“I will pour out my spirit on all flesh”
Joel 2:28, Acts 2:17
“Your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions.” I have been chewing on this phrase since our celebration of Pentecost this past Sunday. In these words, used both by the prophet Joel and the apostle Peter, we see a picture of one of the things that points to the presence of the Holy Spirit. What I see in this in this picture is the prediction of the healing of an age-old conflict between young and old. I see an invitation to both young and old to “think of things that never were and ask why not?” It is permission for the young, who have an open future before them, to picture what they might initiate, and liberation of those at the end of their years from the burden of leadership and the freedom to ponder and bless the frontiers their successors will cross.
As I approach the 64th anniversary of my birth I continue to grow in my awareness of how my place along this continuum has crossed the mid-point. And I want to be an old man who dreams dreams. This aspiration has led to memories of the elders I have known who dared to dream dreams. One of them was Ebba Smith. Ebba was in the congregation I served in Pasadena in my early 30’s. She was the widow of a Presbyterian minister and lived at Monte Vista Grove Homes, the retirement community for Presbyterian ministers and missionaries that was about a mile from the church. My friend Doug, who was my age and pastor of a neighboring Presbyterian church, knew and had worked with Ebba on social justice causes and once said to me: “I want to be like Ebba when I grow up.”
In a war-torn world, Ebba had dreams of peace. In the face of obvious inequities, Ebba had visions of justice. She was in her 80’s and she had amazing energy to act on these dreams. I saw how these dreams kept her young. In an era before email, Ebba was great note writer, and all of her notes were written on “stationery” that was made of the blank backs of repurposed envelopes or the junk mail she had received. The first note I got from her after I became pastor was an explanation of why I would probably not see her waiting in line to greet me at the door after worship. She told me not to worry about this. It was no sign of disapproval of the sermon or some unmentioned animosity toward me. She said, “I just don’t have the time.” Once worship was over, Ebba was on to other things, and for Ebba, idle “chit chat” with the pastor was not one of them.
A few months before she died she suffered a stroke. Following the stroke I went to visit her in what the residents of the Grove called the health center and she was playing bingo in the rec room. She didn’t see me come into the room. I went and sat next to her and when she looked up and noticed me she stared at me with a look of utter consternation and said: “Can you believe it? Me, playing bingo.” In spite of her dismay, her humor was still fully functional. She had not stopped dreaming dreams. While days occupied by bingo did not bring her joy and the physical energy that had characterized her life into her 80’s was now severely diminished, there was no doubt that the soul of this dreamer was fully intact. She now occupied that place where grief and liberty had become companions. What she could no longer do was released to others, and with that release she was free to take up the gift of peace.
Unfortunately, the experience of aging does not assure this transition. Instead of dreaming dreams we can fall prey to its opposite of nostalgic fear. When what appears to be ahead frightens us, we easily default to the work of tightening our grip on what was. Later in Acts 4 & 5 when the old men on the Council in Jerusalem are discussing among themselves how to respond to the young men who have experienced and are preaching about relationship with Jesus, we see this happening. Some want to punish these young men and quell the energy brought on by the outpouring of the Spirit. It’s just too new, too different, to threatening. But Luke tells us about one old man who was still open to dreams. Gamaliel comes forward and advises that august body of ecclesiastical elders to hold on loosely to this situation. He reminds them of stories where the work of God could not be contained by human power and says: “if this plan or undertaking is of human origin, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you may even be found fighting against God.” (Acts 5:38-39)
When religion speaks only of preservation and cannot acknowledge the possibility of transformation, when our imaginations can only take us back to warm memories of what was and we stop straining to see what might yet be, when we no longer dream dreams, we have effectively stopped trusting God. As St Paul assures us, what God is up to is always more than we have the capacity to imagine. Thus large doses of humility, curiosity and patience are the best way to supplement a diet that is rich with change. Often our first experience of change is one of loss. Yet even in that loss God is still with us, Jesus is still Lord, the Spirit is still at work. The best thing we can do is to loosen our grip and recognize that we are always being held by the One who holds all things together.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
Ephesians 3:14-21
David Rohrer
05/29/2021