The impossible dream
Isaiah 11: 1-9
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
December 8, 2019
It’s an outrageous dream. It’s biologically, ecologically impossible for a wolf to live with a lamb and not make a meal of it. Science tells us that when wolves are reintroduced to a habitat, they bring balance, not destruction. Lions are not going to evolve into vegans anytime soon. Children lead the way to peace, because when children have what they need, especially black and brown children, we’re all doing well. All children should be able to grow freely into their gender identity and expression, have enough to eat and be safe in their own schools and in their homes and at our borders, which really isn’t that outrageous a thing to hope for.
Why use such hyperbole for God’s dream, for the dreams of God’s people in exile? Do not so many campaign promises sound this way? Medicare for all, elimination of student debt, safe and affordable housing, universal child care, 100% clean energy for our country, affordable higher education, ending private prisons and the opioid crisis, getting big money out of politics, taxing the uber-rich, and on it goes. But when people are vulnerable and marginalized and criminalized, their utter despair compared to the safety and acceptance and peace they hope for does often feel like hyperbole, like an outrageous, impossible dream but not an unreasonable one.
One scholar says that the hyperbole is there because such a peace is unattainable, too impossible for human might alone. And yet it was human might that got us to the moon, to an international space station, and will eventually get us to Mars. 57 years ago President Kennedy declared, “We choose to go to the moon, we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard…” And the rest of the quote we don’t often hear, “…because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”
From the movie “Apollo 13”: “From now on we live in a world where man [humankind] has walked on the moon. It’s not a miracle. We just decided to go.” I often wonder if we consign too much of our human might, our agency to God because peace and everything that leads to it feels so impossible, we cannot see the way forward, and we think that only with God’s help can we do anything. We don’t know what to do. Or maybe we do but it would require so much from us, from all of us, we doubt humankind’s will to do, to choose the hard things necessary.
Must we hit rock bottom before we act, before we’re ready embark on that impossible dream? In the previous chapter God does some clear-cutting—the lofty are brought low. Things are at their worst when this vision of peace comes to Isaiah. Does it all have to burn down, be destroyed before that shoot can grow from a stump? But then oppression and white supremacy and patriarchy and poverty will not go away quietly. Frederick Buechner wrote, “Peace is not the absence of struggle but the presence of love.” A new world order is needed to usher in this peace—a new world order of love.
Where there once was no hope, hope will grow.
Out of what was thought to be a dead end will come a way forward.
Rather than looking to one person, one candidate, one leader, one God to save us, it’s really on all of our shoulders—the government and the governed—what is needed, what is good and holy and true,
We all need to have the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the awe of what brought us into being
and that our days are not guaranteed.
Our delight shall be in the awe of the creation,
every creature, every human being.
We shall not judge by what our eyes see,
or decide by what our ears hear;
but with justice we shall vindicate the poor,
and decide with equity for the humble and vulnerable of the earth;
with words and not weapons we will bring everyone to attention,
and with our protest and resistance and our vote we will unseat the wicked.
Justice and steadfastness shall be our armor in the battle for peace.
The liberal shall live with the conservative,
the police will no longer profile black and brown bodies,
the immigrant, the refugee seeking asylum will be safe,
and a trans child shall lead them.
Compassion will listen to the fear of the unknown.
We who are divided, our descendants will be as family to each other;
and all will be satisfied with what they have because everyone will have enough.
Our children will no longer have to do active shooter drills,
and teenagers won’t die in detention cells.
There won’t be money for war anymore
because education and health care and mental health care will be fully funded.
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the mystery
that brought us into being
as the waters cover the sea.
But we have to choose it, this seemingly impossible dream. We have to choose peace because it is really, really hard. We have to choose the presence of love, not as some lofty idea but in every decision, every choice we make. Because really what makes the dream impossible is not the dream itself but we who think it can’t be done, that God—that which is good and holy and true—isn’t working through us, each of us, all of us. Where our faith falters is not a faith in God but our faith in each other, in humanity. The advent we wait for, the birth that we wait for, is for that which got Jesus killed to be born in us. And not just once but every day. Every day is another day for that impossible dream to be embodied in us, in our lives and in our life together.
Church isn’t relevant? Faith communities aren’t relevant? The revolution could happen here just like it’s happening everywhere around the world and in our own country. We have a dream that might get us killed but it also just might save us.
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To be better far than you are
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is our quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To be willing to give when there’s no more to give
To be willing to die so that honor and justice may live
And we know if we'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That our hearts will lay peaceful and calm
When we're laid to our rest
And the world will be better for this
That we, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove with our last ounce of courage
To dream the impossible dream
To reach the unreachable star
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
December 8, 2019
It’s an outrageous dream. It’s biologically, ecologically impossible for a wolf to live with a lamb and not make a meal of it. Science tells us that when wolves are reintroduced to a habitat, they bring balance, not destruction. Lions are not going to evolve into vegans anytime soon. Children lead the way to peace, because when children have what they need, especially black and brown children, we’re all doing well. All children should be able to grow freely into their gender identity and expression, have enough to eat and be safe in their own schools and in their homes and at our borders, which really isn’t that outrageous a thing to hope for.
From the movie “Apollo 13”: “From now on we live in a world where man [humankind] has walked on the moon. It’s not a miracle. We just decided to go.” I often wonder if we consign too much of our human might, our agency to God because peace and everything that leads to it feels so impossible, we cannot see the way forward, and we think that only with God’s help can we do anything. We don’t know what to do. Or maybe we do but it would require so much from us, from all of us, we doubt humankind’s will to do, to choose the hard things necessary.
Where there once was no hope, hope will grow.
Out of what was thought to be a dead end will come a way forward.
Rather than looking to one person, one candidate, one leader, one God to save us, it’s really on all of our shoulders—the government and the governed—what is needed, what is good and holy and true,
We all need to have the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the awe of what brought us into being
and that our days are not guaranteed.
Our delight shall be in the awe of the creation,
every creature, every human being.
We shall not judge by what our eyes see,
or decide by what our ears hear;
but with justice we shall vindicate the poor,
and decide with equity for the humble and vulnerable of the earth;
with words and not weapons we will bring everyone to attention,
and with our protest and resistance and our vote we will unseat the wicked.
Justice and steadfastness shall be our armor in the battle for peace.
The liberal shall live with the conservative,
the police will no longer profile black and brown bodies,
the immigrant, the refugee seeking asylum will be safe,
and a trans child shall lead them.
Compassion will listen to the fear of the unknown.
We who are divided, our descendants will be as family to each other;
and all will be satisfied with what they have because everyone will have enough.
Our children will no longer have to do active shooter drills,
and teenagers won’t die in detention cells.
There won’t be money for war anymore
because education and health care and mental health care will be fully funded.
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the mystery
that brought us into being
as the waters cover the sea.
Why?
“…because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win.”
Amen.
Benediction
Amen.
Benediction
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To be better far than you are
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is our quest, to follow that star
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To be willing to give when there’s no more to give
To be willing to die so that honor and justice may live
And we know if we'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That our hearts will lay peaceful and calm
When we're laid to our rest
And the world will be better for this
That we, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove with our last ounce of courage
To dream the impossible dream
To reach the unreachable star
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