Living the Dream

August 7, 2011
Preached at Prescott Memorial Baptist Church
Genesis: 37:1-36

Let’s talk about dreams and dreamers. We all dream. That’s what the experts say. Some dreams stand out in our memory after we wake up. Some dreams get lost in our sleep. I think dreams are important so I try to show them respect by paying attention to them. I regularly saw a Jungian therapist for seven years. He helped me to focus on the significance of dreams. I learned that dreams can be clarifying, healing and motivating. Dreams can help us recognize how valuable our life is. How valuable all life is.

When we think about Joseph, the dreamer and the interpreter of dreams, we see that coat of many colors that his father (Jacob) made for him. Those of us who are my age probably remember the picture on our Sunday school papers when we were children: this good looking boy wrapped in a stunning coat with full, flowing sleeves. Younger people think about Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.”

This coat of many colors with its flowing sleeves represented a father’s deep love. Clothing fit for a king. Tragically that same beautiful coat came back to the father covered in blood and surrounded by lies and deceit. The coat came to represent deep hate as well as deep love.

Joseph was a tattle-tail. The older brothers had reason to hate him. He was seventeen and tending sheep in the field with his brothers. He was old enough to know better than to carry a bad report about his brothers’ behavior to the old man. Nobody likes a tattle-tail.

Although Joseph wasn’t making himself popular with his brothers, he did manage to get himself out of the hot field and the sheep tending business. I see Joseph as clever. Cute.This is just my interpretation of the character: I imagine him at home spending the mornings in the kitchen whipping up delightful meals, sashaying around wearing a Liza Minnelli apron. Then I see him spending his afternoons in the courtyard with a design board cleverly wowing his father’s wives with a trendy color scheme for renovations in the new bathroom. I imagine the design star, David Bromstad, dimples and all! Joseph was special and he knew it.

This was the favored son, the dreamer. And although that special coat seemed to anger the eleven older brothers, it was not the coat but the dreaming that made the older brothers want to murder this clever, tattle-tail, big-headed braggart.

He was a dreamer and he dared to dream about his own power, a power that follows Joseph everywhere, a mysterious power that seems to be part of the boy who grows up to be a successful man in pharaoh’s court. Joseph knew his power through dreams. His dreams and his respect for the dreams of others ultimately set him free.

We’ve known dreamers… Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lennon, John Gilmore. Do you know John Gilmore? He teaches anthropology at the University of Memphis. He is a minister at the Open Heart Spiritual Center on Broad. Back in the early 90's, he was the pastor for a conservative CME church in Memphis. John says that church has unfortunately entrenched itself in an anti-LGBT stance over the years.

While living in the parsonage of that church, John had a powerful dream. He dreamed that people were in his house. These people had guns and they were shooting out the windows. They turned to John and said, “Don’t worry! We’ll get rid of those gays!” John screamed at the people in his house to stop shooting. He said, “I stand with those men!” And, as John tells the story, that’s when he realized God was calling him to be part of a vision of an inclusive community where all people can be safe to be who God created them to be. John dreamed of a world where all people can value themselves and know they are valued by their neighbors, co-workers, church members and family.

John had a dream and rather than ignore it, brush it aside as a symptom of last night’s spicy lasagna, John Gilmore got on his knees and asked God for the courage he would need to respond positively to the call that came with his dream.

I remember when John processed with a group of clergy people into First Congregational Church on World AIDS Day in 1994. For many of us it was another nice service. For John it was a symbol of his dream and the courage he had been given. John lost his job as pastor of that CME church and he lost his marriage as a result of the dream. He lost friends too. John would also say that the dream set him free to realize the amazing power of God’s love within him.

You’ve known dreamers, people who imagined a different and better way to do something, people who have become part of a new vision. Maybe you have a dream and with that dream you have the key to open doors for a better life for all of us. We all dream.

Dreaming seems like something we do in our sleep, tucked in between layers of soft sheets and surrounded by the stillness and familiarity of home. But there’s another side to dreaming, the dangerous and risky side. Dreams can set us apart from the crowd and free us to experience the mystery and power of God within us. Dreams can set us apart from the crowd and make us targets of other people’s anger—anger born from fear of realizing their own dreams and power.

Joseph got out of bed and put on his house slippers. He padded down the hallway to the communal bath. He rubbed his eyes and put toothpaste on his brush. Standing by the sink he called out to his brothers, “I had a dream! We were all binding sheaves out in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright while your sheaves bent and bowed down to my sheaf. How about that?”

“That” didn’t please his brothers at all. I can see them standing absolutely still, stunned by Joseph’s wide grin. They didn’t appreciate the dream or the dreamer.

On another day Joseph got out of bed and went to the table. The old man, Jacob, was buttering his toast and the brothers were scooping up spoonfuls of Cheerios. Joseph leaned back in his chair and grinned widely. “I had a dream. I dreamed that the sun, moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” Even Jacob had to object. “What kind of dream is this?”

It’s the kind of dream that lands a brother in the bottom of a pit. It’s the kind of dream that gets a brother sold into slavery. It’s the kind of dream that takes a brother away from home and into a strange land. It’s the kind of dream that won’t go away.

It’s the kind of dream that comes with great courage and vision. It’s the kind of dream that calls us by name. It’s the kind of dream that comes with a promise. It’s the kind of dream that shows us what personal power is all about.

It’s the kind of dream that allows us, once and for all, to stop wishing we were somebody else. Respecting our own dreams can set us free us from resentment toward those who seem to be full of great dreams.

It’s the kind of dream that leads us to realize we are, each one of us, the favored child. We all come from God, the creator and giver of great dreams. The God of abundance and life provides dreams for all of us and clothes each one of us in colorful coats that signify the beauty and power of our personal potential.

It’s the kind of dream that takes a boy into Egypt where he became a hero in Pharaoh’s court. It’s the kind of dream that allows an abused boy to become a forgiving man, a brother (faithful and wise) who provides food for those who wanted desperately to kill both the dream and the dreamer.

In an interview about his song, “Imagine,” John Lennon was asked: Isn’t it unrealistic in such a large and complicated world to talk about world peace? Lennon’s response: “It's not a new message: "Give Peace a Chance"—I don’t think that’s unrealistic. Just saying "give it a chance." With "Imagine" we're asking listeners to simply dream of a world without countries, religions or wars."

You may say I’m a dreamer; but I’m not the only one.

What a different story Joseph’s story might have been had his brothers been inspired by their younger brother’s dreams and consequently chosen to attend to their own dreams while out shepherding sheep in the field, perhaps listening to the songs of angels overhead, making art from the clouds that passed by, inspired to write a requiem by the sound of breezes blowing through the reeds.

Instead the older brothers chose to view the world and themselves through an economy of poverty. If one brother was favored with a coat and dreams, then all the other brothers could only feel robbed. They could only see what they did not have, a special coat or dreams. The angry brothers could not imagine any dream that included them. They could not imagine a closet with a special coat for everyone. The older brothers were trapped in their self-imposed jealousy.They saw God's world as limited, as limited in love as they were.

The book of Genesis is filled with good stories. The story of Abraham is a story about God being present in radical trust. Abraham left home and followed God’s call to a destination that was a total mystery. The only thing Abraham knew about the Promised Land was that God promised to be there too. Jacob’s story plants God smack dab in the middle of human conflict and family struggles for an inheritance. Joseph’s story involves God in the mysteries of life, in dreams.

God is in the story. Genesis includes the story of beginnings. The Creator created the world and created us in the image of the Creator. We have the power to co-create with God, to continue to dream new things into being, to repair and reconcile.

“I have a dream,” Dr. King announced to the world on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on a very cold January day. “A dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream 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.' I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream today.”

That particular dreamer was assassinated right here in Memphis and the dream lives on in our city and in our hearts—creating space and inspiration for our own dreams.

Dreaming is dangerous. Sharing the dream can be downright lethal. Why would we want to do it? Because to dream is to bring about the Kingdom of God on this earth.

This is my dream, that all will be well. I dream of the day when all people will feel safe to share their dreams and know that their dreams are valued. God is calling us to be part of a vision for an inclusive community where all people are free to value themselves and know they are valued by their neighbors, co-workers, church members and family.

I invite you to awaken the dream within you. Feel the courage that comes with valuing your dreams and wearing the colorful coat that identifies you as a favored member of God’s family.

Amen