when dreams become nightmares

from my sermon on 1/16/11 from I Tim. 6:6-10, 17-19

When dreams become nightmares...that is the title of this message and the title of the chapter in the book by Adam Hamiliton. We are in the 2 nd week of a 6 week series on Enough: Discovering Joy through Simplicity and Generosity. I get way ahead on my sermons, working months ahead, thinking I know where I want them to go, but this one got away from me.

First, when I was preparing months ago, I didn't have it in my head that tomorrow was a holiday upon which we celebrate a famous American's birthday....yes, Martin Luther King. He gave a famous speech on Aug. 28, 1963 that had a line....yes, I have a dream. It is not that dream that has become a nightmare. Nine times in the speech, he says, I have a dream. That dream has not been fully realized. That dream continues to challenge us, convict us, call us to be more the people God intends us to be. Remember that line, I have a dream that my 4 little children will one day live in a nation where they they will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I went back and re-read that I have a Dream speech. We forget that it began quietly with a lot of economic metaphors. Today the Negro lives on an island of poverty in a vast sea of plenty. We have come today to cash a check, a promissory note. We trust that it is not a bad check with insufficient funds. The bank of justice is not bankrupt. As Americans we have riches of freedom and security of justice.

Just 4 1/2 years later, MLK was assassinated at age 39 on April 4, 1968. I believe that his dream is not a nightmare but still holds hope for us.

The second way this sermon got away from was around the events of this past week, when a congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, about the age of MLK, had an assassination attempt made on her life. It is ironic that she was trying to engage the public, meet them where they were. It is further ironic, that she was shot in front of a supermarket, with the name, Safeway. We have spent the past week grieving. Six died, including a 9 year old girl, who was born on 9/11. A federal judge was killed. Thirteen were wounded. We have heard the stories of husbands covering their wives with their bodies to protect them from gunfire. There was the congresswoman's intern, on the job for just his 5th day, rushing to her to practice his limited EMS training, making sure she had an airway open, and staunching the flow of blood. Ordinary people like us tackled the gunman and disarming him.

We don't know the motive behind the shooter. I certainly don't make the link to the vitrolic speech in politics, that antagonistic spirit in our country. What got me were the reports that dreams played in this troubled man's life. It was reported that he kept a dream journal, that his nihilism, his attempts at chaos, came out of feeling that nothing existed except his subconcious, that the dream world was the only reality. That is a nightmare.

Thirdly, we get to what the book by Adam Hamiliton says. He states that the American dream of "more is better" has become a nightmare. Our love of wealth has gotten us into trouble. Note that the scripture passage doesn't say money is evil, but that the love of money is a root of all evil. The book talks about Affluenza, that bloated feeling that even when we have too much, we still are not satisfied. We also suffer from Creditis, that desire to buy today and pay for it tomorrow. We have been bitten by the covet bug, as we heard in the children's sermon. I heard put another way: In the beginning, God gave us people to love and things to use. Maybe our problems begin when we start loving the things and using the people.

I have some illustrations. One from the NY Times Sunday magazine a week ago in an article by Kim Walters. He talked about algorhythms used to anticipate what we might like next. Did any of you shop over Christmas, online, with a credit card? You might want to buy bike shorts. A popup ad will appear suggesting bike jersey and bike gloves and bike glasses. Kim has a friend who was shopping for books on Amazon.com. You know that it will suggest another book you might like to purchase. Amazon suggested to this friend the book, The American Idea, an anthology of articles from the Atlantic Monthly magazine. It turns out this friend had edited the book! Kim said, the only thing worse than being misperceived by this math equations is being expertly perceived.

The second example is something I heard on NPR on their tech report. Our smart phones will soon let us know when we are passing by a store that has a sale on the product that we might be interested in. There is even a word for this process: it is called pre-emptive gratification.

The scripture passage talks about how the love of money can lead to a downward spiral, can plunge us into ruin and destruction, where we are pierced by many pains.

Christian practice is not about making a church budget, but about saving our souls from this addictive behavior. The scripture talks about a way of our financial hell: practicing godliness, doing good, being rich in good works, being generous and ready to share. The scripture witness is that this is the path to life that really is life. This is the way out of the nightmare.

I believe that God has a dream for us. It looks a lot like a 9 year old girl getting up on a Saturday morning to see her government in action. It looks a lot like a modern day prophet calling us into accountability. God's dream is not a nightmare. What does God dream for you?