Have you had any good dreams lately?
I recently heard a counselor in Trinity’s counseling center share her dream. She works on our behalf with juvenile offenders at the Department of Youth Services. Lately she has been teaching art to teenagers on parole. She carries around photographs of them painting and drawing and will show them off if you give her even a minute. Where most people see probation kids as surly adolescents, Jess sees the soul of an artist in each one of them. She dreams a life for them that they can hardly imagine.
Another friend shares her dream of living without alcohol. She has been sober for 100 days and attends Alcoholic Anonymous meetings every day. She dreams of a new life free of addiction and must leave her old drinking friends behind. It’s a hard and lonely path, but she is living her dream.
Sometimes our best dreams occur when our eyes are wide open and we see beyond the present reality. Martin Luther King, Jr. had such a dream in 1963 when he described the end of racism. He dreamed of a world where all people share equality and opportunity. When Dr. King stood at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. and made his “I have a dream” speech, segregation was entrenched in this country. His vision seemed far away and many doubted. But it captured the American imagination and it is still our dream. We pray that it will also be our destiny.
Have you had any good dreams lately? Have you had a dream that defies current reality but comes from deep within your heart? The prophet Isaiah had big dreams like that. You can see Isaiah’s picture right now: look up into the tower. There he is. He lived in Jerusalem in the 8th century BC in a time of impending danger.
In the Bible, Isaiah comes across as a very practical man. He reads the news, he follows current events, he has a distinguished place in the king’s court. He understands how the system works. Isaiah also understands that despite the affluence all around him, chaos looms just under the surface. God is getting lip service as worship in the temple grows sloppy. Society is quietly coming unraveled. The rich are getting richer and there is a big, growing class of urban poor for the first time in his country’s history. In the king’s court, deals are being cut behind closed doors to cope with problems on the border. The Assyrians are on the move, conquering neighboring states with a superior army. They get closer to Jerusalem every year. The threat of violence is in the air, and in the middle of all of this unrest, Isaiah has a dream. It is a big, wide awake dream that follows him around. He just can’t shake it.
Isaiah dreams that his decadent city becomes the center of the world. It grows taller, higher than the surrounding mountains. In this dream, God sits in Jerusalem as a divine arbiter who settles conflicts and teaches folks how to get along with each other. People from all the nations flock to the city to get their arguments resolved. Then they go home and realize that they are armed to the teeth with weapons they no longer need. They should be planting gardens and eating good food. In Isaiah’s wide awake dream, the people turn their arsenals into farming equipment. Swords and spears become plows and pruning hooks.
Now that’s a big dream. It is a big dream because God is at its center and that changes everything.
Advent is the season of big, wide awake dreams. It is a time of heightened awareness of what we want but do not have. I am not talking about Christmas gifts and shopping lists. The material things of the holiday season can be beautiful but they don’t touch our true longing. Visions of sugar plums do not fill an empty stomach and they also don’t feed our hungry spirits. I speak of something deeper.
In Advent we are aware of how deeply we long for God. God sometimes seems so abstract, so distant as we muck our way through life. Wouldn’t it be great if God would come closer and stir the air around us? What if God were to set up shop right here in Trinity Church like Isaiah’s dream of Jerusalem? The leaders of the nations could come here instead of Annapolis. Or, instead of visiting Santa with a wish list, we could bring our conflicts and grievances and our disappointments here to God to be transformed. Then we could let go of our personal arsenals of grudges and resentments. We could give up the cynicism and negative energy that creep into our lives and we would become more hopeful and generous. We could beat our swords into plowshares, our spears into pruning hooks. Imagine our discarded weapons piled up to the ceiling in the narthex. Imagine walking out of church with lighter, freer hearts because God has relieved us of these burdens.
This is a big, wide awake dream with God at its center. If we will fix our gaze on that center, our lives can be transformed. Don’t dream small in this Advent season. Dream of your life being changed by God. Dream of your relationships growing stronger. Dream of your love being more generous and less measured. Dream of telling the truth and taking risk. Dream of putting someone else first and enjoying it. Dream of being held by God in the midst of deep sadness. Dream of the privilege of bearing another’s pain through God. Dream of equality and opportunity for all God’s children.
Desmond Tutu recently described a big dream for the Boston Globe. He calls it God’s dream. He writes, “God has a dream for all his children….God’s dream begins when we begin to know each other differently, as bearers of a common humanity….God’s dream begins the moment one adversary looks another in the eye and sees himself reflected there… God’s dream begins with this mutual recognition — we are not strangers, we are kin.” Now that’s a big dream from a man who suffered for many years in apartheid South Africa.
This is the season for dreaming. We are counting the days till God comes in Jesus Christ. In Christ, God chooses us, chooses to live among us, closer than ever before. We are not just preparing to celebrate a nativity story; we are expecting Emmanuel, God’s life intersecting with our life through Jesus. God longs for us, too, which is why God comes to us in Christ. Some people count the shopping days till December 25 and worry about getting everything done. We count the days till Christ comes and we can hardly wait.
Now is the time for the big, wide awake dreams of Advent. Jesus urges us today to stay awake and be ready. He comes to set up shop right here in Trinity Church. We can bring our worst selves and lay them at his feet and he raises up the best of who we are. Christ sends us out forgiven, healed, and renewed. Christ leads us to dream dreams in which everyone shares in the blessings. These are God-centered dreams. With God at the center, dreams never become discouraged or depleted, even if we do. With God at the center, dreams endure even when evidence points to the contrary.
Jesus is coming, so stay awake and dream big. Keep your eyes wide open and dream of life centered in Jesus Christ. Christ is God’s dream come true. Christ is our dream come true.
May you have sweet dreams, holy and big dreams, in the days and weeks to come.
Amen.
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