The Impossible Dream, Fathers’ Day: Proper 6

Jesus’ name for God was so important the Bible keeps the original Aramaic word: “Abba”, “Abba”, an intimate form of “father.” Suddenly every father becomes a model for God- either a good model or a bad one.

Faith Ann learned that the hard way fifty years ago at Church camp. Because she was our best teacher, the director gave her everyone of the kids from the Hoffman Orphanage. On the first day she introduced the week’s theme, “God is our Father.” Immediately the leader of the gang felt the need to challenge her, “If God is a father; I want nothing to do with him. My father was a rat who ran away when we needed him.” I’m sure you can imagine what he really said, complete with all the profanity. Suffice it to say, Faith Ann began to change her lessons on the spot.

A father who is a good model loves his children even when they do not deserve that love and forgives them even when they abuse that love. Like God he knows his children well enough to anticipate what they need before they ask. Above all, he is faithful, a model of steadfast love.

But a Christian father is also aware of Paul’s observation that Jesus taught us to pray “Abba, Father” making clear we are not his slaves but rather his children. That means a father does not constantly rant about his children being sinners who must obey him, but rather encourages and inspires them to act like God’s beloved children. He does not teach how bad they are, but how good they can become. He sees his children not only as they are, but also as they will be.

I thought of this when I attended the musical “The Man from La Mancha.” Many of you know it is about Don Quixote, an aged Spanish man who reads books of chivalry and begins to think he should live as a knight who battles evil and defends the weak. In the classic book he became a symbol for the naïve pursuit of hopeless projects after he charges a windmill thinking it is a multi-armed evil monster. The book laments the end of chivalry in a world that has become brutal and hostile. The musical takes another tack, making more of how Don Quixote changes people by seeing the best in them. A pot bellied buffoon becomes a heroic squire, a kitchen wench, Aldonza, becomes a lady-fair, Dulcinea.

At first people question why he does this, wondering if he is insane or has some hidden agenda to take advantage of them. So the kitchen wench, Aldonza, asks, “Why do you do these things?… What things?… These ridiculous things you do! … I hope to add some measure of grace to the world. … The world’s a dung heap and we are maggots that crawl on it! You’re going to take such a beating! … Whether I win or lose does not matter- Only that I dream the impossible dream, fight the unbeatable foe, right the unrightable wrong. Then I shall be peaceful and calm when I’m laid to my rest. And the world will be better for this.”

But soon Aldonza, like all the rest, becomes embarrassed and angry.  “Once, just once, would you look at me as I really am? … I see beauty, purity. … Look at me. Look at the kitchen slut reeking of sweat. You have shown me the sky But what good is the sky to a creature who’ll never do better than crawl? Of all the cruel, you are the cruelest of all. Your gentle insanities rob me of anger and give me despair. So please torture me no more with your sweet Dulcineas. I am no one, I am nothing.”

But by the end of the show people begin to live in his vision, becoming what he sees in them. “You spoke to me, and everything was different. You looked at me, and you called me by another name. Dulcinea. Dulcinea. Perhaps it was not a dream and it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, if only you follow the quest and dream the impossible dream.”

Don Quixote refuses to see life as only pain…misery… cruelty beyond belief. And he makes the world a better place. At one point he asks what is reality and what is illusion. Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. Too much sanity may be madness! And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be!”

Jesus also dreams the impossible dream. He sees Zacchaeus not as a short, greedy tax collector but rather as a child of God who will find happiness when he shares his wealth. And Zacchaeus begins to live as Jesus sees him. He does not see Peter as a dirty, stupid fisherman but as a leader of men and Peter becomes a rock who builds the Church. He does not see the Samaritan Woman as an easy lay but as a missionary who can carry the Gospel to her neighbors. And she becomes the first Christian evangelist.

But Jesus is not quixotic or naïve. In today’s Gospel he sends his apostles out warning they will find what he did- hostility and opposition, beatings and imprisonment, betrayal by their own fathers or children. In spite of this, they are to go without baggage, without money and even without weapons. They are to proclaim good news, not the bad news we hear all about us. They are to do positive, creative things such as curing, raising up, cleansing, and freeing people. And they are only able to do this, because they see what Jesus saw: God here among us, building the beloved community until there is heaven on earth. Having that vision they dreamed the impossible dream and even gave their lives pursuing it. This is not fighting windmills but following Jesus.

Of course, we are not talking only of fathers. We are all called to speak and act this way. It is the secret of successful child rearing but also the secret of all education and all human relationships. Heaven knows how we ever came to think Jesus’ message is screaming “sinner” at people as if they are bound for hell unless they toe our line. Jesus proclaims God is a loving father who encourages and inspires us to live in his love. When we do, we recognize brothers and sisters all about us.

Tags: Abba, Beauty, Fathers’ Day, God as Father, Proper 6, Sermon, The Impossible Dream, The Man from La Macha