Living by hope, dreaming God's dream.

On the surface the ocean's waves churn with relentless confidence. Do not be deceived. A mighty undertow draws the unsuspecting bather into the depths, even unto death. This image depicts for me the present economic reality, including the situation in rural America.

Loss of hope in rural America

Until recently in the United States, we have been living in times of unprecedented economic prosperity. The stock market has brought significant returns to those with the assets to invest. Transnational corporations have devised means by which to maximize profits for shareholders while minimizing salaries of workers, limiting investment in local communities, and compromising the environment. They have devised strategies that place workers in one part of the world in direct competition with those thousands of miles away. Media images aim to persuade us that corporate policies are governed by good will for all. Yes, the mighty economic ocean operates according to its own logic; a mist of inevitability envelops its tidal movements.

Beware, however, the undertow. Just below the surface another dynamic is at work. Young people know of its force. So do people in rural communities and inner cities. Recently in a small Midwestern city, all the pharmacies in the community were suddenly out of antidepressants. Why? The local college was beginning its fall semester and the students were filling their prescriptions. What does it mean that we live in a society where many young people can cope only with the help of antidepressant drugs? Five hundred thousand teenagers in the United States try to kill themselves each year. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15-25 year-olds in our country. What does it mean that we live in a society where young people are so desperate as to take their own lives?

Rural communities know the powerful tug of the undertow. Over the course of the last three decades, the shape of rural America has changed drastically. (1) Where once the family farm participated in a rural infrastructure that sustained a stable quality of life, now a host of unprecedented issues have emerged--economic, social, political, environmental, and spiritual-- that threaten the future well-being of rural communities. The institution of the family farm has been forced to compete with corporate fanning interests that largely control seed, fertilizer, pesticide, storage, market, shipping, processing, and distribution. Small farmers attempt to survive on a 3 to 4 percent return on their investment, as corporate farming firms expect at least a 20 percent profit. (2) While incomes in the United States rose by an average of 5 percent in 1998, farmers lost an average of 23.8 percent of their income. (3) Prices for crops offer at best a marginal return; hog prices have fallen to impossibly low levels.

Churches and their pastors are faced with an enormous challenge in addressing the psychological, social, and spiritual impact of the undertow threatening rural communities. Shannon Jung writes,

Individual levels of depression are high. Collective depression settles over communities. Services and community networks are overloaded. Psychological consequences include withdrawal, a sense of worthlessness, sleep disorders, restlessness, increased fear, violence, abuse, mood changes, confusions, and suicide. Many rural families feel out of control. Decisions are made by people a great social distance away from rural life. There are fewer services and they are harder to access in rural America; families feel as though they have few allies to help them respond to destabilizing problems. (4)

Leslie Weber comments,

Behind the images of discouraged farmers are images of social breakdown. There is domestic abuse, alcoholism, stress-related illnesses, strained relations with lenders, decreased ability to care for aging parents, and especially in areas where farmers and ranchers co-exist with Native Americans, a worsening of race relations. (5)

These are the realities that immediately confront pastors as they undertake daily ministry among both congregational members and people in the larger community.

To complicate the situation even more, the traditions of rural communities may conspire to resist new proposals for dealing with the prevailing crisis, especially when the ideas come from newcomers to the community (such as pastors). Kathleen Norris has described a "no hope" cycle in which an ideal of unchanging stability confronts the efforts of "outsiders" who take jobs in the rural community. (6) Not only pastors but also teachers, social workers, and other professionals face opposition when they try to develop new approaches to the many problems. When after a few years these helping professionals leave the community, partly out of frustration, it reinforces the sense of abandonment and worthlessness that already has begun to penetrate the community. This makes it even more difficult for the next newcomer to gain the trust of the people. The cycle repeats itself.

Hope's imposters

The undertow of hopelessness threatens to lead many to despair. If the church is to claim its vocation as a source of authentic hope in such a context, it must clearly define what it means by hope from the imposters that masquerade as hope in our midst. Authentic hope is different from wish fulfillment. Wishes chase after times and places that are not attainable. Wishes seek to return to some golden age in the past or to flee to some Shangri-La far distant from the present location. Wishes detach us from our present context, seeking to impose some unreachable ideal. The promises of politicians often appeal to our wishes.

In contrast, hope takes seriously the present historical situation and remains committed to work with that reality.

Authentic hope is also to be distinguished from desire. Desire chases after the materialistic solutions so dear to American society. If only we could obtain that new gadget, new car, new fashion, new computer, then all would be well. Desire may chase after an experience as well as a thing. Desire turns happiness into something to be purchased. Never mind that each new day makes available new objects that allure. In contrast, hope is grounded in something far more permanent than material gain.

Authentic hope is also different from escape. Escape offers to deliver us from reality. Television and movies, video games and vacations offer pleasant escape from reality. As diversions, each of these may have its place as a form of recreation. But mere entertainment offers only shallow consolation. It diverts our gaze away from problems crying out for attention. It isolates us one from another in numbing individualism. Such means of escape function as the proverbial opium for the masses. In contrast, hope attends to the real pain and dilemmas people face in their daily lives.

Our hope is in God

Is there anything or anyone in whom we may place our hope? The failure of wishes, desire, and escape to deliver what they promise leads first to resignation, then to despair. We may place our trust in other people--family members, friends, colleagues, teachers, or others in whom we have confidence. It is truly the case that we need the support of other people as companions on life's journey. Yet none of these has the power to guarantee all that we hope for. They themselves, like we, also are searching for something or someone to ground their ultimate hopes. When we set our hope on another person, we will eventually be disappointed, because other human beings are always fallible. Human beings make mistakes and always finally die. Other people, even the best, cannot deliver all that we hope for. Where then can we discover an ultimate reason for hoping?

Like the generations before us, our hope rests finally only in God. Only God has the power to ground our hopes for the future. Like Abraham, Sarah, and the people of Israel, our hopes for a blessed future cling to the promises of God (cf. Gen 12:1-3). The biblical God is a God who makes promises to God's people.

A promise is a declaration which announces the coming of a reality that does not yet exist.... If it is a case of a divine promise, then that indicates that the expected future does not have to develop within the framework of the possibilities inherent in the present, but arises from that which is possible to the God of the promise. (7)

Whenever we speak about hope, we extend our expectation toward the future. We await the arrival of something beyond our own ability to control. We place our trust that the one who makes promises about the future has the capacity to deliver that which has been promised. Whenever we hope, we put ourselves at risk.

The biblical God has a track record when it comes to promises. Slaves in Egypt trusted the promises of God who led them into freedom. Wandering tribes trusted the promises of God who brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey. Endangered inhabitants trusted the promises of God who delivered them from their enemies. Leaderless people trusted the promises of God who raised up judges and kings to rule. Suffering exiles trusted the promises of God who returned them from exile. Weary prophets trusted the promises of God who sent them a Messiah.

The Bible is a book that narrates the succession of promises made by God and how they came to fruition. The climax of this story arrived with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The crucifixion of Jesus raised a radical question about God's reliability in keeping promises. Jesus had claimed to be God's son. Jesus had claimed to do the will of God. Jesus had claimed to bring God's kingdom. All of these claims were up for grabs as Jesus was hung on a cross to die. Only the power of God to raise the dead could vindicate all that Jesus had claimed for God.

If in the power of God, as seen in the raising of the Crucified and, as a result of that, in the justification and calling of the godless, the promise has become unconditional--of grace and not of law--then it has also become unrestricted and is therefore valid 'without distinction'. If the Christ event thus contains the validation of the promise, then this means no less than that through the faithfulness and truth of God the promise is made true in Christ-and made wholly, unbreakably, for ever and for all.... Between this once-for-all validation of the promise and its fulfillment in the glory of God there stands only the dependability of God. (8)

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead means that we dare to trust what God has promised about the future yet to come, the arrival of the kingdom of God.

Jesus dreamed the kingdom

In spite of all the reasons for despair, we dare to continue to hope for the arrival of the future Jesus promised. That future is condensed into the central symbol of Jesus' proclamation, the kingdom of God. Although scholars disagree about many things concerning the historical Jesus, there is a strong consensus that the central metaphor of Jesus' teaching was the kingdom. In order to restore the freshness of what Jesus meant by the basilea tou theou, I am going to refer to this symbol not as the kingdom but as the dream of God. Jesus instilled in his followers the dream of God. This dream was not static but a dynamic mode of activity. What was distinctive about Jesus' teaching is that although the dream of God awaits future realization, already it was breaking into human history in the present. The dream of God was at work as Jesus cast out demons; performing one exorcism, he declared that the dream of God is "already in the midst of you."

Wherever the dream of God intervenes, there is a dramatic reversal of expectations and values. The dream of God is the cause for immeasurable joy, like finding lost treasure in a field or a pearl of great price. There is urgency about the dream of God that compels one to leave other affairs behind. It is more urgent than buying a field, spending your wedding night with your new spouse, or burying a dead relative. Yet the increase of the dream of God happens mysteriously, by the power of God alone, just as there is a mystery about how the crops grow.

Jesus not only spoke about the dream of God; he lived the dream. He demonstrated the dream by daring to forgive sins on behalf of God and by healing the sick. According to God's dream, hungry people were fed. By virtue of this dream, Jesus extended a welcome to all: Gentiles, children, women, lepers, demon-possessed, the unclean, tax collectors, and public sinners. Jesus exercised a scandalous table fellowship. It was therefore appropriate that it was at a meal on the night before his death that Jesus instituted a meal for the "forgiveness of sins" by which we were to remember him.

Two central characteristics distinguish this dream of God. They are simple but profound markers. First, God is near. Second, God is merciful. Jesus addressed God asAbba, a term of familiarity and intimacy. God is near, vividly involved and connected with human life, like a loving parent involved in the lives of children. The dream of God is "in, with, and under" daily human affairs. God is merciful, neither distant nor condemning. God is inviting, ready to welcome the sinner home. Jesus invited us to claim as our own the dream of the prodigal son, whose father was eager to welcome the wayward child home, even with a banquet. We see these two affirmations about the dream of God summarized in the petitions of the Lord's prayer: "Abba... your dream come... forgive us our sins ... as we forgive."

Unconventional wisdom

To dream the dream of God is to be instilled with an unconventional wisdom. (9) It is a wisdom that tums the plans of this world upside down and inside out. We hold instinctively to some clear and distinct ideas about the meaning of family, wealth, honor, and religion. In conventional wisdom, the family refers to those to whom we are related by blood kinship. These are the ones we owe unconditional loyalty. In conventional wisdom, wealth is a sign of God's favor and blessing. Blessed are the rich, for they can buy whatever they want. According to conventional wisdom, honor means having status and power over others. It assigns one to the top of the social hierarchy. In conventional wisdom, religion means living a decent life according to the prevailing values. To be religious is the equivalent of being a good citizen.

The dream of God contradicts every assertion of conventional wisdom. Jesus turned the standards of this world topsyturvy. Who is your family? All those who do the will of God are your brothers and sisters, the family of disciples. What is wealth? The greatest danger of all to your spiritual wellbeing. You cannot serve God and mammon. Who are the honored ones? According to the dream of God, they are the least. The one who would be great must become the servant of all, the ones who wash dirty feet. What is true religion? Only this--to trust above all else that God is near and that God is merciful.

This is not only an unconventional wisdom but also a dangerous and subversive wisdom. Those who practice this wisdom end up persecuted for their faith--Martin Luther King Jr. and Oscar Romero. Is it any wonder that the bearer of this wisdom got crucified? Jesus was executed by the defenders of conventional wisdom, religious authorities challenged by Jesus' unconventional wisdom and political authorities fearful of a rival king. The charge against Jesus was posted on the cross itself: "King of the Jews." Jesus was a threat for spreading the dream of God.

Yet exactly this one, the one who spread the dream of God and was crucified for bringing unconventional wisdom, is the one God raised from the dead. God vindicated the life and ministry of Jesus by raising him up to new and resurrection life. This Jesus is the one God gave us as a Living Lord to be the source of our hope in every difficult circumstance.

Worship: catching the dream of God

In a recent study of "leadership practices that form communities for mission," Shannon Jung and Russ May examined the qualities that make certain congregations vital centers of faith. The primary practice that characterizes congregations that are alive for mission is worship. (10) It is my deep conviction that if we are to live by hope and not despair over the economic and social problems that threaten to consume us, we must renew our understanding and appreciation for what God is seeking to do to us when we gather for worship. Worship is the inexhaustible source of Christian hope because it is at worship that we encounter the living God of hope. It is at worship that we catch anew the very dream of God.

Worship renews our hope because at worship we enter into an alternative reality with God at the center. I like to use the analogy of what happens to me when I play basketball. When I play basketball I enter into an alternative world defined by the lines on the court. In this world, all that exists is my team trying to put the ball through one hoop and prevent the other team from doing the same in another hoop. Nothing else matters during the time I am engaged in this activity. I become fully immersed in the activity of playing basket-ball. I become another person. I dwell in another world.

Those who enjoy great works of art should also be able to identify with this experience. I recall seeing in New York a Picasso exhibit at which the painting "Guernica" was on display. I have always been struck by this painting, which is a work of protest against war. When I walked into the room and saw the actual painting, taking up the expanse of a long wall, I became transfixed. Time stood still as I entered into the world of the artist. Before I looked again at my watch, more than an hour had transpired. And I will never be the same again. The horror of war became overwhelmingly real for me.

Others may have had a profound experience listening to music. I once sat in the very front row at a performance of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony. As the large choir struck up the final chorus, it was as though I had been translated into heaven itself. Never before and never thereafter have I experienced a clearer revelation of what heaven will be like. And I will never be the same again.

The nature of such experience goes by different names: aesthetic experience, deep play, ritual. I sometimes refer to such experience as "pre-tending." (11) When one pre-tends, the boundary between the so-called real world and the world of the imagination dissolves. The world of pretend becomes so compelling that the ordinary world ceases to exist. Just try calling a child for dinner who is wrapped up in the world of pretend. Schizophrenia is an illness where there is no return from the world of alternative reality to our real world. As I am defining the word, to pre-tend is not trivial but profound, not false but true. To pre-tend has nothing to do with pretense or deception. To pre-tend is to enter into an alternative world that profoundly alters and shapes one's life in the ordinary world.

Albert Einstein once commented that imagination is more important than knowledge. It is imagination that so grips our awareness that our lives are forever changed. While knowledge spares us from delusions, there are limits to what reason and argument can accomplish. I think that it is rare that someone actually changes an opinion because of rational arguments, for example, about politics or religion. What changes us is what we dream. What changes us is the power to imagine that things can be otherwise.

When we worship, I propose, we enter into an alternative world. It is the world in which we catch the dream of God, the very same dream Jesus proclaimed and lived out. The danger is great that we fail to grasp the significance of what we do when we gather together for Christian worship. So often we fail in our exercise of the imagination. There is an urgent need for us to reawaken the mystery of God's purposes in worship. God is at work at worship to instill in us the dream of God, the dream that gives us hope. As we perform the ritual of worship, God brings into our midst the dream that transforms not only our lives but also the entire world.

Victor Turner describes the ritual process as passing out of the world of structure into the world of communitas. The world of structure is the world of everyday life, characterized by an established order with its hierarchical structure. The world of communitas, by contrast, is an alternative world characterized by freedom. One enters into ritual time and ritual space by passing over a limen, a threshold, such as one finds at a doorway. In the world of ritual, communitas, reversals take place. The powerful become subject to the powerless. The bottom becomes top and up becomes down.

Turner uses the example of an African ritual that in some ways resembles our April Fools Day. I will call it Ridicule the Chief Day. Every other day of the year the chief is in charge and everyone knows his or her place. The hierarchy of roles is intact. However, on Ridicule the Chief Day one may embarrass the chief. One may insult the chief. One may even throw excrement at the chief. The very next day everything goes back to normal. The chief is in charge and everyone else resumes an accustomed standard place. On the one hand, it appears that nothing has changed and the ritual was a mere curiosity. On the other hand, everything has changed. The chief is reminded that on any given day the people can take control and depose the chief. The chief is accountable to the people and dependent on their good favor. And the people become aware of their immense power, that on any given day they can topple the hierarchy.

"Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the dream of God" (cf. Mt 18:3). Imagination is at the heart of ritual. People in our culture have starving imaginations. The reason that movies, sports, virtual reality, and even television are so popular among us is that we are starving for something worthwhile to imagine. The media create for us alternative worlds that we can enter for a while. As we go to the movies, for example, we see the world through the eyes of another. We become so caught up in that world that we find ourselves laughing and crying, as though we belonged in that world. We experience relief from our tensions. Our own problems become relativized. And in the best of cases, we begin to see new possibilities.

The church offers something truly worthy of the human imagination, the dream of God. Through the liturgy and the church year, we are invited to imagine the selfsame dream that Jesus brought to his disciples. In the Eucharist, we ritualize the dream of God proclaimed and embodied by Jesus. We dare to imagine the world according to the vision and values of the dream of God. By the power of the Spirit, we catch the dream of God and have our hope restored. We pre-tend a world where God is alive and ruling over us, where God is near and merciful.

There are clear indicators that when we worship we are entering into an alternative world. We put on colorful vestments to enhance our imagining of the dream of God. We surround ourselves with peculiar art and furniture, a pulpit and font and table, by means of which we enact life according to the dream of God. Stained glass refracts normal light and transforms it into light for dreaming the world as God intended. Banners fill our minds with the symbols and slogans of God's dream. And we chant at each other, a sign that this is the time and space for the dawning of another world.

Each element of the liturgy invites us to catch the dream of God. The word of invocation marks our transition into God's world. We tell the truth about ourselves through the confession, that we are sinners, because God's world is a world of truth. Yet we receive a more permanent truth, hearing that in Christ our sins are forgiven. We sing songs that immerse us in the dream of God. We implore God's mercy for ourselves, the church, and the world, because in God's world there is peace for all. We pay attention to God's Word by reading ancient texts and hearing a sermon, because in God's world this Word is the very center of existence. We pledge allegiance in the Creed, for in God's world we would even sacrifice our lives for what we believe. We pray for the needs of all, expressing our concern even for those that we do not know, because that's the way it is in God's world. We share a sign of peace, even with people we cannot stand, because peace reigns among all, according to the dream of God. We offer our first fruits, pretending this is the very best we have to give, because that is the nature of stewardship in God's world. We gather at a meal where all are welcome and there is enough to satisfy the needs of all, as we enact God's dream of reconciliation. We depart with a blessing that the dream of God that has come over us at worship transform our entire lives.

It is my deep conviction that worship is the most important activity that congregations do. At worship we catch the dream of God and have our hope renewed. If this is the case, then planning for worship becomes one of the central activities of those called to Word and Sacrament ministry. It is vital that we devote significant time to planning for worship in concert with others, in order that the people in our congregations catch the dream of God and regain hope for the living of their lives. We need to prepare for worship, employing our best imaginations, because what happens at worship is a matter of life or death.

The wonder of worship is not, however, finally what we plan and prepare, or what we pre-tend or dream. If the best we can do is seek to invoke the dream of God among our people, God does something far better. Through Word and Sacrament, God in Christ actually meets us to create that which we dream. God employs the eucharistic drama as the means for transforming the world. God comes to us as bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ, in the service of Holy Communion to give us the hope we need to face the circumstances that threaten to crush us.

As we enter into the alternative world of God's dream at worship, we find our values and priorities change. We even begin to question the nature of the "real" world. Is the everyday world of foreclosures and divorce and violence the real world? Or, is instead the world of worship, the world where we gather to catch the dream of God, really the world that lasts forever? Time and again, I find myself affirming that the real world, the world that lasts forever, is the world of worship where together we dream the dream of God. And I find myself renewed in hope that God is alive, empowered to see God at work in my ministry and in the lives of all those who by faith have caught the dream of God. "We walk by faith and not by sight..." restored in hope by the vision God lends us as we worship in the name of Jesus and walk in his way.

(1.) Shannon Jung et al., Rural Ministry: The Shape of the Renewal to Come (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998).

(2.) Jung, Rural Ministry, 105.

(3.) L. Shannon Jung, "A Theological Vision for Ministry in Rural America," Word & World 20 (Spring 2000): 146.

(4.) Jung, Rural Ministry, 114.

(5.) As quoted by Jung, "A Theological Vision for Ministry," 145.

(6.) Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1993), 55ff.

(7.) Jurgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope: On the Ground and the Implications of Christian Eschatology (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 103.

(8.) Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 147.

(9.) Marcus Borg, Jesus--a New Vision (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), 104-8.

(10.) Shannon Jung and Russ May, Transforming Congregations: Leadership Practices that Form Communities for Mission (Dubuque: Center for Theology and Land, 2000), 4-6.

(11.) "Cf. Craig L. Nessan, Beyond Maintenance to Mission: A Theology of the Congregation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 34-44.

Craig L. Nessan observes that while there is widespread prosperity in the United States, young people and people in rural communities and inner cities know another reality An undertow of hopelessness threatens to lead many to despair. Only God has the power to ground our hopes for the future. The crucifixion of Jesus raised a radical question about God's reliability in keeping promises, and only the power of God to raise the dead could vindicate all that Jesus had claimed for God. A fresh way to describe the kingdom Jesus promised is to call it the dream of God. Wherever that dream intervenes, there is a dramatic reversal of expectations and values. Two central characteristics distinguish this dream: God is near, and God is merciful. According to this dream all those who do the will of God are our family. Wealth is the greatest danger to our spiritual well-being, and the most honored ones are "the least." The one who would be great becomes the servant of all. If we are to live by hope and not despair, we must renew our understanding of what God is seeking to do to us when we gather for worship. There we enter into an alternative world that profoundly alters and shapes our life in the ordinary world. God is at work at worship to instill in us the dream of God. At worship we catch the dream of God and have our hope renewed. Hence, planning for worship becomes one of the central activities of those called to Word and Sacrament ministry.