Dreams and dreaming play an important role in scripture.
In the Old Testament dreams, or more particularly the ability to interpret them, are central to the stories of Joseph and Daniel. In both these stories they unexpected protagonists – both aliens in a foreign court – prove their worth through their ability to interpret the dreams of the powerful. The interpretations allow the dreams themselves to be authentic vehicles of divine revelation, and through that lead to good favour falling on the foreign land. Through this God-given skill both Joseph and Daniel find themselves fame, fortune, and favour.
As we move into the New Testament we find dreams also appear as a means of divine communication and revelation. In Matthew’s Gospel, for instance, it is through dreams that Joseph of Nazareth is told of the true reality of Mary’s unexpected pregnancy and then how Joseph and his young family, as well as the travelling Magi, flee the wrath of King Herod.
With this context in mind it is perhaps hard to know what to make of the prophet Jeremiah’s all-out assault on the power of dreams in our Old Testament reading today.
I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’ How long? Will the hearts of the prophets ever turn back—those who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart?
In his characteristically vigorous style Jeremiah does not pull his punches. Those who claim to know the mind of God through the power of their dreams are no better than those turned from the one true God to the worship of idols and Baals.
What Jeremiah attacks are not the dreams we find in the stories of Joseph and Daniel and the beginnings of Matthew’s Gospel. These dreams act as a model of divine revelation telling us something of the power of God’s message told through these extraordinary people and their extraordinary stories.
By contrast the dreams Jeremiah attacks are the dreams of those who claim to have some deep access to a hidden truth, revealed to them and allowing them to see a unique future only known to them.
These words might hold some power with some, Jeremiah says, but they are nothing to the deep engagement with God’s will and word found in true prophets. The true word is full of life and fruitfulness, like wheat, the other worthless like straw.
We live at a point in time where the prediction of what the future might look like is of a pressing need to us all.
All of us, of course, are keen to know what the coming weeks will hold. Those, for instance, about to leave for summer holiday will look for predictions about how the weather will be in the coming week and hope to plan accordingly.
But as the cost of our food and fuel rises, and we hear of predictions of what the cost of living might be in three- or six-months’ time many of us, all of us, are beginning to think deeply about how we might afford these rising costs. Whether we will be able to heat our homes, or fill our shopping baskets.
At a point like this we might hanker for a latter-day Joseph or Daniel who can read the runes and speak with confidence about how we might prepare ourselves for the coming storm. But sadly, those who we look to, or will look to, to navigate us through the coming challenges smack more of the dreamers Jeremiah cautions us against.
As the mounting cost of living crisis grows, we are living through a period of political paralysis and inaction. From Downing Street, we are told that it is not for the present government to act while we wait for the formation of a new government in September.
Against this the candidates to be Prime Minister sound like those dreaming prophets Jeremiah attacks. One claiming to have a “plan to deliver” against further energy cost rises, whilst not stating what that plan would be. The other cautioning confidently against the projections of recession simply because some projections have been wrong in the past.
In the face of this heady combination of inactivity and dreaming the signs of the impending storm only grow stronger. This week, for instance, it has been predicted that more than half of British households, 54%, will be in fuel poverty by October and two-thirds, 66%, by January.
Forecasts of the economy like the weather can be wrong, but all the graphs are pointing in the same direction.
Writing this week from his experience of when we faced a similar economic storm, Gordon Brown – who was Prime Minister through the financial crisis of 2008 – has counselled for action now rather than dreams of tomorrow. He writes:
There were two great lessons I learned right at the start of the last great economic crisis in 2008: never to be behind the curve but be ahead of events; and to get to the root of the problem.
In criticism pointed as much to the Leader of the Opposition as well as members of the current Government, he argues that:
Time and tide wait for no one. Neither do crises. They don’t take holidays, and don’t politely hang fire
Action, he argues, is needed now.
This is not an easy fix, like the crisis he helped the world navigate through in 2008 this is not something one person or government can fix it. Rather, like in 2008, coordinated international cooperation is needed to avert this oncoming storm where the most vulnerable and poorest in our society will pay the highest price both economically and personally.
His wisdom and experience remind us that whatever we think the future might hold, whatever dreams our political leaders might dream, none of that can replace the need to act now. To use Jeremiah’s image, it is better to seek the fruitfulness of the wheat now, than find us with straw later.
In our Gospel reading Jesus with prophetic power of the need to be ready now for the oncoming reckoning. Now Jesus, of course, wasn’t speaking about fuel bills and the cost of living in 2022. But like Jeremiah, he reminds us that all the dreaming of dreams and predictions of the future are worthless if we do not see the challenges we are face with here and now.
Our call as followers of Jesus is to be ready to act now to the sake of the poorest and most marginalised in our society, to be focused now on the needs of the most vulnerable, to be present now to the oncoming storm.
And Jesus said: ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, “It is going to rain”; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, “There will be scorching heat”; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?’
