17 March 2017

“How dare he?” we can hear Joseph’s brothers say. “This smallest one, this child with his fancy coat and big ideas—how dare he dream? How dare he say we will bow to him? How dare he—this uppity young person? We know better than him, and it’s time he learns it. Let us kill him, or at least bury him in a pit and forget about him. Let us do something, anything, to put him in his place.” How many times, I wonder. How many times throughout our histories has this phrase been uttered: “Let us kill the master dreamer”? Countless times, I think. Too many countless times. 

We cannot forget. We must not forget. We must remember, must re-member, must return to membership, so many innocents silenced and enslaved because of powerful people who could not stand to have their favored status challenged and could not stand to hear the dreams of weaker ones. As members of the Georgetown family, we read today’s texts and remember the way our own institution’s history is tangled in a national tragedy of slavery and racism. We read these texts and ask ourselves where the voices of the young dreamers are today being quieted or dismissed. We read these texts and recommit ourselves to be hearers and encouragers of the young people who are master dreamers.  For “the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” And “the Kingdom of God will be…given to a people that will produce its fruit.”