Based on Earl Hammer, Jr.’s book, Spencer’s Mountain, it was the story about a family in the mountains of rural Virginia between the years of 1933 to 1946. From 1972 through 1981 we witness this family’s life as it unfolded before our eyes. The Waltons graced our lives and entertained us on a weekly basis for nine years. There was John and Olivia Walton, the patriarch and matriarch of the family; Grandpa and Grandma Walton; there was John-Boy, the eldest son and narrator, and his six siblings . . . all living on Walton Mountain. On a weekly basis we gathered around the television and looked in on the lives and adventures of the Walton family.
I loved the show! I couldn’t wait to see what was going in the lives of the Walton family each week. I loved the stories . . . the lessons taught . . . and, being fourteen, I loved the character of John-Boy’s oldest sister, Mary Ellen. Yet, at the same time, it really wasn’t the sort of show a young teenage male of the mid-1970s was supposed to be watching . . . it just wasn’t macho enough . . . not tough enough. It was something my sister was supposed to like, not her older brother. It was a show that made an impression upon me . . . made me long to be a writer. And, it gave me a nickname that I did not get rid of until I was out of college . . . John-Boy. I heard that nickname forever!
Imagine living in a house with your parents, your grandparents, and six other siblings. It would be pretty crowded and tough to be an individual. In one of the episodes, Erin--the fourth of the Walton children, and the second of the daughters, pretty much smack-dab in the middle of the family--is moping around acting all sort of depressed. Makes it pretty difficult to stand out in a family eleven. When she is confronted by her grandmother about what is eating at her, Erin replies, “It’s hard to dream in a crowd.” Especially when you are a middle child trying to compete against your older siblings who seem to have it all together, and your younger siblings who are cute and can do no wrong.
Erin wants to stand out . . . she wants to be an individual . . . she wants to be somebody. She dreams of being somebody. And, don’t we all?
I imagine that Erin is not the only person to have ever felt that way . . . that she is not the only person who dreamed. I think that Joseph, the central character in our scripture reading this morning, could tell Erin a thing or two about dreams. Joseph is the youngest of Jacob twelve sons. Jacob, who last week was renamed Israel after wrestling with God, loved all of his sons, but he especially loved Joseph . . . loved him “more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age.” He loved Joseph so much that he gifted him with a richly ornamented robe . . . what we like to call his coat of many colors. This did not make Joseph real popular with his brothers . . . nope, they hated him and treated him poorly.
Add into that mix the fact that Joseph was a dreamer. He had vivid dreams . . . and, he was not afraid to share them with his father and brothers. In particular he has two dreams in which the symbolism of the dreams has his father and brothers bowing down to him. Again, probably not something a person wants to share with a group that already hates him; but, he does. The dreams only make matters worse between Joseph and his eleven brothers.
While his brothers are out with the flocks, Joseph is sent by his father to check on his brothers and to bring them back home. So off Joseph went. Upon seeing their brother approach, the brothers plot to kill him . . . but, they couldn’t do it. Instead they sell him off to a band of Ishmaelites. Upon returning home they tell their father that Joseph has been attacked by ferocious animals . . . torn to shreds . . . and all that is left is the blood-stained coat of many colors.
Sometimes your dreams will get you killed . . . especially if they are dreams that no one else cares for.
One of the main themes of the Book of Genesis is this promise of God to create a great nation . . . from Abram to Isaac to Jacob this narrative runs through their lives. As the Jacob saga of the story is ending, and the Joseph saga is beginning . . . there is still no great nation. No, there is only Jacob, whose name has been changed by God to Israel, and his twelve sons. Now, stop and think about this . . . Jacob, now Israel, has twelve sons . . . each of the sons becomes one of the twelve tribes of Israel. That is the dream. And, thanks to Joseph and his ability to dream, the story ebbs ever closer to the reality of the dream.
It turns out, years later, that the dreams that he shared with his father and brothers do come true. The Ishmaelites end up selling Joseph to the Egyptians as a slave. Joseph works his way up from being a slave to being Number Two, just below the Pharaoh himself in power. All because he dreams and he can interpret dreams. Through his dreams he creates an intricate storage system to prepare for Egypt’s survival if there should ever come a drought . . . and, there does come a drought. A drought that touches the lives of many in Egypt and beyond . . . including Jacob and his remaining sons.
Seeking any aid possible to survive, Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to ask for help. Unknown to them the person they must speak to is none other than Joseph. In the end they fulfill the dreams that Joseph had told them long ago . . . they bow down to him. Of course, brothers will be brothers, and Joseph has his fun with them . . . makes them quite nervous for awhile before he invited them to bring the whole family up to live in Egypt. This gets Israel and the twelve brothers . . . or tribes . . . into Egypt. From there you know the rest of the story . . . population explosion among the Israelites, slavery, Moses, plagues, the Red Sea, wandering around the wilderness . . . until they eventually do become a great nation among the nations.
Joseph follows his dreams . . . and, God’s story moves further down the line towards reality. And, Joseph would probably tell folks that it was not easy to hang on to those dreams . . . especially when those dreams did not make everyone happy. But, he held on . . . he held on because he was a dreamcatcher.
To me Joseph is what I call a “dreamcatcher”. Now I know that when many of us hear that term . . . “dreamcatcher” . . . that we think of those hoops on which an intricate net or web is woven, and there are feathers and beads that adorn it. The purpose of these is a sacred one. They are placed over the bed as a sort of protection . . . in particular for children. This is a part of some Native American cultures--especially the Ojibwe and Lakota tribes. The idea is that dreams and thoughts pass through the hoop and its web . . . the bad dreams and thoughts get hung up in the web, the good dreams and thoughts pass through. And, the “dreamcatcher” is also seen as a symbol for unity among the greater Native American culture.
Through Joseph . . . as with his father . . . as with Isaac . . . as with Abraham . . . the dream continues on to the children of God. And, there would be others who would catch and carry that dream . . . there would be Moses . . . David . . . Samson . . . the prophets. These were the “dreamcatchers” . . . these were the one striving to bring into being God’s desire. And, that dream passes on up to and through Jesus . . . the apostles . . . Peter and Paul.
The dream is simple. God desires an intimate and personal relationship with all of God’s creation . . . God desires the kingdom restored. The dreamcatchers all strived to fulfill God’s dream . . . to re-establish that relationship between God and humanity. And, ultimately we are shown the way to realizing that dream through the life, words, and actions of Jesus himself. That is the dream of everyone who is a follower of Jesus. His dream should be our dream as his followers.
That is our goal as the followers of Jesus . . . we are to catch his dream and make it our own. We are to be about kingdom building. But, remember what Erin Walton said when it came to dreaming . . . it is hard to do in a crowd. Also, remember Joseph when he tried to share his dreams. Remember Jesus who expressed and lived his desire to fulfill that dream.
None of them had an easy time. Yet, the dream lived on and lives on in those who hear and embrace it.
To be a dreamer can be dangerous business.
God’s dream . . . all the great saints before us caught it, attempted to live it . . . because they believed in it. Jesus caught the dream . . . shared the dream . . . lived the dream. We have heard his words about the dream. We have heard the words of the great saints concerning the dream. And, now it is our turn to catch the dream . . . our turn to live and share it. We are to become the “dreamcatchers”.
The rest of the world might not understand it . . . but, that is okay, because we do and God does. When Joseph’s brothers saw him coming from afar, they mockingly said, “Here comes the dreamer!” We, too, might hear those words as we dream God’s dream of the unity . . . or the kingdom. But it will never happen if we don’t allow ourselves to dream.
John Lennon sang in his song Imagine: “You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us. And the world will live as one.”
We are not the first to dream, nor will be the last . . . but, Jesus has called upon us as his followers to share the dream . . . to go forth and share the “good news”. May we all realize our potential to be the catchers of dreams . . . dreamcatchers. We are not alone for it is God’s dream that we catch. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment