"A DREAM COME TRUE"

Joel 2:21-29; Acts 11:1-18

I wrote this sermon for Brei today,

but the rest of you are invited to listen in!

Graduation day is almost here for Brei,

and it was here yesterday for college graduateCaroline Todd,

and it will be here next week for some pastor.  

Students wait for graduation day for a long time.

They worked hard to get there,

their parents have helped them and prayed for them,

I hope that we've helped them some,

and I know that we've prayed for them!

Graduation day seems so far away

when you're in the first grade.

But once it arrives you can look back

and see that the years have gone by just like that -

or in the words of the old hymn,

they fly forgotten as a dream.

High school graduation

is a day that all of us either have or will dream of.

We think more than once

about what to wear,

how to celebrate,

what it will feel like to cross the stage

and get that piece of paper in your hand?..

and what to do then.

Before you know it,

it's not a dream anymore.

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Dreams are exactly what I want to talk about today.

A lot of people

encourage us to follow our dreams,

to dream big,

to go for the things we want to do.

That's an important part of life.

Some wise person along the way

said that we need three things in life

in order to be happy:

something to do,

something to love,

and something to hope for.

We gotta have dreams in order to be happy.

But we need to remember

that there's a difference

between the dreams you have for yourself //

and the dreams that God has for you.

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The Bible is full of dreams from beginning to end.

Jacob dreams of a ladder

that runs from earth to heaven,

with angels constantly going up and down between them.

His son Joseph

dreamed that he and his older brothers

were all sheaves of wheat,

except that his was the biggest

and that theirs were small and scraggly

compared to his.

That one got him sold into slavery!

Samuel has a dream

that someone is calling him,

but it took his friend Eli to help him understand

that someone was God.

The three wise men were warned in a dream

to go home by another way

after they had seen the baby Jesus

because Herod was waiting to trap them.

And the entire book of Revelation

from start to finish

is one big dream,

a vision that came to John of Patmos.

The prophet Joel told us this morning

that the dreams of the elderly

were one sure sign of God's Spirit.

And then Peter has this funky dream

that we read about today in Acts.

We have a lot in common with Peter, actually.

Like him, we're faithful people

who believe in Jesus Christ

and know how things are supposed to go in church.

We know the rules.

We think we know the things that God wants us to do

and the things that God would rather we not do.

Peter knew all that too.

And with a Jewish background like his,

there were LOTS of rules

as to what you were allowed to do

and what you were not.

A lot of those rules were dietary.

If you want to know what they were

and you have a lot of time,

read through the book of Leviticus!

But good and faithful Jews

were expected to know all those laws

and not only to know them,

but to observe them,

and to avoid people who didn't.

So Peter has this dream,

where God lowers something like a big huge bedsheet

from heaven,

and it's full of animals -

some that were considered okay to eat,

according to Leviticus,

and some that were not.

It must have been quite a sheet

to hold pigs and cows and shrimp and fish!

Then he heard God's voice saying "Take and eat."

All his life,

he'd been taught that if he loved God,

he was not supposed to eat some of the things in that sheet.

But now God was saying it was okay?

And not once, but three times!

Sometimes God has to do things in a large way

in order to get our attention.

I suspect a sheet full of animals would have done it.

But this was God's way

of saying that EVERYTHING God made was good.

All the animals,

not just the unclean ones.

All the people,

not just those who followed the rituals.

That was probably about the last dream

that a faithful man,

raised by faithful parents,

steeped in the laws and traditions of the synagogue,

would expect to have.

It turned everything he'd been taught upside down.

But because of the dream,

Peter came to see

that God's vision is bigger and more grand

than anything we might dream up for ourselves.

Friends, my point

is that God may have some dreams coming our way

that would be about the last thing

that a faithful Presbyterian,

steeped in the laws and traditions of the church,

who thinks that all the rules are known,

would expect to have.

We should listen to them.

It may turn everything we've been taught upside down.

But the good news of the gospel

is that God's vision is bigger and more grand

than anything we might dream up for ourselves.

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One of the main problems of our postmodern times,

I believe,

is the focus that we have allowed to be placed

on the individual.

It's all about me, me, me.

We're taught that whatever I do,

or whatever I dream,

or I want, or I pursue,

is okay.

It doesn't matter what anyone else says.

If I think it's so, then it must be.

I love that R. Kelly song, "I Believe I Can Fly."

You know that one?

I always have at least twice the energy after I hear it

than I did beforehand.

But have you ever stopped to count the number of times

he uses the word "I" in the lyrics?"

Twice in the title alone.

Nine times in the verses of the song.

Twelve times in the chorus,

not counting all the times the chorus repeats,

and not counting the times he says "me" or "my!"

One of the radical things

about dreams that come from God

is that they rarely,

if ever,

are for the benefit of only one person.

Usually God does and says what God does and says

through one person for the benefit of a nation,

or of an entire group of people.

Individuals benefit and grow because of them,

but it's never just about "my God and I."

God's dreams are for the benefit of "our God and us."

That's one way that we can tell

whether a dream is only mine,

or whether it's a dream from God for all of us.

That's one of the reasons

that we pray in the Lord's Prayer

for God's kingdom to come,

and for God's will to be done.

It's not only because God is God,

though that would definitely be enough.

We pray for God's will to be done

because we know

that no matter how badly we want something,

God in God's economy

will work it out for the good of all of us.

God's dreams somehow

always manage to involve the greater good,

and not just whether I will get a good parking space today.

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My wish today,

not only for all the graduates

but for you and me and all of us,

is to follow God's dream for you,

whatever that may be.

If it's God's dream for you,

then everybody will benefit.

God has some wonderful things in store

for each and every one of us.

But it's not God's job to be a genie

who has to grant you whatever you think you want,

whenever you feel like rubbing the lamp.

It's God's job to be God,

doing God's thing on God's timing,

and your job to listen

and to follow the One who loves you

and who has every good thing in store for you.

I don't know whether God's dreams for you

will include sheaves of wheat

or angels on ladders

or animals being dropped from heaven in a sheet.

God will use what God will use!

What I do know

is that God will speak to you

in ways that you can hear,

as often as it takes to get your attention,

and faithfully enough

that what benefits you

will be a benefit to others as well.

I can't wait to see what God has in store for you,

and through you,

for all of us.

Amen.