• GREAT DREAMERS….GREAT DREAMS….

Only saints and children still believe their dreams will come true!

Psychologists and psychiatrists have long since recognised the important role of dreams in exploring the subconscious…the inner recesses of the mind…

Freud and Jung travelled together to the United States = but fell out over Freud’s insistence that over breakfast they discuss each other’s dreams from their night’s sleep. Jung got fed up with Freud insisting that all Jung’s dreams were about sex…He should be so lucky!
Mine are about my teeth falling out!!

The definition of dreams goes something like this -

Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.[1] The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, interpretation, philosophical and religious interest throughout recorded history. Science  has proven that all mammals dream.
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It shouldn’t surprise us then that you can’t move in the Bible for dreams and dreamers!
There’s

• JACOB – alone, on the run…at his wit’s end…tired and emotional in a desolate place…evening falls and he imagines bogles behind every bush – there are strange shadows and shufflings in the night…He is keyed up…things on his mind…dark thoughts …and he dreams his famous dream of the ladder into heaven – angels making their way up and down it…it seems to say that somehow he will be important…his life and the life of his people serving as a point of contact with the divine…
• If he has other significant dreams…we don’t hear about them…only this pivotal one…

• JOSEPH – on the other hand seems to be a serial dreamer…For him it’s all bowing sheaves of corn…fat cows and thin cows…and the fortunate gift of insights given as to meaning…though, sadly, not the tact to deal with his brothers and their jealous outrage at how he interprets his dreams…himself at the centre…always himself at the centre.

• Further down the story of Israel, the prophet EZEKIEL – whose fantastical and surreal dreams of wheels within wheels and perplexing heavenly beings leave us wondering what was he on….weird and wonderful visions that come from somewhere very deep and are then woven into the  structure of reality…

• his wonderful picture of the life of faith….as the water rises…and you get in deeper and deeper into the business of trusting…

his vision of the valley of dry bones clacking into life…

• The story of Jesus is full of dreams at the beginning…angels appear to JOSEPH in a dream telling him not to cast his pregnant fiancée aside…but to care for her and support her as she comes to terms with the miracle that will change her destiny…

• and further dreams that lead him to take his wife and child and make their way to Egypt to escape the wrath of Herod…– sons and journeys – cataclysmic events – the stuff that dreams are made of…the boundaries blurred between reality and imagination.

• As the early Church struggles with its identity…who will it be for…for Jews only…or as the little upstart Paul insists…for everyone…PETER experiences his fabulous transforming dream – in which the message is startlingly clear – the gospel is for all people…

• A sheet is lowered from heaven and he - horror of horrors - is instructed by God to eat ritually unclean food…and when he refuses, God rebukes him with the warning that what God has called clean should not be treated as if it were not…the dream supplanting the traditions and practices of generations of Jews - something deep in Peter’s  psyche recognising the truth -   bringing up from his core -the reality of the purpose and power of the gospel to change a world-view –to break down the barriers that divide…the cultural prejudices that are so unhelpful.

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• I remember visiting the little cave on Patmos, where JOHN – dreamed his strange dream that we call BOOK OF REVELATIONS – full of elements that have fascinated and perplexed the church…
• great battles at the end of time….
• beasts and harlots and streets paved with gold
• and pearly gates, and saints in white…
• the end of tears and the defeat of death. 

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It was a moving experience to sit where he sat…and reflect on the theses and pamphlets and tracts and tomes that have been written in an attempt to explicate and unravel the codes and complexities of this frustrating and mysterious book of dreams…
Certainly, a bit of humility is in order - and a lot less certainty than some people pretend to - is appropriate when we encounter its dense complexities…

But there on Patmos…in that little cave…a man dreamed a dream that spanned the centuries…and the words are still used, effective and helpful 2000 years later.

In our own life times, we have come to value the contribution of the dreamers – those who think and believe and dare outside the box…beyond the limits of certainty and take us to the edges of possibility…

• Martin Luther King…whose dream seemed so unlikely…and yet came to fruit…

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
 
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

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Nelson Mandela – who espoused a hope beyond belief that a terrible system would be dismantled one day…in his life time…and a nation would share a new future…

I dream of an Africa which is at peace with itself.
Nelson Mandela

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses.



Closer to home – in the European context men like

• Lech Walesa

My most ardent desire is that my country will recapture its historic opportunity for a peaceful evolution and that Poland will prove to the world that even the most complex situations can be solved by a dialogue and not by force.

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•  Vlacev Havel – the recently deceased  President of the Czech Republic-

• You may ask what kind of republic I dream of. Let me reply: I dream of a republic independent, free, and democratic, of a republic economically prosperous and yet socially just; in short, of a humane republic that serves the individual and that therefore holds the hope that the individual will serve it in turn. Of a republic of well-rounded people, because without such people it is impossible to solve any of our problems — human, economic, ecological, social, or political.

• People, your government has returned to you!

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• These political and social reformers – …dreamt of a time when whole nations would be liberated from the oppression of political dogma…and the weight of Communist dictatorship might be taken from the shoulders of their people…the dream came true…

And what of our dreams? 
For the Church…for the people of Scotland…and their relationship to the faith we follow and the Lord we love? What is our vision when we think of

• lives that are wounded and ravaged by the brutal effects of other people’s neglect or actions…
• people who are hurting and whose life seems to have no purpose…
• people who are heading up the nowhere road…and whose spirituality so long neglected lies dormant and undeveloped…
• people who are lost…

what is our vision as a church for them?

The Bible warns us that …
For lack of a vision the people perish…

That’s when the problems bite.
When we lose our ambition to take the gospel to the people and let it re-shape their lives…
If we allow complacency to set in – so that the missionary zeal is damped down…and urgency is lost…
We start to think it’s enough just to be here….doing what we do…and somehow that will sort things…that will provide all that is needed for us to fulfil our calling…
When our heart no longer aches for the lost and broken and hurting and misled…and we forget that we have good news for them all…
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What are our dreams for the church we love…the children, the young people…the families and the folk who drift and head for the abyss…?

And how committed are we to doing what we need to do to make our dream a reality?

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