“The Stuff of Dreams”

A Sermon Preached at First Presbyterian Church

By Dr. James R. Henery

Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010

Now his brothers went to pasture their father’s flock near Shechem.  And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “Here I am.” So he said to him, “Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron. He came to Shechem, and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, “What are you seeking?” “I am seeking my brothers,” he said; “tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock.” The man said, “They have gone away, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan. They saw him from a distance, and before he came near to them, they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild animal has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” But when Reuben heard it, he delivered him out of their hands, saying, “Let us not take his life.” ²Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood; throw him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand on him”—that he might rescue him out of their hand and restore him to his father. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the long robe with sleeves that he wore; and they took him and threw him into a pit. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.—Genesis 37:1-11

After waking up in the morning, a woman tells her husband, “I had the most wonderful dream about you in which you gave me a beautiful diamond necklace.  What do you think it means?”  And with a smile, the husband said, “You’ll know tonight.”

That’s all she thought about during the day and couldn’t; wait until her husband came home.  And when he does, he’s carrying a beautifully wrapped small package.

Elated, she carefully unwraps the package … and finds a book titled, The Meaning of Dreams.

Joseph’s problem wasn’t so much the coat which is usually how we refer to him, particularly Broadway and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  It was his dreaming and interpretations.  And his brothers were tired of it.  No wonder.  Each time he dreamed it was about his dominance over nature and galaxies and perhaps even his brothers bowing down obediently to him.

Joseph’s ability will eventually save his life and others in chapters 39-40 and lead to his powerful position as a non-Egyptian ruler.  But not early on with his brothers—this entire story and narrative in Genesis from chapter 37 until the end of the book is about Joseph in Egypt.

Dreams.  Here comes the dreamer. 

I have not seen the latest movie that centers on dreaming but I will.  It’s called Inception.  Professional dream workers—that’s what they call themselves—refer to this movie as lucid dreaming—that we become aware of our dreams and can share them even telepathically with others.  We can share mutual dreams with others who can communicate and interact with us as we dream.

However, this movie explores that idea in a radically different way with the plot line that humans have created the technology to enter each other’s dreams—where you can go into someone’s dream, their subconscious and take what you want.  Sort of an invasion or cerebral espionage.  More insidiously, one can possibly enter someone’s dream and plant an idea in a dream world that he or she then might do as told.

Imagine a brave new world in which we could be sharing dreams, invading each other’s dream space for good or not so good uses.

I don’t want to try and remember some of my dreams let alone have them analyzed.  I’m not sure you would want to be in them or I in yours.

So there is something almost contemporary then about Joseph to dream and then interpret, even in 2000 BCE.

“We are the stuff of dreams” as Prospero will conclude in his last soliloquy in Shakespeare’s Tempest, perhaps suggesting the entire play is a dream in which all things good and just and merciful do happen in the end.  That we can fantasize and wish and dream, but our actions in the end require substance and depth.  “We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up each morning with the world transformed because of how we dreamed?  And yet it’s more of a nightmare at times.  We awaken to disasters, awaken to security threats, awaken to violence, awaken to yesterday’s unfinished business, yesterday’s unfinished hurts, yesterday’s lingering disappointments.  But for a brief time tonight, overnight, we sleep and we dream something during some or all of those famously REM moments we apparently have. 

Having said our prayers or whatever we do, for a brief time, even in our sleep, we are protected, and yet we awaken to reality, the signs of poverty, the signs and the sounds of abuse, still aware of suffering, of failure, of betrayal, illness, despair.  And every day we encounter people who are living bad dreams every waking moment.

I did not realize until earlier this week that the anniversary of Dr. King’s Washington D. C. Aug. 28, 1963 speech was yesterday and was not an early part of this sermon, his historic “I have a dream speech,” but there is a connection to Joseph and other prophetic dreamers that cause us pay attention to those words.

Yesterday that profound speech which also includes references from Isaiah and Amos initiated a tug of war between two competing groups, Glen Beck and Al Sharpton, a speech about dreams that still transcends politics and division and calls on us to advocate for humans and their troubles, not collect sound bytes.

For me, still reading and hearing those words from Dr. King’s speech solicits a scintillating sound of hope, an expectation of what we can do, and now 47 years later, as if the dream did not die, just the dreamer, those words still carry more power and substance than what was observed yesterday in Washington:

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 together at a table of brotherhood.  I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.  I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.  I have a dream today.  I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.  This is our hope.  This is the faith with which I return to the South.  With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.  With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.  With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

That was some dream, filled with hope, potential.

Five years later he would be killed in Memphis and above the door of that motel room would be printed the words, “Here comes the dreamer, let’s kill him.”  Today that motel serves as the National Civil Rights Museum, and an even larger sign now sits below the rooms on the sidewalk with the text and the story about Joseph.

But today’s sermon doesn’t stop or focus on the sacrifice of dreams or how to interpret them, but the promise and the actualization, the achievement of our dreams, as in goals, as in visions or desires or wishes, working and striving so our dreams do come true.

In our society, sometimes we excuse crazy, weird, eccentric or even imaginative, creative people as somewhat different or quixotic, difficult to live with, those who dream and get in our way.  Sometimes the dreamer is a bit more than we care to tolerate or believe.  All those quirky ideas and suggestions can interrupt our own sense of what we believe works, even our own sense of complacency. 

Here comes the dreamer!  I say let’s welcome, let’s cherish, let’s tolerate, let’s respect the one who says, “Let’s make a difference, let’s fix the problems.”  For the Christian it’s turning a Good Friday nightmare into a spectacular Easter dream for us:  a dream of love in the midst of hate, a dream of justice in the midst of inequity, a dream of compassion in the midst of poverty, a dream of redemption in the midst of one’s hellish conditions. 

The stuff of dreams.  Let’s change our vocabulary from “can’t” to “yes we can.”  Let’s be daydreamers who avoid excuses and semantics and agree that  “we will, we must.”  Let us be dream catchers who say “yes” to possibilities, dream makers who will risk what we have, not content with mediocrity.  We will become doers of dreams rather than defeatists. 

To live the American dream, we like to believe, is the freedom to work and sacrifice and fashion our dreams to become what we want, to do what we choose, to sing, even, those wonderful words, “Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that we dare to dream really do come true.” 

Here comes the dreamer!  Let’s listen, let’s consider, let’s reflect, maybe less analysis because we already know the problems:  to dream of and implement more than just adequate housing, more than just adequate health care, more than just adequate retirement; to dream of eradicating disease, or suffering, or oppression or violence; to dream and implement the best education and opportunities for all of our children wherever they live so they can inherit a future based upon not  our mistakes but on our best;  to dream of an environment that can begin to sustain itself without reliance upon oil;  to dream of a world, as the author of Revelation writes:

I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.  And I saw the holy city….And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals.  He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away’ [the old]….’See, I am making all things new.’   (Revelation 21:1-5)

The stuff of dreams.  Ours.  Here comes the dreamer but not to hurt or kill.  Let’s embrace the vision, the possibility, the beauty, the opportunity to do a better job before it is too late.  As George Bernard Shaw wrote, “You see things as they are and you ask, ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were and ask, ‘Why not?’”  Amen.