For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
In this poem, Langston Hughes portrays dreams as essential to a good and satisfying life. But what happens when the dream itself is disruptive? What happens when dreams collide? What happens when the dream seems so impossible that it causes more pain than hope?
Langston Hughes understood something of the pain of dreams since he wrote as an African American in the beginning of the 20th century in New York. Langston Hughes would have resonated with the Joseph story.
Last week Matt talked about God’s promise to Abraham to give him a son. God worked a miracle, and Abraham’s wife Sarah gave birth to Isaac. Isaac had two sons – Jacob and Esau. After Jacob got himself two wives and two concubines, he had collected 10 sons, by three different women, but none with Rachel – his first love.
Finally, when it seemed like all hope was lost for Rachel, she became pregnant and gave birth to Joseph. Joseph became the golden boy, the child of his most loved wife, the child of his old age. Let’s read the story in Genesis 37.
1 So Jacob settled again in the land of Canaan, where his father had lived as a foreigner. 2 This is the account of Jacob and his family. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he often tended his father’s flocks. He worked for his half brothers, the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. But Joseph reported to his father some of the bad things his brothers were doing.
3 Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children because Joseph had been born to him in his old age. So one day Jacob had a special gift made for Joseph—a beautiful robe. 4 But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn’t say a kind word to him.
5 One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever. 6 “Listen to this dream,” he said. 7 “We were out in the field, tying up bundles of grain. Suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine!”
