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Eighteenth Sunday
after Pentecost
October 8, 2006
Sermon by The Rev. Bill Van Oss, Rector
Readings
When I was a young boy, I had a dream. I dreamed of one day being a
Green Bay Packer football player. It was a dream I shared with many of
my little friends, but I didn’t dream of being just any Packer player; I
dreamed of being Bart Starr – the greatest quarterback of his time.
I wore a jersey with his number, 15, all the time. I had a helmet just
like his. I intently watched every game, cheered for Bart on every play,
and in the park at the end of our street every afternoon of the fall, I
was Bart Starr – calling the plays, throwing the passes, handing off to
the running back. I was living the dream – for a time – for as I got a
bit older, I continued to play, but I began to realize that I just
wasn’t very good. I didn’t have a good arm, I wasn’t very fast, and the
plays never seemed to work out.
I never played quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, or any other
professional team for that matter. My dream was never fulfilled. And
yet, I’m grateful for having had the dream, for having lived the dream,
even if it was only on that vacant lot with my little friends for a
short, short time. For dreams are necessary and life-giving for us.
Dreams give us a glimpse, a taste, of what could be. Dreams give us
hope.
God has a dream. We are given a glimpse of it today, in our first
reading from the Book of Genesis. A small portion of the creation story.
The creation stories, in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, are God’s dream for
the world and for humanity. God’s dreams of a world where people live in
harmony with creation. Where there is reverence and respect for the
gifts of earth and water and air. Where humankind treats all creatures,
great and small, as God’s creation, created good, for our use and not
our misuse.
God dreams of a world where people know and understand that woman and
man were created in the image and likeness of God and should be treated
as such: as God’s beloved creation. God’s works of art.
God dreams that we will treat each other with dignity and respect, and
that we will love one another as the Creator loves us. God dreams that
humanity will live together in peace regardless of race or class or
gender or orientation or past wrongs or anything else.
God dreams that people will come together as “helpers” and “partners”
with each other. God desires that we form covenants of love with each
other where “two become one flesh.”
God dreams that we will love each other as completely and
unconditionally as God loves us. But, sadly, there is a “but”, we are a
long way from Eden, as they say – for after creation came “the fall.”
God’s dreams for our world and for our selves have not been realized,
like when reality sets in for a young boy who dreams of being a
professional quarterback. The reality of our world and of our lives is
that we do not reverence the earth, the water and the air. We do not
respect the creatures God has made. We do not treat each other as God’s
beloved creation.
We pollute, and harm, and discriminate. We live selfishly, allowing
others to go without while we consume too much. We go to war, so much
easier than the hard work of making peace. We judge based on appearance
and stereotypes that we cling to with all our might, rather than
respecting the dignity of every human being. We do no love others, as
God loves us, in spite of the fact we hear this command over and over in
the Gospels.
And the covenant we form with another person, a covenant intended to
bring two persons together into “one flesh” does not always last. Our
“hardness of heart” gets in the way.
Jesus acknowledges the reality of the human condition today when some
Pharisees try to trap him with the painful reality of divorce. “Is it
lawful to divorce?”, they ask. And Jesus acknowledges our fallen, human
condition, that we are a long way from Eden – that we live in a broken
world – and hurt each other.
But Jesus does not stop there. Jesus returns to Eden, to creation, to
God’s dream, and He tells us: “Do not lose sight of the garden.” Hang
onto God’s dream, for you, for the world and for humanity. Hang on to
covenants of love where two become one flesh. It’s an ideal, yes, even a
dream, but it’s God’s dream, and Jesus came to make it possible by
redeeming us, freeing us from sin and brokenness and giving us the gift
of new life, new love, restoring us to original grace and giving us a
vision of the Garden again.
We all need to have dreams, and we need to remember God’s dream for us
and for our world, for dreams give us a glimpse of what can be.
Dreams give us hope.