Dangerous Dreams

Scripture: Genesis 37 – Joseph part 1 of 4, Eric Vogt, Senior Pastor

Let us pray. Lord, Peter preached from the prophet Joel on the day of Pentecost that when your Spirit showed up, the young would have visions and the old would dream dreams. Give us in this time together a window into your visions and dreams, for us as individuals and as a people. Help us live according to your vision. And wherever living your dream threatens our comfort or the status quo of the world around us, grant us your fierce courage and steadfast love to keep going. Help us hear your calling on our lives, and help us persevere through trials as we follow your lead. In the name of Jesus, that courageous and revolutionary dreamer, we pray. Amen.

 

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            What did you want to be when you were growing up? Many of us dream of being some kind of hero. I remember watching He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, or Transformers, and wanting to be the good guy who saves the day. The old Spiderman cartoon. Indiana Jones. I used to walk around my backyard, waving my arms and telling stories – a kind of fan fiction – of how I would be Indiana Jones with new sequels to the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I read Choose Your Own Adventure books, and I tried to tell stories where I was living an adventure and I was the hero. My T-ball team was called the Knight Riders, and of course I wanted to be David Hasselhoff. Somehow I knew that a superhero or a guy with a talking Trans Am was a hard thing to aspire to be, and so when anyone asked what I wanted to be, I’m sure it was informed by all these stories, but I always said I wanted to be a doctor. I dressed up as a doctor for Halloween when I was about 5 years old.

 

            Today we’re starting a 4 week sermon series on the life of Joseph, at the end of the book of Genesis. Our look at Joseph’s story in Genesis 37-50 will be informed by a new book by Valerie’s seminary roommate Sarah Heath called “What’s your Story? – Seeing your life through God’s Eyes.” As we look at Joseph’s story, I hope we start to see how God is narrating a story in our own lives, and in our shared life as Travis Park UMC. Where are we coming from, and where are we going? What are the gifts, challenges, and partners we encounter along the way? Valerie and I want to hear your stories and share a bit of ours, and so we’re setting up one-off home meetings and we hope you’ll find one that works for you. The first one is tomorrow night at Johanna Daily’s house, and other dates are listed in your bulletin with zip codes and contact info to RSVP.

 

            What makes for a great story? Joseph Campbell was a scholar who studied myths – myth here not referring to true or false, but about the deep shared stories that give us meaning – and Sarah quotes Campbell as talking about the “hero’s journey” as a structure for our great meaning-making stories.

 

 

            Campbell says there are 12 steps to the typical hero’s journey. (see slides from Sarah Heath’s “What’s your Story?”)

First, you meet the hero (often an unlikely hero) in their ordinary world.

Step 2, the hero is invited into an adventure through someone or something calling them out of their comfort zone.

3, the hero will refuse the call to something greater.

4, they meet a mentor or find another new source of wisdom or courage.

5, they leave the ordinary world and cross a threshold into a new and foreign place.

6, the protagonist goes through conflict, meeting people who will become either allies or enemies for the journey.

7, they prepare to meet a defining challenge.

8, the hero experiences an ordeal that could lead to her greatest fear or even death.

9, they receive a reward for facing that ordeal.

10, the hero returns home with new knowledge or treasure.

11, there’s one final test when they’re almost home.

12, the hero returns with something transformative to pass on to others, and the adventure continues.

 

            We see this 12 step structure in every great story, Campbell asserts. The Odyssey. Harry Potter. The Lord of the Rings. The chronicles of Narnia. Star Wars was very intentional about this paradigm. You see it in lots of Disney and Pixar movies – from the Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast to Cinderella and Frozen to Toy Story and Cars. You see it in every comic book superhero, where an unlikely and ordinary Peter Parker becomes an extraordinary Spider-Man or Bruce Wayne becomes Batman.

 

            Often the 12 step structure is played out in 3 acts. In Act 1, you see the ordinary world the soon-to-be hero lives in, and there’s a moment called an “inciting incident” that forces the character to leave their comfort zone. There’s a call to adventure. In Act 2, the hero will face the challenge and see the transformation not only of the situation but of their own character. And then in Act 3, there’s a climax and resolution as the hero returns with a new sense of their own identity and calling going forward.

 

            Think of Genesis 37 as Act 1 for Joseph, helping us to see where Joseph comes from, and the “inciting incident” that disrupts his ordinary life and propels him into a transformative adventure with God. Joseph is an unlikely hero. He’s living in a place where his father had immigrated, but it’s the only homeland he knows. He’s 17 years old, and kind of a punk of a teenager. To say he comes from a complicated and dysfunctional family is an understatement. Joseph has 10 older brothers and 3 step-moms, his own biological mom has died. His dad Jacob AKA Israel had known what it was to grow up amidst sibling rivalry and parental favoritism. Jacob had tricked his way into his brother Esau’s birthright and his father Isaac’s blessing. He had a weird relationship with his father-in-law where he married Leah by accident and then her sister Rachel. Jacob wrestled with God to gain a blessing that left him with a limp and a new name Israel, and he finally reconciled with his brother. So it seems strange – but we’ll find very like God – to work through a family like this one, and maybe we shouldn’t be surprised if Joseph’s story sounds a lot like that of his parents and grandparents.

 

But Joseph’s story almost doesn’t get off the ground. He’s a tattletale who gives a bad report about his brothers, and that just adds to how they already don’t like him because he’s dad’s favorite. Dad’s favor is represented in Joseph’s colorful – or at least long-sleeve – robe (“coat of many colors” comes from a later Greek translation, not the original Hebrew) and the fact that he doesn’t seem to have to share in the shepherding work.

 

Joseph doesn’t help himself by sharing these dreams he has of who he’ll be when he grows up. He’s either really arrogant or really naïve or both. He sees himself as a hero, not because of anything heroic or useful that he does, but simply because he knows that he knows that he knows that he’ll be the center of the universe, the one getting the glory. For Joseph, the 2 dreams simply mean that he will be greater than his brothers and parents. And that’s how the brothers take it too – of course they’re jealous and resentful of their little brother who already gets dad’s favor and doesn’t do as much work as they do. Sounds like a parable Jesus told about 2 sons, but that’s another story.

 

The point is that Joseph only dreams of the rewards of being the hero, he makes it all about him and doesn’t see any call to responsibility or change that would lead to his heroic status. He has no idea of the how or why of the fulfillment of the dream, no idea of a process by which this dream might come true. I suspect he doesn’t think fulfilling the dream will be hard, or require much from him. His greatness is just the way things already are, in his mind. He doesn’t understand the call to adventure and transformation needed before this dream can be fulfilled.

 

Both Joseph and his brothers are fairly uncritical about the dreams. Joseph doesn’t seem to think about anyone but himself, and he’s OK with that. The brothers are jealous and afraid, afraid they’ll never have their father’s favor, afraid their little brother will indeed rule over them even though he hasn’t done the work to deserve that status. The brothers’ response to their jealousy and fear, especially when it seems like he comes to them again as dad’s favored ambassador and tattletale, leads them to violence. Here comes the big dreamer, they say – let’s kill him and that will show him for dreaming! His dreams will die with him.

 

Dreaming is dangerous – dangerous for what it sets in motion in us, an unease and restlessness with our world, our home, as it is. And dangerous for the ways it can be perceived as threatening to those around us. The world likes its status quo, and wants to get rid of dreamers and their dreams. When we looked at this passage during the Corazon Bible study on Thursday, Andy reminded us that our Nobel laureate poet Bob Dylan said, “Don’t tell them your dreams, they’ll just try to destroy them.” The first response is “let’s kill the dreamer.” The second isn’t much better – Reuben says, just throw him in the cistern, don’t spill his blood. His intention was to save Joseph, verse 22 says, but good and delayed intentions get out-maneuvered by the majority of the brothers. And then the third option, Judah says, killing him doesn’t get us anything, let’s not harm him he’s family. Let’s not harm him, let’s just sell him into slavery – we can identify the irony, but we don’t realize how much our logic looks the same. We won’t actually hurt them, we’ll just profit off their bodies and labor. This immigrant story in a cistern with no water, a trade that turns dreamers into disposable profits, sounds a lot like the story in our own city and time that ended with 9 trafficked people dead in the back of a semi truck.

 

So we see the self-centered and unaware response to the dream from Joseph, not knowing how dangerous it is for him to name and share his own dreams. We see the fearful, jealous, violent response from the brothers. And we see dad Jacob’s response – at first he scolds Joseph, but then verse 11 says he took careful note of the matter. Let’s wait and see. Maybe there’s more to this than we know as of yet. Jacob knew from his own story as the bratty younger brother that even in the actions we intend to serve ourselves and harm others, God can turn them around and work good out of them.

 

This is not the end of Joseph’s story, we’ll see lots more over the next 3 weeks. It seems like it could be the end – he’s taken for dead, he’s sold into slavery and exiled off to far away Egypt. In fact, the challenge here is what disrupts Joseph from his ordinary life, and puts into place the process for his own transformation and the fulfillment of his dream. The hardship initiates our hero’s living into a call to adventure, and in fact, he never could become the hero without the hardship.

 

Maybe our dreams, or just life, have gotten us thrown in some empty and dry cisterns. We feel like we’re stuck in a ditch. It’s easy to get battered down and simply stop dreaming, as individuals, as families, as church community. (see slide from Heath book) Where are the places you’ve felt stuck, you’ve felt like you’re facing a dead end and you can’t see any way your dream can come to pass? How will you respond – what will we do in the ditch? Will we just give up on dreaming, try to go back to a safe and domesticated life in the ordinary world? Forget your dream, enjoy your colorful coat, just be the younger brother and don’t cause trouble. Or will we dare to dream big, to hold tight to our dreams in times of hardship and see that it’s through adversity that we might be shaped in ways we need if we are to see the dreams come to pass.

 

We can’t stop dreaming. Sarah quotes Zora Neale Thurston, “There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.” Proverbs 29:18 famously says, “Without a vision, the people perish.” Dreams that are squelched will decay, will hurt us and those around us. I’m reminded of Langston Hughes’ poem “Harlem” –

What happens to a dream deferred?

   Does it dry up     like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—     And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—    like a syrupy sweet?

 

      Maybe it just sags    like a heavy load.

 

      Or does it explode?

 

The world throws whole classes of those who have dreamed of equality and justice into empty cisterns and violence and slavery, even as we call those dreamers family. But the dreamers cannot let the dream die. To live without the dream is not really living at all.

 

            But we also have to be open to how God might reinterpret the dream – maybe it’s not about us and our glory, but our joining in how God is transforming us and healing the world. We aren’t the center of God’s story, but God has an important role for us, and God doesn’t want to write the story without us. What is God’s story? It’s about restoration, healing, putting the broken pieces of creation and peoples and the brokenness inside each of us back together. It’s about what a Jewish phrase calls “tikkun olam” – repairing the world.

 

            I think I was onto something when I dreamed of being a hero, dreamed of being a doctor. But I had to let God reinterpret the dream. For a number of reasons, I felt very stuck, lonely, beaten down as a pre-med in college. But I think God wanted me to be a part of healing for people and communities in a different way, as a pastor. The dream wasn’t wrong, it just needed some reshaping of the how and why, of my character and some perspective that made it about God’s purposes and not my glory. I needed some hardship to move me out of my comfort zone and help me reframe my dream in terms of God’s dream. I was called to be a part of God’s healing work, but I couldn’t even start to see how that would be accomplished until I had gone through some rough places.

 

Where is God calling us back to our dreams, and into new adventures, even in using our hardships? I look forward to hearing and seeing and supporting with you how God is weaving our stories, Travis Park’s story, into God’s great love story. I pray we can press into God’s dream for us together over the coming weeks and months.

 

            Will you pray with me now?

God, you are a master storyteller, and we want to find our role in your great love story. We know you were with Joseph even at the bottom of the well, that his story was just getting started. You worked even in Joseph’s darkest moments, and you bring his dreams to life in surprising ways that were about your purposes not Joseph’s glory.

Help us help each other to know you are with us in the hard places, and help us learn to know and live and share your story together. Make us more open about our dreams and our ditches. Open our hearts and minds and lives to the possibility that even in and through our most difficult circumstances we might hear your call to adventure. Shape us as characters in your story, a people who live to be faithful to you and your good purposes. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Genesis 37 (CEB)

1 Jacob lived in the land of Canaan where his father was an immigrant. 2 This is the account of Jacob's descendants. Joseph was 17 years old and tended the flock with his brothers. While he was helping the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives, Joseph told their father unflattering things about them. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons because he was born when Jacob was old. Jacob had made for him a long robe. 4 When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of his brothers, they hated him and couldn't even talk nicely to him. 

 

5 Joseph had a dream and told it to his brothers, which made them hate him even more. 6 He said to them, "Listen to this dream I had. 7 When we were binding stalks of grain in the field, my stalk got up and stood upright, while your stalks gathered around it and bowed down to my stalk." 8 His brothers said to him, "Will you really be our king and rule over us?" So they hated him even more because of the dreams he told them. 

 

9 Then Joseph had another dream and described it to his brothers: "I've just dreamed again, and this time the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me." 10 When he described it to his father and brothers, his father scolded him and said to him, "What kind of dreams have you dreamed? Am I and your mother and your brothers supposed to come and bow down to the ground in front of you?" 11 His brothers were jealous of him, but his father took careful note of the matter.

 

12 Joseph's brothers went to tend their father's flocks near Shechem. 13 Israel said to Joseph, "Aren't your brothers tending the sheep near Shechem? Come, I'll send you to them." And he said, "I'm ready." 

 

14 Jacob said to him, "Go! Find out how your brothers are and how the flock is, and report back to me." So Jacob sent him from the Hebron Valley.

 

When he approached Shechem, 15 a man found him wandering in the field and asked him, "What are you looking for?" 16 Joseph said, "I'm looking for my brothers. Tell me, where are they tending the sheep?" 17 The man said, "They left here. I heard them saying, ‘Let's go to Dothan.'" So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan. 

 

18 [Joseph’s brothers] saw him in the distance before he got close to them, and they plotted to kill him. 19 The brothers said to each other, "Here comes the big dreamer. 20 Come on now, let's kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns, and we'll say a wild animal devoured him. Then we will see what becomes of his dreams!" 

 

21 When Reuben heard what they said, he saved him from them, telling them, "Let's not take his life." 22 Reuben said to them, "Don't spill his blood! Throw him into this desert cistern, but don't lay a hand on him." He intended to save Joseph from them and take him back to his father. 

 

23 When Joseph reached his brothers, they stripped off Joseph's long robe, 24 took him, and threw him into the cistern, an empty cistern with no water in it. 25 When they sat down to eat, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with camels carrying sweet resin, medicinal resin, and fragrant resin on their way down to Egypt. 26 Judah said to his brothers, "What do we gain if we kill our brother and hide his blood? 27 Come on, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites. Let's not harm him because he's our brother; he's family." His brothers agreed. 

 

28 When some Midianite traders passed by, they pulled Joseph up out of the cistern. They sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver, and they brought Joseph to Egypt. 

 

29 When Reuben returned to the cistern and found that Joseph wasn't in it, he tore his clothes. 30 Then he returned to his brothers and said, "The boy's gone! And I—where can I go now?" 31 His brothers took Joseph's robe, slaughtered a male goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. 

 

32 They took the long robe, brought it to their father, and said, "We found this. See if it's your son's robe or not." 33 He recognized it and said, "It's my son's robe! A wild animal has devoured him. Joseph must have been torn to pieces!" 34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put a simple mourning cloth around his waist, and mourned for his son for many days. 35 All of his sons and daughters got up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted, telling them, "I'll go to my grave mourning for my son." And Joseph's father wept for him. 36 Meanwhile the Midianites had sold Joseph to the Egyptians, to Potiphar, Pharaoh's chief officer, commander of the royal guard.

 

 

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