"What Is Your Dream?" January 14, 2018

I Samuel 3:1-20 John 1: 43-51 I like the story of the Boy Samuel misunderstanding and coming to Eli half-asleep. When my brothers and I were very young, one by one everyone passed the Flu. About 3am the eldest went to our parents saying he had just gotten sick in the night. Our parents clearly recall saying “Leave a Light on In the Hall.” So that if he needed to get up again, the way to the bathroom would be lit. Instead of “Leave a Light on in the Hall,” the eight year old boy heard, “Leave, Go Lay Down in the Hall.” So he did, until about an hour later, when the next brother awakened and feeling ill he ran toward the bathroom, tripping over the elder’s body in the Hall. It took Eli and Samuel, four attempts to understand that it was God speaking to Samuel and how to listen. What is your dream? When someone tells me “I have a Dream,” I find myself wanting to know more, wanting to see that impossible dream fulfilled. A dream implies that this is a Vision of what today is impossible, but differently could be. A dozen years ago, the Refugees whom we had taken into our lives and our Church surnamed as “Lost Boys” shared a Dream of being reunited with their families. When they said they could not go, their dream called to my unconscious saying “In caring and commitment You could.” When one shared, the nearest Doctor of any kind to our families is 70 miles away and there are no roads, I have a dream of our providing them health care… When my companion/a pastor described, “I know you have a dream, and others have shared with you their dreams, my dream is that the Church could own oxen and plows that people could share in cultivating the soil for crops, rather than sticking their finger in the dirt to plant a single seed.” I had to respond. When I got off the plane in South Sudan, and the local Outreach Worker described every time a woman gets pregnant, she has a 50/50 chance of dying, I muttered under my breath, “My Mom died in my labor and delivery” and suddenly you could have heard a mosquito flying in that open-air gathering of 300 people. Had we been able to know the total cost, that instead of a Clinic costing $30,000 we would be at this for 10 years, now providing Food as well as Health Care to 500,000 people, Logic & Reasoning the Impossibility might have put on brakes. But DREAMS envision a new different reality. There are several “Loaded Phrases” in these two periscope, “The Word of God was Rare and Precious in those days” and “The Eyes of Eli had grown dim.” Rare and Precious is ordinarily used in the Bible for a fine Jewel, valued because of its scarcity. This is the only place in all of Scripture used in reference to God’s Word. The reality is that the Hebrew people lived in relative calm and great transition. There were no Burning Bushes, no Red Seas to cross, no Slavery or Wilderness to exit, but the Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant and 10 Commandments, and there was change from the time of Judges to Kings, from Nomads to a Monarchy. Much like today, there was a burning desire to fix the world, to change where we were going; Hopeful expectations and vision and dreams were rare. There are several: Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, in the First Testament who are described as living far older “and their eyes had not dimmed,” yet like Isaac the father of Esau and Jacob who would become known as Israel, Vision Grew Dim, this phrase has to mean more than: Cataracts /Bi-Focals. While I have not found this from any scholar, at any of these references, I think the reference to “Dim of Sight,” refers to having Clear A DREAM of The Present into a New Future. Right now, we know something radical is happening in our culture, and past abuses are no longer tolerated, as several have chanted: “Time’s Up,” but we cannot yet see beyond the present to what the future will be. As the aged Priest Eli is like Isaac without Vision, the story of Nathaniel links to Jacob. Jacob the younger twin of Isaac remember was a deceitful schemer, who wrestling in a dream, receives the new name Israel, “one who wrestles with God.” Here wrestling in words with Jesus, The Messiah calls Nathaniel an ISRAELITE in WHOM THERE IS NO DECEIT. Even more, that Jacob you recall had a Dream of a Ladder connecting HEAVEN & EARTH for Angels to travel back and forth upon. Here Jesus names to Nathaniel “You will see Heaven opened and Angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Meaning the resurrection is a new connection between God in an Open Heaven and Earth. But I have gotten ahead of myself, according to John, the day after Jesus’ Baptism, John the Baptist points him out to John‘s Disciples saying “Behold, The Lamb of God” so two spy on Jesus following him to see Who he is. But Jesus catches them following and asks “What do you Seek?” in essence “WHAT IS YOUR DREAM?” oddly they respond “Where are you staying”, which I guess means that our homes and people says a great deal about us… But Jesus responds with invitation: “Come and See”. That is the invitation to faith. There is not requirement of a Confirmation Class, or Memorization, no Pledge or Vow, but invitation to “Come be part of this, tell others.” Nazareth was a totally forgettable place. Not being in Medical Equipment, when we came to Skaneateles we know nothing of what comes from here, and over time have delighted in learning not only of Funduscopy, the Otoscope, the Opthalmascope, but also NECCO Wafer Candies, TC Timber Wooden Trains, Granola, Mottville Chairs all came from here. Until the 3rd Century, there is no reference, in any writing, nor in all the Old Testament, to there ever having been a Nazareth. It appears Nazareth was very near (2 miles)the City of Sepphoris, in Greek Zippori, where the Sanhedrin and Jewish Scholars had gathered for the writing of the Talmud, there was a Jewish Synagogue here, a City set atop a Hill, where Jesus may have gone to school. But Nazareth, was not known for anything. When Nathaniel responds “Could anything good come out of Nazareth?” Jesus does not get defensive, but simply says Come See which disarms Nathaniel, much like our telling others “I saw a great Film” in hope they will Come along and join in. Robert Scharlemann’s book “The REASON of FOLLOWING” provides an intriguing argument, that traditionally we have thought of 3 forms of Greek Philosophy: Pure reason: KNOWLEDGE; Practical Reason: ETHICS; and Artistic Reason: AESTHETICS. But here, Jesus uses a 4th kind of REASON: The Reason of Following: DEPENDENCE. The Disciples never asked Jesus “What is True” (Pilate does but not Jesus’ Disciples) that would be using the REASONING of KNOWLEDGE; or “What is The Good” which would be ETHICS; or “What is Beautiful?” instead, like God Calling Abram, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and the Prophets, Jesus speaks to their INNER HUNGER of each person for COMMUNION, together and to God, to Belong, for Absolute Dependence not to be cut off, alone or isolated. There is no questioning before beginning; there are doubts, questioning along the way as we encounter circumstances, as DREAMS are made real, and as Hardships are part of experience being reformed by what we believe. “Come and See”!