DATE: MAY 27, 2012 SERMON TEXT: ACTS 2:1-21 SERMON TITLE: Dreaming Dreams, Seeing Visions

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1 1 DATE: MAY 27, 2012 SERMON TEXT: ACTS 2:1-21 SERMON TITLE: Dreaming Dreams, Seeing Visions The first church I served was Mt. Olivet United Church of Christ in Dyke, Virginia. Dyke is a pristine little village nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains on their eastern side. In the village, which is really only a bend in the road, there is a store and a post office, a volunteer fire department and the church. My family and I lived 45 minutes away on the western side of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which meant crossing the mountain was a daily routine. The road I traveled was Route 33, which used to be the main road to Richmond for all points west, so it was a fairly substantial highway. But that does not mean that the road crossing the mountain was not a challenge. Built before the super highways of today, it has all the bends and curves of a typical mountain road as it snakes its way up and over. So I became accustomed to driving the twisting and turning highway, even to the point that I would straighten out the unnecessary turns. I could see far enough ahead to know when cars were coming so, in the spirit of John the Baptist, I would often make straight the highway. The kids were little then and they loved it when Dad thought he was Bill Elliot. One evening as we were crossing the mountain, as I made my way down

2 2 the eastern slope, crossing center line to center line, I saw a flashing blue light in the rear view mirror. I pulled over. The state trooper approached the car and instead of asking for the driver s license and registration, which a red-faced Sharon already had in her hand, the officer asked, Sir, are you drunk? To which I replied, No, I am not. And he said, Well, you drive like you are! It was not the first time a person in the church had been accused of being drunk. On the day of Pentecost, the congregation gathered in Jerusalem was accused of being drunk. Why? Because they were acting so weirdly. They were speaking in strange voices. Their language was muddled to the point that no one could understand; at least those watching and listening from the outside could not. They must be drunk. What other explanation could there be? We are familiar enough with this text to know that the congregation was not drunk however. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and they were proclaiming the wonders of God in many different languages. In our stoic, Reformed worship practices, proclaiming the wonders of God is not part of our tradition. There are times I wish that it were. I think it does the body good from time to time to be a little more expressive during worship. But that is not who we are, and to be honest, it would make most of us a bit uncomfortable if the person next to us started declaring the wonders of God.

3 3 There is an interesting thing about Pentecost Sunday. Sometimes we think it is a Sunday that is unique to Christianity. Pentecost is actually an ancient Jewish custom that recognized the day on which the 10 Laws were given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Pentecost is actually the day that God gave birth to the Hebrew nation by giving to them the divine Law that formed them as a nation. Just as other Jewish traditions, customs and practices were adopted by Christianity, Pentecost was reclaimed and reshaped in a dramatic way to be our birthday as well. So here we are on another Pentecost Sunday preparing to confirm another group of young people into the life and service of the church. Acts 2:1-21 is always the text for this day, and as I look back over the many sermons I have preached on Acts 2:1-21, I think I have said everything I can say about the sudden sound of a blowing and violent wind. But as I read and reread the text, the quote from the book of Joel jumped out at me: I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men and young women will see visions, your old men and women will dream dreams. I thought to myself, That is what we are doing in our Confirmation program. We are preparing our young people to share in our vision and encouraging them to be dreamers. Every year when our young people come into Confirmation class, there is always a broad spectrum of understanding when it comes to their knowledge of

4 4 theology, Christology and the church in general. However, the same can be true about everybody here today. Confirmation classes are really nothing more than a microcosm of the larger church. In the two years that they are in the program what we hope to do is to begin to tease them with the exploration of their faith journey and to show them how general Bible knowledge is part of it. Knowing the history of the church and church polity is part of it. Giving them a glimmer of an understanding of the Trinity is certainly a part of it as well. However a greater piece of the program is laying the foundation for each and every child to start to think and to see the world with eyes shaped and focused by the faithful who have gone before us. And as I say these words, I realize in a very profound way that that is also part of our journey as well. The fact of the matter is that every day in the life of the church is our Confirmation day. Regardless of whether we have been in the church for 90 years or nine days, life as members of the body of Christ is never static, but it is changing and growing and being reshaped continually. It is the very reason that Joel inspired those who would listen to be people of dreams and visions. Back when I was in seminary I wrote a reflective paper about Confirmation. The only thing I remember about the paper was that I spelled Confirmation wrong. I spelled it C-O-N-F-O-R-M-A-T-I-O-N, not C-O-N-F-I-R-M-A-T-I-O-N.

5 5 My seminary professor wrote in the margins of my paper, Maybe this is something we would rather do? Consequently I never forgot the difference between Conformation and Confirmation. When we conform we become just like something that already is. We conform; we become the very thing that we are being taught to be. Confirming is a different process. We confirm a set of beliefs and ideas and ideologies, but we allow them to shape us and reshape us for our day and time. Our young people will confirm their belief in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. But how they conform to the presence of Jesus Christ in their lives will remain to be seen. The impact of Jesus is encased in their dreams and in their visions. Our role as the church community is to give them the encouragement and the space and the freedom to explore the presence of Christ in their lives. And the same is true for each one of us sitting here today. I suspect that some of you here today are feeling the presence of the Holy at work in your lives. The presence of the Holy does not have to come in violent winds and tongues of fire. I would even go as far to say that the Holy Spirit is more likely to come in a gentle nudge or a nagging thought or a still small voice. What is killing more churches today than anything else is those churches who are more willing to conform their youth than to confirm them. When you conform instead of confirming, the end result is generation after generation of

6 6 church members who continue to do the same old thing while expecting different results. When we confirm our young people, we acknowledge first and foremost that there is a presence among us greater than ourselves, and it is the Holy Spirit. And there is one thing about the Holy Spirit. It is not a conforming Spirit, but it is a Spirit that inspires people to dream dreams and to see visions of what the church can be and to strive to do new things and not to be a church that constantly focuses on what was while mourning the past. On this Pentecost Sunday, my beloved, receive the Spirit and prepare yourself to confirm the new thing God is doing in your life.