Dream Big

“Dream Big”

Rev. Stephen Milton

Lawrence Park Community Church

Nov 30 2025, First Advent

This is the start of the season of advent, and it begins with lighting a candle representing hope. So this seems like a good time to think about hope.

When do we lean on hope? We don’t hope for things that are a sure thing. We don’t hope there will be tomato sauce on the shelves at the grocery store - there will be. All we have to do is go get it. This morning, I didn’t hope that I would be able to open the door when I left the house. Of course I could, I have that strength.

But there are times when we might hope for exactly these things. During covid, when product shortages were common, we hoped that there was toilet paper or flour on the shelves. Equally, in times of physical disability or illness, we may hope we have strength to open the door.

What is the difference? Power. When events are not in our power we often resort to hope. For people who are in wars, hope is often the only friend they have. They have no power to stop the war themselves, so they hope war will end; that a ceasefire will be adopted; that they will live another day. 

Hope takes flight when power and capability are in short supply. We don’t hope for what is likely, but for what is needed, yet beyond our reach. Hope takes flight in times of uncertainty. It floats through the air, invisible like the wind, yet still somehow powerful enough to keep people’s morale up as they endure difficult situations. Hope is the thing with feathers, the poet Emily Dickinson said, it can perch in the soul no matter how stormy life gets, and it demands nothing from us in return.

People who have been diagnosed with dire diseases are often sustained by hope. Hope that their cancer will go into remission. Hope that the chemo will work this time. Or, sometimes it is a more modest hope:  that in the time we have left some relationships will be resolved; or that we can see a loved one once more. Hope can accompany us into small places, where there isn’t much room for anything else. 

Among Christians, we have a complicated relationship with hope. We are encouraged not to place too much importance in material goods to find our happiness. We are encouraged to be modest in our needs, and generous in our help to others. 

In the Gospel of Luke, one day a rich young ruler walks up to Jesus to ask what he should do to attain eternal life. ( Luke 18:18ff) Jesus suggests that he sell all his goods and join Jesus and his disciples. Jesus can see this young man was too attached to his fine clothes and wealth. Riches can be a trap if we rely on them for confirmation of our self worth. Jesus encourages us to recognize that we do not need to be wealthy to be loved by God. There is no need to hope for more and more money - our value cannot be measured in dollars or bitcoins.

Christians are encouraged to be modest in our personal lives, neither arrogant nor boastful. Ideally, we are not driven by a desire to prove ourselves to others. We don’t make very good Bond villains or billionaires. We don’t hope for great wealth or fame.

But does that mean that Christians should be strangers to hope? We often hope for others of course - that they will be well, go into remission. Get a job. Have their refugee application granted. We are good at hoping for the welfare of others, and we often ask God for help in our own lives. That is all well and good, our modesty is realistic.

But when we look at the world, how much should we hope for? There is an odd relationship between information and hope. In this age of the 24 hours news cycle,  it is easy to be well informed and lose hope. The more we know, the less likely dramatic change appears. Perhaps it is the fact that the news usually focuses on bad news and terrible events, like wars and that horrific fire in Hong Kong. Bad news sells better than good news. 

Perhaps it is because as states elect authoritarian leaders, it seems childish to be hopeful. This is the way of the world, realists tell us. Real politick and hope are strangers to each other.  The higher up the political ladder we go, the less politicians talk about hope or radically different futures. The most recent federal government offered hope, but has settled into a series of nation building projects which seem guaranteed to contribute to climate change. How did the hope of the younger generations for a clean world get traded away so easily? As if exporting more oil has nothing to do with climate change? How does hope get pushed aside so easily in politics?

Too often, the people’s welfare is equated with how much money we have in our pockets, how much the economy is expected to grow over the next year. The kinds of values we celebrate at advent - hope, peace, joy and love don’t get talked about much in the Oval Office, Ottawa,  or the Kremlin.

In today’s scripture reading, Jesus predicts the end of the world. He says that it will come suddenly. It will be like when the flood came in Noah’s time. People were just having another ordinary day - making bread, going to work, making love. Just a regular day. Then the rain began , rain that wouldn’t stop. There was no warning, just a sudden end to the world they knew. 

But Jesus doesn’t mention why this flood happened. His listeners knew, but we often forget. In the book of Genesis, God declares that before the flood, human beings have become corrupt, they no longer care for each other’s welfare.

5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and God’s heart was deeply troubled. (Genesis 6)

Humans have become wicked and corrupt. So God decides to start over, with just one family, leaving the rest of this society to drown. A planetary reboot is needed. Clear the cache, start over.

In Jesus’ time,  society was also a mess. The Romans had invaded Judea, and were cruel rulers. They took too much in taxes, driving the people into poverty. They had armies too big to defeat. When Jesus was a child, a Jewish rebellion in Galilee led to a crushing defeat. Thousands of Jews were crucified by the Romans as an example to all the conquered peoples of the Roman Empire. Resistance is futile, and deadly. For Christ’s followers, there was no reasonable prospect of Roman rule ending through a rebellion. If there was any way to get rid of this evil empire, God would have to intervene.

So when Christ’s followers heard him talking about the end of the world, they heard a story of hope. If God were to end the world tomorrow, things could only get better. For God was not going to simply destroy the Earth, but make it better, through the creation of a new, just society. But first, God  would bring down the arrogant leaders and end their reign of terror and cruelty. 

Jesus was raised on this hope. When his mother Mary  became pregnant with Jesus, she sang a song of praise to God, which we know as the Magnificat. In it she sang,

God has scattered the proud in their conceit.

 God has cast down the mighty from their thrones,

 and has lifted up the lowly.

 God has filled the hungry with good things,

 and the rich have been sent away empty. ( Luke 1: 51-53)

Mary may have sung this song to her baby boy as a lullaby, filling him with the notion that God will come to bring peace on earth, and good will towards all people. When God intervenes at the end of time, it is to end cruelty and bring justice. For throughout the age of the prophets, God has been consistent. God considers everyone one of us a child of God, fully deserving of a flourishing life. If our social structures keep this from happening, then those policies and laws should be changed or removed.

When Jesus speaks of the end of the world, he is reminding us that God has higher hopes for the world than we do. God has bigger dreams for this world. In God’s eyes, it should be possible for human beings to live in peace with each other. For wars to cease, for hunger to be banished. God made us to live in reasonable prosperity and peace. That was the goal back in Eden. That was the reason for the flood. 

In the Book of revelation, the writer has a vision of the defeat of evil, and the attainment of a truly just society. God targets the rich and powerful who have ignored the needs of the poor. They quake in fear in caves as the end of the world begins ( Rev. 6:15). When they are vanquished, Christ returns to reign over a world in peace for a thousand years. That sounded pretty good to people under Roman rule. 

If our hope today is so modest for the world, it is because we are not dreaming big enough. God is hoping for a world that will see the dignity of every human being.  That everyone will be cared for. That we will find a way to stop wars before they begin. That we will work together to find that sweet spot where we can live a good lifestyle and not overburden the Earth’s resources. Where every child will be born without any fear of violence, in the home, on the street or from the sky. 

We Christians have often been the ones who have joined God in dreaming big. In the Middle Ages, the church set down rules about how many days a week wars could be waged, making all-out warfare impossible among Christian nations in the 12th century. In the 20th century, Christians were prominent voices against nuclear weapons, the shadow that continues to hang over us all. In this decade, we have been the ones sponsoring refugees and defending the rights of refugees at borders. 

We Christians are not called to be realistic. We are called to dream big, to share God’s dreams of a better, more ethical world where there is enough for everyone. We are called to be people of hope, in our personal lives for others, and for the world. If we are presented with a choice between being realistic and being hopeful, we are called to choose hope. For it is only through hope that one reality can end and a better one, a new Earth can be created. Hope is our superpower, the visionary promise that can inspire and change the world. So let us join God in hoping and dreaming big, for a world that desperately needs to know that what is,  is not all can be. Amen.