I speak of dreams because it is graduation day, but also because a dream figures predominantly in the gospel story we just heard.  Joseph had dreams—dreams of a normal marriage, of an honorable, happy life.  Joseph was like us in many ways.  But his own dream is interrupted; his intended bride is pregnant, and the child is not his.  This was an affront, not only to him, but to his honor and that of his family.  He lived in a culture that valued honor above all else, just as our culture values looking good and having money above all else.  The normal response of Joseph’s time to this affront would be to denounce Mary publicly and so regain his honor, just as the first response of our time would be to sue whoever has the deepest pockets.

But Joseph makes a strange choice—to divorce her quietly—a choice that places her honor and dignity—and that of her family—above his own.  Remember that this is not Romeo and Juliet; there is no romantic love involved; the marriage has been arranged by their parents to seal an alliance between their families, not because the couple have any amorous feelings towards each other.  In that context Joseph’s decision is even more amazing.  His willingness to go against the “normal”, the “expected” behavior of his time out of concern for Mary’s dignity couldn’t just happen out of the blue; it had to be consistent with a whole series of choices made during his life up to that point.  If we hope to have the courage and insight to do the right thing when we face big choices, we have to practice doing the right thing every day, practice stepping outside of what is "normal” and “expected” every day.  The choices we make each day shape us into the persons we will be and the possibilities we will even be able to consider in the future.

And Joseph’s ability to go beyond concern just for himself and his own honor and that of his family opens him up to hear the word of God that comes to him in a dream.  God’s message to Joseph not only ratifies his decision not to humiliate Mary publicly, but invites him to take her as his wife and take her son as his own.  The content of the dream is twofold: this is the work of God’s spirit; and the child will save his people from their sins (so his name will be Jesus, which means “God saves”).

This is a key point.  When Joseph gets beyond his own dreams and pays attention to God’s dream, the focus changes.  God’s dream is larger than Joseph and Mary and their marriage and their families.  God’s dream is for all God’s people, most especially—as we sang in the psalm—it is a dream of justice and of peace for the poor, the afflicted, and the lowly.

We heard this in the first reading as well.  The prophet Jeremiah speaks to a people in exile from their homeland—like today’s refugees, like people today who cannot go home because home is covered with landmines, or is being bombed, or does not welcome them because of the color of their skin, or their religion, or their sexual orientation.  Jeremiah speaks to a people with no security, no dignity, no justice.  To this people Jeremiah proclaims a God who will raise up a new David, a new ruler who will rule with wisdom and justice, making right judgments—being willing to step outside the bounds of what is normal or expected.  Jeremiah proclaims that the great deeds of God are not all past, like the deeds of the exodus—or as we would say, like the deeds worked through Jesus or the great saints of history.  God is not only a God of history, God is Emmanuel—God with us—a God alive and at work today, in our lives, our church, our world.

That is what Jeremiah and Joseph and Mary and Jesus proclaim with their lives and their words.  What do we proclaim with our lives and our words?  What do we proclaim about God to the poor, the afflicted, the lowly?  What is God’s dream for them?  What is God’s dream for us?  Is there room in the same dream for us and for the least of our brothers and sisters?  If it is God’s dream, it has to be bigger than our own narrow dreams.  It has to be a dream for all of God’s people.  It has to be a dream of dignity, of justice, of peace.  The people God has placed in my life—whether they be spouse and family and dear friends, office mates who are very different from me, or street beggars, or even people halfway around the world—these people in my life are waiting for me to proclaim and make real God’s dream for them, for us.  These other human beings can never be obstacles to my happiness or stepping-stones to my career path.  They are always calling out to be treated with dignity and justice.

As we celebrate your graduation today and pray for your brilliant and successful future, we have to ask how we shall define brilliance and success.  My prayer for you is that you define it as Jesus did at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, when he picked up the scroll of scripture and read:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; for the Lord has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and release to prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord.

I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise.
For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, 
plans for welfare and not for evil, 
to give you a future and a hope.
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.
You will seek me and find me; 
when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you, says the Lord.