A Time to Dream

“A Time to Dream”, A Sermon preached by The Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday, December 11, 2011 at NPEM, New York

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. (Psalm 126)

“The dreamers are the saviors of the world.” So writes spiritual author James Allen in his book entitled, As A Man Thinketh. Dreaming is Advent work. As we prepare for the coming of God into our hearts, as we prepare in the wilderness a highway for our God we are invited to dream, to reach for the stars, to envision a whole new world, a new creation. This is after all, what the biblical writers are talking about when they talk of the second coming of Christ. This is what the waiting and expectation of Advent is all about.

Dreams are funny things. Fantastic and uncontrolled, often weird, always uninhibited, dreams carry a power many of us would like to discount if only we could. The Bible consistently maintains that God speaks to humans through their dreams, and the insights of depth psychology, particularly Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung confirm that dreams connect human beings with a dimension and realm of reality with which we are often out of touch in our waking lives. Carl Jung believes that when we dream, many of the images that come to us are part of what he called the collective unconscious, that is, they come not only from our own personal life experiences, but actually originate in the collective memory and experience of all of humanity. Archetype is his word for the fundamental images that speak to all human beings throughout history and that actually connect humans to the divine realm. There are a number of archetypal images that appear in human dreams and a Jungian analysis of a dream would include reference to those archetypes and what they mean, not only for the individual but for the individual in his or her social context. The spiritual realm where God resides becomes available to us when we dream, when our unconscious is able to tap into the stream of energy flowing from God without the filter of our conscious inhibitions and fears.

Then there are those waking dreams, those flights of imagination and creativity that have spurred humankind on, that have led peoples and civilizations into new and exciting futures. Where would the world be without the dreamers? Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, the Wright brothers, Beethoven, Mozart, Michaelangelo…all the composers, sculptors, poets, prophets, sages, scientists, politicians throughout history whose genius and creativity turned the world around. James Allen describes these people as “the architects of heaven, the makers of the after-world. The world is beautiful because they have lived; without them laboring humanity would perish.”

The prophet Isaiah was a dreamer of this sort. In Isaiah 61 he speaks to a people returning from exile, a people returning to a home that has been ravaged and destroyed, that is in ruins. The Israelites returned to Jerusalem after their exile in Babylon but their homes, their temple, their city had been destroyed. The prophet speaks words of vision to them, he paints a picture of a future in which their city will be rebuilt, their temple restored and the righteousness decreed in their covenant with Yahweh will be seen by all nations, for whom they will be a guiding light. To an oppressed people these were visions of hope and glory that must have been hard to believe, even though they were welcome pictures of what might be, of the future that could be theirs.

John the Baptist was another of these visionary dreamers who point the way to the future that God is making for God’s people. The author of John’s gospel tells us that he was sent to “testify to the light” – the light of God that was to come after him. His words were words not only of repentance, calling people to turn around and live their lives differently, but they were also words of hope. Dreamers always talk like that – they have hope even in the face of hopelessness and despair. I think of all those years that Nelson Mandela languished in prison, never losing sight of the dream that someday apartheid would end in South Africa. I think of all those rebuilding lives in the Joplin, Mississippi, or Japan or Turkey, after this year’s spate of natural disasters. Those who can see a future in the midst of rubble and destruction are the ones infused with the dreams of God. Today we are paying tribute to the first responders in our community – police, ambulance, firefighters, EMTs - those who rush to the scene of disaster and mayhem and immediately begin to live the dream that out of the pain and chaos of accident, crime, disease or disaster, new life and new creation can indeed emerge. First responders are their own special kind of dreamers without whom our communities could not weather the travails of human life.

Those who dream dreams are those who cling to hope, even when the facts before them suggest that their hope is futile. Those who dream dreams are willing to try something new, to take risks, to experiment and be unconventional. They are willing to be ridiculed and laughed at, derided and put down, because they are tuned into a different frequency from the rest of the world –they are tuned into what God is doing to make the new creation that God so wants for the world and so they act accordingly. Without the dreamers, humankind would still be living in caves.

In our world today we desperately need dreamers. We need those who are willing to say that violence and war are not the answer to aggression and terrorism, that preferencing the wealthy over the poor and the middle class is not the way to bolster the economy and put millions of unemployed back to work, those who say that all people in our nation are deserving of quality health care, education and safe neighborhoods. We need the dreamers to help us find environmentally sustainable ways to live on this earth. It is the dreamers of history who have always been especially attuned to the whispers of the Holy Spirit. The dreamers of the world are those who understand the old adage that declares insanity to be doing things the same way and expecting a different result.

Being one who dreams also means being someone who does not fall prey to cynicism. Jesus reminded us that to enter the kingdom of heaven one needs to approach it like a child. The childlike ability to be open to the twists and turns of imagination and fantasy is an important quality to nurture as part of a mature spirituality. The story we celebrate in two weeks is not a story of a God who cares much about how things have always been done. God is always calling us forward to new things, a new creation, a brighter vision.

Being a dreamer is important for all of us who are people of faith, even if we are not called to invent the next light bulb, or discover the cure for cancer, or find the secret to achieving peace in the Middle East and even when we don’t actually live in exile or find ourselves imprisoned. To live abundantly as Christ calls us to do requires that we be willing to dream. When we’re stuck in a rut, or weighed down by life’s travails, it is the ability to dream that will connect us with God and impel us into a brighter future. Whether we’re struggling to find a job in this tough economy, or trying to work through problems in a marriage or with a child, or fighting a chronic illness, it is the ability to envision a different future, a brighter future and to believe deep down in the reality of that dream that keeps us going and enables us to endure and thrive.

Dreaming is an important part of congregational life too. Vibrant and healthy churches are communities that dare to dream, to take risks, go out on a limb, to reach out to their world in new ways. Nothing that is alive and thriving fails to dream. Dreaming is crucial for staying connected with God, and with the ever moving Holy Spirit that enlivens us for doing God’s will in our world. The visions of the prophet Isaiah could only be achieved when the Israelites took hold of the dream and worked to make it a reality. We need the dreamers of the world to tell us their visions, and then we all need to jump at those visions and work to make them reality.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing…do not quench the spirit” writes Paul to the church of Thessalonica. He urges them to stay attuned to God’s spirit as that spirit informs and enlivens their daily lives. Do not quench the spirit. Those are good words to remember in this holy season as we approach the festive celebration of the birth of God into the world.

“To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to achieve….Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your Ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil. The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of reality.” (James Allen, As A Man Thinketh)

Dreams are the seedlings of reality. Advent is a time of waiting and a time for dreaming, a time for envisioning a new future that is within our grasp. As the psalmist says, “then were we like those who dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter and our tongues with shouts of joy.” In these last two weeks of Advent 2011 what dreams will we dream? What new reality will we envision for ourselves, our families, this church community and our nation as we enter a new year together? Advent is the season for dreamers, it is a time to dream. Between now and Christmas, on these long, cold winter nights, I wish you sweet dreams.

Amen.

Comfort in Exile

“Comfort in Exile,” a Sermon preached by The Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday, December 4, 2011 at St. John’s Church, Sodus, New York

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, her penalty is paid…(Isaiah 40:1-2)

4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.(Mark 1:4)

Finley Peter Dunne, American journalist and author of the early 20th century is credited with coining the phrase about journalism that it entails “comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.” Between the words of the Prophet Isaiah and the words of John the Baptist, our lectionary texts this week do a very good job of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Thanks to Handel’s Messiah, many Christians are familiar with the section of Isaiah’s text that we heard today. And every year on this Second Sunday of Advent we encounter wild and wooly John the Baptist, appearing in the wilderness offering his baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, clothed in camel’s hair and munching on his locusts and wild honey. During this Advent season of waiting and expectation, of longing for the coming of God’s reign in our world, we are offered the tender words of the prophet as a soothing reminder to God’s people that despite all the vagaries and travails of human life, “the word of our God stands forever.” They are words of hope and comfort to a world aching for the inbreaking of God. And we are exhorted by John the Baptist to re-order our life priorities in order to “prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”

It is a well known fact that many people find this holiday season emotionally and psychologically difficult. People who are living with serious illness, those who have lost loved ones in the past year or who continue to grieve a significant loss, those who are experiencing crises in their intimate relationships, those who suffer from addiction all find this season of forced merriment and celebration hard to take. In the tough economic times in which we live, those families enduring prolonged periods of unemployment face a season of overspending and consumerism that only serves to intensify their economic distress as they struggle to put food on the table and pay the rent while everyone and everything around them screams “spend, spend, spend!” CNN reported a poll this week which indicated that 35% of Americans dread the holiday season because they dislike the social imperative to have to be nice and cheerful for the entire month even when they don’t feel like it and most especially those for whom life is very difficult, sad or stressful.

In Advent, the prophet Isaiah sends us words of comfort and promise, words of hope. G.K. Chesterton once observed that words of hope mean little to those who have never known hopelessness and I imagine that is true. I wonder, however, if there is anyone alive who has not known hopelessness at some point in their life’s journey. We all have emotional aches, places of emptiness and loneliness, places of despair and desolation. Those places of emptiness and desolation become more pronounced in this season of short days and long nights, especially when they contrast so poignantly with the required merriment of the season. Isaiah’s words of hope and comfort, coupled with John the Baptist’s call to reorientation of our life priorities provide a welcome antidote to the false joy of our secular season.

If you’re fortunate enough to be in a place in your life where experiences of despair and emptiness are not paramount, just look at the daily news and you’ll get more than enough to send you there. Sex scandals breaking out at university sports departments and the Republican candidate races, the debt crisis fueling fears among investors and eroding trust in banks, violence erupting in Egypt as elections continue in that country that so recently saw a peaceful revolution, American Airlines goes into bankruptcy, British public workers stage a nation wide strike protesting cuts in pension benefits, the Occupy Wall Street movement continues in the wake of violent clashes with police in various cities, most significantly this week in Los Angeles. Unrest, un-ease, financial worries, polarized politics, violence and war, not to mention the aftermath all over the world from months of natural disasters –earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires that have devastated communities in our country and around the world in this calendar year. We go into this holiday season with more than enough trials and tribulations of human life to keep us grounded in clouds of worry and fear. And into the midst of this world, come the words of Isaiah and John the Baptist.

The prophet known as Second Isaiah was speaking to the ancient Israelites during the time of their exile in Babylon. They had been sent away to Babylon when the first temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and they spent forty years in exile, away from their homeland. Oddly enough, over the decades of exile, many of the exiled Israelites adapted to life in Babylon and were not eager to go back to Jerusalem when the opportunity arose, where they would have to rebuild their temple and their pre-exilic way of life. Some of them had grown comfortable in exile and the rigors of the journey home did not much appeal.

Being comfortable in exile. An interesting paradox. On the one hand the prophet utters words of soothing comfort, and yet at the same time calls the people out of the comfort of their exile into the challenges of going home to Jerusalem, the holy city where they had known God. Jerusalem is a metaphor for that holy place where the reign of God is realized. In Advent we await the coming of God into our world. In a sense we too are called on a journey home, home to the heart of God. Journeying home to the heart of God may or may not be a comfortable trip. At least comfort in the sense of familiarity and ease and predictability. Just look at the imagery Isaiah uses. Valleys being lifted up and mountains brought down does not suggest that the journey will be a stroll. The breath of God withering the grass is also not particularly calming imagery. And yet, the prophet promises that God will “gather the lambs in his arms and carry them at his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.”

Advent is a season for we who have become too comfortable in exile to reconsider the promises of our God and muster up the hope required to live as if those promises will be fulfilled. The secular culture in which we live is a place of exile for many of us. As we live through this month of conspicuous consumerism, we know that something is awry. Despite the slick ads on television and the internet, new gadgets and do-dads will not bring the joy and happiness that the gospel of consumerism promises. Yet it is easy to fall prey to the frenzy of the season, to get sucked into the mass marketing blitz and lose touch with promise and hope of Advent.

The prophets Isaiah and John the Baptist call out in the wilderness of our modern lives, reminding us that so long as we remain captive to the values of materialism, success and greed we are in exile. The comforts we take for granted are false comforts, as fleeting as that grass that withers, something many of our brothers and sisters in Joplin, Mississippi, and Turkey, Texas and Japan learned the hard way this year. Going home to God, to the holy city Jerusalem takes us from exile into the promised land. As John the Baptist reminds us, we cannot do that without turning around, turning away from the temptations of our secular culture and back to the covenant with God. Those early Judeans went out to John the Baptist in the wilderness and got immersed in the waters of the Jordan as the first step back to a life lived with and for God.

It’s no wonder that so many people feel depressed during this season. In many ways that is a healthy reaction to the denial that our secular culture shoves down our throats every December. Advent makes much more emotional sense and is more true to human experience. We long for deliverance from war and violence, from poverty and social injustice, from addictions, debt, illness and loneliness. We long for God to come into our world and the only way to help that happen is for us to leave the comfort of our exile and be the hands of God in this world. Our God is a God of comfort. God comforts us in the dark nights of our prayer and in the ear of a friend over coffee. God comforts us in the hand held at the deathbed and the chicken soup delivered when the flu hits. God comforts the victims of disasters in the money sent for relief, the relief workers who rush to bring immediate help and the people dedicated to long term rebuilding.

This Advent, there are many exiles in the world in need of comfort. Relief agencies and charities of all kinds cry out for donations and contributions as the calendar year comes to a close. “Alternative gift catalogues” are widely available, offering us the opportunity to spend our holiday money giving food, animals, microloans, medical and educational tools to people all over the world who live in poverty. I visited Thailand, Laos and Cambodia this past summer and saw firsthand how far the American dollar can go in these developing countries where the things we take for granted here – running water, electricity, public education, quality medical and dental care – are beyond the reach of thousands of people in remote villages mired in poverty. In the midst of the holiday spending orgy, those of us who honor Advent can make a point of making additional donations to organizations that bring comfort to those in need.

Comfort, comfort ye my people says your God. In this season of preparation and waiting, expectation and hope let us live Advent in all its haunting beauty. Let us bring comfort to those we live and work with as we seek comfort in the arms of our loving God. Advent is about hope in the face of despair, light breaking into winter darkness, joy returning to lives marked by sorrow and grief. It is about leaving even the comfort of exile to make our way to God’s promised land. It is about the journey from exile across the desert on a highway paved by God. Advent is one of the most precious gifts we have in this season of gift giving. Let us live into it with gratitude.

Amen.