"Spirit Driven Dreaming"

“Spirit Driven Dreams”
Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS
Easter 5A - May 14, 2017
Acts 2: 42-47

I know nothing about horse racing but I always enjoy hearing the names of the horses who compete. Last weekend, a three-year-old horse named Always Dreaming won the Kentucky Derby. What a great name for a horse, right?

Dreaming is powerful.

Though there are some who scoff at dreamers, God seems to have a soft spot for the Always Dreamers. Again and again in our holy texts we hear about those who find messages in literal-night-time-dreams AND those who seem to have waking-dreams - impossible visions that barely make sense to people who are rooted more firmly in reality.

The book of Acts is actually part two in a two book series that scholars usually refer to as Luke-Acts. Most believe that the two books were likely written by the same person or small group of people. The way they are situated in our Bible - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts - interrupts the flow. But if you finish up Luke and then move right over to Acts you can see the way it was originally intended to be read.

The Gospel of Luke is all about the actions and teachings of Jesus. Acts opens just after his death  and resurrection. Jesus ascends into heaven, the Holy Spirit descends, and then the plot really takes off as the early followers of Jesus try to sort through how to keep living out the teachings of Jesus after his death.

The beginning chapters of Acts seem dreamy. They paint an idyllic picture of Jesus’s followers teaching, preaching, baptizing thousands, healing the sick, living peacefully in community with one another. Their movement was growing at a pace we can hardly even imagine. Can you imagine baptizing 3,000 people on one day??? And then somehow incorporating all of those people into a community that’s wild enough to believe they can pool all their money together and have no private property whatsoever? And that somehow this is all going to work out?

Spoiler: it doesn’t work out.

Before long people are withholding money from the group and being brutally punished for lying about it. Before long they arguing over who’s in and who's out. Before long people are sneakily taking care of their own before they worry about others who are different than them. Before long they back to being just regular old humans living in community - trying mightily but messing it up a lot of the time.

But before all the chaos, there are a few shining moments where they seem to get it right. They seem to be living out the vision Jesus cast for the Realm of God.

Today’s passage says that after Peter gives a rousing sermon based on the book of Joel, 3,000 are baptized and that “awe came upon everyone.” That word - “awe” is Phobos in the Greek. You can translate it “awe,” but you could also translate it as fear. They were in awe (or were in fear) because of the power of the apostles who were doing many wonders and signs.

And in the midst of their awe and fear they lived in his dreamy little hippie commune where everyone pooled their resources and took care of one another. Everyone’s basic needs were taken care of. They were not spending their time arguing the finer details of the AHA vs the AHCA. No one was worried about the rising cost of higher education or taking advantage of those at the margins with payday loans.

Presumably, no one was at the margins because everyone had a place at the table. Everyone was equal.

Beautiful, right? Dreamy.

I always find it interesting that the Lectionary committee, in choosing the order for these texts typically gives us these stories from Acts and then goes backwards to the beginning of chapter 2 and the Pentecost story. I don’t have an explanation for this, but that’s how it flows. First, they wow us with all these amazing acts and THEN they show us the driving force behind all that goodness: the Holy Spirit.

When I was a teenager, my church bought a fancy new 15-passenger van. Stenciled on the side were the words: “We are Spirit Driven.”

I always thought that was kind of cute on a van, right? Spirit DRIVEN? Cute. But on a deeper level, it makes me wonder….was that congregation really Spirit Driven? Is our congregation Spirit Driven? Am *I* Spirit Driven?

To say we are guided in our decisions by the Spirit is no small thing. It’s a profound faith statement - every bit as serious as saying “God is my shepherd” or “Jesus is the Way.”

In most versions of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is the version of God that comes to us humans after Jesus’s death and resurrection. The idea is that God is somehow all of these different things at the same time - creative parent, redeeming offspring, sustaining breath - and that the Great I Am exists in all three of these forms from before the beginning of time and on into eternity. But our awareness of God shifts and changes over time. God is revealed to us in different ways at different points in history. So after the man Jesus left Earth, his followers saw the Holy Spirit as a profound gift: a reminder of God’s continued presence in the midst of a chaotic time.

Those of us living a couple thousand years out from this moment tend to sometimes take for granted that the Holy is available and accessible to us in many ways at all times. We even talk about being the hands of feet of God….believing that the Spirit animates us to be Christ to the world. What a bold thing to claim.

And what a dangerous thing to claim.

Because when we start saying, “This is what GOD wants”....oh, boy. That can be hard to argue against.

It has led to great things - the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s great dream was rooted deeply in his understanding of who God was calling us to be. The vision he cast for the United States seemed to be Spirit Driven. It was bold and when people heard it, they said, “Yes. That’s good. That’s who God wants us to be.”

But then there are other claims that followers of Jesus make that have caused great violence and terror. Just earlier this week I watched a video of a white man violently screaming at a Muslim family who was trying to enjoy a simple day at the beach.[1] As he yelled vulgar, hateful things at them he claimed to be a Christian and told them to get out of this country because it’s the greatest country on earth and they don’t belong.

It was sickening to watch. Not just because it makes me heartbroken to think of the irony of a person claiming to be living in the “greatest country on earth” while spewing hatred. But also because, as a person who also claims to try and follow Jesus, I am so disgusted to see God’s name taken in vain in this way.

As pastor John Pavlovitz wrote this past week, “Help me, Christian. I can’t see Jesus….I can’t see the ‘For God so loved the world.’ Jesus, in your rabid Nationalism and flag-waving America First fervor and contempt for foreigners.” [2]

It is a bold and dangerous thing to claim to be Spirit Driven.

Those earliest Christ-followers though - they give me hope because sometimes they got it right. Sometimes they really did boldly follow the model of Jesus and did radical things. Sometimes they truly did let the Spirit into the driver’s seat. They dreamed impossible dreams. And people sometimes looked at them and said, “Wow. When I look at you, I see Jesus.”

I don’t know about you, but when I think about our little corner of the world here at 700 Poyntz, I dream that we can be a place where people will look at us and say, “When I look at you, I see Jesus.”

I know, in fact that this already happens. I know we’re not perfect and we don’t always get it right. I know that we sometimes tell the Spirit to scoot over and we let other things into the driver’s seat. But I also know that we are a community that very often gets it right. People regularly tell me that they look around and see Jesus still living and breathing among us here at First Congregational UCC.

 And I am so very thankful for that. Because I need to see Jesus. I need to see Jesus every. single. day.

As we continue this Year of Love, you may have noticed you have a heart in your bulletin. I’d like to invite you to see if you can let the Spirit into the driver’s seat for a few minutes for the rest of this worship service.

Listen for the the Living God here and now. See if you can get just a hint of what dreams God has for us - for our world, our community, our congregation, or perhaps for your own individual life.

If you feel so bold, write down that dream on the heart and return it via the offering plate or drop it off in one of the baskets located at the doors on your way out today.

My hope is to pray over them and then post them somewhere so others can pray over them, too.

May it be so.





[1] https://www.facebook.com/NowThisNews/videos/1435940953162691/

[2] http://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/05/03/help-me-christian-i-cant-see-jesus/