In our New Testament lesson, we read how on the day of Pentecost, a day in which the long-promised Spirit of God was finally bestowed upon his people, Peter stands and delivers a sermon which results in the conversion of three thousand souls. In it, he quotes the Old Testament prophet Joel, our Old Testament lesson for this morning. But where Joel had forecast destruction and death upon Israel for her continual disobedience, Peter transforms his prophecy into words of NEW LIFE. You see, the Spirit was now initiating a whole NEW world- one built upon a foundation of repentance and forgiveness, peace and love. The Spirit would inspire prophecies and visions and dreams that would orient people to God’s OWN dream for his people- the fullness of life lived in relationship to Christ and to one another.

Peter said that as the Spirit was poured out upon all flesh, their sons and daughters would prophesy, THEIR YOUNG MEN WOULD SEE VISIONS, and THEIR OLD MEN WOULD DREAM DREAMS. This for me is one of the most significant parts of his sermon for experience generally teaches us the OPPOSITE- that DREAMING is the province of YOUNG PEOPLE with their whole lives still before them, NOT the ELDERLY. MOST people that age dream about going to college and where they would like to work afterwards. They dream about whom they would like to marry and the number of children they might have. They dream about which part of the country they would like to move to and where they would eventually retire. Dreams are for the YOUNG while there is still time for them to achieve them. The ELDERLY, on the other hand, find themselves in the autumn of their lives. They’ve already lived most of their lives and now it is time for them to begin preparing for the ENDGAME- for death and whatever may lie beyond it; the time for dreaming is long past. And yet, Peter said that with the outpouring of God’s Spirit, the YOUNG would see visions while the OLD would dream dreams. He is saying that under the Spirit’s inspiration, we would discover than one is NEVER too old to dream HOWEVER old one may be!

Martin Seligman is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and he recently wrote a column in The New York Times entitled “We Aren’t Built to Live in the Moment,” in which he argued that rather than driven by PAST events, human beings are primarily motivated by the FUTURE. What separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom is that where animals might think no more than a few minutes ahead, people ANTICIPATE what they will do in the days, months, and even YEARS before them. For instance, where chimps might spend much of the day searching for their next meal, PEOPLE, on the other hand, will make a restaurant reservation for Saturday night. I have friends who buy sale items all throughout the year which they will then give away months later for Christmas gifts while animals, for the most part, are limited to the immediate, to the here and now and no more. He says that whether consciously or unconsciously, our brains are hardwired to focus on the unexpected and imagine future possibilities, NOT remain fixated on past experiences or even present realities. Where traditional psychological theory has held that mental and emotional healing involves helping patients to unearth and confront past traumas and painful memories, that theory is being revised because many therapists now believe most psychological problems actually originate from a skewed or distorted vision of what lies ahead. They now understand that disorders such as anxiety and depression aren’t necessarily rooted in past traumas or one’s view of the present as has been generally supposed, but rather out of a sense of despair and hopelessness regarding one’s FUTURE prospects instead. 

If Seligman is right, then I suspect this fundamental orientation towards the future, this relentless urge to dream and to hope which all humans possess, and the anxiety and despair that envelopes a person when that hope is gone, is actually the result of having been created in God’s image and bearing his likeness; it is part of the divine imprint engraved upon our natures. You see, God is first and foremost a forward-looking agent. Jesus himself said that God was a God of the living and not the dead, and though it may be important to REMEMBER the past, it is EQUALLY important to remember that we are never to LIVE there, that is, to make the past our HOME. Look at the Bible and see what a futuristic book it has always been- it is a book full of dreams and visions that summon people to future-hoping and future-living. God gave Abraham a dream rooted in a promise and he BELIEVED it, journeying in obedience to it without ever knowing where he would end up. When Israel became captive in Egypt, God once again gave his people a vision. He promised to liberate them and provide them their own land which he eventually did. When Judah was taken into exile in Babylon, God raised up prophets to revive their dream. He revealed through Isaiah how in the Last Day, the Lord's house would be established in the top of the mountain and all the nations would stream to it. God would inaugurate an era of unprecedented peace and love where swords would be beaten into plowshares and spears converted into pruning-knives. Nation would not lift sword against nation nor would they ever again train for war. This was God's VISION for his world, a dream that sustained them even in their darkest moments.

With the birth of Jesus Christ, God began to REALIZE that dream. Through his Son, he established a kingdom founded upon love and mercy and justice for all people. He opened its gates so wide as to allow the whole world in- Gentile AS WELL AS Jew. By his death and resurrection, God confronted and destroyed the forces of evil and death; he freed us from its dominion that we might live as God's children OUGHT to live- as citizens of his kingdom. Through the outpouring of his Spirit, the love and joy and peace that CHRIST knew now becomes our OWN.

That dream and its power to inspire has CONTINUED right up to the present. People who know me have sometimes remarked how they believe I possessed the “gift of faith”- THAT being one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in which one is able to see with the EYES OF FAITH what he or she may not be able to believe with their own REASON or see with their NATURAL eyes. Case in point: Fresh out of seminary, I began my ministry in a semi-rural church in northwestern Pennsylvania. Behind the church were seven acres of undeveloped woodland. One day, I took a walk back there amid the assortment of oaks, elms, and cherry trees. Beneath the lovely groundcover of myrtle and ferns, I began to kick up old bricks, chunks of concrete, rusty pipes, and old bottles that had been discarded there over the course of the previous hundred years. For more than a century, it had served the church as a convenient junkyard to get rid of their refuse. Over time, it had all become overgrown by the lush vegetation and eventually hidden from sight. While the birds sang and the deer loped in the distance, I couldn’t help be struck by just how peaceful and calm the entire scene was.

That’s when a strange idea entered my head. I thought to myself, "What if we were to clean up the site and build an outdoor worship facility there to be used throughout the warm weather months- an amphitheater of sorts for worship and prayer and other events." I began to pray about it. The following Sunday, I took our youth fellowship back there and asked them to describe what they saw, to see if they could visualize what I did. They looked at the piles of brick, broken glass, and discarded pipe and then back at me and said, "Dave, it's nothing but an old junk pile." I said, "LOOK AGAIN and tell me what you see." They looked and AGAIN they said, "Dave, there's nothing there." Unable to contain my excitement, I exclaimed, "Don't you see it! It's a worship amphitheater with four different levels and a flagstone base at the bottom. Over there, I can see a giant cross that can be illuminated at night with a fire pit and picnic grove situated off to the side." "Dave," they said, "there's nothing down there but a lot of junk and your own crazy imagination." They were RIGHT but you see, imagination is the HANDMAIDEN of faith!

Despite the skepticism of some on Session, they gave me and a few other recruits the approval to begin the project. In fact, one of them—Harold Benedict—signed on immediately. He told me he had the very same idea almost fifty years earlier and I kidded him by accusing him of trying to steal the credit for my dream. Within a few months, every one of those youth was able to see it as well, growing in anticipation of the day when it would be dedicated to the glory of God. During the course of its construction, I would often go down there, sit by myself, and just dream. What may have appeared as a big hole in the ground to anyone else seemed something most glorious to me as it began to take shape: a handsome worship setting with descending levels of comfortable benches, a large white cross with lights in the trees to illuminate it for evening use, pathways along both sides leading down to the seats, set in a garden of beautiful trees and flowers and lush vegetation- I could see it all. Sitting there, I would envision that first outdoor service, and the more I imagined and dreamed, the more excited I became for we were turning an old garbage dump into a natural setting for corporate worship and quiet prayer. It required much faith and especially the will to bring it to completion, but I was convinced it was a dream GOD had placed upon my heart- similar to the dream which inspired those exiled in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuild her walls and Temple.

Two years later, that dream finally became a reality. On the day of its dedication, we held a festive celebration which, like today, was begun with morning worship, followed by a large church dinner. Many of the old-timers had returned for the event and displays of the church's history were set up all around the social hall. Then we all advanced to the amphitheater to hold our first outdoor observance- a service which included lots of hymn singing, a special sermon fit for the occasion, and the sacrament of Holy Communion. Finally, we buried a time capsule beneath an old stone hitching post we had uncovered during our excavation. We filled it with letters, pictures, and assorted mementos, with everyone pledging to return in a hundred year's time for its grand re-opening. People said it was a day they would never forget, and to my knowledge, it was the only church in the entire region to possess such a facility. To the townspeople, the First Presbyterian Church of Pleasantville was simply known as "the Church with the Outdoor Sanctuary," with attendance during the summer months the best it had been in years. On any given weekend, there were picnics and vesper services and assorted musical events that took place in the woods behind the church- but it all began with a simple dream. In fact, two weeks from today, that very same church will be celebrating its 150^th anniversary in which they will be reburying that same time capsule with personal items added for some future congregation to dig up years from now!

No matter how dire or desperate a person's or even a CHURCH'S situation may be, if it allows itself to dream and then exercises the will to PURSUE that dream, there are few things it CAN'T accomplish. Throughout that amphitheater's construction, I learned some important lessons. FIRST, I learned that faith involves a high degree of creativity and imagination for as it says in Hebrews 11, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Imagination becomes the organ for seeing the things that are not there and I'm convinced we need to dream MORE in our churches. Faith is foremost a faculty of the imagination; through our dreams, God gives us the vision to see with the heart what even the head can't discern. The church which refuses to let itself dream, which is constantly driven by unimaginative bean-counters who can only read numbers, who in the interests of always playing it safe refuses to take risks of any kind, will ultimately die a slow but sure death. People can only be led when they're inspired, and you inspire them not with budget sheets but with DREAMS!

And SECOND, I’ve discovered that faith is being able to see the beauty and possibilities of what is ALREADY THERE and then USING THEM. That piece of property behind the church had ALWAYS been there- it only took a little vision to see beyond the bricks and concrete and junk piled up here and visualize what it could become. We didn't have to go out and buy the trees and ferns or myrtle and then plant them all. We didn't have to purchase the bricks or concrete or rock- IT WAS ALREADY THERE! WE ONLY HAD TO BELIEVE THAT IT COULD BECOME MORE THAN JUNK AND USE IT. Other than for the benches, not another penny was invested in the project. Rather, we saw how we could use this refuse to our advantage- to build up the amphitheater walls and make the steps and flagstone base. Even the cross at the center was made from a dead tree. Everything was already here- we only needed to see it and use a little imagination how it could be used for something constructive.

When I look at our churches and congregations and their various gifts and talents, I see that God has ALREADY equipped us with everything we need to become the church, the worshiping Body of Christ. There isn't anything additional we require in order to be faithful to the work God has set before us- the raw materials of good hearts, of strong minds, of faith and determination is already present--in YOU--for the work of caring and serving and worshiping. We only need to SEE that, to BELIEVE that, and then with the gifts and talents God has equipped each of us, DO it.

In fact, I found that amphitheater to be one great metaphor of the Christian life. When I was in Jerusalem more than three decades ago, I walked across a beautiful valley next to her old walls. It was filled with lush green grass, a park, and a band shell where concerts are often given. To my amazement, I learned it was the Hinnom Valley which during the days of Christ functioned as the city dump where all the refuse was burned and from where we get the biblical image of hell as a place of fire and destruction. Now it is a beautiful, peaceful valley teeming with life and vitality.

That worship amphitheater became for us OUR Hinnom Valley. As we took that old garbage dump, that burn pit, and resurrected it as a worship center for the glory of God, it served for all of us as a reminder of what God had done in OUR lives. Each of us was and is a reclamation project- at one time we too were a garbage dump, a dung heap, a burn pit that God recreated and made into something beautiful and for his glory. I can say in all honesty that know first-hand what it means to be resurrected, to be a reclamation project and I know that every time I step foot into this church, I am reminded all over again what I was and what I have since become due to the grace and love of God. 

My friends, as we march into the future together, there are STILL certain realities that must be faced. Like any business (and a church is, in part, a business), there are bills and salaries to pay and budgets that need to be met. But may our churches never get SO caught up with concerns about financial figures or attendance numbers, or become SO dominated by fears regarding survival that faith becomes paralyzed and we then begin to lose whatever joy or enthusiasm we might have for Christ and his ministry. When people have called me a “dreamer” and an “idealist,” I have taken that to be the highest compliment one can give me. I want to CONTINUE dreaming- DREAMING RIGHT INTO THE FUTURE AND THROUGHOUT MY OLD AGE, and so should YOU! No man or woman is ever TOO OLD to dream, nor is any church in this world TOO SMALL to vision. Believe me, the MAJORITY of God’s dreams are RESERVED for small churches. You know WHY? Because MOST churches ARE small TO BEGIN WITH. As someone once commented, “God surely loves the small church- he made SO MANY of them!” 

In closing, I received an e-note last month from the Rev. Dr. Beverly James, the Associate Minister to Pittsburgh Presbytery which seems to sum up everything I have tried to say this morning. I would like to let her have the last word. At the conclusion of her letter, which was sent to ALL the churches of our presbytery, she wrote:

“It seems that we Christians, we mainliners in particular, are on a slow-moving train from Mild Depression to Consternation when it comes to picturing the future of the Church of Jesus Christ and our own denomination. This self-preoccupied hand wringing has been going on now for years. And yet, we faithfully promise at the time of taking our Ordination vows, still so fresh for our newer pastors or pastors in newly started calls, to ‘SERVE THE PEOPLE WITH ENERGY, INTELLIGENCE, IMAGINATION, AND LOVE.’ Our energy often gets expended in fruitless fracases and tangential tasks. We do not pool our considerable intelligence nearly enough. Our imaginations are made stagnant by fear of change. Our loves wear thin, abraded by irritating fears. There is more than enough fear to go around. But there are also these words: There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.(1 John 4:18) None of us can picture the future. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that we unleash our ‘energy, intelligence, imagination, and love’ with the power that only comes from God. Christ is risen! Pentecost is almost upon us! Words of another great hymn exhort us: “Come labor on! Away with gloomy doubts and faithless fear! No arm so weak but may do service here….” Right here! Right here in our congregations, our ministries, our presbytery! Let us pray to find ways to WORK TOGETHER to accomplish far more than we can dream or even imagine.” Amen and amen!