The people at The First U.P. Church of Crafton Heights are spending much of the 2023-2024 academic year looking at the story of God’s people as recorded in the New Testament book of Acts. We engage in this series of messages convinced of the fact that God’s power changes apparently small and nondescript groups of people into a force that will change the world in ways that are reflective of the love and justice of Jesus. On Pentecost Sunday (May 19) we wondered at and rejoiced in the power of the Holy Spirit through named people in particular places. You can read it for yourself in Acts 18.
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Let me tell you something that just warmed my heart. Erin is a woman who was a member of the youth group in the church I served in New York more than 30 years ago. Recently, I saw Erin – who hadn’t aged a day since I left that congregation in 1993 – offering food and water to folks who were suffering horribly in Gaza. Oh, church, can I tell you that I was filled with a mixture of pride and horror as I saw her serving God in those conditions?
Today, I’m remembering vividly a conversation that I was having with my grandmothers. Clara Carver lived most of her life in Nebraska, while Helen Shutt was born and died in New York. Both of these women passed away in the mid-1990’s. Yet this morning I am able to recall an afternoon chat between the three of us that was interrupted when my 6 and 10 year-old granddaughters came in and sat in my lap. Church, can I tell you how excited I was to introduce Lucia and Violet to their great-great grandmothers?
Another thing that I’m thinking about this morning – with great fondness – is the night that I discovered that I could fly! I was on the top of my home, working on the roof, and I slipped and fell. Instead of panicking, I arched my back, threw out my arms, and found that I caught an updraft there on Cumberland St. Rather than splatting into the tomato patch, I soared above the Heights in the early-morning sky. Oh, it was glorious!
I hope that you have been able to infer that each of these incidents describes a vision I’ve had while sleeping in recent weeks. Yes, I was dreaming! What about you? Do you dream, too?
Of course you do! Every human being dreams while sleeping. Most of us do so for about two hours each night. Nobody is entirely sure why humans (and many animals) do this – dreaming serves to consolidate our memories, helps us to process our emotions, and more. Dreaming is a normal, healthy part of life. It is in our nature to dream. Our dreams help to make us who we are.
Dreaming is wonderful! In mine, I’m often the hero; I’m always funny, and I’m never bored. I like dreams because in those nighttime visions, the “normal rules” of our existence don’t need to apply. The Erin that I remember from New York is not a teen – she’s nearly 50 years old and has children who are older now than she was when we met. Both of my grandmothers died decades before either of my granddaughters were born. And when I am awake, I am subject to the laws of gravity.
But isn’t it fun – in the best of dreams, anyway – to contemplate life in a reality where things are not the way that they always are? Isn’t it rich to inhabit, at least occasionally, a universe where cultures can embrace one another, generations can gather together, and old guys can soar with grace and joy?
Do you think that God dreams? If you’re going to take me literally, I know what you’re going to say. Psalm 121 indicates that “the God who watches Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” Proverbs 15:3 points out that “the eyes of the Lord are in every place keeping watch on the evil and the good…” I get that. But let’s think past the literal question of whether or not the Almighty ever sleeps and ask again whether or not God might dream.
If, as I’ve said from this spot at least a thousand times before, if we are made in the image of God, then of course there are parts of us that are like God. And if that’s true, then surely it must follow that there are parts of God that are like us. If it is in our nature to dream, then is it possible that God does something similar?
Let me go further: what if the Book of Acts is, in some way, God’s dream? I mean, seriously – think about what we’ve read since September. What have we seen in this slim volume?
- Do you remember those times when simple, uneducated, so-called “commoners” are filled with wisdom, discernment, and boldness?
- How about all of the “outsiders” – like a member of a sexual minority from Ethiopia or a soldier from Rome – who are brought into the center of God’s people?
- A couple of weeks ago we saw an enslaved woman from Philippi discover freedom such as she’d never known.
- What about all of those living with disabilities, like the beggar in Jerusalem, who find themselves leaping for joy?
- Have you noticed how the Jesus movement seems to spark such generosity that people who may be by nature inclined to hoard their possessions wind up sharing their food, their homes, and their money?
- Murderers, like Saul of Tarsus, learn amazing lessons about grace and forgiveness. In the process, they find great opportunities to point to healing and hope.
- Dead people, like Dorcas in Joppa, are raised to life.
- And how many prisons have we seen – theological, ethnic, religious, cultural, and even brick and mortar buildings – where the doors have not only been unlocked and thrown open, but sometimes the prisons themselves have been destroyed?
- Even a quick reading of Acts will help us to understand that geographic boundaries don’t seem to count for as much as we might have thought they would.
All this, and we’re only 2/3 of the way through the Book of Acts! Have you seen the kinds of impossible things that happen here? Don’t you remember the ways that the normal laws that we expect to govern the ways that people and the world behave don’t always apply in Acts?
But Acts can’t be a dream, at least, not like my having tea with my grandmothers or flying off my roof. Acts is a written document. It’s history. It’s an account of something that happened, right?
No, the Book of Acts is not God’s dream.
But – hear me on this – what if the church is God’s dream? The Book of Acts tells the story of the church – a group of people that is called, commissioned, empowered, and sent by God into the creation.
Dura-Europos Church, Syria (c. 240 AD)
And let’s be clear what I mean when I say “church”. The church can’t be a building. All these pages and verses we’ve read since September in the book of Acts talk a lot about the church, but there’s not a building for Christian worship to be found. The earliest structure built for the purpose of Christian worship that folks have been able to find is called the Dura-Europa Church. It’s a home in Syria that was converted into a worship space in approximately AD240. For the first 200 years of the Jesus movement, specially-constructed and dedicated buildings such as this simply did not exist. This building is not God’s dream. No building is. But the building is not the church.
The church is the people of God, right?
I’m going to quiz you right now… I want to see whether you were paying attention when Brian and Jacob were reading these passages. There were, as you may have noticed, a lot of names. I’ll say a name, and you tell me whether you heard that name as the scripture was being read this morning.
Paul. Apollos. John. Jim. Becky. Aquila. Priscilla. Tim. Megan.
There are a lot of names, aren’t there?
Take a look at this slide that has all of the names highlighted. There are so many people!
I mentioned at one point a few months ago that some people have suggested that the Apostle Paul “invented” Christianity – that there would be no church, no people of God, without Paul. I cannot accept that as true. We have, in fact, seen all kinds of places so far in the Book of Acts wherein God used Paul mightily. Yet at the same time, we’ve got to remember that here and elsewhere, Paul is not the entire show – Paul is a member of the cast. Paul is not the story. The church is the story.
Pentecost: True Spiritual Unity and Fellowship in The Holy Spirit, by Rebecca Brogan (used by permission, more at http://jtbarts.com)
According to the church calendar, today is the Day of Pentecost. As I mentioned with the children, some call this the “birthday of the church”. Around the world today, billions of people in millions of gatherings are reading from Acts chapter 2, which describes the day that the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in fresh and powerful ways. I hope you remember that. We’re not reading it today, because we read it back in September, and if I start backtracking in this sermon series, we’ll never make our way out of Acts! Besides, the passage you heard this morning is crystal-clear in its assertion that the Holy Spirit is continually being poured out on the people of God – on all kinds of people.
One of my mentors, the late Eugene Peterson, put it this way:
Church is the core element in the strategy of the Holy Spirit for providing human witness and physical presence to the Jesus-inaugurated kingdom of God in this world. It is not that kingdom complete, but it is a witness to that kingdom…
It takes both sustained effort and a determined imagination to understand and embrace church in its entirety. Casual and superficial experience with church often leaves us with an impression of bloody fights, acrimonious arguments, and warring factions. These are more than regrettable; they are scandalous. But they don’t define the church…
Church is an appointed gathering of named people in particular places who practice a life of resurrection in a world in which death gets the biggest headlines… The practice of resurrection is an intentional, deliberate decision to believe and participate in resurrection life, life out of death, life that trumps death, life that is the last word, Jesus life…[1]
So today, on this Pentecost Sunday, it’s important to remember all of those named folks who helped to make us who we are. We remember the folks who we’ve learned about in the Book of Acts. But we can’t stop there. Take a moment and remember someone who isn’t here anymore, but who taught you a great deal about what it means to practice resurrection – someone who showed you that it is possible to live beyond the constraints of the world as we too-often know it. I named my grandmothers – Helen and Clara. Who lived Jesus in front of you to help get you to this point?
And, beloved, I don’t want to stop there, either. I want to give thanks and praise to the God who invited us to be together here in this morning’s expression of Church. We are here, and we are called, and we have names. We are, this day, the church, practicing resurrection life in this time and in this place. Let us praise God as we continue in this practice of living and proclaiming resurrection together here at the corner of Stratmore and Clairhaven Streets. Thanks be to God for the gift of the church! Amen.
[1] Eugene Peterson, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ (Eerdmans, 2010) p. 12
Cast Your Net 