I have a dream.  I have … a dream.  Many of you here, like me, heard that dream and that speech forty-five years ago.  Perhaps you were there, before the Lincoln Memorial.  If not, then like me you probably heard it on the radio.  This, of course, was BYT … Before You-Tube.  In fact,  it was BC!  Before computers.  In some ways it seems so long ago.  And in others, it seems so very recent.  We heard the words.  They moved us.  They moved a nation.

 

I have a dream.  Today I would like to celebrate our dreams, especially I would like to celebrate the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this historic week that we have just experienced, the dream it made real and the work it took to get us here.  We sometimes forget that.  How much work it took.  What it cost to realize the dream.  Still …

 

I have a dream.  I have … a dream.  Powerful stuff, dreams.  Amazing stuff.

 

I have a dream, Dr. King told us, that one day a man shall be judged not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character.  I wonder if anyone who wasn’t alive when he spoke those words can truly appreciate just how far away, how far away and improbable that wonderful, affirming, hope-filled dream sounded just forty-five years ago, that day in 1963 – what a testament to faith it was.

 

I have a dream, Dr. King told us, that one day a man shall be judged not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character.  We heard these words, and a part of us believed it, and a part of us thought … just a dream.  Beautiful.  But just a dream. 

 

I have a dream, Dr. King told us. 

 

Dreams are for children … so many others said. 

 

Dr. King knew better.  On the night before he was assassinated, on the night before he was assassinated, Dr. King spoke to the group that was assembled and said, “I have been to the mountaintop, and I have seen the promised land.  I may not get there with you …”  I may not get there with you.  And, of course, he didn’t.  But the dream did.

 

You may have voted for Barack Obama.  You may have voted for John McCain.  But what we know is that except for a very few people still desperately clinging to their prejudice, Barack Obama was judged by this country not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character.  And now he is president.  President of the United States of America that when it was formed and through the first hundred years of its existence would have put him in chains and set him to work as a slave.  Yet now he is president.  President of the United States of America that until the 1960’s would have told him, you may be free, but you’re not equal, don’t bother to try to vote.  And now he is president.  President Barack Obama.  I have a dream!

 

The President himself invoked this memory in his inauguration speech when he said, “This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed – why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”

 

I have a dream, Dr. King told us.  I have a dream.  A few minutes ago the choir sang a song by Grace Lewis-McLaren – a song that is close to my heart, a song I love dearly.  The refrain is truly crucial to any, any of us would dream of a better world.  It is indeed the very core of the song.  “May we share his dream, and work to make it real.”  May we share his dream and work to make it real.

 

Sharing involves not only commitment, but community.  In a nation that so idolizers the lone wolf, the lone ranger, it is community, it is a sense of togetherness that makes it possible for dreams to become real.

 

And Dr. King, and so many others, worked hard for those dreams. 

 

So today we remember not only the dreams but the sharing, and the work. 

 

Here, at an interfaith Church, we recall how Dr. King brought people of so many differing faiths together.  To march together.  To break bread together.  To face obscenities, fire hoses, and jail time, together – all for the sake of a dream, for the audacity of demanding justice. 

 

We recall too that the first occurrence of the word “interfaith” in the Oxford English Dictionary comes in the 1970’s, quoting an article written in the 1960’s about a march for justice – a march for jobs.

 

This year, 2009, at the Interfaith Community Church, our theme is “Promoting enduring, daily, interfaith cooperation.”  No one lived that ideal more completely than Dr. King.  And no one has shown us more powerfully just how much justice we can accomplish together, together, when we work as a human community.  Not as Jews, not as Christians, not as Muslims, Buddhists, Humanists.  Whether our call to justice is from our First Peoples’ sacred traditions, the Vedas, or the Goddess.  It is not from whence we are called, but what we are called to do.  It is not the religion that we practice, but how we practice our chosen religion that counts.  That, among so many other truths, is what Dr. King taught us. 

 

President Obama referenced this too in his speech when he said, “For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.  We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers.  We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

 

“The old hatreds shall someday pass.”  “America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.”  I have a dream, Dr. King said.  May we share his dream, and work to make it real.

 

And yes it has been work.  Long, hard work.  Sometimes heart-breaking.  Often dangerous.

 

I will confess to you something quite personal.  There is something I carry within me – a “gift” if you will from the 60’s.  To this day, to this very day, when I see a flag at half mast, my body convulses in a quick, involuntary shudder and my first thought, even today, forty years later, my first thought upon seeing a flag at half-mast is: who have they murdered now?

 

Medgar Evers.  James Cheney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.  And so many, so many others gave what Abraham Lincoln called their last full measure of devotion for this dream.  So many more were beaten, jailed, humiliated.  And in 1968 in April, Dr. King was assassinated.  Around the country, flags at half-mast.  In June that same year, Senator Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, assassinated.  And the flags were at half mast yet again.

 

Yes, it has been long and sometimes heart-breaking work that must not be forgotten in the joy of the moment.  But when our hearts break, we must mend them.  That is why community is so important.  Friends … how desperately we need friends and community when our hearts are broken.

 

Yet even with broken hearts, the work continued.  The dream lived.  We shall overcome.  We shall overcome, someday.  Deep in my heart I do believe that we shall overcome.  Some might call that, the audacity of hope.  Yet sometimes hope can be hard to find.  Again, why we need community … why we need each other.

 

“I have been to the mountaintop” Dr. King told us.  “And I have seen the promised land.”  He saw this.  He dreamed it.  And now the dream has become real.  We have seen an African American elected president.  And not by some slim margin, but by a clear and powerful majority who saw not the color of Barack Obama’s skin, but the content of his character.  We have shared Dr. King’s dream.  We have helped to make it real.

 

However … The problems of the world have not been solved.  You may have noticed that already.  No, the message today is not that the problems of the world have been solved.  But today, today we do remember that we can dream.  We can dream big.  And we can work to make those dreams real.  We need not despair.  We cannot sit back and dream idly, but dreams are important, dreams are essential and dreams are healthy, and dreams can become real – if we will work to make them real. 

 

Some other day perhaps we’ll plunge in to the discussion of just how half empty the cup is.  And those who unlike me have hair to spare, may feel free at that time to pull it, should they choose.  But not today.  Not today.  Today we smile and dance and laugh and enjoy just how half full is that very same cup. 

 

How many times has each of us said, perhaps after a long day, or week or month or year, sometimes in great anger, sometimes with great sadness, “Well, that would be nice.  But it’s just a dream.”  Just a dream.

 

Today we remember just how powerful dreams can be.  There is much to do, and much to dream and much to share.  And yes, much work ahead to make those dreams real.

 

Peace, not just between Palestinian and Israeli, but in Darfur, in Georgia, in Iraq and Afghanistan and all over this troubled world.  Justice, on our streets, in our courts, in our human interactions.  Compassion, for we are indeed our brother’s and sister’s keepers.

 

There is much to dream, and much to do.  And I have, I confess, my own dream, an Interfaith dream.  A dream that one day we will all truly respect each other’s spiritual paths, that we will one day learn to work together and to pray together in the name of love and compassion and our common humanity.

 

Dreams.  Dreams!  Without dreams today there can never be a better reality in our future.  “I have a dream,”  Dr. King said.  He calls us to his dream, and to our own. 

 

What we dream may not happen in our lifetimes.  We may have to say to our children, “I may not make it there with you.”  But we can still dream.  Indeed, we have the obligation to dream.  And the obligation to hope.  And the obligation to work to make those hopes and dreams real.

 

This is the great gift of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. 

 

Let us take a moment … to breathe … to smile … to shut our eyes, if we feel so inclined … and in the calm and quiet of our minds … ask … what is my dream for the world?  …  What is my dream for the world?  …  What is my dream for children I have not even met?  … With whom do I share this dream?  … And what am I willing to do about it?

 

I have a dream   I have a dream!  Amen.