Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.
When I had read that first paragraph of Zora Neale Hurston's book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, I stopped reading. I wanted to savor the truth and the imagery contained there. I wasn't sure that I even wanted to read the book. Could the whole novel live up to that first paragraph? Maybe it would be better to just hold the book for a while and then return it to the library.
But later I started reading the book again.
Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.
Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember, and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.
Today we read stories from different books, but they share with Hurston's novel an undercurrent of dreams, of truth, and of actions.
Jeremiah tells a story about himself and a field. At the time of this story, Judah had been invaded by the army of Babylon. (Babylon was the leading regional power of the time.) Already, the land was almost conquered. Their sister nation of Israel had been lost long ago and the provinces of Judah had been picked off by the invaders. Only Jerusalem was left, and the enemy was literally at the gates.
Jeremiah himself was under guard, accused of sedition.
In a time of national crisis, Jeremiah had been
quoting God as saying things like,
I am going to hand this city over to the king of Babylon.
[32:3, Bright]
King Zedekiah would have liked to be rid of this public defeatism,
but Jeremiah had a track record of quoting God accurately
and the king would rather not risk executing a prophet of God.
The king could at least contain the problem,
and so Jeremiah was under guard.
Now, the word of God came to Jeremiah concerning his cousin and a certain field. And then his cousin came, confirming in his action the truth which Jeremiah had heard.
The cousin had come about a field which was being sold.
Apparently Jeremiah, as a near relative, had the right
of first refusal in order to keep the land in the family,
as provided in Leviticus 25:25.
So Jeremiah buys the field. He counts out the payment,
signs the deed, and has it witnessed, notarized, and copied.
And then he puts the documents in the equivalent
of a safety deposit box.
When all of this has been done, Jeremiah repeats
the words of God (which he hasn't previously told us),
Houses and fields and vinyards shall once again
be bought in this land.
[32:15, Bright]
The dream, the truth, is that there will be life beyond the war, beyond the defeat, beyond exile in Babylon. People will buy and sell Judean real estate. Land does not go into exile; property deeds are useless under military occupation. The dream is that a normal life, with civil law and ordinary commerce, will return for this people in this place.
Jeremiah does something in accordance with this truth. Because he has faith in the dream of a peaceful future the dream becomes the truth for him even though war is raging and defeat stands at the gate.
In Luke, Jesus tells a story about a rich man and a poor beggar. (Neither of these are real people. One has no name at all and the other has such a common name that he could be anybody. Today he might be named Larry.) These two men are neighbors, although they don't have anything to do with each other. And they both die.
This is where the story really begins, and it is all about the rich man. (It doesn't even mention God.) What is this rich man's dream? His first dream is for his own comfort. But his dream is convoluted and twisted around on itself. The rich man's first impulse is not to do something, but to ask Abraham to tell Lazarus to do something for him. Abraham tells him no, Lazarus just is not going to help him out.
I said the rich man's dream was twisted around on itself. Martin Luther described the state of sin as being so twisted in on yourself that you can't straighten out. I know that feeling. The gospel is simple and straightforward, but I am bent and twisted and turned around. It's no wonder that my life often doesn't fit God's way.
The rich man's dream is for his own comfort. Comfort is a good thing, of course. Jesus accepted gifts of food and drink and conversation, for example, and he promises that the Holy Spirit will be a comfort to his followers. But this dream that goes no farther than few drops of cold water is turned so far in on itself that it becomes sin for the rich man. It turns him away from God. We can understand that sin because it is part of our lives, too.
There is another kind of sin here as well. It is a narrow, little dream that the rich man dreams, but on top of that he doesn't believe in his own dream. The dream is not truth for him. He does not act or do things accordingly. Instead, he wishes for someone else to give reality to his dream. The man has no faith. To say it another way, the rich man is not faithful even to his own narrow dream.
The rich man has a second dream, too. It is for the comfort and safety of his 5 brothers. This dream is a little less narrow than the the first one, at least it encompasses people besides just himself, but again the rich man asks someone else (Abraham) to tell someone else (Lazarus) to do things for him. So neither of these dreams became truth for the rich man.
Then what about us? What is the truth for us? Some of you here dream of God's justice for the poor of the earth. Some dream of a secure future for our children and their children. Or is your dream to be friends with Jesus, or to have a place at the table at the banquet in heaven?
These dreams not necessarily different dreams. Who will have a place at the table, if not Jesus' friends? Who are Jesus' friends unless those who support God's justice? So even when we dream the same truth, we may dream in different ways. A few weeks ago at the church picnic I commented that there is one thing which worries me about going to heaven. When I get there, will I have to sit at the table with 121,999 other people? To me, that doesn't feel like heaven, so I dream the dream in a different way.
The stories today don't say much about the dream we share. They do remind us that we need to do things according to a truth which sometimes seems far away. For Jeremiah, the defeat of his nation stood at the very gates, and yet God told him to act according to the dream of peace. Is our world at peace today? Is there justice for everyone? Do we feast day by day at the side of Jesus, our friend? How far away from us is the dream of God's perfection? It is not so far at all, for this dream is the truth.
Come and see. We are called to dream, but for us the dream is the truth. This is faith, that our lives are guided by a Truth which others might see as only a dream. For us the dream is the truth, and if we are faithful we will act and do things accordingly.
Since, then, we are called to do things according to the Truth, I invite you to encourage each other in the same way that Paul encouraged Timothy. [Adapted from 1 Timothy 6: 5-19, TEV.]
People who no longer have the truth THINK THAT RELIGION IS A WAY TO BECOME RICH. Well, religion does make a person very rich, IF HE IS SATISFIED WITH WHAT HE HAS. What did we bring into the world? NOTHING! What can we take out of the world? NOTHING! So then, if we have food and clothes, THAT SHOULD BE ENOUGH FOR US. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation AND ARE CAUGHT IN THE TRAP OF MANY FOOLISH AND HARMFUL DESIRES, which pull them down to ruin and destruction. FOR THE LOVE OF MONEY IS A SOURCE OF ALL KINDS OF EVIL. Some have been so eager to have wealth that they have wandered away from the faith AND HAVE BROKEN THEIR HEARTS WITH MANY SORROWS. But you, people of God, avoid all these things. STRIVE FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS, GODLINESS, FAITH, LOVE, ENDURANCE, AND GENTLENESS. Run your best in the race of faith, AND WIN ETERNAL LIFE FOR YOURSELF; for it was to this life that God called you WHEN YOU FIRMLY PROFESSED YOUR FAITH BEFORE MANY WITNESSES. Before God, who gives life to all things, AND BEFORE CHRIST JESUS, WHO FIRMLY PROFESSED HIS FAITH BEFORE PONTIUS PILATE, I command you to obey your orders and keep them faithfully UNTIL THE DAY WHEN OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST WILL APPEAR. His appearing will be brought about at the right time by God, the blessed and only ruler, THE KING OF KINGS AND THE LORD OF LORDS. God alone is immortal; GOD LIVES IN THE LIGHT THAT NO ONE CAN APPROACH. No one has ever seen God; no one can ever see God. TO GOD BE HONOR AND ETERNAL POWER! AMEN. Command those who are rich in the things of this world not to be proud, but to place their hope in God WHO GENEROUSLY GIVES US EVERYTHING FOR OUR ENJOYMENT. Command them to do good, to be rich in good works, TO BE GENEROUS AND READY TO SHARE WITH OTHERS. In this way they will store up for themselves a treasure which will be a solid foundation for the future. THEN THEY WILL BE ABLE TO WIN THE LIFE WHICH IS TRUE LIFE.
Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. HarperCollins paperback, 1990. J.B. Lippincott, 1937.
Bright, John. Jeremiah: A New Translation with Intorduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible. Doubleday, 1965.
Good News Bible: The Bible in Today's English Version. American Bible Society, 1976.