Dreaming Impossible Dreams
Genesis 37:2-11
To dream the impossible dream, To fight the unbeatable foe, To bear the unbearable sorrow, To run where the brave dare not go. To right the unrightable wrong, To love pure and chaste from afar, To try when your arms are too heavy, To reach the unreachable star.
Those lyrics sung by Don Quixote in Man From LA Mancha clearly characterize the life of Joseph, our Old Testament hero, whose story comprises the last third of the book of Genesis.
Picture for a moment. It is breakfast time in Jacob’s tent. Leah is there with her sons Rueben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun, all seated in their customary places. Jacob’s four sons by concubines have arrived. So has little Benjamin who always makes Jacob think of Rachel, the true love of his life.
The blessing is offered. The milk is passed. Bread is served. Then, like a star whose time has come to appear on the stage, Joseph steps in and takes his seat next to Jacob as his half-brothers roll their eyes in disgust. Joseph wastes no time in breaking the silence. “Had a dream last night, guys. We were binding sheaves of grain, when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves bowed down to me.” Reuben choked on his breakfast and the others could not believe their ears.
The very next day the same thing happens again, only this time Joseph says, “Man, I dreamed that the sun, moon, and eleven stars were all bowing down to me.” This was even more than Jacob, his father, could stand, so he rebukes Joseph for such fantastic dreams. Arrogant? Absolutely. Naïve? Certainly. More than a family can tolerate? Impossible unless you know the rest of the story.
Dreams have been called the real windows to the soul. They reveal more about us than we tend to know. Don’t count the dreamers out.
Henry Ford had a dream of putting a horseless carriage into the hands of the common folk. He built his first car in a shed behind his house. In 1903, he formed the Ford Motor Company and produced the Model T. That year his company made 6,000 cars. Eight years later they produced 500,000 cars a year. Don’t count the dreamers out.
In his inaugural speech President John F. Kennedy spoke about a “new frontier.” Some of you may remember his words “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country, we will be the first generation of people to go to the moon.” I remember sitting with my grandparents in July of 1969, watching the television as that dream became an absolute reality. Don’t count the dreamers out.
Even more important, was the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. “that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners would be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. That one-day God’s children would live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Don’t count the dreamers out.
Where have all the dreamers gone? We live in an age of cynicism, pragmatism, and getting by. Have we traded creativity for cynicism? Have we surrendered our dreams in the struggle for survival? Would we rather get by than dream high? Would we rather grab what we can instead of extending the plan of liberty and justice for all?
William Sloan Coffin said, “If we do not look for something above us, we will soon sink to something below us.”
Can you still remember what you wanted to be when you were a child? Is the dream still alive? We should still be dreaming, just as our children and grandchildren do and they should be God-sized dreams.
We do not treat dreamers very well. We learn in Verse 5 that Joseph had a dream and when he tells it to his brothers they hate him even more. They hate him so much they throw him in a cistern and sell him to the Midianite merchants for 20 shekels of silver. They cover up the crime by concocting a lie to tell their aging father.
Martin Luther King, Jr. in his sermon, “Shattered Dreams,” says, “One of the most agonizing problems within our human experience is that few, if any, of us see our fondest hopes fulfilled. The hopes of our childhood, the promises of our mature years are unfinished symphonies” in the orchestra of life.
The world has never treated dreamers very well. Where do dreamers find the faith to carry on? Your dream will be tested. There is no question about it. Most people will think it is a crazy idea and will ridicule you for it. How do people who dream keep the faith alive to pursue it?
Dreamers accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite focus. Dreamers accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite focus. When George Fredrick Handel became paralyzed on his right side, he also got himself so deep in debt that his creditors wanted to throw him in prison. It was at that point in his life that Handel wrote the Messiah. Who could ever forget those triumphant words of the Hallelujah Chorus, “And He shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah.”? Dreamers never lose their divine focus.
Dreamers are the people who discover strength even amid their weaknesses. Paul says in II Corinthians 12, “I have known hunger and thirst and often gone without food. I have been cold and naked, in danger at sea and in danger in the city. Besides everything else, I was given this thorn in the flesh which torments me. But for Christ’s sake I delight in weakness, in insults, in hardships, and persecutions, for when I am weak then I am strong.”
When Joseph was 30 years old, he was appointed governor of Egypt and put in charge of the Department of Agriculture. When famine struck the land seven years later, Joseph managed a national and international food distribution program that literally saved the world from starvation. When Jacob heard there was food in Egypt, he said to his ten sons, “Why are you sitting around here looking at one another, bemoaning the situation? Why don’t you go to Egypt and get us some food so we can live and not die?”
Genesis 42:6 says, “And when Joseph’s brothers arrived in Egypt, they bowed down to Joseph with their faces to the ground.” Dream fulfilled.
When I was child, I had a dream that someday I would be a pastor. I did not know Where God would take me and I never dreamt it would be out of the Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. But in a moment of rejection God lead me in a new direction, into the United Church of Christ, to San Antonio, Texas, then to Rhode Island, Michigan, and here to Bangor, Maine and Hammond Street Church. Follow your dream. Follow, no matter what. Follow.
Don’t get me wrong. I have had plenty of dreams that died at dawn for they were dreams of my own. I have wandered away from God’s purpose and path and only by grace came home. But I have had enough dreams that have come true in life to make me want to dream on. Having walked this far with a visionary God, I want to follow God all the way home. Follow your dream.
And the world will be better for this
That one man scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star!
Follow your dream. Amen.