Matthew 1:18-25
You May Say I’m a Dreamer: Learning to Walk in the Dark
Followed by Simon Holt playing John Lennon’s IMAGINE on the organ
“Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way…” (Matthew 1:18-)
Who doesn’t love a good birth story?
My seven-year-old nephew, Fitz, waits all year for his next birthday party and spends months planning it. Like many of us, he loves to hear his mother tell the tale of the evening he was born. The re-packing of the overnight bag, the rushing to the hospital, the dreaming about who this darling child of God would turn out to be, and the sleepless nights spent trying to select his perfect name.
In the gospels this time of year, we get to hear two birth narrative accounts. Like Mary’s “yes” to God in the gospel of Luke, I never tire of hearing about Joseph and, this “Son of David’’s’ timely dream.
In Matthew’s version which we heard this morning, we can almost hear Joseph’s voice as he wakes up to his new life. In this first of three dreams, (1: 20; 2:13; 19,22), we gain a glimpse into what’s going on inside this soon-to-be-adoptive-father’s heart. A child of the Holy Spirit is on the way!
Far from perfect, this nativity news must have ushered in some deep trouble. We learn that Joseph plans to quietly break his engagement with Mary. “Dismiss her” as would have been the ancient custom.
Yet, thank goodness, like his ancestors in faith before him, Joseph was a dreamer! God’s angel comes at night as she often does, announcing the advent of the new… possibilities birthed out of chaos and fear. Joseph chose to listen to this revelation, to wake up to his new life and the responsibilities of love awaiting him. Complicated as relationships and love always are…
Isn’t that the best gift, the good news of this Advent Season, what the prophet Isaiah termed the “hidden treasures of the dark”?
That the Spirit shows up in all kinds of ways in our days- often in dreams, in trouble and in the unexpected. Perhaps, like Joseph we too might have the courage to listen into the night to the stirrings of God. We, too, are invited to awaken to one another with fresh eyes and wide-open hearts.
Learning to see in the dark is another kind of illumination. That is the journey of life–and faith–after all… Theologian and writer, Barbara Brown Taylor calls this experience endarkment.
Endarkment, a way of navigating in the dark and embracing the revelations that are there-rather than pushing fear, resentment anxieties about what’s to come further down underground.
The light in the dark is another shade of light. It is not all to be feared. Our lives are filled with both…[1]
It’s more of a pinpoint light. Our eyes have to adjust to our nighttime vision.
Then slowly things emerge. First one star then another (if enough neighbors have their outside lights turned off) then hundreds, constellations galore. The more you stare up at the night sky, the more you see!
It is this quality of light that is the fruiting ground for dreams. Night time revelations abound in the biblical story especially in the ones we share during Advent, Christmas and Epiphany from Mary and Joseph’s angel visits and dreams to the shepherds’ fields to the traveling Magi.
Advent as you know, starts today. It is a time of reimagining and dreaming in the dark. As much a place as it is a season, Advent invites us to slow down as we anticipate Christ’s birth again, and reminds us of what love can do…We mark it with lighting candles, Advent wreaths and Advent calendars (there’s a handout for each of you if you’d like to take one in Fellowship Hall…)
We celebrate it with engaging in rich traditions, rituals, music, cookie bakes and remembering the stories of Christmas past and counting our days as well as gifts and losses of the past year.
Advent is a time of retelling (and re-enacting) the stories of our faith and a God whose presence can be felt under starlight and through daylight. And we celebrate a God who journeys with us with a new/ancient name, “God is with us”, Emmanuel!
It is A time out of time where we shift from chronos (clock time) to what we call Kairos, Greek for an opportune, luminous moment.
Our challenge, of course, is to be rooted in this sacred rhythm without being carried away by the zaniness of schedules, parties, gifts and pageantry. Or by the heaviness of Christmas past.
Our challenge is to learn to walk in the dark and to see what it is we can learn to embrace here…And what can lead us to wonder all over again!
How will you stay awake in this season to mystery? To stay present and show up for whomever comes and whatever happens?
This is not a call for an easy sunny spirituality or “dreaming of a white Christmas” That is not Advent. In the middle of our lives, you may have beloved ones to sit at bedsides with, and hardships to handle that weigh mightily. Perhaps, you’re only able to live one day at a time and need a lot of support to do that. Some of us may have family in jail or just out of detention. Others of us are celebrating the rebirth of love which changes everyone in our circle.
But maybe… just maybe, we can let ourselves be dreamers through it all.
Staying alert to the possibilities of love, reimagining the world with the eyes of wonder as a hopeful place where the stranger in ourselves and in the person beside us is the work of Advent…
was rereading a favorite book I remember reading with my students some years ago called Wonder by RJ Palacio. Maybe you read it with your kids or saw the movie which was a hit awhile back. In it Auggie, the main character, has a facial deformity that leads to his being homeschooled until middle school. He goes to school wearing an astronaut helmet because he doesn’t want to be seen. He’s teased horribly but by the end of the school year he changes everyone he meets…. In short, he becomes a Wonder.
In this one part at the end of the book, Auggie’s teacher dispenses some wisdom:
“What I want you, my students to take away from your school experience,” he continued, “is the sure knowledge that, in the future you make for yourselves, anything is possible. If every single person in this room made it a rule that wherever you are, whenever you can, you will try to act a little kinder than is necessary—the world really would be a better place. And if you do this, if you act just a little kinder than is necessary, someone else, somewhere, someday, may recognize in you, in every single one of you, the face of God.”
The spiritual journey of Advent calls us out of the isolation of what feels sometimes like a bleak world into the wonder of light and dark, into the presence of hope and joy even in the middle of this, what the poet, Madeline L’Engle termed, The Irrational Season:
We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!
I remember holding my nephew Fitz for the first time the morning of his first day on earth. Not having children, myself, this bundle of squirming joy took my breath away-and he still does.
Recently, after picking him up from his elementary school, Fitz reminded me of the dreams he has for when he grows up.” I wanna be an astronaut, an actor or librarian but we’ll see!” he told me with great confidence. May it be so I whispered to myself, may it be so.
Joseph’s dreaming in Matthew’s gospel is a reminder to me to listen attentively to the quickening of the Holy Spirit, to those stirrings in the night which call me to act, to the ways we can all Imagine together a world of peace, where the dreams of all children–all of us–are dignified and given voice.
As we journey ever closer to that first Christmas in the imperfect manger, let us give thanks once for the stories and songs we love that feed our dreams in the dark and open our hearts to love rising again.
People say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one….
(After my final words, Simon plays the refrain from Imagine by John Lennon on the organ).
[1] You may remember that in the Genesis account of the creation story, God created two kinds of light, the day and night. In fact, God creates out of darkness, out of “chaos.” God separated the light from the darkness (See Genesis 1.3-5)