Intermittent low clouds today, one or two showers about, and the woodlands above the valley steaming
From next Sunday’s Lectionary, when Joseph’s brothers plot against him, they start by saying ‘Here comes this dreamer’. They say it to each other. It is the kind of trash talk that’s familiar from many eyewitness accounts of gang assaults and murders. For people who’ve been killed for being black, or for being unlike their assailants in other ways, trash talk maybe the last words they ever hear. Jesus, too, had endured many insults in the last hours of his life. Why do I say, “here comes this dreamer” is an insult (it wasn’t actually directed at him)? It’s because of the plans they start to make immediately afterwards. You can tell that “here comes this dreamer” is no compliment. And the things that people say to one another within the group are as dangerous to the victim as the things said to their face. The sly internet insults, the drink-enhanced slagging off in the pub – these things all increase prejudice and aggression. And yes, “here comes this dreamer” is quite often an insult today. In effect it’s something quite often said by the cynical type of church member about a younger and more idealistic member of a church. But Biblical prophecies about people ‘dreaming dreams’ are prophecies of hope, not despair.
Living God,
give us dreamers of dreams, we pray,
and give them strength
to live through the insults.