Talk to any
teacher for more than a few minutes and you’ll hear about the student who’s a
real problem. There’s one in every class: a student who doesn’t pay attention,
who doesn’t follow the rules, who insists on doing his own thing. Oh, I’m not
talking about the nonconformist with blue spiked hair, a nose ring, and a
tattoo that goes all the way down his arm. I’m talking about the daydreamer.
You know who they are. It’s the girl who stares vacantly out the window while the
teacher is talking and the boy who never gets his homework done because he’s
too busy doodling on his note paper. Daydreamers would rather watch flies than
swat them. They get caught up in wondering what it would be like to see the
world like a fly does: through big green, multifaceted eyes. Sometimes we
wonder whether daydreamers are even on the same planet as the rest of us! They ask
such off the wall questions. It can be really irritating at times. For example,
after a high school teacher has just concluded a very nice lecture on the
digestive system of mammals – just ask her; she’ll tell you how much work she
put into it – some daydreamer will ask, “Why do we have to eat animals? Don’t
they have feelings, too?” Dreamers just won’t accept the world the way it is!
Joseph was a
dreamer. He was the youngest of 12 brothers: the runt of the litter. And because
he was the baby of the family, daddy always liked him best! Joseph got all
kinds of things the other boys didn’t get – like that beautiful coat of his,
for example. Why, it was fit for a king! That alone would have made his brothers
jealous; but on top of it, Joseph was one of those irritating dreamers! His
dreams took the comfortable world of his brothers and turned it upside down. First
Joseph dreamed about sheaves of wheat. In his dream, his brothers’ sheaves all
bowed down to Joseph’s sheaf. That was bad enough. But then he had another
dream that was even worse! In that one,
the sun, the moon, and the stars all bowed down to Joseph! What did his
brothers say to that? I’ll tell you
what they said. They said, “You fool! We’ll never bow down to you! You’ll be bowing down to us because we’re older than you are – and everyone knows that the older brothers are the
one who have all the power in the family! Who do you think you are, anyway?”
No, Joseph’s brothers didn’t like his dreams one bit; because those dreams
predicted that this kid – the runt of the litter – might end up being more
important than they were.
That’s
the trouble with dreamers. Instead of just accepting the way things are, they
insist on dreaming about the way that things might be. The late Bobby Kennedy captured it beautifully when he
declared: “Some people see things as they are and ask why. I dream things that
never were and ask why not.” But that can cause some major problems. When we
dream things that never were, we step on the toes of people who want to keep
things the way they are right now! The ones who have power aren’t about to
share it with any dreamers! That’s obviously how Joseph’s brothers felt,
because they tried to get rid of him! One minute, Joseph is looking for his brothers
so he can report back to their father; and the next, he’s sitting at the bottom
of a dry pit with no way out! Can’t you just hear his brothers taunting
him? “See, Joseph: this is where your dreams will get you! Watch us bow to you as
we’re looking at you in that pit!” Only the intervention of his brother Reuben
kept him from being slaughtered like one of the sheep in their flock. That’s
what happens to lots of dreamers.
You may remember
Martin Luther King, Jr. He had a dream, too.
He had a dream that one day, blacks and whites would be treated equally
in our country. During his life, of course, that wasn’t yet the case.
African-Americans in that time had few opportunities and not much hope that
things would ever change. And powerful people wanted to keep things just the
way they were. But Martin Luther King had a dream; and he talked about it in a
speech that he gave shortly before his death.
I
have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a 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 little 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.
Yes, indeed,
Martin Luther King had a dream. But he wasn’t as lucky as Joseph. He was killed
because of his dream. Being a dreamer is a risky business.
The prophets of
ancient Israel
were dreamers, too. And it wasn’t any safer for them than it was for Joseph or
for Martin Luther King, Jr. Micah dreamed of a people who did justice, loved
kindness, and walked humbly with their God. Of course, nobody much listened to
him. Amos dreamed of a country where the rich shared their wealth with the
poor. The people he talked to told him to go back where he came from. Jeremiah
dreamed of a world in which God’s teaching is written on the hearts of every
single person! They threw him into prison. And then, of course, there was that
rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth. He was the biggest dreamer of all! He dreamed of a
world that he called “the Kingdom of God”? Maybe you’ve dreamed about that,
too. In God’s kingdom, everyone is fulfilled and at peace. Relationships are
whole there. There aren’t any misunderstandings or arguments or grudges. There
aren’t even any power struggles! That’s because in God’s kingdom, God has all
the power, the way it should be now. You all know what happened to Jesus. He was even more of an irritation to the
powerful people of his day than Joseph was to his brothers. Jesus was slaughtered, killed just like a
sheep from the flock.
But it’s a
funny thing about dreams – they often refuse to die. The dreams of the prophets
aren’t dead, and neither is the one that Jesus dreamed! All of us who call
ourselves Christians are still dreaming about it – about the Kingdom of God
where everything is as it should be. And I hope that we share that dream with
everyone around us, just like Joseph shared his dreams with his brothers. After
all, why would we want to keep this beautiful dream to ourselves? And we should
be working on making that dream a reality every chance we get. Oh, we know that
the Kingdom won’t arrive completely until God puts it in place at the end of
time. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t work towards it now! We know what
kinds of things stand in the way of that dream: greed and manipulation, hate
and oppression, violence and selfishness and injustice. If we believe in that
dream, we should be speaking out against all of those things, even though dong
that won’t win any popularity contests. But it will make us faithful
Christians.
Ah, yes – the
dreamers. What irritations they can be! But thank God for both dreamers and for
their dreams! Their imaginations are not limited by what they see around them. May we join with them in catching a vision of
the world as it might be: transformed by grace and ruled by love.
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