Society sends us a mixed message about dreams. On the one hand we are warned that dreams are illusions and not a firm enough foundation on which to build. There is a country song with the line, “Don’t fall in love with a dreamer ‘cause he’ll break you every time.” Fantine in the play Les Miz complains that she “dreamed a dream” of a happy life but that it all came crashing down. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer asserted that God hates visionary dreamers because they judge others for not living up to their dreams about how things should be. God loves reality better than dreams because in reality God has given us all that we need. On the other hand, in certain quarters dreams are viewed as positive, even necessary. A song in South Pacific; “You’ve got to have a dream, if you don’t have a dream, how you going to have a dream come true.” Psychiatrists can use dreams to help understand what is going on in the unconscious mind. And, of course, Dr. King famously preached that he had a dream about that day when all of God’s children black men and white men, Jew and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing, in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last.” So which is it? Are dreams distractions from living in the nitty gritty of reality or inspiration and challenge toward a better world?
The Bible views dreams positively. The Old Testament patriarch, Joseph, had, in one memorable phrase, “a multi-colored dream coat.” Dreams got him in trouble with his brothers but eventually enabled him to become a great leader. The prophet Daniel was a dreamer. The power of those dreams preserved him when he was in the lion’s den and gave him authority in the royal court. And, of course, we have the gospel of St. Matthew where Joseph, the soon-to-be-husband of Mary has a dream telling him of the plan of God for him and his wife. Dreams then were the e-mail, the snapchat, the IM, the whatsapp, the tweet, the Instagram which enabled God to communicate a message. Joseph and other Biblical figures trusted in the dream as revealing something important about God. The problem comes today is that the dreams we have (or at least the dreams that I have) seem more of a jumble than any kind of revelation. We no longer seem to have access to dreams as connecting us with God. Has God stopped communicating?
Maybe that is not the right way of looking at things. Maybe what is really going on is that we are not the one with dreams but God is the One who has a dream. God has a dream for us and for this world that we must learn to interpret as we would any dream. The dream of God is what the season of Advent is all about – that God has chosen to share in human life, and by doing so transforms human life into the avenue to divine life. According to God’s dream we aren’t trapped in an endless cycle of despair and futile effort – sixteen tons and what do you get another day older and deeper in debt. Instead every human being has been named and claimed by God as destined for glory since we are made in the divine image. We are part of God’s family. The dream of God for us is Jesus.
Which remind me of, surprise, a Broadway show tune. In the Man of La Mancha we hear the ultimate statement: “To dream the impossible dream.” Don Quixote knows that fighting the unbeatable foe, righting the unrightable wrong might seem like a pipe dream but it motivates him to live a life of courage and fidelity. The birth of Jesus was the fulfillment of God’s impossible dream for us. Humanity might look like a hot mess. We wage war on each other. We are greedy, hogging more than we need while millions starve. We hate others because they look different than we do. We don’t change policies which are poisoning our planet because it will inconvenience our lifestyle. But God’s impossible dream is that we are more than our mess, we are, in the words of the psalms, a little less than the angels. We see in the child born in Bethlehem what we are capable of – a welcoming spirit to the lost, a generous spirit to the needy, a forgiving spirit to the sinner, a just spirit toward the exploited, a loving spirit toward all. In Jesus we see what human beings are created to be.
In the play, the impossible dream is captured by the character of Aldonza. She looks on herself as unlovable, as worthless, as of no account, born on a dung heap to die on a dung heap. “I’m no one, I’m nothing at all,” she sings. Part of the impossible dream of Don Quixote recognizes her as something more, as, in fact, precious. “I see heaven when I see you,” he sings, not the kitchen slut she imagines herself to be. And that dream transforms her. Since she is loved by someone she must be lovable. She takes on a new identity. She becomes the beautiful person she was meant to be. That is our story as well. No matter what we have done; No matter what has been done to us; no matter our current circumstances, we are loved by God and viewed as precious. The impossible dream that was born in a manger has transformed each one of us. In these final days before Christmas, therefore, let us recover the dream that God has for us in Jesus. The Christ Child is not a plush toy that we can cuddle up to hoping the world goes away. Rather, he is an alarm clock waking us up to live out the dream of compassion that God has for us. Advent tells us that it is the loftiest dream that is the surest of being fulfilled.