Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 20
October 22, 2006
W. Gregory Pope
BEYOND OUR WILDEST IMAGININGS
Joel 2:23-29
Ephesians 3:14-21
We were called into worship this morning with words from the prophet Joel, given to a people who had endured hard times. But things were beginning to look up. Promising symbols of blessing lay upon the horizon - abundant rain, threshing floors full of grain, the overflow of wine and oil. There will be plenty and all will be satisfied. And praise, endless praise, will be upon the lips of God’s people, for they will know that the Holy One is alive and working in their midst.
When that time of blessing comes, the prophet says, the Spirit of the living God will be poured out like rain upon the sons and daughters of God and they will proclaim what God is doing among them. The old will dream dreams, and the young will see visions.
We have these days been living with the Book of Acts, the acts of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the early church. A few days before the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, a small band of disciples had gathered to pray and wait for the wind of the Spirit to blow among them. They prayed and they waited, and the Spirit blew in a mighty way. The old indeed began to dream again. And the young had visions of what God could do among them. God’s people have always needed dreams and visions.
On the 25th anniversary of JFK’s assassination, CBS Evening News closed its broadcast with a eulogy of the slain president which said: “Heroes are what inspire us; dreams are what guide us.” We must have dreams and visions to guide us.
Do you have dreams and visions of what God could do with us gathered on the corner of Birchwood and Frankfort?
Now when I say dreams, I’m not talking about daydreams based on wishful fantasy. That’s not what the Bible means when it talks about dreams. Bonhoeffer warned us about wish-dreams for the church. There is the danger of loving our dreams for the church instead of the reality of the church, judging the faith community instead of embracing the faith community.
When I say dreams, I’m talking about those dreams that most often occur at night, dreams that spring from the deep recesses of your consciousness, dreams that have the power to speak to you in profound ways about your life.
The dreams I’m talking about are more akin to what the Bible calls visions. Not visions like seeing the holy faces of your ministerial staff in a danish pastry. But visions that enable you to see with spiritual eyes and discern where God is calling us and what God is wanting to do in our midst.
We tend to dismiss dreamers and visionaries. They are often lonely people. It often takes years, usually after their death, for others to see the wisdom of their words. Not only do we tend to dismiss dreamers and visionaries, but with our cynical hearts we are also good and tearing down dreams.
I once heard an old preacher say that when he got to heaven he only had one question for God. And it did not concern some heavy theological issue. His question would simply be: “God, why are there so many ‘but-folks’ in the church?” Why is it, he wanted to know, that when you try to dream God’s dream for the church, there’s always someone who will say, “That’s a great idea, BUT . . .” “That sure would be nice, BUT . . .” They are “but-folks.”
We all know what he’s talking about. You start to dream of new possibilities, new ministries, dreams that call for bold faith, and you can’t get the words out of your mouth before someone starts shaking their head. Instead of looking for ways it CAN be done, there are those who will give you several reasonable cynical explanations why it CANNOT be done. They are “but-folks.”
Monty Roberts was speaking to a group of people one time, and he told the story of a young boy who during his senior year in high school was asked to write a paper about what he wanted to be and do when he grew up.
That night he wrote a seven-page paper describing in detail his dream of someday owning a horse ranch. He even drew a diagram of a 200 acre ranch, showing the location of all the buildings, the stables and the track. He drew a detailed floor plan of a 4000 square foot house that would sit on that 200 acre dream ranch.
He put his heart into the paper and the project. But when the teacher returned it, on the front page was a large red “F” with a note that said, “See me after class.”
After class the teacher told him he received an “F” because it was an unrealistic dream for someone like him. “You come from an itinerant family,” the teacher told him. “You have no money or resources, and owning a horse ranch requires a lot of money. There’s no way you could ever do it.”
The teacher told him if he went home and rewrote the paper with a more realistic goal he would reconsider his grade. The boy went home, thought about it long and hard, and a week later turned in the exact same paper, with a note on top that said: “You can keep your ‘F’ and I’ll keep my dream.”
Monty Roberts then turned to the assembled group to which he was speaking and said, “I tell you that story because you’re sitting in my 4000 square foot house in the middle of my 200 acre horse ranch, and that school paper is framed above the fireplace.” And then he said, “The best part of the story is that two summers ago that same school teacher brought 30 kids to camp out on my ranch for a week.”
As the teacher was leaving, he said, “Monty, when I was a young teacher I was something of a dream stealer. During those years I stole a lot of kids’ dreams. Fortunately you had enough gumption not to give up on yours.”
Whenever we dream and envision our future together as a congregation I want to challenge us not to be dream stealers. Let’s not be “but-folks.” Let’s not throw wisdom and good sense out the door. But let us also not forget that risk and faith are vital to the life of the church. There is a healthy critique that asks, “Is this the best way to do this? Is this really what God wants us to do?” And there is the cynical critique that always says, “It can’t be done.”
Shel Silverstein writes poetry for children that can be quite instructive for adults. Listen to these lines of his:
The man who misses all the fun is he who says, “It can’t be done.”
In solemn pride he stands aloof and greets each venture with reproof.
Had he the power he’d erase the history of the human race.
We’d have no radio or motor cars, no street lit by electric stars.
No telegraph, no telephone, we’d linger in the age of stone.
The world would sleep if things were done by men who say, “It can’t be done.”
It is also true that “the church would sleep if things were run by those who say, “It can’t be done.”
You will be receiving in the mail this week two proposals that call for faith and sacrifice and vision from all of us. You will receive the Proposed Ministry Budget for 2007, a challenging budget, as all ministry and congregational giving should be.
You will also receive a Proposed Three-Year Renovation Giving Campaign, which will include: (1) the necessary renovation of the roof over the gymnasium and fellowship hall to stop the leaking, (2) a much needed renovation of the Fellowship Hall, and (3) the re-paving and re-striping of our parking lots for safety purposes. (4) It will also be proposed that we give $30,000 to build a Habitat House. It is a proposal that will require about $280,000 from us over a three-year period. All the details you will find in the mail-out this week. We want to have these projects completed by our Centennial Celebration in January of 2008.
We will kick off these Budget and Renovation Pledge Drives with a church-wide luncheon on Sunday, November 12 in the Fellowship Hall. November 19th will be Pledge Sunday for both.
These are two challenges before us that need our prayer and financial support. These challenges, along with new ways of being church, need our ability to dream and envision, to see with spiritual eyes what God is calling us to do and who God is calling us to be? Will we be able to see that far?
Fred Craddock tells of the time his father took him out to the backyard and had him lie down on the grass and look up at the sky. As he did his father said to him,“Son, how far can you think?”
Fred said, “What?”
His father said, “Just think as far as you can think up toward the stars.”
So he said, I focused my imagination up toward the stars, and I said, “I’m thinking . . . I’m thinking . . . I’m thinking.”
His dad said, “Are you thinking as far as you can think?”
“I’m thinking as far as I can think.”
“Well, drive down a stake out there,” he said. “In your mind, drive down a stake. Have you driven down the stake? That’s how far you can think.”
Fred said, “Yes sir.”
Then his father asked, “Now what’s on the other side of your stake?”
“Well, there’s more sky.”
His father said, “Well, move your stake.”
And they spent the evening moving his stake further and further, higher and higher. (Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories, Mike Graves and Richard Ward, ed., Chalice Press, 2001, 123-124)
How far can you think? Can you think very far? Or has your imagination been stunted? Could it be that God is calling you, calling us, to move our stake beyond what we think we can see?
We often do not have what it takes to risk. We are far too rational. We weigh things too much and always discover enough to scare us out of taking any risk whatsoever. But you know, there are many decisions we have to make without certainty. We marry, we have children, we buy houses, we take a new job, we leave the house almost every day not knowing what will happen to us.
It is no different as the people of God. Trust and risk are at the heart of biblical faith. In faith God calls us to stretch ourselves beyond what we can clearly see. Because there is always more than what we know. There is always more than what we have. There is always more than what we see.
Those inspiring words we heard earlier from Ephesians remind us that we live with a God who is able to accomplish things far beyond our wildest imaginings. The Ephesian prayer is that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith, and that rooted and grounded in love, we would be filled with all the fullness of God, and have the power to comprehend, the power to see, the faith to move our stakes into the breadth and length and height and depth of God’s love.
All through scripture, God calls people to take risks and through them accomplishes amazing things. God told Abraham to pack his bags and go where God would lead him. Jesus called his disciples to forsake everything and follow him. The portrait of the church we find in Acts which perhaps scares us is a church always on the move, driven not by what they can see and know but by the Spirit of the living God, sharing the love of Christ, meeting the needs of those around them. It takes faith and a great deal of risk to be the people of God. For the church is not a business to manage or control, but a living body active in a movement Jesus called the kingdom of God. A kingdom of dreams and visions of making a difference in people’s lives.
To help us envision that movement, I offer to our imagination the image of a river. Not a lake or a pond. But a river, a body of water in constant motion. I want us to envision this ship called Crescent Hill Baptist Church out on that river. A full band with orchestra and choir are on board. Louie is leading a swaying choir. Doug Holm is leading a standing orchestra. Adam Creech is leading an impassioned band. Kelly Wilkinson and Darrell Adams are leading an inspired congregation in singing an old Garth Brooks tune that goes like this:
You know a dream is like a river, ever-changing as it flows.
And the dreamer’s just a vessel that must follow where it goes
Trying to learn from what’s behind you and never knowing what’s in store
Makes each day a constant battle just to stay between the shores.
Too many times we stand beside and let the waters slip away
Till we put off till tomorrow what has now become today
So don’t you sit upon the shoreline and say you’re satisfied
Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tide.
There is bound to be rough waters and I know I’ll take some falls
But with the good Lord as my captain I can make it through them all.
So I will sail my vessel till the river runs dry
Like a bird upon the wind these waters are my sky
I’ll never reach my destination if I never try
So I will sail my vessel till the river runs dry.
(Garth Brooks, “The River” -- available on iTunes for 99 cents)
And all night long into the future we sing and we sail,
knowing that the river of the Spirit upon which the Church sails will never run dry,
trusting that with Christ as the Good Captain of our ship we will make it through the rough waters,
and believing that the God who is with us is able to do far more than all we can ever ask or imagine.
We dare not sit upon the shoreline and say we’re satisfied. We must choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tide.
Can we trust that much? Can we risk that boldly? Can we see that far? Do we need to move our stake higher?
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CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425
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