Adult Bible Study November 4, 2007

Lesson Text: Genesis 37:5-11; 19-21; 23-24a; 28
By Melanie Zuercher
E-mail: mz606@cox.net

Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more.  Genesis 37:5 NIV

The following lines by African-American poet Langston Hughes (1902–67) constitute some of his best-known and most often quoted words: “What happens to a dream deferred?/Does it dry up/like a raisin in the sun?/Or fester like a sore—/And then run?/Does it stink like rotten meat?/Or crust and sugar over—/like a syrupy sweet?/Maybe it just sags/like a heavy load./Or does it explode?”

Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, which derives its title from Hughes’ poem, debuted on Broadway in 1959. It was based on Hansberry’s experience of growing up in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. A Raisin in the Sun was the first play by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. “Deferred dreams” is one of its prominent themes.

Some give Langston Hughes’ poetic words credit for helping to spark the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Certainly they inspired an important play. However, if you go to the search engine Google today and type in “A dream deferred,” in addition to references to Hughes, you will find (1) a story about a college football player setting his sights on the NFL, (2) a discussion of why “utility computing” hasn’t come to fruition, and (3) an article on the failure of an aircraft company (Boeing) to meet its Fall 2007 delivery date for their 787 “Dreamliner.”

Both words and dreams have strength beyond the one who originates them, and not always for good. Hughes’ words vividly portray the destructiveness possible in a dream not allowed to mature and blossom. The story of Joseph in Genesis 37 is an example of the power and danger in dreams and in how the dreamer (Joseph) describes them—especially when he is a rather naïve and somewhat thoughtless young man.

Joseph’s dreams did not initially lead to good for himself or for his family. But they foretold a time of both great hardship and great forgiveness. Langston Hughes also wrote, “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”