Dreamers

The Church of St. Paul and Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

Year A, Proper 14: The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Genesis 37:1-4, 12-28

Psalm 105:1-6, 16-22, 45b

Romans 10:5-15

Matthew 14:22-33

Dreamers

            Lately we’ve had a lot to talk about so I haven’t spent much time preaching on our Old Testament lessons.

            But, if you’ve been following along for the past few weeks you may remember that we’ve been hearing the story of Israel’s founding family, the family of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel.

            The story of Israel’s founding family is quite a story, with enough twists and turns, deceit and betrayal, to rival even the most sensational soap opera.

            I suppose it should be reassuring that God chose this pretty dysfunctional group as the seed for the chosen people – and it’s amazing that later on God will even self-identify as the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

            There really is hope for us all.

            Anyway, in today’s lesson from Genesis, we hear about the third and fourth generations, about the prolific Jacob (also known as Israel) who had twelve sons (and one daughter) with four different women (two of whom were sisters).

            See what I mean?

            As sometimes happens in families, Jacob was unable to hide the fact that he had favorites.

            Rachel was his favorite wife and their first child, Joseph, was his favorite son.

            This favoritism is represented by a garment that the Bible calls “a long robe with sleeves” but anybody who was around here in the 1970s and watched too much TV will know it as “Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

            (Back then the commercial for the popular Andrew Lloyd Weber musical ran all the time.)

            And, as the name of the musical reveals, Joseph was also a dreamer – and his dreams involved his eleven brothers bowing down before him.

            So, now I want to be clear that I’m not excusing what the brothers did to Joseph, but I can understand why they were resented this second to youngest brother, their father’s favorite with his fancy robe, dreaming his dreams of supremacy.

            In the musical the brothers sing, “Being told we’re also-rans does not make us Joseph fans.”

            As we heard today, first the brothers plot to kill their brother but Reuben, the oldest brother, talks them out of it. Instead they toss him into a pit with Reuben intending to rescue him later.

            But then another option presents itself: selling Joseph into slavery.

            Later, the brothers paint goat’s blood on the robe and show it to a heartbroken Jacob, who will believe that his beloved son was dead.

            As we will find out in next week’s episode, a very much alive Joseph ended up in Egypt where his ability to interpret dreams will allow him to rise high in society and where, eventually, his dream of his brothers bowing before him will come true.

            Dreamers.

            I think we tend to dismiss dreams as fantasies or as just our brain working through stuff that’s filed away in there.

            But, that’s not the biblical view of dreams.

            In the Bible, dreams are visions of God’s intended future – and dreamers are meant to live in ways that make those dreams become real.   

            That’s what Dr. King meant in his famous speech. His dream wasn’t a farfetched fantasy of a world without racism, a world where Black children and white children would hold hands as sisters and brothers – no, Dr. King’s dream was a vision of God’s intended future - and he called us to live in ways that would someday make this holy dream become real.

            Dreamers.

            In today’s gospel lesson, we meet another dreamer: Peter.

            We pick up right where we left off last week.

            After having their fill of bread and fish, the five thousand men plus women and children have been sent away.

            Jesus tries once again to have some alone time for prayer, while the disciples are out in their boat, far from shore, enduring the battering of the waves.

            And then there is the mysterious, kind of dreamlike moment in the morning when the disciples see Jesus “walking on the sea.” I think I would have thought I was still asleep or maybe hallucinating but the disciples cry out “It is a ghost!” which is a reasonable guess, too.

            Jesus reassures them, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”

            But then something happens that may be at least as strange as seeing Jesus walk on water: Peter asks Jesus to command him to walk on water, too. And Peter actually does it! Peter gets out of the boat and onto the water – well, for at least a few steps before he loses his nerve, before his trust fails and he begins to sink, but Jesus is right there, reaching out his hand, quick to save him.

            Peter is a fascinating character, isn’t he?

            A fisherman, a working man, a family man, a deeply flawed man, who was drawn to the dream of Jesus, who gave up everything for the dream of Jesus - this holy dream of a downside-up world where the poor and oppressed are the blessed ones, the dream of a world where the scarcity of five loaves and two fish is multiplied into overflowing baskets with more than enough for everyone, the dream of a community where the greatest is the one who washes feet.

            Later, Peter will have his own dream when he will come to understand that the old barriers between people should come down, that everyone should be welcomed into the community of Jesus.

            But, that morning on the sea, by stepping out of the boat, Peter lived in a way that made the dream of Jesus become real, even for just a few moments.

            Jesus walking on water is one thing but if Peter with his “little faith” could walk on water, what else might be possible?

            And, when Peter faltered, as we all do, Jesus was right there, ready to save him.

            Dreamers.

            Last week I read a book that’s been on my list for a while, one that Sue has been teaching in school and that maybe some of you have read. It’s called The Other Wes Moore.

            The book’s author Wes Moore and the other Wes Moore both shared a name, and both began their lives in roughly the same spot – two Black boys growing up in struggling families headed by single moms in Baltimore – but the author Wes Moore and the other Wes Moore ended up in very different places.

            After some missteps that could have spelled disaster, the author Wes Moore attended military school, earned a degree from Johns Hopkins, was a Rhodes Scholar, joined the Army and served in Afghanistan and is now well into a distinguished and successful life, including as author of this bestselling book.

            Meanwhile, the other Wes Moore missed the precious few opportunities and second chances that he was given and today is in prison serving a life sentence for murder.

            Hanging over the book is the question why exactly did things turn out so different for these two men with the same name and roughly the same starting point.

            Of course, there are thousands of different reasons why our lives turn out the way they do – everything from talent to choices to luck to the color of our skin (not necessarily in that order) – but in the case of the author Wes Moore it’s clear that from the start he was surrounded by dreamers.

            His mother and grandparents and other relatives dreamed of a successful future for Wes.

            His teachers and superior officers and mentors dreamed of a successful future for Wes.

            And this dream, no matter how unlikely it may have seemed at times, was not a fantasy – it was a vision of God’s intended future, and all of those family members sacrificed and pushed, they lived in ways that made that dream become real – and eventually these dreams became real to the author Wes Moore and that changed everything.

            Dreamers.

            Today, you and I find our selves in the midst of a storm far worse than what the disciples faced when their little boat was battered by the waves long ago.

            I believe that God is using this terrible storm to uncover what has been hidden from many of us for far too long – the poverty, the racism, the unfairness of a society where it is way too hard and so unlikely to become the author Wes Moore but where our prisons are full of people like the other Wes Moore, who, let’s be honest, never had much of a chance at a successful life.

            But, the dream of Jesus – the dream of Peter – the dream of King and John Lewis and so many holy women and men – the dream is still offered for us to dream – the dream is offered to all of us, no matter how flawed we are, no matter how dysfunctional our families are, no matter how many times we mess up.

Jesus offers us all the holy dream of a downside-up world where the poor and the oppressed are the blessed ones, where there is more than enough for everybody, where the greatest are the ones who wash feet.

It’s no fantasy – it’s a holy dream – it’s a vision of God’s intended future - and we are meant to live our lives in ways that make this holy dream become real.

The only way forward is to be like Peter, stepping out with even just a little faith, making the dream real, trusting that Jesus will always save us when we falter.

Amen.