Dreams and Visions

July 27, 2008

1 Kings 3:5-12; Matt. 13:31-33

So I had this strange dream one night last week: we had moved to Kansas.

I have no idea where that came from, except perhaps the Benadryl I had taken before I went to sleep.

I mean really, Kansas? I’ve only been to Kansas once in my life. I don’t know anybody who lives there. As far as I know, it really is all black and white, just like in the Wizard of Oz. I have no clue why I dreamed that we’d moved to Kansas.

But I do know this: the dream was so realistic that when I woke up I sat straight up in bed and looked around the room to see where I was. I breathed a deep sigh of relief to discover that I was still in Arlington!

Dreams are funny things. I heard a basketball coach once asked after a big upset if ever in his wildest dreams he thought his team would win. He responded, “my wildest dreams are not about basketball.”

Scripture is full of dreams and visions, and sometimes the Bible seems more accessible to a Freudian than to a theologian.

It’s like the woman who woke up on Valentine’s Day and told her husband that she’d dreamed he got her a fabulous diamond necklace. “What do you think it means?” she asked him.

“You’ll find out tonight,” he said mysteriously.

So that evening he hands her a gift-wrapped package that she tears open with great expectation, and discovers a book called The Meaning of Dreams.

As the Rolling Stones put it, “you don’t always get what you want.”

Sometimes, in the matter of dreams and visions, it’s a question of where you look for the meaning. Like the Sunday School teacher who couldn’t get the supply cupboard opened because she didn’t have the combination to its lock. She went and found the pastor who took the lock in her hands, gazed heavenward for a moment and then confidently twirled the tumbler around a couple of times and the lock sprang open. Seeing the amazed look on the teacher’s face, the pastor simply said, “the combination is written on the ceiling.”

“If you try, sometimes, you get what you need.”

Perhaps that’s the great surprise in the story of Solomon. Imagine if God came to you in a dream and said, “tell me what you want and I will give it to you.”

Put yourself in Solomon’s place: what would you ask for? What would be your wildest dream? What would be your vision?

A home in Kansas? A great victory? A diamond necklace? The key to every lock?

Obviously, this is a story-telling trope that has been used in many cultures, and is used by the writer of Kings to great effect in explaining the wisdom of Solomon. Only here, instead of a genie with three wishes, it’s God, and Solomon is wise enough to know the difference.

Indeed, his very choice reveals his deepest gift: wisdom to discern the call of God to a life of faithful service.

Solomon does not choose a life of ease and comfort; he is worldly enough to know that’s not how life works for most folks and, moreover, he is wise enough to know that’s not how a life of faithfulness works for anyone. Faithful life is not comfortable, it is not predictable, it is not easy.

The great heresy of so much of what passes for Christianity in the United States these days lies precisely in the promise of ease and comfort and best lives now.

Paul, in the familiar lectionary passage we did not read this morning, asks what can separate us from the love of God that we know in Christ Jesus. His answer, “nothing, nothing at all – neither height nor depth, nor even death itself.” We read that passage from Romans with great comfort, as we should. But we ought also note as we read it that Paul takes for granted the suffering of the present moment as being part and parcel of a faithful life.

Christianity is not about my best life now or your best life now, it is about a relationship with God that draws us into and points us toward the kingdom of God.

Jesus came preaching the kingdom of God, the gospels tell us, and what a strange kingdom … what strange preaching. “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed …”

I’m pretty certain that if Jesus had grown up in the part of the world where I grew up he would have said, instead, “the kingdom of God is like kudzu! It doesn’t necessarily come from around here, and it’s a bit hard to figure out exactly what it is for, but it spreads like crazy and pretty soon it’s going to cover everything!”

Jesus understood that this kingdom talk was difficult, so he continuously added metaphors and parables to help folks grasp the meaning of a way of living that pointed beyond the typical dreams and visions that folks had about lives of wealth and power, of diamonds and victories, of kings and kingdoms.

“The kingdom of God is like yeast.” I always get a rise out of that image. Sorry. But, in a sense, that is what Jesus wanted folks to grasp. There is a rising up that comes with the kingdom. The lowly, those who have been trampled down, the oppressed will be lifted up and empowered.

The kingdom is like that. It doesn’t make much sense on the terms with which we are familiar. So much so that Jesus says it’s like the merchant who sells everything to buy one fine pearl. You can say, “well that must have been one nice pearl,” and you’d be right. But it’s also one lousy business investment practice. If the pearl market crashes, then what?

But the economy of the kingdom does not crash, and it is not measured according to our merit, our accomplishments, our bank accounts but rather according to the love and mercy of God which are beyond measure.

Thus Jesus can say, “the kingdom is like a net cast into the sea.” It catches everything, including you and me.

This is the vision that Jesus casts and that he invites his followers to live into. A commonwealth unlike any they – or we – have ever fully experienced.

To be sure, Jesus also said that the kingdom is among us; right here as close as our very breath. We have touched it in part, but it also dances out ahead of us as a vision that beckons, that calls us always forward toward fulfillment that is to come. We are called to recast that vision, to reimagine it for our time. For where there is no vision, the people perish. If we fail to dream, then what do we have to live into?

Last Sunday evening down at Lafayette Park, my friend Noah sang what I’ve long considered a kind of hoary old folk song: Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream.

Last night I had the strangest dream

I'd ever dreamed before

I dreamed the world had all agreed

To put an end to war[1]

As Noah sang, a crowd of tourists gathered to watch and listen to this small band of folks gathered there in front of the White House offering a prayer for peace. I don’t know what they thought. Some may have thought, “bunch of naïve fools,” others may have thought, “nice voice,” still others may have thought, “right on,” and some may have thought, “cool, protesters, now my DC tourist experience is complete.”

To a great extent, it does not matter what others think of the dream and visions that we give voice to here. God calls us to witness to a vision of a commonwealth of belovedness marked by compassion, justice and peace. God calls us to dream kingdom dreams.

Last week I was looking through some old building plans for this church and I came across a proposal to expand this sanctuary. It was a grand vision that included transepts and chapel space and large new entry way and narthex. That vision will never be realized, but I am happy to stand in the same path as the dreamers who came before us here. Their dreams are still being realized through us, even if not exactly according to the plans they drew up. It is good to know that there have always been visions here for they pull us into the future – the future of God’s imagining that we try to catch glimpses of in our own dreams and visions.

What dreams and visions has God put before you, and what plan are you making in response?

Whether or not all goes according to our plans, may we together, as a foretaste of the kingdom, live into the dreams and visions that God puts before us here. Amen.

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[1][1] Ed McCurdy. TRO-©1950,1951 & 1955 Almanac Music, Inc.

New York, N.Y. Copyrights renewed.

God and Country

July 6, 2008

I saw purple mountains once. I will never forget it. We were driving up Interstate 81 through the Shanandoah Valley at dusk on an early spring evening, and the fading sunlight hit the mountains just right and they were deep purple.
So I can truly say, I have seen purple mountains majesty. I’ve seen the amber waves of grain, too, on drives across the Illinois prairie. I have seen the prodigious spires of the Colorado Rockies, and I have looked into the vast depths and stark beauty of the Grand Canyon. I have hiked a mountain in Maine and stood on its bald peak and pondered the beauty of northern forests. I have dipped my toes in the waters to two oceans and strolled lonely beaches at sunset.
I have walked across the Golden Gate Bridge and marveled at the audacity of those who built it, and I have stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and marveled at the audacity of the timeless dream that Martin Luther King articulated on that spot. I have climbed the steps of the Statue of Liberty on the 4th of July, and marveled at the audacity of liberty itself, and of this country conceived in that liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all of us are created equal.
I have seen America, and I love her dearly.
I have also seen mountains in Eastern Kentucky stripped of their peaks, standing naked against the sky, opened like some sprawling tin can so mining companies in distant cities can take the coal and leave not much behind but mountains moved and wealth removed.
I have seen the people in the hollows in the shadows of those stripped mountains, with their satellite dishes pointed toward distant dreams, struggling to make ends meet in an economy that has left them behind without a second thought.
I have seen the children playing in open fire hydrants in the July heat of Chicago’s West Side, blissfully ignorant of the social and economic and political forces that have conspired to leave them with inadequate housing, “underperforming” schools and crime-ridden streets.
I have seen the homeless on the front porches of Manhattan churches – dirty, disheveled, dispirited seeking sanctuary at the doors to the sanctuary.
I have seen the highways crisscrossing the land, jammed with July vacationers and heard in my mind Jack Kerouac’s line: “all that road going, all the people dreaming.”
I have seen America. And I love her dearly.
I have seen faithful people trying to make a difference in all of these places: an orthopedic surgeon relocating his practice to an Appalachian clinic; successful business people working to create opportunities in the inner city of Cleveland; teenagers hammering in the hills and in the cities to help where they can with what they’ve got to give; I have stood with the demonstrators joining in the spiritual discipline of political action saying “no” to war, saying “no” to unjust economic practices, and saying “yes” to equal rights and equal access to the wealth of this nation. I have marched with the crowds protesting war, calling for justice and shouting “this is what democracy looks like.” I have walked with faithful people holding audacious hope for the future in spite of the evidence of the present time, and danced with joy with them as the evidence itself changed and we marveled that God might, indeed, be doing a new thing in this country.
I have seen America. And I love her dearly.
I have heard New Yorkers curse as Greg Maddux hurled a shutout in Yankee Stadium. I have heard the crowd explode as Michael Jordan amazed the old Chicago Stadium. I have heard Bob Dylan sing Blowin in the Wind, and I’ve heard the Cleveland Symphony under the baton of John Williams playing the theme from Star Wars as lightning cracked around us and the heavens themselves echoed applause – I kid you not. And I have heard homeless men singing in a church choir, and heard, too, the cry of forgotten children.
I have heard America. And I love her dearly.
Many times, I have played pickup basketball in the crowded parks along the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago. I’ve played capture the flag with middle schoolers running around under a Kentucky moon. I’ve jumped off a cliff into a lake in West Virginia as my youth group looked on and said, “well, if David’s gonna jump, I’m gonna jump, too.” And they did – into cold, clear water that was like a joyous baptismal font. And no matter that I was run out of town by the leaders of the church whose young people jumped off a cliff after me – I see signs all around that our nation is moving, too slowly but moving still, to ever broader understandings of who is included when we say “all men are created equal”; and our church is moving as well, all too slowly, but still moving, to ever broader understanding of who is included when we say that God calls “women and men to all ministries of the church.” More and more, all means all – regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation or any other distinction all are created equal and all are called to serve. I see this, and I believe that God is doing a new thing.
I have worshipped across this country: sitting in silence in a Quaker meeting in Sante Fe; praying at a Temple service in Kentucky; receiving communion – against the Pope’s wishes – at a Roman Catholic wedding service in Chicago; I have sung praises to our God with teenagers on a mountain top in Colorado and on a rooftop in Manhattan; I have sung with my Jewish brothers and sisters; prayed with Imams; and worshipped with several thousand of my closest Presbyterian friends. I have barely tasted the rich religious diversity of this nation, but it makes me think that God might just be doing a new thing in this country.
I have seen and heard and felt and tasted and prayed with and for America. And I love her dearly.
It does not strike me as wrong, as inappropriate, as unfaithful to my calling to be a voice of progressive Christian faith to say, also, that I love my country.
If you drive past our house this week, you will see the American flag flying out front. I went right out and bought it after I heard that conservatives, in their voter registration and get out the vote drives target houses flying American flags because they have decided that only conservatives display the flag. I figure if nothing else, I’ll confuse them!
Since when, I want to know, do conservatives have a corner on patriotism, on love of country? Since when, I want to know, can only conservatives sing O Beautiful for Spacious Skies? Since when, I want to know, can only conservatives pause, this time of year, and speak of God and country?
I am not here to sing a naïve love song to this country. I will continue deep and profound criticism of her present leadership and its direction, of her militarism, her unjust economic practices at home and abroad, her willed-ignorance of international affairs and her abiding racism, sexism and homophobia. Indeed, true patriotism must always arise in the tension between the nation’s founding ideas and its present reality. True patriotism is a lover’s quarrel.
As William Sloan Coffin put it,
How do you love America? Don’t say, “My country, right or wrong.” That’s like saying, “My grandmother, drunk or sober”; it doesn’t get you anywhere. Don’t just salute the flag, and don’t burn it either. Wash it. Make it clean.
How do you love America? With the vision and compassion of Christ, with a transcendent ethic that alone can fulfill “the patriot’s dream that sees beyond the years, her alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears.”
You see, the signal theological insight that we progressive people of faith can give to the nation is both simple and profound – and it strikes me as quintessentially American, too. It’s captured in a passage from Isaiah: “God is about to do a new thing! Behold! Can you not see it?”
Sure, we sing the songs of this nation this week, because that’s what we do on her birthday. But we sing them knowing that the God we worship is not America’s God, but rather the God who spins the whirling planets and holds all of creation – all nations and all peoples – in loving hands.
So I’ll sing the old national songs with gusto this week – because I’ve heard Arlo Guthrie sing This Land is Your Land; I’ve heard Aaron Copland conduct the National Symphony on the steps of the Capitol; and I’ve heard the Beach Boys sing California Girls in the shadow of the Washington Monument on the 4th of July – and all of that incredible mix of music rises like of hymn and fills my heart.
Indeed, when we pause to give thanks for the incredible richness that we enjoy in this nation, how can we keep from singing?

Holy Leisure, Radical Welcome

June 29, 2008

I want to begin with two readings: first the words from Matthew’s gospel.

Then these words from Rose Berger, a poet and activist who writes for Sojourners:

Holy leisure and radical hospitality are necessary components for surviving the vicissitudes of empire. This combination is not merely a social grace—it can be a matter of life and death. When imperial structures shift they disrupt, displace, and dehumanize many people. Empires make refugees and nomads of all but the most powerful. In this context, I remember the Bedouin honorific: "He is one who makes coffee day and night." Or that first century itinerant rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, still wet with resurrection, who said, "Come. Have breakfast."[1]

As I read the words from Matthew, I thought back to a mid-winter day when I was in the fifth grade at Normal Park Elementary School in Chattanooga. It started snowing early that morning and as I sat in Miss Stewart’s classroom, the whole class was staring out the window watching snow fall and hoping we’d get sent home early. Our hopes were, in fact, realized, as the snow reached the Chattanooga blizzard threshold of, oh, about two inches, and sometime around noon we were sent home.

Home was about two miles from school, but my best friend’s house was on the way, so Paul and I set out for his house dragging my second-grade brother Tim along with us. The dragging turned from metaphorical to literal somewhere along the line when Tim lost a shoe in the snow, and by the time we made it to Paul’s house we were a cold trio and Tim was pretty miserable.

I will never forget Paul’s mom welcoming us into the house, fixing hot chocolate and drawing a warm bath to plop Tim in. He was still splashing around when my mother came to pick us up – called at work, no doubt, by Paul’s mom.

She was, for me, the epitome of gracious, southern charm. She knew hospitality.

Years later, when I brought Cheryl home from college for one of the first times on a spring break, we stopped by to see Paul. His mom greeted us at the door and immediately reached out to the blooming magnolia next to their porch, picked a bloom and set it in Cheryl’s hair.

She had a way of making everyone feel instantly welcome and at home, but lest you think she was some perfectly genteel but empty-headed light weight, you should also know that she welcomed, hosted and facilitated a great many political gatherings in that same home as she and her husband, rector of the largest Episcopal congregation in town, helped steer Chattanooga’s schools through desegregation and the city through the Civil Rights era with oft-tested yet still authentic civility.

I suppose you might call her a steel magnolia, but, in truth, she was simply a woman of abiding faith, who expressed that trust in the gospel through the practice of hospitality that welcomed folks from every walk of life through her doors and made each of us – from the cold and weary child to the African-American activist to the politically connected and powerful – each of us feel welcome. And that welcome created space for leisurely conversations that, over time, altered vast social structures and relationships in Chattanooga.

“Holy leisure and radical hospitality are necessary components for surviving the vicissitudes of empire.”

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes me.”

In a time of empire, as Jesus so clearly understood, there is an urgent need for welcome. In Jesus’ time there was a great deal of social dislocation as economic power and prosperity increasingly concentrated on Rome and its imperial outposts. These days we see all kinds of folks uprooted as a result of various aspects of the projection of American power. There are, of course, positive and negative aspects to such patterns, but whatever one makes of the issues that can be read through this lens, several things are abundantly clear:

· when home becomes unsustainable then it’s time to move home;

· likewise, when home becomes unsafe, it’s time to move home

You can analyze the causes from progressive or conservative perspectives, but the facts remain on the ground right here. We live in the midst of refugee population and are, ourselves in many instances, refugees. Chased from unsustainable homeplaces by shifting economic sands or from unsafe ones by racism, sexism, heterosexism, or from unwelcoming congregations by rules set up to divide us from each other, many of us can find places of deep identification with folks who have left behind poverty and violence in distant lands. Whoever welcomes these refugees from poverty or violence welcomes Jesus. Whoever welcomes refugees from hatred welcomes Jesus. Whoever welcomes refugees from racism, sexism, homophobia welcomes Jesus. He seemed to understand it just that simply.

We’re engaging in a good deal of intentional reflection on our life together this summer and will continue through the fall, and part of that is naming what we’ve done well. Hospitality is one of those things, from small and private acts – I remember my friend’s mom welcoming the cold children – to more systemic and public ones – I also remember the same woman welcoming union leaders and civil rights organizers.

Thus we are engaged these days at CPC in various ministries of hospitality, and that has long been a mark of this congregation so let’s take a moment this morning to celebrate. We’re celebrating the action of GA last week. We’re celebrating the ongoing re-creation of this space. We’re celebrating summer Sabbath time. We’re just plain, old celebrating this morning!

It is good and right to have food when we celebrate, so, for everyone who found my one charge last week too difficult – remember, it was “stay after worship, have coffee and talk with one another” – we’re making it easier on you. The food is coming during worship, and we’re going to talk together right now.

So, where, over the years, have we been engaged in intentional acts of welcome and hospitality? What do we recall about those engagements? Was there anything transformative about them? What was joyful in them?

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[1] “The First Cup Is for the Guest,” by Rose Marie Berger, Sojourners, September-October, 2003.