Dreams

 We are now fully into the season of Epiphany

The Season after The Epiphany is the technical name in case any Bishops or liturgical scholars are hearing this, and during this season, our Sunday readings are organized in a way to show who Jesus is.

It works like this: 

On the day of The Epiphany, Jesus is made manifest to the world - and FOR the world, as the Magi represent all the nations and not just Israel. The next Sunday Jesus is baptized. After that, we have other stories that reveal something about Jesus’ identity and mission, beginning with his first public act and then crowning the season with the story of the Transfiguration just before Ash Wednesday.

Jesus’s first public act is different in each of the four Gospels. In the Gospel of Matthew, it is the sermon on the mount, in which Jesus, in the style of Moses, lays out teachings to describe God’s vision for the world and how God’s people should live out that vision. 

In Mark, his first act is to cast out an unclean spirit, emphasizing his battle against evil and embodying God’s dream of making all people free. 

In Luke, Jesus proclaims in his first teaching that he is the one about whom Isaiah prophesied, that he came to bring good news to the poor and make the lame walk and the blind see, embodying God’s power working through him.

But in John, Jesus’s first public act is to go to a wedding, where he saves the day by miraculously turning gallons and gallons and gallons of water into gallons and gallons and gallons of wine.

Isn’t that something? No preaching, no teaching, no spectacular healing. As his first public act, Jesus goes to a wedding and provides the wine.

I love all of these first acts in his public ministry, but I am really struck by the fact that here we see Jesus begin by celebrating a joyful occasion, by showing God’s intention to provide for us so abundantly, and that in God’s dream, 

there is enough and more than enough for everyone.

John calls this a sign, not a miracle, and that’s an important distinction. In another of his signs, he will provide abundant bread to feed thousands of very tired people who need to sit down to rest and eat. 

And these are signs because they are not about food and drink. They signify something bigger, more significant, holy signs that reveal Jesus’s purpose as God’s son coming to earth to show us God and God’s dream for us.

 

So, these signs that some call miracles are not only meant for those who were within at the time. 

These signs are also for us, to urge us to pay serious attention to. And when Mary suggests that it would be best to do what Jesus says to do, he’s not just talking to the servants. She is also talking to us. She’s telling us how we should respond to Jesus.

This first sign is to show God’s dream for us, that God will nourish us with the good stuff even when we are in the thick of it. 

On this weekend when we are thinking about another dream, the dream Martin Luther King, Jr. that he broadcast to the world in 1963, I want to introduce to you another dreamer, named Verna Dozier. 

Ms. Dozier was a parishioner at St. Mark’s Capitol Hill in Washington DC and a passionate educator - 

both in public schools (her secular career) and in the church (her lay religious career). She was an activist of many kinds and is credited with almost singlehandedly changing and revitalizing the way Episcopalians learn to use God’s word in their lives. She published a short book 

called The Dream of God: A Call to Return. Dozier believed passionately that God has a dream, and we are the realization of that dream.

 

And thus God’s dream is for us to be creative and free, and God gave us Jesus who came to show us what life in God’s kingdom is like (which is NOT like the kingdoms of this world but is a new and beautiful thing), and that our job is not to just sit around and worship Jesus but to follow him.  To do what he tells us to do.

Dozier has a lot to say about how the church has frequently missed its opportunity to live out God’s dream for us. It’s pretty challenging. But as the subtitle to her book shows, she believes we can still turn around and learn to follow. 

And she is clear that gathering in joy and for sustenance, like we do here on Sundays, like we do at a wedding, is part of our life together. But it’s not all of our life as a community. 

She says it like this:

“The church is the people of God. It takes two forms, the church gathered and the church scattered. We gather to break bread as a community, to hear our story, and to recommit ourselves to the dream of God. We scatter to live into that dream. It is the task of the church, the people of God, to minister within the structures of society. It is the role of the church, the institution, to support that ministry.”

In other words, it is the role of the church to equip us for ministry. And it is the role of the people to go out and do that ministry in the world.

Dozier further says, “The urgent task for us today is to reclaim our identity as the people of God and live into our high calling as the baptized community. We are a chosen people, chosen for God’s high purposes, that the dream of God for a new creation may be realized.”

It is the dream of God that we will be something new in the world. And it occurred to me that during this time of discernment for us as a parish, as we discern who we are and where we perceive God may be leading us next, it might be helpful to spend some time in Verna Dozier’s company, thinking about the dream of God and what new thing we might be becoming. 

Today we are gathered in celebration, to hear the story, to share in the bread and the wine. And the story today is this:  Jesus as God’s precious son will joyfully sustain us as we live this life. And Jesus also will tell us what to do in both word and deed.

And our work, beloveds, is to scatter and go out and do it.