Chapter 2: God’s Dream

“We are family, I got all my sisters and me. We are family, Get up everybody and sing”
~ “We are Family,” Sister Sledge

The above song played in my head the entire time I was reading Chapter Two of Bishop Tutu’s God Has Dream. In Chapter One, we heard that God believes in us, that we are His hands and feet in world, transfiguring and reconciling it to Him. In Chapter Two, Bishop Tutu shows us what that dream looks like. Simply put: God wants us to be His family. “I have a dream that swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, that My children will know that they are members of one family, the human family, God’s family, My family.”

I was really struck by Bishop Tutu’s image of God’s family. I feel that his metaphor is appropriate and should make everyone pause and reflect on what a family looks like. I was especially moved in the ways that God’s family mimics my own (and everyone’s). We can’t pick our family. We don’t always agree. Sometimes we fight and argue. Families hold all things in common (I’m reminded of my father rolling his eyes whenever I would show up with a “new tie,” and by new tie, I mean a tie I borrowed from his closet). Above all, the image of family is essential to God’s Dream because it means that everyone, everywhere, regardless of differences, is interdependent. At the heart of God’s Dream, and at the heart of our place as his family, is a deep and essential need for relationships with other people. “The first law of our being,” says Bishop Tutu, “is that we are set in a delicate network of interdependence with our fellow human beings and with the rest of God’s creation.”

I love Bishops Tutu’s introduction and use of the word ubuntu (and not just because it’s my favorite Linux operating system). We are inextricably interconnected—for better or worse—and it is those connections that make us human—ubuntu. We have a tendency in the West, and especially in current streams of Christianity, to believe that we are on our own, that there is pride in “Rugged Individualism” (as Teddy Roosevelt called it), that “me” is more important than “we.” I grew up in a Christian tradition that focused on one’s individual, personal relationship with God; although I still believe there is value in some of those beliefs, I’m struck by how easily community and relationships fall apart when individuals become the focus at the expense of a community. Bishop Tutu reminds us that at the heart of Christianity, at the heart of humanity, is a family. God’s family. “The world is going to have to learn the fundamental lesson that we are made for harmony, for interdependence. If we are ever truly to prosper, it will be only together.”

Furthermore, Chapter two introduces the idea that God’s family is not limited to people. God made humans stewards of the world and its resources. We are as connected to nature as we are to other people. Thus, part of being God’s family is recognizing that the world around us is God’s family as well. Plants, trees, animals, all of nature are our extended family. And we, as God’s stewards, are responsible for it.

As we continue reading God Has a Dream, may God open your hearts to His dream. May God remind you that, although we want His love for ourselves, God’s love is for everyone and everything. May God expand your heart for His people and for his creation. Finally, may God give you a lasting spirit of ubuntu, a spirit that will transfigure the world for Him.

+ Benjamin B. Maddison

Chapter 1: God Believes in Us

God needs me? What a startling revelation! I had never really considered that God was counting on me to be an agent of His transformation of the world. Yes, I had known since Sunday School days that God wanted me to be “in His army” and that, as a Christian, God wanted me to share the Good News, but that He actually needed me, that He couldn’t do it without me, now THAT gave me pause.

Bishop Tutu offers a lovely image of us seated in the palms of God’s hands, having life because “God is forever blowing God’s breath into our being.” As I continued to read and continued mulling over that God needed me in order to realize the power of transfiguration in our world, I kept coming back to this image of being alive with God’s breath, of being given life so that I could go out and do God’s work.

Not one of us is unworthy of being a tool for God’s good, none among us are beyond God’s reach or the reach of His breath, and we all are needed by God to transform this world according to His plan. The perspective that I was created so that I could be a change agent for God gives me new hope that I can accomplish those things to which I am led and that I will continue to have the strength to do the work that I am sent out to do. Even in those time when I pray, “Why me?” I know that I will be given what I need to jump in and carry out the marching orders.

Cynthia Sosnowski

God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time

Dear Friends in Christ,

It is my honor to invite our entire Diocese to read Archbishop Desmond Tutu's 2004 book, God Has a Dream -- a "One Book" selection recommended by the Committee on Lifelong Christian Formation. Following the pattern of previous book discussions, various clergy and lay leaders will, in future weeks, post their reflections on different chapters. We are all invited to respond and engage the Archbishop's thoughts, our invited writers' commentaries and all of the contributors to this blog.

It's a small book; humble and simple enough as to be accessible to all sorts and conditions of readers; courageous and powerful enough as to challenge the strongest and wisest among us. Tutu calls it the "cumulative expression of [his] life's work." Above all, it is a book about the dream of God that changes the world that God so loves through the people that God so calls.

There is a wonderful word in the first paragraph of the Introduction (on page viii) that carries with it the great hope of the Archbishop's vision. That word is, "transfigurable." For most people, most of the time, reality is hard, settled and unchangeable. But Tutu asserts that the real world is "in the grips of transformation;" that is, transfigurable. The most unlikely persons; the most improbable situations; the most impossible circumstances -- all of these are transfigurable by the glory-making power of God's love in Jesus Christ. The 'old, old story' of Jesus and his love tells of a Savior who came and stretched out his arms on the hard wood (reality) of the cross that the whole world might be embraced by transformation. No one is beyond that reach; nothing is non-transfigurable. Even at the grave, we make our song: Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.    

So, watch this location. Read the comments. Add your own. Engage the questions in "Postscript II" (pages 133-146). Add your own. Don't hold back. I pray that we will see some lively exchanges that expand our minds and enrich our hearts. Let's us read your strong opinions, brothers and sisters. We are New Jersey, after all. You know?

Read this book. Live this dream.

Faithfully yours,

+George Councell
Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey