Brave Church

A Sermon Preached at Farmdale Baptist Church, Sylvania, GA from Acts 2:1-21 with Genesis 11:1-9

Have you ever been in a situation where not everyone spoke English? Where you found yourself unable to understand somebody?

I have more times than I can count.

Over the past three years that Kevin has served as the President of Feed the Children, I think the story of our lives could be summed up in one word. Traveling. I think every time we call Kevin's parents or my parents the first question they ask us is, “Where in the world are you?” (And we often given them a different answer!)

On these trips, experiences no matter where we are in the world are similar. As we have approached a community in need where Feed the Children has a school or a water project or a health clinic, we’ve met with parents and kids. We’ve done what we can to encourage children, parents and staff. It’s all great. But then we’ve usually had this one BIG problem. We speak English. But others don’t.

So when we sit down for lunch, we often don’t know what we’re ordering on a menu (unless we get help). We don’t know what others are saying around the table (we just hope they’re saying something nice). And there have been moments when Kevin and I have found ourselves sitting at a big table full of folks, only talking to each other.

And in moments like this, we’ve relied on smiles, handshakes and hand motions--- all geared toward making a point the best we can with our body language. We’ve hoped to not embarss ourselves too much.

But it is frustrating nonetheless. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said to myself: “I wish I knew Spanish. I wish I knew Swahli. I wish I spoke French.”

And though Kevin learned a lot of German in high school it’s never really helped him much out where we’ve visited.

What we just read from Genesis is an experience of completely different proportions than what I just described to you about our traveling. Those gathered on the earth at this time had never experienced such a problem. They all spoke the same language. They gathered together as one. Could you imagine how lovely that was?

But scripture tells us that those gathered became a little too confident in their unified powers. They believed that “they could make a name for themselves” by building a tower high in the sky with bricks and mortar. They wanted to be the ones completely in control of what came next, not God.

From what we know of God, we can imagine how well this went over . . .

In response, the Lord says, “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

You see, God said such pride would not do. Their punishment became separation from their human brothers and sisters. No longer would everyone speak the same language. No longer would the whole earth feel like a great big ole family.

So what came next was: folks began separating themselves, scripture tells us, by language.

Colors and skin tones began to divide from one person from another person.

“Where are you from?” became a question folks asked each other.

The world became full of not only different languages, but also different tones of voice and accents that continues to this day.

Ever gone to Mississippi or Boston or Pennsylvania and have a problem understanding what they’re saying?

I have to say that since joining the Hagan family and spending lots of time in South Georgia there are new words and ways of talking about things that I’ve had to learn. I can remember on one of my first visits here when Kevin and I were dating, Rachel (my mother-in-law) asked me what I wanted for dinner. I wonder why she was so concerned about dinner at 11 am in the morning. But later I got the translation dinner = lunch (as I understood it). Oh, it all became clear!

This one small example shows that even if our official language is English, there are still a thousand ways we can say the same things. It’s so easy for us to not understand one another.

But was this the way that God intended for us to live—not understanding each other and all speaking different languages?

I don’t think it was.

Only a few short weeks ago it was Easter. It was day we celebrated the message of NEWNESS that Christ brings.

Isn’t the message of Easter that we ALL can be included in God’s family? Isn’t the message of Easter that ALL are welcomed? Isn’t the message of Easter that in Christ we are ALL made new through Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord?

So if all of this is true, then, Easter, would give us a WHOLE new way of speaking to one another, right? The separation that the Tower of Babel brought us would be no more!

Our New Testament lesson from Acts 2 has a lot to change the tone of the story in wake of all that Easter meant for the world.

And as we just heard read, the day started out pretty normal other than the fact it was a festival on the Jewish calendar and everyone was gathered in Jerusalem for worship and celebration.

It meant the disciples of Jesus, in particular were all together. They were still trying to figure out what to do with their lives, what would be the next steps for them in this post Jesus world. But then, verse 2 of Acts 2 tells us that, “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.”

What could this sound be?

I could imagine the disciples were frightened. For: “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.”

And though we in the church world can easily get caught up in verses like this when we hear that the disciples: “began to speak in other tongues (or languages) as the Spirit enabled them” wondering, “What is tongues?”

The truth is this: the Spirit came and those who received the Spirit understood one another in ways they’d never had before. Suddenly, you see, it became a world where LANGUAGE was no longer a divider-- there was a a way to understood one another!

Through the Spirit people heard one another in ways in which they never had before!

About two years ago, Kevin and I made our first trip to Guatemala with Feed the Children. It was a beautiful country and we loved the all the kids we met. But, as the week came to an end, I was notably aware of the language divide. The official language in Guatemala is Spanish. But not everyone in Guatemala speaks Spanish. And few speak English especially in rural areas where we work.

Many of the communities that we visited were full of residents of Mayan decent (many of whom live on less than $1 US dollar day, by the way and have not completed a grade school education). Thus, at each stop of our trip, the mothers and children spoke a different dialect of a tribal language. Not even the Guatemalan staff could understand what the mothers said.

945094_10151593037224168_1240194976_nTogether we relied on the Mayan children who’d learned Spanish in school to translate their tribal language into Spanish. Then the Feed the Children staff that spoke Spanish and English translated for Kevin and I. While it was good to be among these beautiful and hospitable people, the communication was exhausting. Double translation as you might imagine took a lot of time to just get a simple question answered like, "Where does your family live?"

But, when it came time to say goodbye at the airport to the directors of the program, non-English speakers themselves, but leaders full of kind hearts and deep love for the children of their nation, I found tears rolling down my cheeks.

Though we’d never spoken directly from native language to native language, I knew these the hearts of these two. I knew they loved God and sought to serve the Lord in all they did. They loved and appreciated me and wanted me to know how happy they were to have my visit to their country. I felt the same about them.

Together we stood on holy ground.

And the frustrations of communication that we’d experienced that week seemed to pale in comparison to the hugs we exchanged and the smiles that beamed across all our faces. It has been good to be together in partnership and we all knew it. God had done a work among us—a work that was changing and is changing children’s lives in Guatemala forever!

Such was a moment of the Spirit transcending, resting upon us, and intercessing for us if I’ve ever experienced one.

For while my friends did not suddenly understand English and I did not suddenly understand Spanish, something about our hearts connected in ways that could have only come from God. Something opened that had been previously closed before.

It was a place for me, like the day of Pentecost was for those first disciples where heaven and earth met.

And this, my friends, is what it means to be Easter people who live by the spirit. Together, with Jesus’ help, we are creating a new world where we don’t have to be so separate from other people-- especially people who seem so different from us on the outset.

This new world is a world where the words I speak do not keep me from you, but can join us together . . .

A world where it matters not where you and I came from, but only how open we are to the future God has in store for us . . .

A world where the color of my skin does not make me better than or less than, but merely a beautiful part of God’s brilliant mosaic of lots of colors . . .

Many people called the day of Pentecost the birthday of the church. Or in some churches a good excuse to have a cake and sing happy birthday after worship . . . I like the idea of making a big fuss about a day like today because our birthday is all about this: in the church, we are a different kind of people. We’re not like a flower club or a Rotary meeting or a mom’s play group.

We’re the church because of the Spirit of God has gathered us and lives in us, and helps us. And this changes EVERYTHING about our coming together.

I want to ask you this: when is the last time you sat in a deacon’s meeting or Sunday School class and thought to yourself, how in the world do I go to church with these people? These people.

I bet all of us could relate.

Church, at least how Jesus taught us to do it, is a crazy thing.

People of all kinds of backgrounds and cultures and ages and opinions and education levels and life experiences can gather with one goal. The Spirit keeps us together, even with there are a thousand reasons to tear us a part or to split.

And if you’ve been around church for any length of time, you know what I mean.

Just because we are Christians, it doesn't mean that we are always going to agree.

We’re going to go through seasons when we don’t get along.

We are going to even fight with our words from time to time (and hopefully not with our hands!)

We may want to walk away from church business meetings sometimes and throw up our hands and say, “What’s the point?”

But because we have the gift of the Spirit, all is new. We don’t have to fight or disagree like the world does. We don’t have to be segregated like the world thinks we should. We don’t even have to look like the world thinks we should.

Lauren F. Winner, one of my professors and classmates from seminary said this, “The Spirit is the reason we can build a church and have confidence that we will get it at least a little bit right.”

Because of the Spirit, you see, we can imagine a new world. We can imagine a new community. We can imagine worship in this place going on for generations to come.

Today is the day of new winds of the Spirit. Today is the day of imagining a world where we are all not only welcome at God’s table, but heard and understood.

God has good things and a bright future in store for this church—if only we keep listening to the Spirit of God.

AMEN

“Imaging a New World” Sermon Preached at Riverdale Presbyterian Church, Hyattsville, MD

Acts 2:1-21 with Genesis 11:1-9

Can you remember the last time or anytime you were in an environment where you spoke a different language than everyone else?

It could have been on an international trip either to the US for the first time or abroad, even something as simple as getting someone to clean your house or mow your lawn who originated from another place.

What did it feel like? What did you wish for? What do you still remember about such a time?

Over the past two years that my husband, Kevin has served as the President of an international relief and development organization called Feed the Children—a non-profit working in all 50 US states and in 10 countries around the world, we’ve done a lot of traveling. I mean A LOT of traveling! We’ve visited education programs and dedicated new feeding centers and built relationships with new friends all over the world. We’ve become the outsiders in communities.

The experiences no matter where we are in the world are similar. As we approach a community in need where Feed the Children has a school or a water project or a health clinic and begin to meet with parents and kids, it is a paralyzing feeling. Most of them, English is not spoken at all. And as for me, I can’t communicate beyond the basics of “Hello” “Good Morning” or “Nice to meet you” in the language of the community (if that!).

Not only this, but later when we sit down for lunch, I don’t know what I’m ordering on a menu. I don’t know what others are saying around the table. I don’t know how to tell new friends that I’m so impressed with the strides they’re making to help all the kids have brighter futures.

I rely on smiles, handshakes and hand motions--- all geared toward making a point the best I can with my body language. I hope that this finds a way to communicate love somehow.

I do the best I can. But it is frustrating nonetheless. I wish I knew Spanish. I wish I knew Swahili. I wish I spoke French.

As we begin to study our Old Testament lesson this morning, we read an experience of completely different proportions. Those gathered on the earth at this time had never experienced such a problem. They all spoke the same language. They gathered together as one.

It was a glorious time in human history. Translators were never needed. Everyone got along so well.

But the problem came when those gathered became a little too confident in their unified powers. They believed, Genesis 11 tells us that “they could make a name for themselves” by building a tower high in the sky with bricks and mortar. They wanted to be the ones completely in control of what came next, not God.

From what we know of God, we can imagine how well this went over . . .

In response, the Lord says, “Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” You see, God said such hubris would not do. Their punishment became separation from their human brothers and sisters. No longer would everyone speak the same language.

Folks began migrating, scripture tells us, from this moment on in groups of those who spoke their same language. Colors and skin tones began to divide from one person from another person. “Where are you from?” became an identifier making one person different from another. The world became full of not only different languages, but also different tones of voice and accents that continue to this day.

Ever gone to Mississippi or Boston or even Detroit and have a problem understanding what they’re saying?

Two weeks ago, for Memorial Day I visited my in-laws in South Georgia and was asked at 11:30 am to come to the dinner table and had no idea what was going on. Wasn’t it the middle of the day? South Georgia translation: dinner = lunch. Even if our official language is English, there are still a thousand ways that we can be DIVIDED in speech from one another.

But was this the way that God intended for us to live? Was the Tower of Babel and all that went down there the end of the story of language and how we live together in community?

It wasn’t. And to begin to understand God’s vision for our world, even as human pride sought to destroy every good thing that God intended, we must go to Easter—that liturgical season we just ended last Sunday with the celebration of the Ascension.

For it was on Easter, the day of resurrection, that Jesus, yes, Jesus ended his journey on earth with complete hope. No longer did division have to be the final word. When the women at the tomb heard from the angel that “Jesus was risen just as he said” it was a NEW day on earth. All were now welcome into God’s family, not just those who followed the practices of the Jewish faith.

This was the earth shattering truth: Christ is risen (Christ is risen indeed).

But with any MAJOR life changing revelation, it needed fleshing out. It needed time to settle into human hearts and minds. It needed a season or what we call the church, Eastertide—50 days from then until now.

And this now is our reading from Acts 2.

The day started out pretty normally other than the fact it was a festival on the Jewish calendar and everyone was gathered in Jerusalem for worship and celebration. The disciples of Jesus, in particular were all together. They were still trying to figure out what to do with their lives, what would be the next steps for them in this post Jesus world. But then, verse 2 of Acts 2 tells us that, “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.”

What could it be???

I could imagine that the abruptness of this interruption was frightening.

But even more what could be named, qualified or even described, the Spirit of God was on the move and the world would never be the same.

Scripture even has a hard time describing it using vague language like, “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.”

As the people gathered tried to describe what was going on were their actual tongues? Was there really fire? Probably not, but the author of the book of Acts knew only dramatic image would do because of what came next. Verse four tells that that all of them, “began to speak in other tongues (or languages) as the Spirit enabled them.”

And though we in the church world can easily get caught up in verses like this wondering, “What is tongues?” “Does this mean we are to speak in tongues?” “Are those believers in Jesus who say they’re speaking in tongues today more holy than the rest of us?” (All of these questions are best saved for a Church History class).

What is truth is this—the Spirit came and those who received the Spirit understood one another in ways they’d never had before. Suddenly, you see, it became a world where LANGUAGE was no longer a divider.

Through the Spirit people heard one another in ways in which they NEVER had before!

About a year ago, I journeyed to Guatemala alongside the Feed the Children staff from the home office based out of Oklahoma. It was my first visit to this country and I was eager to see the beauty of the place I’d only read about in textbooks years before!

As the week came to an end, I was notably aware of the language divide. Many of the rural communities that we visited were full of residents of Mayan decent (many of whom live on less than $1 US dollar day, by the way and have not completed a grade school education). Thus, at each stop, the mothers and children spoke a different dialect of a tribal language unique to their Mayan heritage.

The Spanish-speaking Guatemalan staff did not even understand what was going on! Together we relied on the Mayan children who’d learned Spanish in school to translate their tribal language into Spanish. Then the Feed the Children staff that spoke Spanish and English translated for Kevin and I. While it was good to be among these beautiful and hospitable people, the communication was exhausting. Double translation as you might imagine took a lot of time.

la foto (1)But, when it came time to say goodbye at the airport to the directors of the program, Altagracia and Ricardo, non-English speakers themselves, but leaders full of kind hearts and deep love for the children of their nation, I found tears rolling down my cheeks. Though we’d never spoken directly from native language to native language, I knew these the hearts of these two. I knew they loved God and sought to serve the Lord in all they did. They loved and appreciated me and wanted me to know how happy they were to have my visit to their country. I felt the same about them.

Together we stood on holy ground.

And the frustrations of communication that we’d experienced over the last seven days seemed to pale in comparison to the hugs we exchanged and the smiles that beamed across all our faces. It has been good to be together in partnership and we all knew it. God had done a work among us—a work that was changing and is changing children’s lives in Guatemala forever!

Such was a moment of the Spirit transcending, resting upon us, and interceding for us if I’ve ever experienced one.

For while my friends did not suddenly understand English and I did not suddenly understand Spanish, something about our hearts connected in ways that could have only come from God. Something opened that had been previously closed before.

Biblical Scholar N.T. Wright has said: “Those in whom the Spirit comes to live are God's new Temple. They are, individually and corporately, places where heaven and earth meet.”

Or, as I like to think about it, on the day of Pentecost a new world comes to be. Heaven really does come to earth!

A world where the words I speak do not keep me from my neighbor, but can join us together. . . .

A world where it matters not where I came from, but only where I am willing to journey in the future . . .

A world where the color of my skin does not make me better than or less than, but merely a beautiful part of God’s brilliant mosaic . . .

They call this day in the liturgical calendar we follow, the birthday of the church. Or in some churches a good excuse to have a cake at coffee hour after worship . . .

It’s the birthday of the church because with the giving of the Spirit, all of us were given the tools we need to make our community life together possible. You see, in Jesus, we are given the purpose. Remember the message of Easter. Christ is risen (Christ is risen indeed). But with the Spirit, we are given the means to share the message.

I want to ask you this: when is the last time you sat in a church committee meeting or a Bible study and thought to yourself, how in the world do I go to church with these people?

I bet all of us could relate.

Church, in our modern expression is a crazy thing. People of all kinds of backgrounds and cultures and ages and opinions and education levels and life experiences and on and on gather because we love Jesus and want to follow Him, but in actuality, living it out can be one the hardest thing that we’ve ever tried to do.

And if you’ve been around church for any length of time, you know what I mean. We naturally are going to disagree. We’re going to go through seasons when we don’t get along. We are going to even fight with our words from time to time (and hopefully not with our hands!)

We may want to walk away from church sessions and throw up our hands and say, “What’s the point?”

But, today we remember the gift of the Spirit. We remember the great tool God gave us in the Spirit. We remember that the Spirit is what enables us to come together as one, as Jesus prayed that we would be.

Lauren F. Winner, one of my professors from Duke Divinity School and author of God Meets Girl writes, “The Spirit is the reason we can build a church and have confidence that we will get it at least a little bit right.”

Because of the Spirit, you see, we can imagine a new world. We can imagine a new community. We can re-imagine this community and the next chapter that God has in store for it in all its potential.

We don’t have to let our language divide hold us back—whether that be actual spoken languages as God brings non-English speakers to our front doors. Or when God brings us folks who hail from different parts of our country with strange ways of doing things or even when the different “languages” of our hearts seek to divide us.

For today is the day of Pentecost. Today is the day of new winds of the Spirit. Today is the day of the color red—the color of the refining fire. Today is the day of imagining a world where we are all not only welcome at God’s table, but heard and understood.

AMEN

God’s Dreams for Us
Genesis 28: 10-19, Ephesians 2:14-21
Watonga Indian Baptist Church
Watonga, OK

Have you ever found yourself in a position where you were confused, without direction or without prospects on the horizon for a better future?

Maybe such was a time in your life when you lost a job, fell into a conflict with a family member, or even didn’t know where your next meal came from?

Maybe it was a time when a beloved family member died? Or when one of your children was terribly sick?

Or maybe even when someone sought to speak authoritatively to you without any concern for your best interest?

I bet we could all say yes to this question—that sometime in our life, if not right now we’ve reached moments when all we wanted to do was sit in the floor and cry or just run away from everything familiar to us or even drown our sorrows in too much sleep or alcohol—because life has just felt that bad.

God, it has seemed has not been present in our lives in a way that speaks to our heart. We feel alone, abandoned, and are wandering aimlessly through our days.

So with all of this true, I tell you, you’ll like the main character in our Old Testament story today: Jacob. Jacob as we meet him in Genesis 28, is not the exalted son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, the great patriarchs of the people of Israel. He’s not in a place of greatness simply because of who his family is or because he got a huge inheritance of wealth.

No, rather, we find Jacob down and out. We find that he’s was forced to leave his land, his home, his family and we find him as verse 11 tells us in “no particular place.”

We find that Jacob is no the run without real plans for the future, alone, and without any creature comfort for protection.

In fact, if we read earlier in the story, we know that Jacob is on the hit list of his brother Esau. After Jacob’s mother, Rebekah, tricked her husband into giving Jacob, her younger son the blessing usually reserved for the oldest son, Jacob’s brother Esau is angry.

Esau says he wants Jacob dead. Rebekah, being the smart woman that she is (I know like so many of the women in this room this morning) creates a plan whereby Jacob’s father thinks it is in the best interest of Jacob to send him away for a while. (The excuse being that he needed to find a wife in the region of the country where Rebekah’s people are from).

So, with father Isaac on board with the “go find a wife in another region” plan, Jacob is sent away. No one asked Jacob if he wanted to go. He was told to go.

But, while some young adults might have loved this plan, we don’t get the idea from Jacob that he’s too excited about it. For, we know he’s never been away from home before. He’s never been on a route to the destination of Hebron before. This journey out into the great unknown was full of a lot of firsts.

But, even though from the outside this just seems like a secular story about a family drama—God is still present.

God had not forgotten the promise He’d made to Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham.

God had not forgotten about Jacob.

God had not forgotten his love for Jacob.

So, as Jacob takes shelter for the night in what I can imagine was an open field (not much shelter really at all) laying his head on a rock for a pillow, scripture tells us that God speaks to him.

Not as God had done before through a voice or through the presence of messengers, but through a dream.

And in this dream, scripture tells us that Jacob sees a stairway resting on the earth with its top reaching toward heaven.

As an aside it’s this juncture in scripture is where the song, “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder” comes from. Anyone ever sang or heard of this song before? I had to look up the words—all I knew was the first line. But if you look them us too, beware: it really has nothing to do with this story.

But it wasn’t really a ladder Jacob sees. More like a ramp. For a popular part of the religious culture of Jacob’s time was the idea of ziggurats—artificial mountains built as shrines, shrines that connected things of on the earth to higher things of heaven.

We aren’t told that Jacob gets access to heaven on this ramp. Instead it serves as a sign that God comes to dwell with Jacob—to be with him where he was. Right there in the middle of nowhere.

It was an image of God saying to Jacob—“Look, you are not alone. I am with you, even here in this remote place.”

But even more than this, I believe, God is inviting Jacob to see the world as God views it, to dream alongside God.

In verse 13, my Bible reads—“there above it (meaning the ladder) stood the Lord” but many translations of this verse actually read, “There beside him.” I really want to lean into the second interpretation—that as God begins to speak directly to Jacob he is not standing over him, but standing beside him—coming close to his heart.

And saying these words: “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out like the west and the east, to the north and to the south. All people on earth will be blessed.”

What powerful words! Not only was God saying to Jacob in his moment of crisis: “I see you!” but God was also making unconditional promises to him about the future of his people.

“I’m going to bless you,” God says, “No matter what. No matter how much you screw up. No matter how far you stray from me. No matter how people treat you. Or how lost you feel. I’m going to bless you.”

It was an invitation for Jacob to come and see the world as God already saw it—full of possibility, full of promise, full of hope, even when the circumstances of Jacob’s life seemed like nothing good could possibility come from them.

This past week, Kevin, my husband and I spent several days meeting with, assisting with feeding programs and shoe distributions for children in Guatemala. All of this was part of Kevin’s work for an organization based out of Oklahoma City called Feed The Children and I was just along for the ride.

One of my favorite communities we visited was in the region of Guatemala known as San Antonio Polopa among a traditional Mayan culture. Though the community struggles with having enough provisions of food and clean water and proper supplies for their children to go to school with and had every reason to shun us as “outsiders” Kevin and I, along with the rest of the team from Feed The Children were overwhelmed by the kind welcome we received. I even got a Mayan makeover while I was there, with traditional dress given to me and put on me (I can show you pictures after the service if you are interested).

But, as Kevin spoke to this group before we all ate together, as he had done many times before with different groups, he said something that struck me (especially as I had this passage of scripture on my mind). Kevin told the group of mothers and children gathered around us: “We are here today to stand in solidarity with you. Though we come from a different country, a different culture and from a different background, there is one thing we hold in common. And that is all parents want the same thing for their children. All parents want a better life for their children than they had themselves.”

And the Mayan mothers seemed to agree, as maybe the mothers in this room here in Watonga agree too. It’s only natural as Parents to dream big for your children.

You want your children to grow up and succeed at whatever they do—having better days than you ever experienced, making more money than you ever did, and living in a more comfortable living space than you. It’s part of what makes us human, to have this desire.

But, what about God, have you ever thought about what God dreams for you?

If we say that God is our Heavenly Father or Heavenly Mother . . . if we believe that God in heaven is the great Parent of us all, then what are God’s dreams for us? When God thinks about our future, what comes to God’s mind?

Taking our cues from Jacob this morning, we see that there are no limits to what God has planned for our future.

Consider again with me the language of verse 14 of Genesis chapter 28.

The LORD said to Jacob, “Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth.”

Being called “dust” doesn’t sound too bad does it? Dust is everywhere. Dust is a part of all places. Dust is the very essence of life.

But, there’s more. One Biblical commentator on this passage calls our attention to the fact that the original Hebrew word for dust was not just an generic word for dust, rather it was more like the English word “topsoil.”

Topsoil, as we know from our gardening is the best kind of soil. It’s the soil that is full of the nutrients. It’s the soil that ensures the crops’ success. It’s the soil full of the rich ingredients that the plants need within them to help them grow strong and tall. And with out the topsoil our hopes of a rich harvest are ruined.

Thus, God is telling Jacob in speaking of topsoil: “I have a dream for you. My dream is not just that you’ll have a good home. Or, that you’ll have kids one day of your own. Or that happiness will find you more than sadness does. But, rather, my dream is that you’ll be a life-restoring, life-giving pillar wherever you go. That your community will be blessed because of YOU bringing MY presence to it., the riches gift of all.”

I believe this is exactly what the apostle Paul is talking about when he writes to the church at Ephesus about God’s dreams for their lives. Saying that he prays regularly for the Ephesians, “That Christ may dwell in [their] hearts through faith. And [Paul] prays that [they] being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with the saints, to grasp how wide and long, and high and deep is the love of Christ.”

Paul wants them to know that God’s dreams for the people of this world are in fact so big that we could not even wrap our minds around them if we tried. Why? Because we serve a God, as Paul writes that is “able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask for or imagine.”

Unimaginable dreams—that’s bigger than any of us know how to speak about!

I tell you today that is hard to keep dreaming like this. It’s hard to dream at all sometimes. It’s hard to dream the more that life has beaten us down, shredded our attempted contributions to pieces. It’s hard to dream when all we want to do is throw up our hands in disbelief of the suffering that has found us in this life.

But we are called to keep dreaming, nonetheless.

The poet Langston Hughes that I like very much says this about dreams: “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is broken winged bird that can’t fly.”

As people of faith, as people who are in relationship with the God of all living things, we can’t give up hope. We can’t give up dreaming. We have to allow room in our hearts to received God’s unexpected surprises of dreams in our sleep, of visions in the daytime, of words of instruction from wise ones in our community.

I am so glad I serve a God who has a plan for me, along with every living creature on this earth.

I’m so glad I serve a God who wants a brighter future not only for the children but for all of us older ones as well.

I’m so glad I serve a God who helps give me vision when I feel lost, alone or without the courage to keep dreaming anew.

I’m so glad God’s dream for all of us flow out of great love-- love that is wider and longer and higher and deeper than I could ever conceive on my own.

Let’s us pledge together again on this day to invite the power of the Holy to teach us to dream anew.

Let’s dream together as brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us dream together as children of father Jacob.

Let us on this special day of family celebration thank God that God’s dream for us our families are not over. But with God with us, the best is yet to be!

AMEN

I have spent the last week feeling mostly like an outsider.

Not because of lack of welcome. (I can't tell you how many hugs and smiles I received)

Not because no one looked me in the eyes. (Countless children pointed at my face as if to notice I was the only green-eyed and blonde haired woman they'd met)

Not because no one said my name. ("Elizabeth, Elizabeth" were words I heard in crowded markets and along busy streets)

But because I visited a country where few (at least of those I encountered) spoke English.

No English.

Mostly Spanish.

I only speak English.

I know only a few words in Spanish. Mucho gusto or buenos dias anyone?

A funny thing happens when you grow up in America, the land where most students take only two years of foreign language in high school to graduate (as I did): you believe everyone speaks like you.

You believe that it is acceptable not to master at least one other language than your own.

You equate speaking English is the superior way to form sentences.

You may even go as far as to think that you are smarter than those you meet who don't speak English. Shameful to admit but true.

Most places I have traveled outside of the US lately have been cultures where English is revered. Even folks who don't speak it say they want to be taught. But this week in Guatemala I met many lovely folks who know as much English as I do Spanish. And they were proud and content. I don't see them seeking to learn English anytime soon.

As I was ordering a late lunch at the hotel cafe of a major American hotel chain in Guatemala City yesterday (you know the place you'd expect everyone to speak English) I found myself pointing and using my limited words like uno mas and agua to the clerk. Again, no English for her. Was I annoyed? Yeah a little. Was I frustrated at my limited vocabulary? For sure. But most of I was aware anew of my own prejudice. I was in Guatemala not the United States. What did I expect?

The whole world does not speak English. It is ok if they don't. Who ever said speaking English was a degree from on high?

To speak English does not make one superior to another. If anything to cling to English as one's only language spoken makes a person arrogant.

It takes great courage and strength of character to permanently enter a culture where you do not speak the primary language as many new immigrants do every day on US shores. I now have a new appreciation.

It is good to be reminded what it feels like on the other side of things. It is good to remember that language, as God gave it to us originally was not meant to divide us or make some of us feel better about ourselves than others. It is good to get one more kick in the pants that I need to stop stalling and learn Spanish soon.