Dreams

“Dreams”

Text of a chapel sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Paul D. Numrich, 15 December 2008 at Trinity Lutheran Seminary, 12 February 2009 at Methodist Theological School in Ohio. The theme was the focus of the first sermon I preached, 23 August 1981 at Neighborhood Church of the Brethren, Aurora, IL.

Deuteronomy 13:1-5: If prophets or those who divine by dreams appear among you and promise you omens or portents, and the omens or the portents declared by them take place, and they say, “Let us follow other gods” (whom you have not known) “and let us serve them”, you must not heed the words of those prophets or those who divine by dreams; for the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. The Lord your God you shall follow, him alone you shall fear, his commandments you shall keep, his voice you shall obey, him you shall serve, and to him you shall hold fast. But those prophets or those who divine by dreams shall be put to death for having spoken treason against the Lord your God—who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery—to turn you from the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Acts 2:14-18: But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.” [1]

I

Let’s consider dreams. Not so much the visions we see in our sleep, rather the visions we have about life and life together in community.

“Hold fast to dreams,” writes the poet Langston Hughes, “for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly.”

“If you don’t have a dream . . . ,” runs the line from South Pacific, “Then you’ll never have a dream come true.”

Without visionary dreams, we don’t really live. “I have a dream,” preached an American visionary.

II

The Bible is full of dreams, and in them there is overlap between the visions of sleep and visions about life.

God is never far from the dreams in the Bible. Recall Joseph’s words to Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker: “Do not interpretations belong to God? Please tell them to me” (Genesis 40:8). “At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, ‘Ask what I should give you’” (1 Kings 3:5). An angel of the Lord appeared to Matthew’s Joseph in no less than four dreams!

Yes, God is never far from the dreams in Bible. But God is not always a welcome visitor either. “You are about to die,” God informs the king who took Sarah away from Abraham (Genesis 20:3). When I seek relief from my suffering in sleep, Job laments, “then you scare me with dreams and terrify me with visions” (Job 7:14). Commentaries have a difficult time with that verse!

Our text from Deuteronomy captures a strong biblical theme: “If prophets or those who divine by dreams appear among you and promise you omens or portents, and the omens or the portents declared by them take place, and they say, ‘Let us follow other gods’ (whom you have not known) and let us serve them’, you must not heed the words of those prophets or those who divine by dreams.”

Don’t follow that dream! Not even if the omens and portents attached to it come to pass. “‘See, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams,’ says the Lord” through Jeremiah (23:32). “… the dreamers tell false dreams. . . . Therefore the people wander like sheep; they suffer for lack of a shepherd,” says Zechariah (10:2).

Don’t follow that dream if it’s not God’s dream!

III

My family and I visited Disney World last summer. On my way from the airport, the shuttle bus driver asked if there were any Grumpy’s on board. I should have raised my hand. Disney World is not my cup of tea but I have photographic evidence that I enjoyed myself at least once—on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror!

2008 is Disney’s Year of a Million Dreams. “Where dreams come true” is the theme for all the Disney Parks. At the Magic Kingdom there is a daily “Dreams Come True Parade,” which includes this tagline in its theme song: “Just believe and your dreams will come true.” Even my wife, who’s not nearly as cynical as I am, looked at me: Is that all it takes?

This is nothing new for Disney. Do you know the song “When You Wish Upon A Star”? [2] It’s # 7 on the American Film Institute’s top 100 songs in American cinema. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in the 1940 film Pinocchio. The Disney Cruise Line uses the first seven notes for their ships’ horns. It has become a Christmas song in Scandinavia, identified with the Star of Bethlehem. I hummed it Sunday nights before the TV as a kid.

But there is no biblical God in the lyrics of this song:

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do

Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing

Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true

 

 

Last time I checked, Fate is not the biblical God.

Not every dream is God’s dream for us. And not even every human dream comes true. During my summer vacation at Disney World, the Olympics were going on in Beijing. There is only one gold medal for every contest, so there are a lot of broken Olympic dreams.

IV

We dream dreams, but are they God’s dream? If not, don’t follow them. In fact, God will do everything necessary to shatter those false dreams of ours. Such dreams must die, must be banished from our midst, as the Deuteronomy passage strongly suggests.

Surprisingly, this is God’s love at work. Listen to the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together: “By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world.” “Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive.” “God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious.” [3]

You may also want to look at Bonhoeffer’s counsel to pastors and church leaders: stop complaining about your congregation. [4] Your dreams for them may not be God’s dream.

The Pentecost promise is that women and men shall prophesy, see visions, and dream dreams. So dream on, Pentecost Christians. Just make sure our dream is God’s dream. Make sure the Holy Spirit is poured out in our dreams. Don’t make God shatter our personal dreams.

Actually, pray that God does shatter our personal dreams, so that we can begin to dream divinely!

Amen.


[1]  All biblical quotations are from the NRSV.

[3]  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, transl. John W. Doberstein (New York: Harper, 1954), 27.

[4]. Ibid., 29-30.