We spend our childhoods and some restful moments dreaming. Those who would diminish our dreaming will tell us it is time to grow up or to wake up and stop our dreaming. But growing up or waking up does not stop our dreaming. We are simply given the chance to live out our dreams in reality. We are inspired in our dreams by other dreamers who have brought their dreams to reality. Christ Jesus of Nazareth dreamed of a world at peace. He gave witness to his dream with the people he encountered. He did so especially with people who were willing to fight him and to kill him to stop his dream and his witness of Peace. Those whose dream matched his own, he sent out as witnesses to peace. They went out “in pairs” – to live communion. They went out with “no money bag” – to live vulnerably in love. They went out “as lambs among wolves” – to live as healers. They were giving witness as peacemakers knowing warmakers would “not receive” them.
Jesus’ dream made real through his witness cannot be reduced to a chapter in a book. The Bible is a very big book. It is used by followers of institutional christianity to bury Jesus and his lived witness of Peace. Such followers often bury Jesus under literal interpretations of the very big book. They debate interpretations of the King James Bible saying Jesus sent out 72 disciples with The New International Version saying he sent out 70 – and they bury Jesus’ lived dream of risky communion. They debate interpretations of Jesus saying “carry no money bag” as meaning no extra baggage vs. no extra money when on a mission trip – and they bury Jesus’ lived dream of being vulnerable and depending on the shared resources and love of others as they depend upon ours. They debate interpretations of Jesus’ teaching disciples to extend “Peace to this household” as referring strictly to personal evangelism and not social witness – and they bury Jesus’ lived dream of the “Community of God” as a healing witness creating both personal and social peacemaking. U.S. Bible-based believers not only bury Jesus and his lived dream under the Bible, they then bury the Bible. They bury it under interpretations of a particular U.S. Empire and its wars. Of late they are burying it under a particular 2nd Amendment and its guns. Jesus’ lived dream and that of all peacemakers – of communion, love, and peace – in the hands of self-titled Christians – is buried under an empire of nightmares.
“Among the red guns, in the hearts of soldiers, running free blood in the long, long campaign: Dreams go on. Among the leather saddles, in the heads of soldiers heavy in the wracks and kills of all straight fighting: Dreams go on. Among the hot muzzles, in the hands of soldiers brought from flesh-folds of women– Soft amid the blood and crying– In all your hearts and heads among the guns and saddles and muzzles: Dreams, Dreams go on, Out of the dead on their backs, Broken and no use any more: Dreams” (Among the Red Guns – Carl Sandburg)
Prayer: Spirit of Peace, may we live the dream of peace to the end of our days.
Question: What is the dream of peace I have decided to live?
July 3, 2016 Gospel Luke 10:1-12, 17-20 Fourteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time