God. Their lives are occasionally
marked by the courageous daring that is a by-product of believing in
the coming reality of the dream more than the passing character of the
merely existing world around us.
Our text this morning is about a
dreamer. It tells the story of the dream of a young man. I chose it
this morning because it is so characteristic of the dreams of young
people. In the time of Joseph, the Egyptians believed that the gods
communicated to us through dreams and so they paid a great deal of
attention to the cryptic messages that could be deciphered from the
myriad of images that come to us in our dreams. You may remember that
Joseph himself would later gain quite a reputation in his life for the
interpretation of the Pharaohs dreams. In his most famous story, the
Pharaoh had a dream where he saw 7 fatted cows, followed by 7 emaciated
cows. The pharaoh fretted and worried over what the dream meant
because the Pharaoh assumed that the gods were trying to tell him
something about the future. Finally, Joseph interpreted the dream for
him. He told the Pharaoh that it was a divine prediction that there
would be 7 years of bountiful harvest, followed by 7 years of famine.
The Pharaoh thought that Joseph had a special divine power to be able
to see the future and interpret the meaning of his dreams, so he
appointed little old Joseph, the Jewish slave, to be in charge of
storing grain for the next 7 years to prepare for the harvest.
Today, we cannot help but think of
our dreams in Freudian terms. They are a complex chess game in which
our libidinal desires and our rule abiding super ego parlay with one
another. We think they tell us about the hidden desires that we cannot
bring ourselves to consciously express. They give us a glimpse of the
fears that make our soul most anxious, fears we can barely stand to
face.
Joseph's dream in our text is one
where, in transparent symbolism, he sees all of his brothers and his
father bowing down below him. Joseph wanted to share his dream with
everyone because if the gods send us dreams, it must be important for
everyone. Well, even 3000 years before Freud, Joseph's brothers could
see through this one. 'Your older brothers are bowing down to you?
Your father is bowing down to you? Joe, I wonder what that dream
means? Joe, get a grip before we have to open another can of whoopbutt
on you.' He is a typical spoiled last child.
That is so like the dreams of the
early part of our life. Our ego needs are so great that most of us
can't get a clear vision beyond them. We want to be sexy and popular,
witty and well liked. We want to be the center of attention, athletic
and smart. We want people to give us a chance, despite our
inexperience because they can see the raw potential in us. Later we
want people to respect us because we are insightful in our analysis of
the situation and efficient in solving problems. We want to be
promoted so that a wide circle of people begin to recognize our talent
and basic coolness.
We develop an image of our family. Usually it entails adoring, well
behaved children, who, when they pose for the Christmas picture
resemble nothing so much as models for the J. Crew catalogue. Often
around Summit, our family image seems to involve a golden retriever
somewhere. Frequently these days it seems to need the back drop of a
4-wheel vehicle on steroids. There are certain kinds of education we
want for our children. In our dream image our children will have to
choose between either Middlebury, Duke, or Yale- we don't want to
constrict them. These days they have a choice of Lacrosse or Hockey or
both because these sports go with this education. Some of us see
ourselves relaxing at a remote 2
nd
home in New Hampshire. Others of us are just juiced at the prospect of
exotic travel. These dreams take money, serious money. So we tend to
dream a lot about winning in general.
Conversely, our anxiety dreams are
about forgetting something or being exposed. Someone recently told me
that they had a recurring dream that everything that surrounded them,
everything they owned and had dominion over, was not really real and
they woke up in a panic that they were alone and naked.
The dreams of the first half of our
life are invariably egoistic in their orientation because we can't get
beyond that. We can be polite about it and hide it from others so it
is not too obnoxious. We can channel it in socially sanctioned ways
but it is there in our dreams because it is central in our soul.
The story of the bible is the story
of a God that keeps coming after us to give us bigger, better dreams.
God cajoles us to expand the horizon of our dreams. God keeps pointing
out the insularity and silliness of only being as imaginative as our
own success. God gives us a richer vision of success too. It is not
only more inclusive: not just us, our family, our tribe but the whole
city, the whole nation, even our enemies, until it embraces the whole
world. And god gives us new visions of success that are not just about
winning. They incorporate defeat, suffering, injustice because we are
not destined to become 'Masters of the Universe'. We are destined to
become people who, in this very short life, learn how to love and
become vulnerably human- compassionate people with spiritual
character.
So, we have to have our egoism
transcended by God. Joseph had his egoism purged in a dramatic way.
Joseph's brothers were so angry with his arrogance; they sold him into
slavery, reporting him dead. What rejection! What heart ache! That
was a pretty tough way to be put in your place. He spent his whole
adult life, estranged from his family. He became a successful slave
but he was still a slave in Egypt, cut off from his people. He took on
all of the Egyptian customs, education, and religion. He was so
assimilated in Egypt, he was no longer a Jew. He had forgotten about
home. Joseph was a winner by the standards of material success. He
had a very important job, many perks, he was prosperous. But he was
lonely; he was without his community; he was without identity. There
was a big hole in his life where there was no one to share love with.
25 years go by like that.
There is famine in the land, just
like Joseph predicted. Joseph is in charge of the stored grain for the
whole district. One day 10 of his brothers show up. They don't
recognize Joseph. Joseph is sure they are his brothers because he asks
them questions about his family that only his real brothers could
answer. They bow down before Joseph because Joseph is the regional
magistrate in charge of food, and they beg for their family's lives. It
is a vulnerable moment. Partly, Joseph wants to dish it out to them.
He wants to give them a little back of the pain that he has lived
through for the last 25 years. He wants to make them miserable for
selling him into slavery. Here he is in a pretty powerful
administrative position. He could wield some clout. He could really
He could really He could really Sounds like families doesn't it?
He sends out his underlings
instead. He is all alone with his brothers. He is in a position of
power to hurt them but he can't do it. Instead, he tells them who he
is and that he is in a position to save them. It is a very emotional
day. Joseph weeps, his brothers weep.
Later, it occurred to him that his
dream from 25 years ago where his brothers bow down to him had really
come true, only it was considerably beyond the scope that he could see
when he was a young man. He came to realize that the dream was not
about his exercise of power. It was not about him being respected with
authority, despite his youth. No, he was part of a much larger drama.
He came to see that what was really important is that the tribe was
saved because he was instrumental. He came to see that reconciliation
was more important that reputation and control. What the dream could
not have told him as a young man was the way that life would sober him
in its rejection, hardship, heartache, and alienation. That too was
part of the real meaning of success (in the richer spiritual sense)
Failure is expensive and time consuming but it turns out to be an
important part of the shaping of our soul. So the dream was fulfilled,
but somewhat ironically, and with much wider significance than the
exercise of his ego. He came to see that God was indeed working in his
life but much differently than he had hoped or imagined.
How like the bible that really is.
We need visions and dreams. They start off pretty egocentric but as we
let God into our lives, God's visions begin to transform our dreams.
Our dreams become more inclusive. They incorporate justice and peace.
We find ourselves being caught up in something much bigger than
ourselves. Sarah and Abraham came to see that the vision God gave them
about being the parents of a nation was not just about them being
blessed with children personally, it was about a world wide blessing
and they were only a small part of it. Moses came to see that the
Exodus was not just about revenge over slavery in Egypt. It was about
establishing covenanted community with God and each other. It was
about learning how we all live together. Jesus came to realize that
living is not about longevity; it is about the transcendence of love
overcoming the force of power. That is real living.
No, we need dreams, just like those
early followers of Jesus, those ordinary women and men who became
caught up in a vision that the world could be different and that the
spiritual resources they needed to unleash a love change were at their
disposal. They were not overwhelmed by the Roman Military Empire that
sought to crush them. They were not completely distracted by the
decadent morals of the society in which they lived, nor would they let
themselves be defined by the attendant cynicism that it engendered.
They were driven by their dreams. They became thermostats, not
thermometers, changing the world around them, not merely reflecting the
values of their age.
Let us too be about dreaming. I
want you to dream about your hopes and goals. I want you to dream
about your family. I hope that you dream about your community, your
church, your country, your world. And as you dream, ask God for
imagination. Ask God how you can make a difference in the few
remaining years you have left. Ask God to grant you God's vision too,
that you might just stumble over the real centerdness and peace that
God hopes for you all of the time.
Amen
