Joseph: The Shape Of Our Dreams
Genesis 37:1-28
October 17, 2008

Today I begin a series of four sermons on the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis.You might well ask,Why Joseph? Isn't Joseph one of those stuffy old patriarchs from dysfunctional families constantly making God mad? Or, you might say, Well, I've seen the musical- Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat- what more do I need? Or yet again, you might wonder out loud, In these anxious times with a disaster for an economy and a bruising election in process, why are we looking back at some ancient who whatsis? We need now! We need answers!

Here's what I have to offer you. The story of Joseph is the story of a person and a nation making a huge shift into believing that in all times and seasons God is working for good! Moreover, God is working with our stuff, our dreams, our choices, our shifts and our ends- perhaps not always making things secure and comfortable- but here in our stuff nonetheless, working towards outcomes we can barely imagine.

The story begins with a young man, Joseph, hardly more than a boy, who has a dream. The dream is more than a bit obnoxious. (I should probably admit right here that I am an oldest brother. If - when we were young - one of my brothers had told me about a dream in which he would lord it over me - my sheaf bowing to his sheaf, sun, moon and stars defering to him, I would have given that brother a swift kick in the back of the knee as soon as my mother wasn't looking. My sympathies are all with Joseph's brothers. As to selling younger brothers to the highest bidder - I get it!)

But there’s something about this dream. Here’s this kid at the bottom of the pecking order in an obscure nomadic family far from the centers of power. Joseph has a dream that’s literally out of order. In it, he, the kid from nowhere, comes out on top. The last is first, and things don’t happen the way we expect. Skip over the chapters and the years, and you know what? Some day, Joseph’s world is going to need somebody in power who knows how to do things out of order! Somebody to prepare for the lean years during the fat years; somebody from outside the banking system to clean up commodities market and credit system – yes, you heard me right, the commodities market and the credit system – it’s right there in chapters 41-43! Somebody who knows what it’s like to have been shown no mercy, who therefore believes mercy should be part of government in a time of famine.

Does any of this sound familiar!? It all begins with a boy dreaming of something greater than he had or could every hope for.

Have you ever had a dream for yourself? I mean a dream that your life has a meaning or a purpose. I believe that God has put in each one of us a capacity, a gift that the world needs. Each one of us, I suspect, has had at some point in our lives a dream that in some way we will have an impact on the world. And somewhere in that dream is an invitation from God.

Am I right? Is that dream embarassing to remember? So, what happened to the dream?

You know what tends to happen with those dreams? We give them up! We give them up first of all because life happens! You begin like Joseph to put your dream out there, and life pushes back and you end up in a pit. Anybody out there know what the pit is like? The pit is like racial barriers that say you don’t belong certain places. The pit is like the famous glass ceiling that says, only so far! The pit is like the closet that says, don’t ask, don’t tell. The pit is loss or suffering or injustice that says – you, hey you, you don’t get to have your dream!

And yet, Joseph’s story doesn’t end in the pit. And Joseph’s dream isn’t done.

Here’s another reason that we give up our dreams. We self-censor. Right? Life happens in another way and we just say, I don’t deserve this dream. Anybody ever done that? Or we get down the road a bit like Joseph and suddenly the dream starts to feel like slavery and we say to ourselves, What was I thinking? And so, gradually, we stop dreaming.

Joseph could have done that. Down there in the pit or down the road in chains he could have said, Whoa, next time around, I’ll remember not to tell God my plans. But apparently, he doesn’t say that, or at least, he gets beyond that cynicism toward God and God’s plans. Apparently – because the story doesn’t end there – Joseph keeps saying, Maybe, just maybe, God’s not done with me yet. Apparently Joseph keeps asking, over and over, God, what have you got in mind?

You see, there’s something in our dreams that God wants to do. We tend to think that because so often life is the pits or the road is too long or hard, that we must have gotten it wrong, that the dream isn’t for us. But Joseph’s story is telling us that the dream is true, but the road to making the dream real can be painful.

Here’s the thing, looking ahead, down the road as we read more deeply into Joseph’s story over the next few weeks. Joseph’s dream is going to come true. His brothers and his family are going to bow down to him. Inside him, though, inside Joseph when he finds people fawning over him and his own folks bending a knee before him, he’s going to know that it’s happening not because of his own stellar qualities and achievements, but because he, Joseph, has a gift and a capacity for mercy. The world had need at that historical moment for a leader who could wield power with mercy. Who could get things done with mercy. Who could love not for self or clan or party or nation, but for the mercy of God.

Who else for the job, then, than someone who knows that mercy doesn’t come easy in this world?

You and I have a purpose in this world: to show some aspect of God’s love. St. Paul in his letter to the Galatians mentions love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control as being gifts of the spirit and aspects of God’s love. We could add, probably, forgiveness, grit, the capacity to break out of barriers and ceilings and closets, other things as well. Each one of us is given a unique gift to deliver in the world some aspect of God’s dream for us.

As we shall see as we get deeper into Joseph’s story, there will a huge shift as Joseph begins to discover that while his dream is true, it’s not about him, it’s about what God wants to do with him and through him.

As I reflect back on my own life, I remember that when I was very young, I wanted to be a college professor like my father. Except, secretly, I imagined I was going to do it even better than he did. I wasn’t just going to teach, I was going to lecture to standing room only crowds. I wasn’t only going to write books, I was going to write best-sellers. I wasn’t just going to be consulted on my expertise for public policy, I was going to be plucked out of my teaching to do something brilliant with government.

Sort of like Joseph, everybody bowing down, you know?

My dream, however, came up a little short. I remember that when I was in college, I was all set to start the journey. I took history classes and government classes and sat in on great lectures. When it came time to write my honors thesis, I went to the library deep in the stacks where nobody had been seen for years and I pulled research materials off the shelves and I set them up all around me the way I had seen my father do, and I picked up my pen and paper – we used pen and paper in those days – imagine!! – and I looked around me. All of a sudden something inside me went, Uh, oh. I really, really hate this. I’m not my father!

So I set off on another journey, one that has brought me here today. Along the way, I’ve found that I do have something of the teacher in me, like my dad, but it comes out differently in me. I don’t do stacks and books and policy. I tell stories of God’s love so that others won’t give up on their dreams.

Along the way, though, I have had to work at what love really is. Who knew?

Don’t give up on your dream. Somewhere in it is an invitation from God. You will discover along the way that life will bump into you and try to take your dream down. That’s simply part of the process. So, stay with it as Joseph does, and you will find that God will not give up on you!

I close with a prayer that puts my point simply. In all things, good and bad, remember that you are God’s child and God is not done with you yet.

The prayer comes from St. Theresa of Avila and it does this way:

May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use those gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given to you.May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

Amen!

Pastoral Prayer:

Take our gifts, O Lord our God, and be praised in them. Let the honor and the joy be yours. May everything we do show your presence and your dream.

Take our doubts, Master, receive them and do not give up on us. Let your faith seep into our waking moments.

In our failures, brother Jesus, forgive us our distraction, our fear, our self-judgment. Help us rise into your dream that could not be stopped, even by death, even by death on a cross.

Holy Spirit, our comforter, come now inside us, settle in our bones and bless our dreams. We live in anxious and conflicted times. Call us to courage and wisdom. Call us to believe that you can use even us to show your purposes in the world.

Holy One, invite us now to take up our dreams and bring them to you so we may know who you truly are and who you intend each one of us to be.

Amen!