Listening To & Following Dreams

​Matthew 2:1-12
 
 
Over the holiday break our family went to see the movie The Greatest Showman.  Amy & I loved is so much that we went the very next night to see it again, while Jacob went with friends a couple of days after that.  For those who haven’t heard of it, the movie is based on the life of Phineas Taylor Barnum, better known to most at P.T. Barnum. 
 
I love musicals and always have, but I really love this movie.  It is one of those movies I could see again and again and again.  Even though there are some Hollywood induced elements, I found the hope filled message this movie delivers incredibly encouraging and it started from the opening musical scene.  Now, that scene opens with a young P.T. Barnum singing a song titled A Million Dreams.  As the song progresses, P.T. grows up and is joined by Charity Hallett who becomes Charity Barnum.  What caught my attention, like normal, was the story the lyrics of the song were telling. 
 
Young P.T. starts by saying/singing:
 
“I close my eyes and I can see
The world that’s waiting up for me
That I call my own
Through the dark, through the door
Through where no one’s been before
But it feels like home
 
They can say it all sounds crazy
They can say I’ve lost my mind
I don’t care, so call me crazy
We can live in a world that we design
 
‘Cause every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
A million dreams for the world we’re gonna make”
 
Then grown up P.T. shares some of his dreams about his future with Charity followed by Charity saying this:
 
“However big, however small
Let me be part of it all
Share your dreams with me
You may be right, you may be wrong
But say you’ll bring me along
To the world you see
To the world I close my eyes to see
I close my eyes to see”
 
The song ends with the two of them together saying/singing:
 
“Every night I lie in bed
The brightest colors fill my head
A million dreams are keeping me awake
I think of what the world could be
A vision of the one I see
A million dreams is all it’s gonna take
A million dreams for the world we’re gonna make”
 
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For me, the entire story the movie tells about the life of P.T. Barnum and his wife Charity begins and ends with listening to and then following the path of dreams.  Now, we all know that listening to and following one’s dreams did not originate with P.T. & Charity Barnum.  If for no other reason, we know this because the text that Jewell read for us today proves it.  [v 12] “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.”  This is but one example of a collection of examples found within the stories of our Bible where dreams play a critical role, and this is so because it is widely accepted that the ancient world, and therefore our biblical tradition knew about dreams. The ancients understood that dreams opened you up to a world different from the one experienced during the day. They had the courage to imagine that dream communication is a place in which the holy purposes of God, as confusing and unreasonable as they might be, come to us. 
 
But we are post-enlightened people living in a post-enlightened world, which may answer the question that has been bugging for a while but especially since seeing The Greatest Showman the first time, what happen to our ability to listen to and follow our dreams?  Walter Bruggemann says, “In the post-Enlightenment world, reason has sought to overcome all that is primitive, sacred and lacking in manageable credibility. The aim and outcome has been to control…” (Holy Intrusion: The Power of Dreams in the Bible).  And you want to know something, I think he is right because dreams are revelations of otherness, an otherness that may, if we get out of our own way, open us to an authentic reality and truth that lies beyond our own reasoning. If we were to only begin listening to our dreams like we did when we were young they just might lead to our making wise choices, like that of the wise men in Matthew.  The kind of wise choices that compel you to travel a different way.  That is what the wise men did when they listened to their dream, they chose a different path than the one previously planned.  That is oftentimes what dreams do, which for most of us makes our dreams a little scary because to follow them means we must choose a different way of going home, a different way of achieving our goal, because to follow our dreams is to recognize that we can’t return the same way we came. 
 
You see, dream communication is critical to moving toward a promising future because dreams are focused on larger realities future possibilities.  Without dreams, without imagination, we become stuck in so many ways.  Stuck to living our lives inside the walls of what is, not what is possible.  Stuck living inside a world where our highest goal is control, instead of embracing the mystery of the journey.  Stuck inside a life that lacks innovation, desiring instead understanding and familiarity. 
 
A life stuck in what is, is a life resigned to complacency at best or sadness at worst.  That is not the life of one of listens to and follows the dreams God communicates to them.  Where would we be today were it not for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sharing his dream with us?  You see, King’s dream was a gift of imagination that came from beyond the realm of the political or social reality of his day. And when we say it was a dream that come from beyond, then aren’t we really saying the dream he shared carried a holy message.
 
The thing is, the substance of the dream King shared was a world other than the one near at hand. King was able to imagine a world that was radically different from the one others saw.  “King’s dream, like every dream, is not simply the sign of a wish or projection, it is the intrusion of God into a settled world.  It has a holy intensity that reaches back into generations of suffering; it is a holy intrusion that reaches forward in sanity, continuing to generate a restless uneasiness with the way things are until the dream comes to fruition and a new world is enacted.” Ibid.  “Our technological achievements require and permit us to learn again what the community of faith has known—and trusted—from the outset: there is something outside our controlled management of reality which must be heeded. Sometimes that something turns out to be a miracle of new life.” Ibid.
 
Dreams are the perfect way to hear from God. When you are dreaming, you are quiet, so you can’t ignore God.  So today I want us to start dreaming for our Church.  I want us to start listening to what our dreams are telling us about what we want for our Church.  And I want us to start sharing those dreams with each other.  In fact, I want 2018 to be known as The Year of a Million Dreams here at FBC. 
 
Which leads me to this big DREAM BOARD that found its way into the sanctuary today.  This DREAM BOARD already has some dreams written on it, but it needs more and so do all the other DREAM BOARDS you will find throughout our Church buildings.  All of these DREAM BOARDS are calling you to share your dreams for our Church, no matter how big, no matter how small.  So, for months ahead I want us to share with one another the future we see for our Church when we close our eyes. 
 
Now I feel certain we will be able to fulfill some of the dreams shared on our DREAM BOARDS rather quickly, and I also feel certain other dreams will take a while, but that’s ok.  Like I’ve told you before, our Jamestown Community Farmers Market was really two years in the making and it all started with a dream I had and shared.     
 
Each and every one of us must start dreaming about our Church.  Each and every one of us has a role in this dream building process.  A process which only begins by first listening to our dreams and then finding the courage to share them and follow.  This is our call to begin discerning the future of our church, and each one of us is called to participate.  And remember, if we begin listening to our dreams like we did when we were young they just might lead to our making wise choices.
 
Amen!