I’m Dreaming of a Weird Christmas
Matthew 1:18-25
Dreams. Funny things, dreams. We have them all the time. Some people remember their dreams with absolute clarity; other people almost never remember their dreams. Psychologists tell us that our dreams are the way our unconscious helps us to work through issues from our conscious life. In other words, we take the problems and opportunities of our day to day with us to bed, where they get expressed as dreams. In fact, so important are dreams that psychologists tell us that we cannot live physically without dreams.
The Christmas season is full of
dreams and dreaming. One of my fondest
memories from childhood is watching Bing Crosby sing I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas from an inn in Vermont. But, of course, Bing Crosby was but one of
many Christmas dreamers.
Who
can forget George Bailey from It’s a
Wonderful Life? George Bailey -
played by Jimmy Stewart, a good Presbyterian – thinks his life is miserable,
not worth living…until a dream shows him what the good town of Bedford Falls
would be like without him. That dream
was the catalyst that transformed George Bailey into a most thankful man.
Or what about Scrooge from A Christmas Carol? There is mean ol’,
greedy ol’ Scrooge who doesn’t care a lick about Christmas…until dreams show
him his past, his present and his future.
Scrooge’s dreams are a catalyst for the saving both of Scrooge (in the
spiritual sense) as well as Tiny Tim (in the physical sense).
Less well known in this country is
the story of Papa Panov’s dream, as told by Leo Tolstoy. Papa Panov is an old, shoe cobbler who reads
the Christmas story and wishes he could give something to the baby Jesus. When he puts the Bible down, Papa Panov
takes a small, dusty box from a high shelf and opens it. Inside is a perfect pair of tiny leather
shoes. Papa Panov is so happy because
he knows that these shoes are what he would give the little Jesus if he could. As he looks at the tiny shoes, Papa Panov
falls asleep in his armchair where he dreams.
In his dream, Jesus speaks to Papa
Panov, saying, “You have been wishing that you could see me…look for me
tomorrow. It will be Christmas Day and
I will visit you. “ As the story
continues, Papa Panov’s disappointment grows, for all he sees are beggars, a
poor girl, and a baby in need of shoes, so he feed the beggars, gives a blanket
to the girl and his treasured shoes to the baby. That night, Papa Panov has another dream in which he complains to
Jesus that the Lord did not visit him as promised. To this, Jesus shows Papa Panov the beggars and the poor girl and
the little baby and asks, “Didn’t you see me, Papa Panov?”
Dreams. Funny things, dreams. We have them all the time. In today’s Gospel lesson it is a dream that turns Joseph’s upside down world, right side up. But before we get to Joseph’s dream, let’s take a peek inside his conscious mind.
At first glance we see that Joseph
was upset. What man wouldn’t be? But this is easy, obvious stuff. Let’s look deeper because, at second glance,
we see that Joseph was conflicted.
According to social custom of the day, Joseph could have prosecuted Mary
at open trial as an adulterer and he would have kept the dowry paid to him by
Mary’s parents. Even more, the Law was clear: “If there is a young woman, a
virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets here in the town and lies
with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them
to death…So shall you purge the evil from your midst” (Dt. 22:23-24). The Law was clear, yet Joseph, “being a
righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to
dismiss her quietly.” Now this is
odd. Here is a righteous man who wants
to show his righteousness by breaking the law.
Odd. Odder still is a man who
chooses compassion over compensation.
Perhaps Joseph had a different sort
of understanding of righteousness.
Perhaps Joseph was listening to a different tune. Perhaps Joseph was listening to the tune of
Isaiah who described the servant of the Lord as one gentle of tone and touch:
“He will not lift up his voice…a bruised reed he will not break, a dimly
burning wick he will not quench” (Isa. 42:2-3). Isaiah offers here a new understanding of righteousness, an
understanding that rejects the hard righteousness of the law, an understanding
of righteousness that says it is possible to be right in a wrong sort of way –
to be right but not loving. The rabbis
of Joseph’s day taught that “It is well with the righteous and well with their
neighbor,” for the righteous person would make sure that one’s neighbor was
well. Matthew seems to embrace this new
kind of righteousness.
From what we read in Matthew’s Gospel, Joseph was an absolutely, no-doubt-about-it, fabulous, great guy. Yet it was not enough. Sure, Joseph was willing to renounce his right to compensation; yes, he wasn’t willing to prosecute Mary openly because it might lead to her death; but Joseph knew what Mary’s life would be like. As good a guy as Joseph was, at the very least, he was still willing to sentence his beloved to a life of poverty and shame. But then came the dream.
Joseph’s dream was an extraordinary
thing that changed the direction both of his own life and the life of the whole
world. Can you imagine if Joseph had
neglected to follow his dream? It is
unthinkable to consider what would have happened had Joseph said no to his
dream. But almost as unthinkable as
Joseph saying no is the dream to which he said yes. The dream to which Joseph said yes is beyond all sane imagining;
no sane person would have thought of this
plan to save the world. And yet it is
God’s plan. Who would have thunk it? No one. But Joseph dreamed it, and in so dreaming Joseph
came to realize in the midst of his stewing and fretting over right and wrong
and what he no doubt thought of as his “Mary situation” that the outrageous
choice was God’s choice.
Dreams. Funny things, dreams. We have them all the time. When I consider Joseph’s dream and compare it with the dream’s we see in our most beloved Christmas stories, of George Bailey and Scrooge and Papa Panov, what strikes me is how strange these dreams all are. Bing Crosby may sing about dreaming of a white Christmas, but the biblical model as expressed through Joseph and the Christian faith is to sing of a weird Christmas. Think about it.
V George Bailey dreams of Bedford in disrepair.
V Scrooge dreams of his own mortality and shriveled soul.
V Papa Panov dreams of beggars and poor girls and babies needing shoes.
V Joseph dreams of taking Mary as his wife for the sake of a child not his own.
But in the way of God there is grace in the midst of all these dreams. Grace to be transformed into our better selves. Grace to discover the joy of compassion. Grace to bring God’s healing touch into the world. It’s kind of weird, really, when we think about dreams. So often when we think about the dreams we have for ourselves – more in the sense of vision dreams rather than sleep dreams – when we think about our own dreams we usually end up with ourselves great and glorious. But when God gives us a dream we usually end up, not great but good, not glorious but gracious. That’s how we know it was God who gave the dream.
God still gives dreams, you know. To you and to me. It was someone being given a dream that got the Cooperative Care Center started. It was someone being given a dream that brought IHN to town. It was the dream God gave to Sister Nancy that got Los Pobres Migrant Center started.
God gives dreams to you and to me. It is the dream God is placing in your heart through Christmas that will lead you to forgive the family member whose words wounded you. It is the dream God is placing in your heart through worship of the Christ Child that will give you patience in caring for your aging mother. It is the dream God is placing in your heart right now that will lead you to do that which you never imagined, don’t want particularly, but know you need, and even more, you know the world needs.
Joseph woke from his sleep and said yes to God. Can we do the same? Can we take the dream God gives to us and allow God to bend it into a blessing?
Dreams. Funny things dreams. We have them all the time. In fact, we can’t live spiritually without dreams.