I am going to start today with a quote from a famous speech, one you may have heard on the radio almost exactly 40 years ago, August 28, 1963.  The speech was made in the states, in Washington, DC, by a man whose name you all know.  This is how it started:
"Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. . . "
Do you remember that one?  Let us pray.
Father God, we gather to worship you in the name of your Son, Jesus the Christ.  We know that as we walk in his footsteps, we stand in his shadow, cast by the light of the Spirit.  Enable us to let that light shine through us into the world, make us windows of your will and mirrors of your love, that we may join in what Jesus proclaimed, what the apostles reported, what your church has grown to do.  Give us a dream, that we may find a way to carry you with us, wherever we go.  Amen.  Now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our Redeemer.
You may not have remembered that speech yet - you may not have remembered the man who spoke it.  But that might be because you remember an entirely different part. 
Let me read another quote, my favourite one from that speech.  You will have to forgive me for the way it comes out, but I admire it so much it is hard not to try.
"I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low and the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the word of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."
Do you recognize it, even with my feeble attempts at matching the delivery?  Martin Luther King Jr. spoke those words at a huge rally in Washington, the largest ever to that time, maybe still the largest. 
When Rev. King sat down to write his speech for that day, he had been given a limit of 8 minutes.  Many people would be speaking, some of them famous people, and there had to be time for them.  Rev. King had used the words, "I have a dream" in a number of sermons before this, but he never quite spelled it out.  He had taken the phrase from a young woman minister who used it in a prayer at a freedom rally a year before.  She had taken it from another black minister who used it to begin sermons in the 1950's. 
That day Rev. King was finished speaking what he had written, and he heard a voice behind him, a voice from the group of singers on the stage. 
It was another person you may or may not have heard of - Mahalia Jackson, the Gospel singer.  She called out "Tell 'em about the dream, Martin."  And the rest was history, real history, the kind of thing you read over and over again in school and in seminary, the sort of history you hear on a recording and feel your spirits lifted. 
I am going to steal a bit of Rev. King's style, because it fits this day.
I have a dream.
I have a dream for this congregation, this parish.  I have a dream that one day the bickering will come to an end, and when the forgiveness of Christ is offered, everyone will truly share that forgiveness with everyone else in the parish.
I have a dream that one day this parish will become truly one, sharing in true Christian charity with one another, when individuals, and when each congregation, goes through times of trial and stress. 
I have a dream that those who have said they will not return to church until this Pastor has left, and those who have fought against them, will kneel at the altar rail in peace and look across at one another in love. 
I have a dream that one day, there will be a shared understanding of what it means to call a Pastor, as well as an understanding by each person of his or her call to service in Christ.
I have a dream that one day, when this parish gathers in worship and shares in the service of confession and forgiveness, those who are stuck in anger and grief, those who are filled with bitterness and gossip, those who are carrying hurts from years past, will be able to lay down their pain, able to confess their own inability to forgive, and able to open their hearts to the Gospel of Christ, the Gospel of love.
In that Gospel lesson for today, we see another conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees.  As usual, the Pharisees are the ones who start it - and as usual, Jesus is the one who ends it  The explanation in the lesson is a long one, and pretty detailed - that is why I read the entire passage instead of the bits in the bulletin - but the basic result is that Jesus calls the Pharisees "hypocrites."  And it isn't that they are saying one thing, and doing another thing - it is that what they are saying and doing are both hypocritical.  But actually, they are only hypocritical if you listen to Jesus, if you listen to his arguments and accept them.  Jesus says to them,
"You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition."
The problem was that the disciples had not washed their hands before eating.  It wasn't exactly a law, it was a tradition.  There were dozens, probably hundreds, of traditions that were followed by "observant Jews."  Failing to follow them, to do or not do the things that were in the tradition, was said to make a person unclean. 

Jesus obviously didn't go along with that.  If he had, then he would have told the disciples to wash their hands before eating.  If he had gone along with it, Jesus would not have spoken to the woman at the well, or let the woman pour perfume on his head and feet, or eaten with prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners. 

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