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.