Acts 2:17 - “God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
Peter offered these words from Joel as he spoke on the day of Pentecost. He envisioned the power of the Spirit to create something new, exciting, and amazing in the world. On Pentecost, that Spirit had been poured into those early Christians huddled in fear and set them on fire. They were transformed and through them the world would never be the same. The unbelievable truth is that same Spirit has been poured into our lives through the water of our baptism. God makes it possible for us to dream dreams and live into them. God opens new possibilities. There are no limits. We need to hear that word of hope in own lives and time.
At the Synod Assembly, our Bishop spoke of her dark times. The troubled nights where she has feared she is overseeing the unraveling of the New Jersey Synod. The challenges facing the church are many and they are real. Our Bishop feels those challenges deeply. She shared her deep concern with her friend who promptly told her that this was an exciting moment in the life of the church. Her friend believed that the Spirit was blowing something new into the community of faith. For her, this was Pentecost happening again. Her friend used the image of unraveling in a very different way. She spoke of unraveling as being something affirming like the unraveling of an old knitted scarf. The yarn is still good, but the design doesn’t work so the scarf has sat on the shelf unused. The good news is that once the scarf is unraveled, the yarn can be knitted into something new. The Bishop’s friend talked about God reknitting the unraveled yarn of the church into something new and amazing. I like that image. It is both reassuring and true. The Spirit is still blowing in the life of the church. With that Spirit comes the power to see visions and dream dreams. My prayer is that God makes us bold enough to unravel the yarn, to dream dreams, and to live into them, trusting in the promise and power of the Spirit.
Peace,
Pastor Summer
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