|
Print this page
‘A’ // Epiphany 4 // 1-27-08 // Celebration of Worship, Northside Presbyterian
Scriptures Isaiah 9:1-4 1 Corinthians 1:10-18
Psalm 27:1, 4-9 (sung) Matthew 4:12-23
Don’t Get Too Close to Jesus – Or Else, You’ll Catch His Dream
Prayer: Lord of the Universe! We are Yours and our dreams are Yours; a dream have we dreamed and we know not what it is. Whether we dreamed concerning ourselves, or our fellows dreamed concerning us, or we dreamed concerning others, if they be good dreams, strengthen and fortify them like the dreams of Joseph. But if they require to be amended, heal them as the waters of Marah were healed by the hands of Moses our teacher, as Miriam was healed from her leprosy, as Hezekiah from his illness, and like the waters of Jericho were sweetened by the hands of Elisha. And as You turned the curse of the wicked Balaam into a blessing, so do You turn all our dreams for us into good.1
And now may the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, be acceptable unto you: O God, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen.
A generation ago, a movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola appeared called Tucker: The Man and His Dream. Starring Jeff Bridges as the title character, the movie is based on the true story of Preston Tucker, a maverick car designer who mounts a challenge to the auto industry with his revolutionary car concept.
In one scene, Tucker talks about his mother, an immigrant from Italy. He remembers that, when he was young, she would often admonish him, “Don’t get too close to people, you’ll catch their dreams.” What she really was trying to communicate in her broken English was, “Don’t get too close to people, you’ll catch their germs.” But Tucker grew up thinking she was telling him, “Don’t get too close to people or you’ll catch their dreams.”2
I wonder if many of us don’t live our lives that way?
We’re nearing the end of the season of Epiphany – bridging the seasons of Christmas and Lent. In Epiphany, we are reminded of the power of God lighting our way through another dark Michigan winter. In Epiphany, we travel from discovery of a new life in Bethlehem to the discovery of new life in our baptisms. We learn, in other words, that if such a miracle can happen once, it can happen elsewhere, and again. And again. And again.
And today, we have traveled from Jesus’ baptism – and a living remembrance of our own – to the starting place of a ministry that may require us to stop fishing for a livelihood, and start fishing for life.
But wait: Let’s not get too close to this Jesus … or else, we might catch his dreams.
One week ago, we heard it again: “I have a dream.” It’s pretty easy to have a dream – isn’t it? And yet: What do we do when we have a dream that has been dashed, or at least deferred?
Let’s not get too close to this Jesus … or else, we might catch his dreams. And – in following him – our dreams may really be dashed.
And what might those dreams of ours be? A dream to live on the right side of the tracks? A dream that love comes our way easy, or that those around us become easier to love? A dream of being comfortable, as well as being comforted?
A dream that Simon stays put with Andrew on their blue collar lake shore, while the sons of Zebedee “net work” in their houseboat on the deep? That poorer fishermen and women continue to cast their bread upon the waters … and that richer fishermen and women tend and mend their net worth?
In sum: a dream where everything stays the way it is … or at least everything becomes easier to bear?
News flash for Christians: Dream on. Hear the words of Thomas Long on the gospel passage today. "The goal of the kingdom is not to serve us in being more effective and productive in our jobs … The patterns of our lives are not made secure by the kingdom of heaven (proclaimed in Matthew); the kingdom of heaven rearranges (these patterns) into the new design of God's own making."3
A new design … of God’s own making. Whether God’s or no, our congregations have had their own “new designs” before – much bigger and bolder than this new sanctuary carpet. Some of you remember the design – the dream – to build a freestanding sanctuary. The original architect’s drawing from the mid-1960s had it separate from this building, located back in those woods beyond this kitchen. And the drawing included church egress to Plymouth Road.
And then, those dreams dried up.
There was not enough money to build a separate sanctuary. Thirty-plus years past, and – when I arrived here ten years ago this June – members of both congregations sat down and looked over those plans again.
Instead of a separate sanctuary, however – when both congregations were long well-settled into their present spaces – we decided to pursue a two-fold capital campaign of another stripe. We built a lift – too humble to be called an elevator – but it made our facilities almost completely accessible, nonetheless. Then, six summers ago, the parking lot: graded, and partially paved. (Some of you recall what it was like ... especially in the winter.)
Our lot was not fully paved not because we ran out of money this time. It was not fully paved because of city ordinances pertaining to water run-off. And one water run-off ordinance required us to build, at the bottom of the wooded slope adjacent to Plymouth Road, a detention pond. And with it, a berm on the other side of that pond. And with that pond and with that berm came … an end to the long-ago and occasionally resurrected dream of church egress to Plymouth Road.
The dream of a freestanding sanctuary. The dream of Plymouth Road egress. These congregations had a dream!
A dream, that folk would drive north across the Broadway bridge, gaze – as they still do – at the lofty hill ahead of them, and drive straight past the American Baptist church (now Nielsen’s Flower Shop) on the left, straight up the hill, that holy hill, that “Nearer My God to Thee” hill … and find us, this humble worship place. What a dream! And then … Plymouth Road, an old farm road, was built up as the thoroughfare, and Broadway remained the residential street it had always been. In short: We were bypassed. Few folk drove through Broadway anymore; they drove to it, or from it.
But a few did drive through it – including a couple who joined us for a few years, after first seeing our inviting sign because they took “the Broadway shortcut”, one end to the other, lopping off the Plymouth Road bend by doing so. Then, about three years ago, those speed bumps sprang up. No more shortcut. No more thoroughfare traffic. Not that there was all that much. And at least now there are fewer speeders sailing down the hill.
These congregations had a dream!
A dream, that North Campus would boom in population. But it didn’t – not like it was expected. Then, students found parachurch activity – Intervarsity, New Life Church – or large, dedicated campus ministries downtown knocking on their doors. What’s a small, residential-road church to do?
Northside Associated Ministries had these dreams – and, with it, our Northside Presbyterian Church. We had dreams of a church that formally came to be the same year King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, and which formally moved to this spot three years later.
Northside: Associated Ministries, and Presbyterian Church: We had these dreams! We really, really did! What to do now, that these dreams have been dashed … or, at the very least, deferred?
But wait: Let’s not get too close to this Jesus … or else, we might catch his dreams.
This time: In a somewhat different way. For if we cannot bring the world to this church … perhaps we can bring this church to the world.
Look with me at Goal IV of our three-year church goals for a moment. Sounds reasonable enough on paper, doesn’t it? Sounds reasonable – if, at least, it sounds so … general.
And yet, last year’s Session would not let it go. After zoning in on this particular goal in two summer meetings, here’s what our Session decided in December:
The 2008 Session is charged with leading the congregation in envisioning a dedicated partnership mission of increased personal involvement with an openness to increased financial support.
And, here’s what our 2008 Session is already beginning to take this dedicated partnership mission vision – per our clerk’s timely, if unofficial, minutes of its initial meeting last Tuesday night:
On motion, we authorized the More Light & Peacemaking Team to lead the congregation in discerning a dedicated outreach partnership, a Session goal. Joan Penner-Hahn – our Stewardship chair – will serve as a consultant.
Perhaps it’s time. Time to have a dream, again. Time to have it … in a bit of a different way.
A dream where we dare to go fishing with Jesus … rather than – like Simon and Andrew – simply cast our lines from the edge of the Ann Arbor waterfront. Or rather than – like the sons of Zebedee – simply mend our meager nets, while others trawl the communal deep.
A dream that takes us beyond this congregation’s long and storied and generous history of giving to and giving at … to a dedicated outreach partnership (who knows who it will be?) that’s all about our giving with.
Many individuals in our congregation have been about giving with in their lives, all along. And now, as a congregation …
Jesus calls us – the poorer Simons and Andrews, along with the richer Jameses and Johns, together – to do two things today:
First: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Let go of the dreams we have had of bringing the world into this church, and turn our mission inside-out.
Second: “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”
Let’s not get too close to this Jesus … or else, we might catch his dreams.
Were we to be so blessed!
2Randy Rowland, Get a Life! (NYC: HarperCollins, 1992), p. 72.
Benediction …
It may be a trite saying – one of dubious theological merit, perhaps – that I have discovered in my years in Alcoholics Anonymous, but I still like it a lot: “We are in charge of the effort … and God is in charge of the outcome.”
To put it in language roughly congruent with the gospel message today: We are in charge of the following … and God is in charge of leading us to our dreams.
Not the dreams we may have imagined. But the dreams God has in store for us.
The dreams we will presently discover -- in our deepest places -- we have longed for … all the time.
Go out into the world in peace, to love and serve our servant Lord.
| 
