DREAMS, VISIONS AND GoD! 'S NEW WORLD

‘October 1, 1989
8:30 and 11:00. a.m. Worship Services|
John M. Buchanan

Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Soripeare
. Joel 2:23-29..
~ Luke 24:28-35~

"Your. sons and your daughters ‘shall prophesy, your ‘old men shall “drean -
drears, and your young men shall see visions.” NE -~Joel 2: 28b(RSV) tt

Lewis Thomas, physician, ‘philosopher, former President of. Sloane ™ oo
Kettering Cancer Center is, I-belteve, somewhat: of” a “prophet - for our times. -
He has written mostly about life, its ‘complexity, ‘its wonderful. surprises, ae
its mystery. In his last. book ‘he turned his attention to the possibilities”
for life in the future. The title essay in that “book is Late Night :
Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony. » That symphony, by” the.
way, is powerful, deep: ‘it. reflects Mahler's struggle ‘with the “puzzle of.
human mortality.: Here is thé way Lewis Thomas concludes that essay:

“The: man.on television, Sunday midday, niddle- ~aged and. solid, nice. —
looking” ‘chap, all the -facts-at his fingertips, ‘more dependable looking. than
most high-school principals, is talking about Civil Defense, his. ee
responsibility: in Washington. It can make an enormous difference, -he is
saying. Instead of the outright death of eighty million American citizens
in twenty minutes, he says, we can, by careful. planning and practice, get
that number down to. only forty million, maybe even twenty. The thing. to
do, he says, is to evacuate the cities quickly and have everyone get under .
shelter: inthe countryside." I recall reading that in the paper and:: a
wondering if the man had ever tried to get out of downtown Chicago after
3:30 p.m. ‘on a. normal weekday afternoon. "That way we can recover, and |
meanwhile we will have retaliated, incinerating all-of Soviet society, | he
says.... What about radioactive fallout? he is asked... Well, he says... oo
anyway, he says, if the Russians know they can only destroy forty million.
of us instead of eighty million, . this will deter them. - Eighty million— ae
would-be another matter.. : ae

_ And cen Levis Than bsone rtecive

"If I. were sixteen or seventeen years oid ‘and had to listen to ‘that,
or read things like that, I would want to. give up listening and reading.
would begin thinking up new kinds of sounds, different from any music. ‘heard
before, and-I would be twisting and turning. to rid myself of - human
language." [p. 167, 168]

Some time in the past decade a profound change occurred near the
heart of this culture. This change of heart was not primarily in the way
we voted, or the way we spent money, our sexual habits, reading
preferences... This change of heart was about the way people view the
future, the human prospect, if you prefer a little more flamboyant
language. In the past, the sociologists tell us, people viewed the future
in a way that can be characterized as hopeful,

Some time in the past decade that changed apparently. The change
showed up first, as most major changes do, in the sub-culture of youth,
when high school students shocked us by declaring that a majority of them
expected to die in a nuclear war. Not long after they shocked us again by
_ revealing that a majority expect that their lives will not be as happy,
healthy. nor generally as good and fulfilling as their parents' lives were,
even if they survive the nuclear war they expect to happen. ;

The change of heart promptly began to trickle up - which is the way
cultural change happens. At. about the same time high school statistics
were revealing the pessimism, college students - who for generations have
been characterized as mainly utopian about the human prospect, and who for
all those generations generally could be counted on to be impatient
advocates and consistent irritants for a better world - suddenly became
very practical. Suddenly.the college departments of Economics,..Business
and Accounting had more students than they wanted or needed. ~ That is not a
hegative assessment of those majors, just an observation that there has
been a significant change in what students want from an education.
Traditional Liberal Arts majors declined: the pragmatic, economically
practical majors mushroomed. Asked about their hopes and dreams, they
talked about five year . career goals and tax shelters. instead of world..
peace.

; Concurrently, on a broad. national base, the last vestiges of the “war
-on poverty” were abandoned. We surrendered:. And after several. decades of
difficult but steady progress toward a racially inclusive society,..the
Civil Rights Movement came to an end. We even began to think that it was
wrong to dream the dream:. that somehow harm was done by even suggesting
that we could, if we wanted to, create a new and better world for our
children and grandchildren. As we enter the last three months. of. the

- decade of the 1980s we seem to be a culture without much of a drean,
‘without a vision of what could be: a pragmatic, practical culture,
obsessed with economic bottom. lines and uninterested in flights of fancy
and imagination about a-world that might be, but is not yet.

- Several thousand years ago an obscure Hebrew. prophet addressed 7
himself to a very dismal: set of historical circumstances. The. prophet Joel
lived during a tragic time - a time of famine, a time of no food and no
-prospect of food. When the crops fail in 500 B.C. you are ina lot of
trouble. People got hungry and sick and the elderly were dying -of-
malnutrition; the babies: were not doing well and the wise men and women
thought about the possibility that it might be the end. History, as far as
they were conterned, might stop with their generation as they all slowly
died of starvation and passed out of existence. It was then and there, in
the midst of that grim and hopeless situation that God raises up a prophet,
who if he never said another word, said these words memorably:

10/1/89 2

“And it shall come to pass... I will pour out my spirit on all.
flesh...your sons and daughters will prophesy...your old people shall]. dream
dreams...your. young people shall see visions.”

"Where there is no vision, the people perish" is the way the old
proverb-puts it. There is something about the human enterprise that needs
a vision, -@ dream. We are in trouble when we have no dreams.

That. dynamic, that special. responsibility of dreaming and- visioning,
is what religion is for. In large measure it. is what the Bible is: about.
God's people are the custodians of a dream. No-matter how grim theo.)
immediate: ‘prospects appear,- people in the Bible keep the faith, have hope |
in the future. - Biblical: people in every age, says William Sloan coffin,
have -a" ‘passion for .the. possible." : : ;

Poe Tt is: what sustains then through years of Egyptian slavery and
decades. of wandering through the wilderness. ‘It sustains them during’

( decades of exile and literally centuries of war, oppression and ;

} persecution: “.-It ‘sustains. the early Christian Church, growing precariously

i in the nooks and crannies of the Roman Empire. It sustains little colonies .
| of Christians even on the days their leaders are arrested, tortured and
executed. It.sustains African slaves in the New World who adopt ‘the ~~
religion « of their ‘captors and- masters. and who find in that religion the
power to keep faith with the future. It sustains prisoners in death camps
who somehow articulate the vision that God's new-world is coming. “And;
a very personal level, this vision, this ultimate confidence in God; ‘elves:
‘strength and hope to countless millions of men and women who face- their ‘own
futures, ‘their trials, their illnesses, even their own death. with grace and
courage. , fhe

“Tt maybe the crisis: of our time that the’ ‘dream, -in theological
language, ‘the ‘vision. of-a-world ‘as. God ‘intended | Ait, ‘a world of: “peace and —
Justice. and. -Kindness, has: ‘faded. canes ee

co ‘walter: Bruggemann, one. of our best and - ‘brightest Biblical scholars,
| wrote recently: :
i

“After so much guilt. ‘and denial, we do not believe in an alternative
future... We.do not believe in’ a God who makes things. new, who cares so much -
about truth, equity and righteousness that the-present must give way to the
force of. God's: promises... We cannot imagine a. different future. for the ~
world, -nor-for those closest, most precious around us. The only available
alternative thus is to live as. fully and as self-centeredly as is required
of us. We end-in despair. We can see.no more of a transformed worid than
we can of. a transformed marriage, or a transformed self, or a transformed
— job.” [Israel's Praise, p. 135]

- Bruggeman helps us understand that without a vision, people really do ;
perish; that there is-a connection between a fading of hope and an increase
in teenage suicide; that ‘there is a connection between the poverty 6f

dreams and the massive turning to the anesthesia of cocaine and crack,

the oulturally acceptable anesthetic of narcissism. ;

10/1/89 3

en,

. We Christians really do believe that things can be different. We
really do believe. that peace -is possible:’. that the whole: creation can. live
in- mutuality and cooperation. We Christians have the special.
responsibility of reminding the-world that there. are alternatives, “that” we |
were. created for something more than Mutually ‘Assured Destruction: that it

cis not utopian to expect. human _beings to live up to the image: of. God which
is: in. ‘each one.of. us. : ae - oe

" “It is the special ‘vocation of Christian people to keep ‘the ‘dream’
alive, “and sometimes: that Mmeans..to keep | alive: -the. necessary: vulnerability
-. and capacity for. anger and outrage when the dream is denied. ‘and defiled:
It is our special task never to. accommodate: to the demonic forces of..
poverty and racism. It is our task to keep this society from: ignoring
Cabrini-Green or-the homeless men and women. walking our. streets. or ‘the.
children caught in the hellish web of drugs and. crime. : :

Te is our responsibility to think anew and-to push and prod the world
to think anew. oes

(os. On.this day ‘particularly; World Communion Sunday, it. is our: ‘vocation.
_.to’dream the dream and to celebrate the vision of a world at peace... At-the
table.of our Lord we taste, the newness of God's reconciliation. SAt table,
os “like. ‘those disciples who. first broke bread. and shared: the cup. with: the.
RG “Christ, our hearts: burn. within us: with: the. possibility. :

What a a vision “it. ish rr: “world where human beings are- brothers and
“sisters: a society. which cares: for.even the least of its citizens, a
- church which celebrates. the individuality of-each-of its members. It- is. 2a
“precious: vision. -To-our. friend Paul. Winter, it looks like the: ‘American -
~ President and the Soviet: Premier floating down the Colorado River, through
~~ the Grand Canyon, ina river raft. : rao

; “To the prophets Ait looks. like a great banquet, with good | food and.
wine, with God wiping away all tears. [isaiah. 25)

a And to Christian. people the drean is, has-been. and is of: each ‘of -us

and: all of us, around a-table, sharing the life-of. our. Lord:: _Catholic,.
-Protestant, Black, White, ‘North American, South American, European,

African, Dawa ee ae ee

Is it utopian?. Is there any possibility that this vision will ever
actually happen? Or does. common sense dictate putting it aside and living ©
_..in=the real world?. our. faith is that the:-vision does: become: reality, “not:
“280. ‘much: in one dramatic-event: as it does in one-act -at-a time; one gesture
Of kindness, one brave: affirmation, ‘or one angry refusal to accommodate to
the: forces-of death. The dream lives in the lives of: individual. people,
ed who have found in Jesus. Christ reason never. to give. up. hope.

ae We dare. to hold | on- ‘to. our dream because. we know a. secret... “We: know
Oe: Jesus Christ, -victin of ‘the. world's harshness. and cruelty. and. oe
~-eynicism, who’. did -not,.remain victim, but conquered death.. The. vision. is-
reals because. in him, death no longer has. dominion in the world,. or: in ‘our.
lives, ae . : : ne ”

10/1/89

The vision of God's new world begins here - on World Communion Sunday
~ around this table as we are served bread and wine and as we serve bread
and wine to one another. What is boldly true is also true in our
particularity. Each of us has a dream. Each-of us dreams about a better
world. Each of us knows where life is broken and needs healing and new
power. The body and blood of Jesus Christ, poured out for us, is the
source of our hope. There is a dangerous myth that mature people put
dreams aside and live on the basis of lowered, more realistic expectations.
That's dangerous. We need old and young to dream. You don't have to live
without the dream. Your relationships - your future - can be different.

So let us come, custodians of a vision of a new world and a hopeful
future. Let us come to table with brothers and sisters we have never seen,
but who are also at table at this hour on every continent, in every land.

Let us come with people we will never see, but whose grandchildren
will share with our grandchildren whatever future we make.

So then let us respond to that gracious invitation of our Lord: let

us attend the feast prepared for us. Let us keep the faith and nurture
the vision and dream the drean.

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