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What
if I told you that after I went to sleep New Year's Night, after welcoming in
2004, I had a very vivid dream? And in this dream I saw very clearly a vision,
if that is what it can be called, a vision that told me to pack my bags, call a
mover, and make all the other arrangements necessary to move to Okay,
that was my dream. Now what do you think – both about the dream and about the
dreamer? Well, I am not going to give you the opportunity to answer that
question. I will answer it for you. If someone told me what I just told you, I
would think that he was lying to me or that he had had too much to drink while
bringing in the New Year or that he was crazy -- especially if he actually
started packing his bags when he arose the next morning. I
trust that you don't think I am crazy. And you know that I don't drink. So I
must not be telling you the truth about my dream. Before I tell you the truth,
stop and ponder for a moment what Mary must have thought when Joseph woke her up
in the middle of the night and told her about his dream. "We're
going where, Joseph? Or
something like that. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? It is crazy. But the salvation
of the world depended upon people listening to what they heard and saw in their
dreams and responding accordingly. Elizabeth and Zachary listened to an angel
and believed -- and became the parents of John the Baptist. Mary listened to a
dream and believed and consented to become the Mother of God. Joseph listened to
a dream and took Mary, an unwed mother-to-be to be his wife. Joseph listened
again to a dream and took the mother and child to One
day in 1917 an Austrian soldier of the Bavarian infantry was sleeping in a
shelter on a battlefield in World War I. He suddenly awoke from a dream in which
he had been buried beneath an avalanche of earth and molten iron, and had felt
blood flowing from his chest. He was actually lying unharmed in his shelter in a
trench not far from the French army. All was quiet. Nevertheless
his dream worried him. He left the shelter, stepped over the parapet of the
trench, and advanced into no man's land between the armies. A part of his mind
told him that he was being stupid, that he was in danger of being hit by a stray
bullet or by shrapnel; but he continued like a sleepwalker. A
sudden burst of fire, followed by a loud explosion nearby, made him fall to the
ground. He decided that he would be safer in the shelter than in the open
country, so he hurried back. But the shelter was no longer there. In its place
was an immense crater. Everyone in that shelter had been killed. The soldier who
had that dream, who left that shelter, who returned to find all his comrades
dead was Adolph Hitler. From that moment on Hitler believed that a great destiny
awaited him. Joseph
and Hitler, dreamers both. Both responded to their dreams with quite opposite
results. Joseph followed his dream and saved Jesus who, through His death and
resurrection, has saved us. Adolph Hitler also followed his dream, or what he
believed to be his manifest destiny, and brought forth World War II and the
Holocaust. The
Bible, of course, is filled with dreamers. Joseph dreamed that his olderer
brothers would serve him, and his dream came true. Daniel had dreams and
interpreted dreams and was saved from the den of lions. Peter the Apostle had a
dream about a sheet descending from heaven filled with all kinds of animals. He
listened to that dream and Christianity was opened to us, to Gentiles and well
as Jews. We
all have dreams no less real than Joseph's, no less real than Daniel's and
Peter's. As a young boy I saw great athletes on television, went to old Forbes
Field in Those
dreams that we have, whether they come to us in the middle of the night or come
to us while we are idling our time away lying on the beach or day dreaming over
a homework assignment or while washing dishes and folding clothes -- those
dreams can be the driving forces of our lives or they can be mere idle day
dreams. For
dreams are like faith. They must be worked on and worked at to become real.
Blind faith and blind dreams both can, and often do lead to disaster. Consider
Adolph Hitler, Yet, they also often turn out well with spectacular results.
Consider Martin Luther King. This
year is an Olympic Year. The athletes who will be competing have been dreaming
for years not only about competing, but also about winning a gold medal. They
have practiced, and will continue to do so, until they drop --day after day --in
order to make their dreams come true. The
beginning of a new year is the time to dream dreams. In many ways that is what
New Year's resolutions are all about. When we resolve to do or be better this
year, we dream of what it would be like to weigh forty pounds less, be in shape,
get that job we want, be accepted by that college -- whatever. But for any dream
to become a reality, for any resolution to be fulfilled, we have to work at it. And
as with all dreams, when we tell them to someone else, we are likely to be
called crazy, drunk, a liar, all of the above or a combination of them. But if
we never dream, if we only live in practicalities, where would we be. It was
impractical for Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt. They would be foreigners
in a foreign land. It was silly to go to Nazareth when they finally returned
from Egypt. They should have gone to Galilee instead. That's where their family
lived. But as impractical and as silly as it was, look at the results. Sometimes
it is foolish for you and me to believe, to think, to dream. But without dreams,
we perish -- as a person, as a people, as a parish.
No, I did not dream about San Diego. But if I do, I just might check it
out. No, I’m already living a dream come true right here with you. But dreams
cannot come true if we do nothing about them. What
dreams do you have today – for yourself, for this city, this country, for
Christ Church? Through faith in God and through faith in ourselves and with a
lot of hard work, those dreams can come true. But without faith and without
work, dreams remain only dreams. But first we must dare to dream. |
