Planting Your Field of Dreams!

Mark 4:30-34    Luke 15:11-32

This morning is about planting seeds- sermon seeds that might grow in you and bloom into God’s kingdom.  Every preacher prays that a sermon might sow some seed which God can grow in the life of the listener, transform your life and bring the joy of God to you.

Wouldn’t it be great if every Sunday you could find only one small seed which you could take home with you to grow in your life? That could be a great sabbatical project! Find that one seed each Sunday and grow it through the week. Let it flourish in you and put forth large branches so that all kinds of creatures can make nests in your shade.

How many of you are either a father or mother, daughter or son? I see all of you qualify and all of you are fertile soil on which to plant this sermon seed.

The seed I want to sow today has to do with a very organic and creative process of growing and realizing our dreams of being fathers and daughters, mothers and sons. We could have no greater joy than to find the path to realizing these dreams. And so I hope that together we can plant our field of dreams today.

I want you to recall the story of the prodigal son which could just as well be the story of a prodigal father or prodigal mother or prodigal daughter.

You are all literate Lutherans in addition to being lively, loving, laughing and lovable so I want to know how many of you recall the story of the prodigal?

That’s not too bad! Since I only have 50 minutes, I’ll tell this quick version I found long ago:

MELODY in F

Feeling footloose and frisky, a featherbrained fellow forced his fond father to fork over the farthings.   He flew off foreign fields and frittered his fortune feasting fabulously with faithless friends.   Finally, facing famine and fleeced by his fellow in folly, he found himself famishing, fain would he have filled his frame with the fodder fragments.

‘Phooey, my father’s flunkies fare far fancier,’ the frazzled fugitive fumed feverishly, frankly facing facts. Frustrated by failure, and filled with foreboding, he fled forthwith to his family. Falling at his father’s feet, he foundered forlornly:   ‘Father, I have flunked, and fruitlessly forfeited family favor.’

The faithful father, forestalling further flinching, frantically flagged the flunkies to fetch the finest fatling and fix a feast – fast!   But the fault-finding frater frowned on the fickle forgiveness of the former folderol.  His fury flashed, but fussing was futile, for the farsighted father figured, “Such filial fidelity is fine; but what forbids fervent festivity?  For the fugitive is found!  Unfurl the flats!  With fanfares flaring let the fun and frolic freely flow!”

Failure’s forgotten!  Folly forsaken!  Forgiveness forms the foundation for future fortitude.

Do you remember that story? It’s about the time you flew off and tried to plant the field of your dreams in some far-off land.

In Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Capital of the World,“ Pablo, a teenager from a small, Spanish village, has a falling out with his father and runs to the capital city of Madrid.  His father, realizing that he may have lost his son forever, searches the entire city to find Pablo but without success.  As a last resort, Pablo’s father puts an ad in the newspaper, which reads:  PABLO! ALL IS FORIVEN!  MEET ME AT THE NEWSPAPER OFFICE AT 2 PM ON THURSDAY!  When the appointed hour arrived more than 80 Pablos were waiting in the newspaper office and one of them was the son of the distraught father.  Thank God for that!  But I imagine that the other Pablos were heartbroken and I imagine many of them still waiting outside that newspaper office hoping for their fathers to come.

The story of Pablo and the story of the prodigal son who flew off to foreign fields and frittered his fortune is not the exception but the rule for people like you and me.  The story is the story of every son and daughter, every mother and father who need a reunion, a reconciliation, some clearing of the way back to each other so they can say: “I’m proud of you! We’ve been through a lot together, but I love you.”  I have the sense that people would line up in a line from here to Boston and beyond if they knew there was some way they could say those words.  You and I would be in that line.

The prodigal son is not the story of a degenerate no-good who runs off to join the circus.  It is the story of every parent and child.  It is the story of the differences in the dreams which parents and children have and how they are compelled to follow those dreams.  Having that different dream is a part of what it means to be a child.  Call it individuation, or differentiation or whatever psychologists want to call it, but what it means is that parents and their children have different dreams for their own lives and each other’s lives and, because they desperately desire to live out those dreams, the potential for conflict is tremendous.  It is part of growing up to have your own picture of the world, which is different from that of “you “old man.”

I remember the good advice and wisdom of my father.  I rarely followed it.  Not because it wasn’t good advice because, in retrospect, it was very good.  It was the reasoned advice of an engineer, solid practical advice seasoned by life’s experiences.  I didn’t follow it because it was my father’s advice and I needed to follow my own path and find my own way.  And so I went off.

You see, the prodigal son went off not because he was a born reprobate but because he was a son and he had a different dream and he had to live it.  There was something in that far-off land he had to do even if it eventually meant pig-slopping and starving.  And I can tell you that his father ran off after some dream too in his day.  Tennyson was right when he exclaimed:  “How many a father I have seen- a sober man among his boys – whose youth was full of foolish noise.”

And the fact that some prodigal sons and prodigal daughters do come home again is not to say that to have a dream of your own is wrong and to forsake your father and mother’s dream for you is wrong.  Going off after your dream is not the sin; the sin is never to come back.  The sin is to remain separate and apart.  The sin is not to see that your father and your mother have some dream which he and she is trying to live out and that dream is different from your own.  For God’s sake, when you’re out there in a foreign country doing your thing, whether falling on your face or setting the world on fire, don’t forget your father and mother also have a dream to live.  You’re not the only dreamer.  Come back!  Don’t stay out there in a foreign place, angry with yourself and them.  Come back!

There is a great film “Field of Dreams” which contains the story of the prodigal son so beautifully told you want to run down to the video store today and rent it.  It is the story of a 38 year old Iowa farmer out in his corn field one day when a mysterious voice s au says to him:  “If you build it he will come.  If you build it, he will come.”  The “it” which he builds is, of all things, a baseball field. To the astonishment of his neighbors, Ray plow under his corn, erects light poles and a grandstand, and builds the field of this dreams to prove the world that he was not turning into his father who never did one spontaneous thing.  I never forgave him for getting old, says Ray.  He must have had dreams but he never did anything about them.”

After the field is built, Ray waits and who should appear one night but Shoeless Joe Jackson of the 1919 Chicago White Sox who was banned from baseball because he supposedly was part of a betting scheme to throw the 1919 World Series.  Shoeless Joe, and eventually an entire team of baseball’s early greats appear on Ray’s field to play ball and live out their dreams never entirely fulfilled in life.

Ray has a secret love for baseball but his father had ruined the game for him by insisting that he play it a certain way.   “Playing baseball because for me like eating vegetables and taking out the garbage,” says Ray.  His father, a frustrated semi-pro player had destroyed Ray’s love for the game by insisting that he play up to his expectations.  As a teenager, Ray ran away from home and on his way out the door shouted at his old man:  “I could never respect a man whose hero was a criminal like Shoeless Joe Jackson.”  Ray never came back from his far-off country.  “I wanted to come home, but I didn’t know how,” he lamented.  Ray and his father never saw each other and never reconciled before his father’s death.

The film concludes with a fantastic game played by Shoeless Joe and the baseball legends on Ray’s Field of Dreams.  Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner play their hearts out and after the game disappear into the cornfield never to return again.  But one player is left, a catcher.  He takes off his catcher’s mask.  It is Ray’s father, a young man living his baseball dream.  His father does not recognize Ray, of course, because Ray was not even a glint in his eye.  “Thanks for building this field and allowing me to play in this game.  It was like a dream come true for me,” his father marvels.  “Is this heaven?” he asks Ray.  “No, it’s Iowa,” replies Ray.  And his young father declares:  “I could have sworn it was heaven.  Heaven’s the place dreams come true.”  Thanking Ray he begins to walk out into the cornfield.  Ray, watching him go forever, realizes that his father was a dreamer too and baseball was his passionate dream.  Ray calls out: “Dad!  Dad!  Would you like to have a catch?” His young father turns. “I’d like that very much,” he answers.

As the father and son are playing catch on the Field of Dreams, the camera pans over the rolling Iowa farmland where the headlights of hundreds and thousands of cars can be seen stretching out into the distance. They are bringing sons and daughters, mothers and fathers to see this beautiful game being played by a parent and his child.

Mothers and sons, fathers and daughters in the church, let’s plant your field of dreams today before it is too late. If you plant it they will come. Running across that field I see the prodigal son and his father running towards each other. I see more than 80 Pablos and their padres. I see a father and son playing a long delayed game of catch. On that field of dreams I see the dreams of mothers and fathers and the dreams of their children being played out. On that field it is possible to come home again no matter where you have been to say: “Son, I am proud of you! Mom, I love you.” I see you on that heavenly field. I see you running as fast as you can towards someone with the dream of being caught up in your arms. I see you on that field of dreams you planted. It’s a real field all right. It’s an Iowa field and a New Hampshire field! It’s heaven! It’s the kingdom of God!

To the glory of God for the congregation of Our Savior Lutheran Church!

Hanover, New Hampshire
June 14, 2009

Gregory W. Marshall
Sabbatical Pastor