Only a few hours
ago I returned home from a trip to Asheville, NC and the Biltmore Estate. After
realizing how many millions of dollars you can go through maintaining a place
like that, I feel quite satisfied with my little bungalow in the center of the
state. Those were neither simpler nor cheaper days. It took a hunk of change to
pay 35-50 servants and fill a 36,000 volume library!
On one of
the side trips to a variety of upscale gift and souvenir shops, I noticed a
stone rabbit with one word carved into its side, “Dream”. Put this in the
context of what I had been dreaming while touring Biltmore, and you can
understand my response of “Yeah, right!”
We are not
asked to go through life without dreams. Now life without dreams doesn’t make
you a slave. He dreams of freedom. A life without dreams is a life without awareness
of either past or future. It is a life that exists only for the moment and the
sensations the moment can provide. It is a life that can never rise above the
fleeting and momentary impulses common to all animals.
Biltmore
took most of the fortune inherited by George W. Vanderbilt from his father.
When he died, his widow soon had to take steps to save her home which included
selling over three quarters of the estate. Less than fifteen years later the
home was opened to the first paying tourists.
George
Vanderbilt was perhaps a misguided dreamer. Another dreamer came along in the
20th century with a different focus. He didn’t spend money to
impress people. He spent time to free people from prejudice. M. L. King, Jr.
delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, DC fifty years ago today.
Being able to impress people with your money can only go so far. Then it
falters. Dreaming of ending all prejudice may also remain an unfilled dream,
but this is a dream worth continuing.
Dreaming
that all prejudice will disappear is a huge dream. Yet it is only a small part
of the dream to which every believer in Christ is called. Jesus gave his
followers a dream beyond our imagination. We are to dream of heaven on earth.
In the Model
Prayer as recorded in Matthew 6, Jesus urges his disciples to ask the Father that
“your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” There can
be no greater dream than to have the divine reign of the Creator-Father become
as real on earth as it is in the spiritual realms of glory. Under God’s rule,
not only would prejudice cease to exist, but so also all the other self-focused
and shortsighted ways of man. We cannot begin to imagine the nature of such a
world, but we are called to dream of it and pray for it.
Martin
Luther King, Jr. preached about rejecting prejudice. He supported laws limiting
its influence. Ultimately he died because of his stand against it. His death
only marked his commitment to his cause. It did not guarantee its success.
Jesus the
Christ, the Son of God, preached about the Kingdom of God. He spoke of it more
than any other topic. He taught his listeners the nature of the Kingdom and how
they could live as its citizens. He opened their eyes to see how they could be
a part of it for eternity. Ultimately he died because he would not compromise the
demands placed upon its citizens. His death affirmed his integrity and at the
same time guaranteed the prayer he taught his disciples would become reality.
Dreaming can
but does not always lead to action. Perhaps it is impossible to change the
future without a dream, but many a dream has disappeared into the dust because
the dreamer refused to act. Serious dreamers act. Serious dreamers are not
afraid to sweat. Serious dreamers are not afraid to die. The world is changed
by dreamers who work for dreams worth dying for. The greatest dreams are those for
which death is never the end.
