Genesis 37:12-36
Rev. Drew Colby

It was 1951 when Langston Hughes penned his now revered poem titled “Harlem.” It goes like this: 

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up
      like a raisin in the sun?
      Or fester like a sore—
      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?
      Or crust and sugar over—
      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags
      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46548/harlem

Joseph is a dreamer, the latest in a long line of dreamers, but to the savvy Bible reader it is clear that his dream that one day his brothers will all bow down to him is not just about him. It’s about God’s dream to make, to bless, and to protect a family, this family, bringing them to great power for the salvation of the entire world. 

This is God’s promise, God’s dream, and the very family who has inherited this dream is, in today’s reading, ready to kill it. 

His brothers hate Joseph and his dream, so when they have their chance they strip him of his father’s blessing, his coat of many colors, cast him into a pit, sell him as a slave for 20 pieces of silver, and let their father sink in the depths of grief holding his beloved son’s bloodied coat, believing Joseph and his dream were lost forever. 

What happens to a dream deferred? 

Is it left to wither at the bottom of a waterless pit? 
Is it sold into bondage for a quick profit? 
Or does it die under the weight of a father’s grief? 

(The above and following are written by the author inspired by Hughes’ Harlem

In the story of God which is the Bible, this dream, God’s dream, is almost never received on its face. It is resisted at every turn. 

Cain kills it. 
Babel builds a wall against it.
Abraham second guesses it. 
Isaac turns a blind eye to it.
Jacob exploits it. 
And now the latest dreamer is exiled with it.

At the end of today’s reading Joseph and his dream aren’t dead, but they are certainly not fully alive either. They’re tossed into a pit, trafficked to a foreign land, and buried in blood and lies. 

What happens to a dream deferred? 

Is it lost to the sands of time? 
Deserted and forgotten? 
Maybe it just weighs down the souls who knew it once but dream it no more.

Langston Hughes wrote his poem in the wake of the Harlem riots in 1943, an explosion sparked by segregation, rampant unemployment, and police brutality. The dream of equal human rights and the “brotherhood of man” as they called it back then, was dying, getting buried, rejected, exploding under pressure. 

But then, about ten years later, word started to spread about yet another dreamer, thousands of dreamers to be sure, but among them one who happened to be a gifted preacher, one who, amid the stifling fratricidal spirit of the times, was reporting of a dream that God had given to him. 

The odds are good that at some time this weekend you’ll catch a sound bite or video clip of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior’s “I Have a Dream” speech. He delivered it more than once. It was a sermon that bore repeating. It spoke of a simple, yet grand dream that “this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal’… that one day [the South,] sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice…” 

But then the scope of the Dream broadens into scripture. He says, “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” That’s from the Bible.

For Dr. King, this was not just his dream, not just the African-American dream, not even an American Dream in general, this was, and is, God’s dream.

In a sense, King was responding to his ancestor Langston Hughes saying, “What happens to a dream deferred? It may wither, it may get buried, it may get sold to the highest bidder, it may even be killed, but it will not stay dead. Its home is not forever in the pit, or in bondage. If it is God’s dream, it is destined to rise.”

King’s dream, as a matter of faith, rises as more than just God’s dream. It is God’s promise. And for Christians like King, the Dream is even more than a promise, it is a person, the Dream made flesh in Jesus Christ, who, even though he died, is nevertheless very much alive. 

Today the church also remember the story of Jesus’ baptism; it’s Baptism of our Lord Sunday. It’s a happy day as we recall how Jesus is baptized by John in the Jordan, and the skies open up, the Spirit descends, and the voice of God is heard, sounding a lot like Joseph’s own father, saying “This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” 

It’s an epiphany moment when Jesus is revealed as God’s Dream made manifest, God’s Dream for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, God’s Dream for all of humanity come true! 

And yet, what John the Baptist does to him can’t be understood as simply a happy baptism, a washing away of Jesus’s sins, for he had none. Instead it is understood that Jesus’ baptism is actually a ritual burial, an interment, a descent into the pit, and rehearsal of his death. 

Like the pit in Joseph’s story, when Jesus is stripped and lowered into the Jordan, it is into the muddied waters of sin and death. In his baptism Jesus, at once God’s Dream and God’s Dreamer, is taking the place of Joseph, descending into Death with him, for him, like a dream deferred, interred, and drowned.

Jesus is here ritually buried, and, like Joseph, is also later betrayed, sold for silver, and put to death on a cross. Like Joseph and Dr. King, he bears the sins of his brethren, receives our rabid resistance to the Dream. In baptism, Jesus and the Dream join Joseph in the pit. 

But…

But, there is something that neither Joseph nor John the Baptist knew at this point of the story, nor did Jacob and his sons, nor later Peter, James and John; neither Judah, nor Judas, nor Potiphar, nor Pilate.

What they will come to behold and made to understand is that the Dream of God cannot, will not, stay buried in the pit. He will rise.

In fact, as Joseph will later tell his brothers, all they intended for evil, all our resistance to this Dream, God has turned and used for our good. Dying, Christ destroys our death, and rising, he restores our life. 

This is the nature of God’s dream, dreamed by Joseph, by Dr. King, and by countless others through the generations, manifest in the fullness of time in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is a Dream that lives, and, though deferred, shall never truly die.

This dream is, even now, your inheritance. In your own baptism, the Dream, this Promise, this Person becomes your dream, your promise, your own person.

In Jesus’ name I offer the Dream to you again today, inviting you to join in the dreaming.

It will not magically grant you a happy life. You may still find yourself meeting the same fate as Joseph the dreamer, or Dr. King the preacher, or Jesus Christ the Crucified. Nevertheless, dream this Dream. Believe in this dream, and not only will the Dream live on, but even though you die, yet shall you live.