Sermon: What Dreams Are Made Of

What Dreams Are Made Of
Matthew 1:18-25
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Congregational Church of Brookfield
Rev. Jennifer Whipple

Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts gathered here this day be acceptable in Your sight, Oh Lord, our Strength and Our Redeemer.  Amen.

            Do any of you have dreams?  I mean those dreams that when you wake up in the morning you are not quite sure whether they were real or a figment of your imagination…or perhaps your unconscious.  Those dreams that you remember so well.  Most often those dreams for me are in between a nightmare and the sheer ridiculous…what some in the dream interpretation world might call stress dreams.  They are the dreams where you show up to your final presentation for school or work in your towel or bathrobe.  I had those dreams all the time when I was in school – high school, college, seminary.  I continue to have them now—except now they involve arriving in the pulpit on a day when I am scheduled to preach without having even looked at the scripture readings for the day, let alone actually reading any of them, reflecting on them, and writing a word of a sermon.  And when I look out into the congregation in this dream, at all of your wonderful faces, I see one of three reactions to my seeming inability to prepare.  (1) People are walking out in disgust.  (2) People are striking up conversations with one another about the latest gossip.  (3) Or perhaps worst than either of those is the ever popular balancing of the checkbook…because what better time would there be?  It is after dreams like those that I wake up and wonder if I still have a job here as one of your pastors!

             I share these deepest fears of my preaching life and dreams with you not only so you will be a little less harsh perhaps on those days when my sermons just aren’t working for you, but also because when I first read today’s scripture from the gospel of Matthew about Joseph’s dream, all I could think was that had to be one of the most outrageous stress dreams in history.  Except the catch is that I did prepare a sermon for today, and when Joseph woke up what he may have thought was merely a dream in those foggy morning moments was reality.  “Joseph, son of David,” the angel called to him, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”  His life had changed overnight.  He went from a man who was trying to figure out the best way possible to leave his now pregnant fiancé without any disgrace to her name, to a man who was preparing to be both a husband and a father – the one who was to name and claim the child Mary carried as his own – to raise him, to teach and support him, and to protect him.

             There are only two accounts of Jesus’ birth in the Bible, and this one in Matthew is the only one that even mentions someone telling Joseph what is going on.  Joseph sometimes seems like an afterthought in the story about Jesus’ birth.  In fact there is a story of a Christmas Pageant that tells of a worried mother who called the church only a few hours before the pageant was to begin.  She was the mother of the little boy who had been cast in the role of Joseph.  Unfortunately her son had fallen ill that afternoon with a terrible cold and was sent to bed on doctor’s orders.  As the mother explained this to the director of the pageant the director responded, “It is too late now to get another Joseph.  We’ll just have to write him out of the script.”  And so they did, and few of those who watched that night realized that Joseph was missing.[i] 

             Can you imagine writing Joseph out of the script of Jesus’ birth?  After all, in this account in Matthew it is Joseph who saves the lives of both Mary and Jesus not once but twice.  In a dream he is advised to stay with Mary.  If he had chosen to take the other route – to leave Mary, there is the possibility that as an unwed pregnant young woman dealing with the society and laws of the time, Mary would have been stoned to death…and the baby inside her would never have seen the light of that beautiful star over Bethlehem.  And after Jesus’ birth Joseph had another dream that warned him of Herod’s plan to kill all of the young boys in that region in order to secure his throne.  So Joseph takes Mary & Jesus to Egypt where they are able to spend some time in safety.  If it were not for Joseph the Messiah would not have grown to adulthood, into a ministry that would change the world. He would not have grown into the Savior who came for us all.

             In a sermon from Harvard University’s Memorial Church given by Peter Gomes, he reflected on Joseph’s purpose in the following way, “Fear not, Joseph, son of David, you fear disgrace.  You fear embarrassment and shame for yourself and for Mary.  You fear public scandal. You fear that your reputation will suffer, but it will not happen.  For out of this fear comes an opportunity that neither you nor your worthy ancestors could have imagined.  And, what is this opportunity that comes out of real fear and alleged disgrace?  It is this Joseph; you will become the guardian of God. You will be the protector of the Savior of the world. You, Joseph, will become the Stepfather to hope.”

             Despite sounding like an honorable and amazing, albeit high and mighty task at hand, we can imagine that Joseph was a bit overwhelmed.  In fact in the movie, “The Nativity” he and Mary have a very real conversation about the fact that they were both frightened.  It is one thing to be told what to do, but it is another thing entirely to follow through with those orders…orders that require people to step out of their comfort zones, to take an honest look at themselves, and to see what God has in store. 

             Perhaps even more difficult for Joseph to wrap his head around than the fact that the woman he was to marry was pregnant is the child to whom she would give birth…a child who was spoken of by the prophets.  It was the job of the father in those days to name the child.  And carrying out the naming of this child according to the angel’s command in the dream would speak volumes.  The name “Jesus” in Greek and “Yeshua” in Hebrew (variations of one another) both meant “Savior” or “God saves.”  And there could be no confusion over the reasoning behind that name because the angel had told Joseph in the dream, “She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save all people from their sins.”

             I read the following words in one Advent prayer I found.  “Gracious God, enlarge our hearts, that they may be big enough to receive the greatness of your love.”  The greatness of God’s love is shown to us in the life, death, and resurrection of the babe that will be born in the manger once again this year.  The challenge is not to doubt our own ability to hold and understand the immensity of that gift.  We must follow Joseph’s lead, and despite our fear or confusion, accept the gift God offers and let it shine through our lives. The final hymn we will sing today says just that.  “Christians all, your Lord is coming, hope for peace is now at hand.  Let there be no hesitation, walk in faith, where life demands.  Bear the word that God has given; share the birth that stirs your soul.  Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Christ will come and make you whole.”

             The last time I met with our Confirmation Class we had the chance to talk about Jesus in his humanity and his divinity.  We spoke of the things that we do to break our relationships with other people and with God—the essence of sin.  And we spoke of the ways that we know to mend those relationships, the example of who we are to be with one another through Jesus Christ.  Because this child, this child who makes us reflect on who we are, that has us caught up in preparation and waiting, comes once again this Christmas to make us whole.  To forgive us for those places where we have fallen short or made the wrong decisions despite our knowledge of who it is that we are to be.  God did not send us an alien or a dog or some other creature to teach us who to be, God sent us a human being – and a baby no less, one that would grow and see all that humanity has to offer, both the bad and the good, both the fearful and the redeeming.  God sent us a human being who was to be raised by parents – parents who would do their best to protect him and raise him to be the man we now know as the Christ – the anointed one. 

             Mary and Joseph accepted their calling from God.  They accepted their vocation as parents.  They took all of the dreams that come with bearing a child – dreams of hope, joy, and love – dreams of a future – dreams that we see in each child born to us today – and made them reality.  The question that we need to ask ourselves, knowing all we know about the child – the gift that will come once again into our lives this Christmas, is what are our dreams made of?  What is it that God is calling and challenging us to this Advent and Christmas season?  Just as God would not have written Joseph out of the nativity story, God would not write any one of us out of it either.  May we have the awareness to see the places in our lives where we need to allow God’s love in a bit more.  May we have the courage to dream dreams, to say “yes” to God’s salvation.  And may we be a people who see and work towards visions of what our world truly can be in this season – a place that knows the reality of forgiveness and shares the desires of hope, joy, and peace.  Amen.