Dreams, Nostalgia and Joy: Dec 17, 2023

 Year B, Advent 3                            Psalm 126                                                   

    Today is unofficially known as Gaudete Sunday---which is Latin for Joy—Joy Sunday. Upon hearing the readings, you probably noticed a shift in tone from the last several weeks.  We also light the pink candle to signify this movement toward joy and I get to wear my pink stole which my last church gave me because I kept threatening to turn everything pink on the 3^rd Sunday of Advent.  I wasn’t actually going to do that, but I liked to see the panic that flickered across their faces before I admitted I was kidding.  Plus, I just really like pink.

The readings are definitely more joyful this week.  Not a single person gets sent into outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Nothing is consumed in fire and it doesn’t appear that anyone is even yelling.  But these texts aren’t coming from a Hallmark Christmas movie, the references to joy are a little more nuanced.  While Psalm 126 uses the word joy 3 times and certainly carries elements of hope, that hope is wrapped in lament.

“When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, then were we like those who dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy. Then they said among the nations, "The Lord has done great things for them."  Notice the use of the past tense. Then…then were we like those who dream…then was our mouth filled with laughter. It sounds almost nostalgic.  But it’s clearly more than that.

The church has always been great at talking about the past.  The first church I served at was 100 years old.  They talked just as much about the past as the 413 year old church I just came from.  And of all the wonderful stories that could have been told…do you know what era I heard the most about—the 1960s.  This is partly because many of the members still remembered the 1960’s.  But also because that was when the churches (all churches) were bursting at the seams. During the 1950s, church membership grew at a faster rate than the population itself.  It was a rate of growth that was unprecedented and never seen again.  But for those who had been around during that time, that was the gold standard and the question was always—how do we get back to that?

Nostalgia is not bad in and of itself.  In fact, while nostalgia can often be associated with sadness or loneliness, nostalgia also acts as a defense against unhappiness.  It can bring relief to a negative mood.[1]  Yet sometimes, especially in churches, I fear that nostalgia can hold us back.  It’s a safe place, but our faith is supposed to challenge us…not merely comfort us.

There are examples in the Bible of nostalgia holding people back.  After Moses led the people out of slavery, they were in the wilderness and there was a lot of complaining and even reminiscing about how great life was when they were enslaved. In the Book of Numbers they said, “‘If only we had meat to eat!  We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.’” There were times when they would have returned if Moses has been willing.  Nostalgia confines us to what we know.  There is no room for dreaming with nostalgia.

That’s why I don’t think this Psalm is about nostalgia.  It’s about hope. “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, then were we like those who dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy.” They were dreamers.  They were remembering a time when they could dream, when their mouths were filled with laughter.  They weren’t remembering when they all had nice houses and good food.  They weren’t remembering when their places of worship were beautiful and full. 

The joy that the psalmist speaks of is a joy remembered and a joy anticipated.[2] It’s a joy that doesn’t come from human action, but God’s action.  They know that joy will return because God is faithful.  This psalm portrays the expanse of human experiences. Yes, there are tears, but some of those tears will reap joy. 

It’s more than just the idea, “Well sure, you are sad now, but you will get over it.”  No, it means that the tears we shed can water the dry and parched ground that surrounds us.  Then joy will grow from the tear saturated ground.  “Those who go out weeping, carrying the seed, will come again with joy, shouldering their sheaves.”  This Psalm isn’t intending to minimalize the grief and pain people experience and imply that every heart ache and pain will bring new joy.  We know that is not true.  But with God, we are on holy ground.  That holy ground is littered with seeds of hope.

That’s why we can’t go backwards.  We honor the past.  We learn from it, but it can’t nourish us. We have seeds that need tending now.  We have dreams that we have forgotten. They hover on the cusp of our consciousness just waiting to come out. 

I know that you at Christ Church had a long transition. So many people have mentioned that to me.  That liminal place can be very challenging.  Some of you are still grieving the loss of beloved clergy and some may still be wondering if I am the person who can lead you.  I believe I am that person---the person who can help you till this ground because God has called me to be with you, and you, the people of Christ Church have called me as well.  God wants us all to dream again.  We need to help one another because it’s really easy to get stuck in the weeds and forget that there is something beautiful and holy beyond the weeds.

 It’s challenging to dream and believe that things can be different, even better. Fortunately we are in a place that has a history of dreaming and defying the status quo.  We are on holy ground.  May the joy of Gaudete Sunday nourish us and the ground we tread.  

 

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[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2023/03/nostalgia-defense-unhappiness-happy-memories/673320/

[2] James Mays. p. 399

We Need More Dreamers: December 4, 2022

Year A, Advent 2                                       Isaiah 11:1-10                                                                                                  

          I am horrible with plants. I love them and I am always trying to grow them, but it just never seems to work out for me.  Therefore, bringing a dead plant back to life seems almost unfathomable.  However, after reading this text from Isaiah about 10 times, I started to wonder if a dead stump could actually sprout. The text says, “A shoot shall come out of the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”  According to my extensive research on two different gardening websites, it’s possible. Apparently, you can grow a brand new tree out of an old stump. 

            Who is this Jesse and why does he have a stump? Jesse was the father of King David.  This stump represented the dynastic line of David.  Clearly things weren’t going particularly well for the House of David when Isaiah prophesized.  A stump doesn’t exactly project strength and vitality.  Israel had been ransacked by multiple enemies by the time the Book of Isaiah was written. The people were exiled, the kingdoms fell. They had a few good and righteous kings after King David, but the line was almost unidentifiable 500 years after King David reigned.  Since our country is less than 300 years old and created without a king, it’s hard to imagine a 500 year dynasty.  Seem like a pretty good run to me.           

            But this dynasty was about more than just leadership.  To some extent, it was about salvation.  It was about God’s commitment to Israel.  The people of Israel were supposed to be God’s chosen people and David was the chosen king.  When all they had was a stump, there was despair.   Yet what today’s text tells us is that this stump still held life within it.  Perhaps that is not the best description.  The stump wasn’t alive as much as it was receptive to the spirit that washed over it. The spirit gave that stump life. It changed everything.

            The first part of our reading is about the transition from despair to hope.  It speaks of a new leader who will be righteous and just.  This leader will receive God’s wisdom, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. “Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.”  Of course one of the reasons that we read this in Advent is that Christians believe this is all pointing to Jesus.  And one cannot deny that Jesus was righteous and faithful.  I am not sure that he was the leader people were really hoping for as he ended up betrayed by many of his followers and crucified.  He was not the leader people imagined, but he was the leader people needed.

            The 2^nd half of the reading paints a picture of utopia.  It’s actually a kind of ridiculous image.   I can imagine a cow and a bear hanging out, but a child playing with a poisonous snake seems a little crazy.  Of all the creatures to play with, why a snake?  As you can tell, I am not a fan of snakes.  Of course if you think too much about the image, it loses its appeal.  The point is that this new world has no natural enemies.  Forget about the enemies we create.  There are no enemies at all. The whole natural order is thrown out in this new world. 

            Now part of me wants to say, this image is too unrealistic.  Look at the state of our world right now.  We’ve had 4 mass killings in the last month—and that’s just our country.  This idea of a world with no conflict is beyond our hopes and dreams.  Yet perhaps we have been trained to dream too little.  In our need for realism and attainable goals, we have lost sight of a God who wants us to see something we can barely imagine.  Unfortunately we lose that ability to dream as we age.  We forget what it is to imagine.  This place where there are no conflicts and only harmony is God’s dream for our world.  It’s God’s dream for us.  God wants our dreams to go beyond what we can see.  Isaiah’s vision isn’t a goal to be achieved.  It’s a dream by which we set our course.[1]  One of my favorite prayers is sometimes also used as a blessing. It reads, “Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little…”  I wonder in our desire for attainable goals and benchmarks, we have lost the ability to see what God so desperately wants us to see.

            Our Gospel reading was brought alive by that powerful depiction of John the Baptist.  John the Baptist is a typical prophet in many ways.  He was delivering hard truths to people who did not want to hear it.  John appears in all the gospels, but it’s only in this gospel when he specifically calls out the Pharisees and Sadducees, the people who were far too comfortable in their lives and confident because of their religious pedigree. 

            I think what was really frustrating John the Baptist wasn’t that the Pharisees were wrong or even immoral.  It was that they had become too complacent.  They were ok with the system as it was because it was benefiting them.  I think it’s fair to say that most of have become a little too comfortable in our lives. There are times, like in the pandemic when changes come that we can’t control and we are forced to change how we live.  That definitely shook a lot of us out of our complacency. But most of the time, we just move through our days quite contentedly.  This isn’t to say that things are smooth sailing or we never have bad things happen to us.  But all in all, we don’t want someone coming in here and telling us that everything has to change, that we have to change. 

            Like Isaiah, John was also trying to paint a picture of a new kind of leader.  He wasn’t presenting some utopian future.  In fact, the way he describes Jesus sounds a little scary. But he knew this leader would be led by the Spirit and would change people--- change the world.  John clearly still had the ability to dream and imagine.  He knew that whatever was going at that time wasn’t right. Too many people were suffering.  So he dreamed of another world.  I think it’s why he dragged people into the wilderness.  He wanted them to get away from their everyday lives, force them to see things from a different perspective. 

            As we age, it’s hard to keep dreaming, but there are moments when the blinders slide a little and we dream again.  Often it’s when we are with babies and children.  Children allow us to hope like we once did. They make us see new possibilities.  They also challenge us to make changes.  I never cared as much about the environment as I did after I became a mother.  Because the more I imagined his future, the more I realized that he was going to be on this earth a lot longer than me and the things I do now can have a major effect on him in 50 years. Children can remind us that there is a future worth fighting for, a future that can and should be better than what we have now.

So it is fitting that we have a baptism today.  Because baptism reminds us not only of the wonder and innocence of babies and children, but also about the renewal that is available to us all. That is why we do the baptismal covenant.  We want to remember who we can be as children of God.

            I want to give you all some homework. I want you to take some time to daydream, to remember what you hoped for as a child and also try to consider what you truly hope for now.  What is God’s dream for you?  Don’t be realistic. Don’t be reasonable.  Don’t try to create a smart goal.  Be like Isaiah.  Be like John.  Just open yourself to God’s dream and then take one step, any step, in the direction of that dream.  If an old stump can grow a new tree…if Jesus Christ can rise from the dead, then surely we can remember how to dream again. 

 

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[1]  https://www.davidlose.net/2016/11/advent-2-a-reclaiming-repentance/

God's Dream for Us: August 16, 2015

Year B, Pentecost 12                                                             
1 King 2:10-12, 3:3-14                                                                                  

            A couple years ago I came across a journal entry from college.  It said, “I have figured out the Trinity.”   The Trinity….one of the greatest mysteries of the Christian faith.  Brilliant theologians and scholars have been debating this doctrine for millennia and I had it figured out before I graduated college. Apparently I had just read a book that explained it clearly and I thought, “Well there it is.  I am glad I have that behind me.”   I think about that journal entry whenever I am teaching or preaching about the Trinity.  I wish I had the same assurance now as I did then.  Yet it would seem, like so much in life, the more I think about it, the trickier it gets.

            I imagine that most of us can think back on things that we were pretty sure about at one point in our lives; but our opinions shifted over time.  That’s what growth is, the ability to learn new things and even adjust our perspective.  Our perspectives evolve in a variety of ways, but part of the way they evolve is through our interactions with other people.  We learn from one another.

 King Solomon is often described as wise.  This wisdom is often attributed to a dream that he had when he was about 12 or 14 and a newly appointed king.  His father (King David) had just died and he was the heir.  One night he had a dream and in that dream God appeared to him.   In the dream God said, “Ask what I should give you.”   Think about that for a moment.  If God came to you and told you to ask for something, what would you ask for?  My guess is that we all have some ideas that spring to mind pretty quickly.  We might ask for the perfect job, for health for ourselves or our family, financial stability, or if we are more ambitious, perhaps an end to world hunger. 

Solomon could have asked for anything. He started by telling God of the steadfast love that God had shown to his father David.  He then prefaced his question by saying, “You know I am pretty young and I am not sure what I am doing.”  Because of that, he asked for, “an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil; for who can govern your great people.”  Obviously, God was pleased with this request.  It proved that young Solomon was already wise beyond his years because he knew what his limitations were.  In addition to that he knew how important God’s people were and that his responsibility was to take care of them.  This also indicated that Solomon was humble and willing to learn. 

God was so pleased by what he asked for that he decided to give the king not only what he asked for, but what he did not ask for.   He would give him a wise and discerning mind as well as riches and honor.  God ended by saying, “If you will walk in my ways, keeping my statutes and my commandments, then I will lengthen your life.”  All Solomon had to do was follow a few rules and commandments and walk in the ways of God. This should not have been a problem because he had been given a discerning mind so that he would always know the difference between good and evil.  That was God’s dream for this new king, that he would be a great king, a wise king, and a merciful king.

            But here’s the thing about most dreams.  They only last until we wake up.  Then reality sets in and God seems further than he was that night.  There are temptations, especially for Solomon.  Do you know that he had 700 wives and 300 concubines?  He had power.  He had money.  He had a divine mandate.  While he continued to display wisdom, he lacked humility. He forgot about the dream, or more likely the dream was manipulated by his own desires.  In the dream he asked for an understanding mind.  Another translation of an understanding mind is a listening heart.  A person with a listening heart is someone who will be attentive to the needs of those around them, a person willing to acknowledge that maybe they are not the smartest person in the room.  And even if they are the smartest person, that does not make them right.

            In the dream, Solomon asked for this gift and received it.  But his heart did not remain open and his mind stopped understanding.  He became selfish.  God’s dream was replaced by his dream.   He didn’t listen to the people.  He used them as slave labor.  He is known for building a magnificent temple, but it was built on the backs of abused people.  King Solomon treated people the same way that the Pharaoh had treated the enslaved Hebrew people.  The story of Exodus tells us that Pharaoh had a hard heart.  While Solomon surely knew these stories, he did not learn from them.  His heart became hardened.  The people were also taxed unfairly.   The burden was almost unbearable.  They began to resent him.  Soon after he died, there was a rebellion and the kingdom was split in half. 

            I am not saying that Solomon was an evil king.  He wasn’t. Much like his father he had both good qualities and bad ones.  This is true for us all.  Both King David and Solomon were given a huge responsibility by God.   God chose them to care for his people.   Their major sins were committed when they forgot about the needs of the people…when their success demanded that other people suffer.  God has a dream for each one of us. First, we need enough wisdom to allow ourselves to dream.  Then after we have discovered God’s dream for us, we cannot let it go. We have to hold on tight in our waking hours as well as our dreaming ones.  We also must be vigilant and make sure that God’s dream for us is not manipulated by our own desires.  We have to remember that God has a dream for all of us.

        If the only way to achieve our dream is to lay waste the dream of another, then we will know that we have let pride and desire cloud God’s dream.  When that happens we have to become like a child—like young Solomon, allow our heart to be tender again, tender enough to experience God, tender enough to dream and believe that the dream can become our reality.   

Oct. 26, 2014: Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Shattered Dreams

Year A, Pentecost 20                                       

 

            In a sermon Martin Luther King said that “Life is a continual story of shattered dreams.”[1]  This was not the “I have a dream” speech that he gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.  This line came from a sermon that he gave 5 years later, 15 years after he had taken a leadership role in the civil rights movement.   The Biblical text he was preaching on was about King David and his dream of building a great temple.  God did not want King David to build a temple and so it did not happen.  While King David had many accomplishments in his life, this was one thing that remained unfinished, a dream that was never realized, at least not in his lifetime.

            Our Old Testament reading for today is not about King David.  This story comes before David.   It is another great leader of the Jewish faith and the Christian faith as well, Moses.  We have been hearing about Moses for several weeks now in our lectionary readings but we have only touched briefly on his life.  We’ve had glimpses of it in our readings.  We heard about the time when Moses was first called by God with a blaze of fire…a burning bush.  From the bush God called to Moses and asked him to lead his people out of Egypt.  He promised that the people would be led to a land flowing with milk and honey, a land that had been promised to them for generations. 

            Moses was not particularly excited about this assignment, but God promised that he would be with him the whole way, that he would lead him.  So Moses did as he was asked…he led the people out of Egypt.  It was not an easy escape.  There were plagues. There were armies.  There was a wall of water that they had to pass through.  Yet even with all of that accomplished, there was no immediate entrance into land of milk and honey.  Instead, the Israelites found themselves wandering in the desert.  They faced starvation and insurrection.  Moses dealt with their complaints.  In the midst of the trials, he also had moments of joy and fulfillment.  He witnessed God’s glory and received the Ten Commandments.   But he was challenged again and again by very strong willed and frustrated people.  He complained to God and was bitter at times.  His sister died.  His brother died.  An entire generation passed as he led the people on a journey that felt more like a maze.  But finally the end was near.  They could see the Promised Land.  Yet for Moses, it would remain slightly out of reach. 

            God told him as he stood on the mountain top, “I will give it to your descendants; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.”  This was not the first time God has told Moses that he would not reach the Promised Land.  God had warned him and even gave him a reason. Yet the reason was murky…so murky that people have been debating it ever since. It was a small thing, perhaps an act of disobedience or even a brief moment where he lacked faith. 

It is strange that one small act would outweigh all of the wonderful things that Moses had done; the sacrifices he made, the close relationship that he had with God.  It has been a mystery for centuries why God would lead him to this place, show him this dream, but not even give him a moment in that land that he had been searching for—for over 40 years. 

“Life is a continual story of shattered dreams.”  There have been many people, great people---Godly people who have accomplished amazing things but died before they could see the fruits of their labor:  Abraham Lincoln, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Kennedy,  Martin Luther King, Gandhi…just to name a few.  Their deaths are tragic and heart breaking.  But their lives are inspiring stories.  What makes these stories inspiring is that while their lives were cut short, their vision lived on. Those dreams that seemed shattered were resurrected by people who followed them…perhaps not completely resurrected, but new life was breathed into them.

Most of us might struggle to identify with these great saints.  Our dreams might be on a smaller scale.  Yet each person here has seen a dream that was shattered in some way.  And we could let those shattered hopes and dreams break us, leaving us battered and beaten.  Or we could take these pieces… pieces of our shattered dreams or even those dreams of people who came before and we can build something new. 

When Martin Luther King spoke of shattered dreams, he was talking about King David and his own experience as well.  While today’s reading is not the story of King David, Moses did pave the way for King David.  He brought the people to the Promised Land, the land that King David would one day rule.  Without his sacrifice and his obedience to God’s word, there would never have even been a dream of a temple.  It would not have even been in the realm of possibility.  One person’s shattered dream provided the pieces for another person’s temple…for God’s temple. 

During the celebration of communion, there is a point where the priest holds up the host and says, “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”  Then the priest breaks the host.  That breaking of the host is meant to remind us of Christ broken on the cross.   It also reminds us of the way that we are broken.   After these words the priest breaks up the host even further so it is 24 pieces, pieces that are then distributed to you, the body of Christ.  We share in the brokenness of Christ and in some ways that makes Christ whole again because we have all shared in that as the body of Christ.  In those same ways, we can share the broken pieces of our lives with one another and with God.  That is one of the ways that we can find wholeness.

Moses might have never reached the Promised Land.  He did not feel the land under his feet, but he saw it with his own eyes, with God right beside him.  Not only that, but he knew that the people who he had led would experience that Promised Land.  Sometimes that is what faith is about.  It is about working with broken pieces---either our broken pieces or ones that other people have given up on.  It is about placing our hopes in things that we may never see.  But the important thing is that we never stop trying. Moses was told that he would never reach the Promised Land, but he never stopped walking and frankly, I don’t think he ever stopped hoping.   

When he died, God buried him.  The English just says that he was buried, but there was only one person (one being) with him on the mountain. God.  While it might seem as though God punished him, the truth is that he was with him to the very end…even at death.  Just try to picture that in your head, the Almighty God digging in the dirt and then with great care placing the body of Moses in the ground.   That is how God cares for each of us.  In turn he asks us to never give up…to take those broken pieces and build them into something new, something beautiful. 

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[1] http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/kingpapers/article/unfulfilled_dreams/