University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

Video | Download Video
Audio Player Below | Download Audio

Charlene Brown
University Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill NC
Sunday, January 15, 2012

1 Samuel 3:1-20, Acts 2:14-24, 32-33

This is a great weekend to ask:
Where are the dreamers?
Where are the visionaries?
Where are the prophets?

We don't often speak of our dreams and visions.  But this weekend, we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King and the dream.

"I have a dream."

We all know these famous words delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 during a time of gross injustices, racism, and discrimination. We've heard the stories of people beaten. Churches bombed and burned.  And many others killed because of the color of their skin or belief in equality.

This was a dark time in our nation's history.  And in this period of darkness, Dr. King's prophetic speech, gave us hope where there was none.  It gave vision where there was no vision.  Imagination where our imagination was failing us. "The dream" was a flicker of light in the midst of darkness.

Our history seems to go through periods of intense vision... and then there are other times we go long periods of time-days, months, and sometimes years, with no vision or dreams.  But we know, dreams and vision, have the ability to lift us from where we are and show us how and where God is moving in the world.

Vision and Dream override the realities of the ruin we experience, painting over that the glory of God.

Dr. King's words were not words of complacency and despair, they were visions of God's kingdom breaking-into-this-world and making things right.  Grandiose dreams that many laughed at and even mocked.  Many even wondered "how can this be?"  Blacks and whites together?  They doubted that it was even possible that God could break down the dividing wall of hostility that is our history.

And yet, our God is a God who does ridiculous things where there is no hope.  A God who is always creating something "out of nothing."  Creation.  Life.  Hope-these are all crazy possibilities out of the impossible.

Like Dr. King's prophetic speech, dreams and vision make us look crazy.

As adults, we have reserved the dreaming and imagination to the children.  I was playing a story telling game with Rory's Story Cubes on New Year's Eve.  Four adults and one 5-year old.  The adults told unimaginative stories, as hard as I tried, I couldn't come up with anything interesting-just what I could fathom might happen in real time and life.  But our 5-year old friend, Merrick, told these stories were elaborate and breathtaking.  He won the MVS Award, Most Valuable Storytelling Award.

Kids see something different on a page.  Marshmallows and toothpicks make elaborate skyscrapers and cities.  Cardboard boxes are unexplored galaxies.

Kids are encouraged to take risks, to see beyond the pieces of white paper, to be present in space and time, and also open to a new possibility.  As we grow, the reality of our responsibilities, situations, bills, family, and job, hit us. Our dreams slip away, our visions less dynamic, and our voices status quo.  Many of us live life in the day-to-day with no expectation of anything else.  No risk and no chance

When we see what no else sees, hear what no one else hears, dream senseless dreams-these are what the American Psychiatric Association and DSM-4, would call crazy. This sense of crazy makes us question ourselves, our calling, and our livelihoods. But when we look over scripture, God speaks in the most unexpected places through the most unexpected people, and proclaiming the most unexpected truths to the World.

"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine."[i] 

"Before you were born, I set you apart."[ii]

"I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."[iii]

We live in an age, like Samuel, where "the Word of the Lord is rare and visions not widespread."  And we want to go on with business as usual.  But business as usual, doesn't cut it.   Without a vision, the people perish.  If we go on with business as usual, who will proclaim God's saving grace?  Who will speak against injustice and the disparities in our world?  Who will point us to how God is making all things new?

Dreams and vision proclaim Good News.  The news that "Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. ⁵Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together."[iv]

We can't say that Dr. King's 1963 Speech is complete, done, gone, and retired.  We can't say it happened and there are no more dreams.  We can't say "ladies and gentlemen, that's all we have for you tonight.  See you next time! Good night."  It wasn't about the dream, it was about what God was declaring in the dream.  The dream alone cannot sustain us, but the Good News proclaimed will.

Dreams are manna when we are in the wilderness, a dry and weary land, hungry and seeking more, waiting for the promises of God to be fulfilled in our lives and in the life of the Church.  Dreams keep us when we are in the in-between time.  Dreams give us a glimpse of where we are, where we shall be, and the assurance that God is with us-now and always.

Dreams are not meant be the grand finale, they are the intermission.  They are meant to help us live into what God is doing in the world.

Like Samuel, do we believe that God speaks to us?  But more than that, can we respond, "Lord, here we are?"  Before you answer that question, I should warn you about how wild this God is and how crazy the vision is.

When the Spirit shows up at Pentecost in Acts 2, it is the fulfillment of God's promise.  Peter quotes the Old Testament prophet, Joel, and tells the crowd "this isn't anything new, it shouldn't shock you." 

God said, "In the last days, I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young people will see visions, and your elders will dream dreams."

This is Pentecost.

What takes place at Pentecost is kind of like the Magic Eye images that were the craze in 90's. You start out with the outrageous color blob of lines, pictures, and shapes. From the look of it, it has no meaning and no picture, its just a random 2-dimensional page. You hold the Magic Eye up to your nose, relax your eyes, and slowly pull back. And then you find what you never expected, a dynamic 3-dimensional image, floating over the page. It takes patience and hopefulness.  And it's all about how you look at it.

The scene at Pentecost, is a group of people speaking loudly in different languages, all at once, in a raucous.  At first glance, something is wrong with this group- it looks like they have been drinking or smoking something illegal. It looks crazy.  It is to the point where Paul has to say, "Friends, pay attention, they're not drunk... it's only 9am."  Look closer, there is the 3-D image, it's a Magic Eye.  See and hear the scene at Pentecost -they are speaking of God's faithfulness and power-- how death could not hold Jesus.  The Good News that we are loved and beloved.

When God begins to do a work, to fulfill God's promises-it often looks like foolishness or craziness.  But Paul says it best, God chose the foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.[v]  That's the scandal of our faith-- God always overturning the ideal.

Being good Presbyterians, we often expect God to come in order and decency.  But God's presence is wild, unsettling, and - even mistaken for intoxication at times.  This is Good News, when God shows up, things are brought to life.  And like the resurrection, even when we cannot make sense of it or understand it-- it is the proclamation of God's steadfast love for the world.  It is a witness to all those the Church encounters that something is happening. 

Who could have expected that God would move in this way? And who would have expected these voices to be the proclaimers of the in-breaking of God's kingdom.

We know some dreamers:  Joseph-- hated and despised for his lofty visions. John the Baptist-- with his odd self.  The narrative says Samuel "did not yet know the Lord."[vi]   Peter, of all people denied the Lord three times.  A hodgepodge group of people.

 And this random group of people at Pentecost, what were their stories?  Fear - Failures -- Hopelessness - Unbelief.  Despite, in spite of, regardless of their history-God proclaims the good news of the present and the future through these people.

So what are we missing.  Or better yet, what we are we dismissing?  Who have we labeled as the lunatics?  Where have we cast the drunkards off to?

Maybe we've caused them to be silent, to keep their dreams and visions to themselves.  Maybe they don't feel like they fit in anywhere.  Or maybe it is us-- we dream, we vision, we hope.... But we do not speak.  We do not speak for fear of being labeled one of "those" lunatics.

But Acts points us even further- the miracle is not just the dreaming, it is the proclamation of what God has done and what God is going to do.   It is the message of Good News.

Don't just sit on that vision.  Dreams are meant to be shared, they are for the community.  Peter says further in chapter 2, this Word is for "your children, and for all who are far away, every one whom the Lord our God calls."[vii]  The result of the Pentecost experience and the arrival of the Spirit, is three thousand witnesses saw and believed the work of God in the world.

If God can raise Jesus from the dead,
then why not speak light out of darkness.
then why not speak vision out of hopelessness.
then why not proclaim good news out of the mouth of babes.
Then why not cause our sons and daughters to prophesy,
Our young people to see visions, and our elders to dream dreams.

This is good news to those who hear and see it.

We need the crazy folk, the lunatics, the dreamers, and the visionaries.  We need them to dream. And we need them to speak.  Quite frankly, the church needs you.  The church needs you to dream. And the church needs you to speak.

So, Where are the dreamers?
Where are the visionaries?
Where are the prophets?

They are your children.  They are your youth. They are your parents.  They are your elders.  They are here.  They are out there.  Even at that school in Durham.

Together, we are the church. And We Still Have A Dream.  Thanks be to God, AMEN.

[i] Isaiah 43:1 NIV

[ii] Isaiah 1:5 NIV

[iii] Jeremiah 29:11

[iv] Isaiah 40:4-5 NRSV

[v] 1 Corinthians 1:27 NRSV

[vi] 1 Samuel 3:7 NRSV

[vii] Acts 2:39 NRSV