I know I’m early with the title reference. I know that Martin Luther King Jr. Day is still a week away. However, Selma was released this weekend and I heard an interview with lead actor David Oyelowo where he said that God told him he would play MLK in a major movie. But he said to God, I’m British and it won’t happen and God said, just wait.
I know we are early with a reference to what was one of the greatest speeches/sermons in Civil Rights History. But we are talking about dreams this week. And there isn’t a bigger dream still hanging out there in front of all of us than the one the Dr. King shared on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. A dream of equality, of an end to racism and prejudice. A dream of a country that lives more by kingdom values than by the fears of an unsettled society. An unrealized dream for many. Well for all, to be honest, though it feels like many of us are living a realized dream. But this kind of dream isn’t fulfilled for any until it is fulfilled for all.
That’s why I messed with the title for this piece. I know that if I started with “I Have a Dream” then everyone would have known what I meant. But I didn’t want this to be about me and my dream. I wanted it to be about my dream and your dream and all the dreams that surround us. So, I went with “Have a Dream” instead. Which I liked because while it had the reference that I wanted, it also sounded like I was dream peddler. Standing on the street corner with my booth and my patter, asking folks if they wanted to have a dream. I would be handing them out. One to a customer. But enough for all. Have a dream.
I have just closed my eyes again / Climbed aboard the dream weaver train / Driver take away my worries of today / And leave tomorrow behind // Ooh dream weaver / I believe you can get me through the night / Ooh dream weaver / I believe we can reach the morning light
Ahem. Excuse my channeling Gary Wright there for a moment. Dream Weaver was popular the year I graduated from high school. Since we’re all about dreams. Dream peddler, dream weaver. But not the same. Sorry, Gary. But Dream Weaver is about escape. Fly me high and through the starry skies / Or maybe to an astral plane / Cross the highways of fantasy / Help me to forget today's pain.
The dream peddler’s dreams aren’t about escape. They are the opposite of escape. They are about something more real than reality! Realer reality? Hmm. While I sort out this linguistic conundrum, let me reveal the dream peddler’s secret identity.
Genesis 28:10-22 Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. 11 He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. 12 And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And the LORD stood beside him and said, "I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; 14 and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. 15 Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." 16 Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the LORD is in this place-- and I did not know it!" 17 And he was afraid, and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." 18 So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first. 20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, 21 so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, 22 and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one tenth to you."
But you knew that didn’t you? You knew that what dreams may come don’t come from us, but from beyond us. Above us. Jacob didn’t go looking for a dream. He was running for his life. You knew that. He had stolen his brother’s birthright and hightailed it out of town at his mother’s suggestion. So, now exhausted and frightened he lay down to sleep on a stone for a pillow and got a dream.
Now stop and think about that one for a minute. Jacob. Who’s name means trickster. Who cheated his brother, tricked his father, and even in our story for today ends up trying to strike a deal with God (read the last few verses with your church voice turned off - what a piece of work!). Yeah, Jacob, gets a dream. And what a dream. A dream with God at the top. A dream of Presence and blessing. A dream of the future and of today. A dream that cleans up the mess of his yesterday. And you thought you were too much of a mess for God to bother with? You thought you were too broken, too empty, too ... bad for God’s purposes? If there is any reason why Jacob is so prominent in the bible, it has to be that he’s there to show us that no one - and by no one we mean abso-freaking-lutely no one - is outside the redemptive grace of God. God’s got a dream for the likes of Jacob. God’s got a dream for the likes of you.
Have a Dream. But be warned. Even though there is a first person singular pronoun in the original phrase - I have a dream - this is not a personal dream. Or rather this is not a dream that is kept to the person. This is a dream about changing the world. The world. Not a little corner of it. The world.
Did you know that Martin Luther King Jr. had no intention of sharing that dream that day? He had another presentation prepared. Another, some historians say, scholarly - almost pedantic - message to deliver to lay down the argument as to why racism is not healthy for us as a nation. But when he stood to speak, Mahalia Jackson was sharing the steps there with him and said to him as he passed, “tell us your dream, Martin.” So, he set aside the speech and gave the sermon. He set aside the essay and shared the poem. “I have a dream,” he declared, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
The dream wasn’t just his, it was, it is ours. Dreams like these aren’t meant to be kept secret. Aren’t meant to be locked away in our hearts and pondered. They are to be shared. They are to drive us to get up and do, to go out and change the world.
We start a new series this weekend at Aldersgate. Jumping on the January resolutions and self-help bandwagon, it is title “Getting Control of Your Life.” Based on the book, Dare to Dream by Pastor Mike Slaughter from Ginghamsburg UMC in Ohio, it is about grabbing hold of God-sized dream that will reshape us as individuals and as the community of faith that we are called to be.
The hook in the title is that the only way for us to get control of our lives is by surrendering control. The only way for us to wake up to the reality God has in store for us is to dream of worlds that aren’t yet and then live as though they were the most real thing we know. Really real reality.
OK, I never fixed my linguistic problem. But that’s ok. I have a dream. A dream with God at the top. And now I’m a dream peddler. Have a dream.
Surely the Lord is in this place.
Shalom,
Derek
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