Dream On

First Presbyterian Church of Metuchen 

May 28, 2023 

Written and delivered by: Rev. Ashley Bair 

 
Title: Dream On 

Scripture: Acts 2:1-21 

 
Prayer- God, may we embrace the Spirit in our midst this morning, and look for signs and wonders amongst us here, gathered today, listening for your voice as you speak to us in many ways. Amen.  

I had a dream the other night that I was floating down a river. My memory of it starts with me, another woman I don’t know, and Meryl Streep needing to get somewhere in Seattle. Meryl suggested that we travel by water. So, we got in the water and laid our belly down on inflatable pool rafts. We floated in this thick brown water for a while that way. With Meryl on one raft, the other woman and I on another. We kept close to the edge of the rafts which became a food court of sorts, and while we were floating Meryl bought us lunch. I had a hot dog that was sliced with raspberry sauce on it, and I got upset because I wanted ketchup and mustard. Meryl turned to me and said, “Wait, there’s organic local condiments to the left.” Then we arrived someplace, and Meryl took us into a conference room where we stood with other people and held hands in a circle.  

I woke up the next morning and thought: What was that all about?  

I don’t often remember my dreams, so when I do, I try to capture them in a journal I call my dream journal. I started doing this a few years ago when a friend of mine told me about a dream circle, she was starting. This dream circle is a place where people come together once a month and bring a journal that contains all of the dreams they remember when they wake up. Everyone writes down as many details of their dreams as they can. The circle isn’t meant to diagnose or offer solutions to anything, but rather a space to share dreams and ask questions and notice patterns. A lot of questions sound something like: What do you think that means for you? Have you had this dream before? What do you think your mind is telling you?  

If you’ve ever shared wild dreams with someone else, you’ve probably noticed there are a lot of common ones we all have at some point - falling down, being chased around, our teeth falling out. Showing up somewhere without pants on. Nightmares. Getting on stage and not knowing why we are there. Etc. The dream circle my friend started has become so successful because those who participate find space to unpack what lies in those dreams. Our anxieties, losses, fears, and also joys, celebrations that we want to re-live again and again - it shows up in our dreams.  

I’ve been intrigued by the dream circle and so a while ago I started my own dream journal. And when I remember a dream, I write it down and ask myself some dream circle questions: what is it I have been thinking about? Did I stay up too late watching Devil Wears Prada the other day? Am I missing Seattle and my friends there? Is there something I am floating through in life right now that feels uncertain?  

Dream circle questions usually elicit something relevant because dreams are attached to a memory. They are driven by memories of the past, things that we understand. Even psychologists have said that every single face you see in a dream is someone you have seen before, because our brains are incapable of dreaming up a new face. Dreams are founded on things we know, understand, things of the past day, past week, past years of our lives. In some strange concoction, our dreams evoke our memories.  

In that way, dreams can reveal a lot, both those that confront us in our sleep and those daydreams we find awake. And in the spirit of today’s scripture, it’s good to remember that dreams are not the same as visions. Our dreams connect us to our memories and visions are cast for things we don’t yet know and haven’t seen. 

Visions are different. Visions tend to be thinking ahead, of things that are on the horizon. Visions are dependent on imagination and creativity.  

A healthy community, as Peter describes using the words of Joel, requires both in harmony.  

Joel: “and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, 

and your young shall see visions, 

    and your old shall dream dreams…” 

Regardless of where we find ourselves in age, at times we will dream and at times we will have a vision.  

Dreams carry the full weight of the dreamers' experiences, history, culture, failures and successes. Dreamers help connect us to who we are, who we have been, our traditions, our ancestors, the promises we have made to each other and to God. Visions help us live those promises out in new ways, in ways that make us true to who we are today. Visions carry our hopes, they believe in possibilities beyond boundaries, they use wisdom to take us to places we’ve never seen before. Visionaries help us reconcile things we have done wrong, lead us to creativity and optimism when we get too stuck in the past.  

We need to have both. And that is where the true challenge of Pentecost lies.  

The miracle of the day is in the first sentence of this passage. When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Our challenge is this: Can we be together, the dreamers and the visionaries. In this one place. Listening to each other’s own language - and holding the beauty of each other with grace and collaboration.  

You can imagine how difficult it is to be unified in this kind of diversity. Even today, we can see how this plays out in church life, when there are things we did in the past, that really, really worked, and we have this dream that somehow, we should get back to how we did it back then! Then you have the visions, that seem so far out there, that require such imagination, and creativity, that maybe the response is: are you drunk?  

As scripture names, most of what occurs between us is based on our divided tongues, our different languages, our different ways of seeing the world. But the Holy Spirit does not discriminate or distinguish this way. That’s the beauty of Pentecost. 

Pentecost, from the Greek word meaning "fiftieth," was a Jewish festival celebrating the spring harvest, and the revelation of the law at Mount Sinai.  In the New Testament Pentecost story, the Holy Spirit descended on 120 believers in Jerusalem on the fiftieth day after Jesus's resurrection.  The Spirit empowered them to testify to God's saving work, emboldened the apostle Peter to preach to a bewildered crowd of Jewish skeptics, and drew thousands of converts in one day.  For many Christians, Pentecost marks the birthday of the Church. 

The story described is a fantastic one, full of details that challenge the imagination.  But at its heart, the Pentecost story is not about spectacle and drama.  It’s about the Holy Spirit showing up and transforming ordinary, imperfect, frightened people into the Body of Christ.  It’s about God disrupting and disorienting our traditional ways of engaging the sacred, so that something new and holy can be born within and among us.  It’s about the Spirit carrying us out of suspicion, division, and fear, into a radical new way of engaging God and our neighbor.  

On the day of Pentecost, we celebrate the church that is all together as one. When the Holy Spirit came and fell on ALL. For suddenly, from heaven, there came a sound like a violent wind, divided tongues, of fire, rested upon them. And all of them were filled with the Spirit. All of them. Not just the male disciples. Not just the eleven. But the marginalized, the women, the children, all the 120 that were there. And it doesn’t just fall upon them, but all those outside the walls, as the crowd that was present gathered and they were bewildered, confused, perplexed, because each of them were hearing the language of another. The Holy Spirit did the initial work of translating there what human minds could not. But human beings have to do the work of building relationships.  

What do you think the people involved in that outpour did upon coming home? How might they have been changed by really hearing each other? It would be a shame if these people had such an experience together, only to return to the same preconceived notions about each other. And yet, this happens every day for us. That’s why Pentecost is both a celebration and a timely challenge. 

Here, we are named to be all together in one place. And in a sense, we are in one place.  “We are together in our uncertainty. Together in our loss.  Together in our hopes and fears.  Across all sorts of distances — geographical, cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic — and still we are bound together as one people, one humanity, one planet.  Like the disciples, we are together waiting for Jesus to come surround us and say, “Peace be with you.”  We are together holding space to: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”  And we will see what happens then. 

We celebrate Pentecost as a church birthday every year, in the same way we celebrate our own birthday. To remind us that we are alive. That there is living still to be done. That our time isn’t over yet. That we have things to learn and to do.  

What dreams do you dream? What visions do you see? What are the things we want to honor from the past, and what imagination do you have for the future?  

When we dream, can we offer a space to notice patterns and ask questions like: What do you think that means for you? Have you had this dream before? What’s your mind telling you? …and remember the weight of the dreamers' experiences, history, culture, failures and successes that help connect us to who we are, who we have been, our traditions, our ancestors, the promises we have made to each other and to God. When we have a vision, can we be bold together, notice what’s around us today and who we see ourselves being in the future, living with necessary risk and creativity?  

We can be together, the dreamers and the visionaries. In this one place. Listening to each other’s own language - and holding the beauty of each other with grace and collaboration.  

Something beautiful happens when we hear and speak each other's languages. We experience the limits of our own words and perspectives.  We learn curiosity.  We discover that God's "great deeds" are far too nuanced for a single tongue, a single voice. We need many ways of saying things. We need all those who remember, and we need all those who imagine and vision new things for us. And while we pray for Christ’s presence, grace, and love to surround us, we need the Holy Spirit.  

Some of us will dream dreams; others will see visions; all prophesy. All people will have the Holy Spirit poured onto and into them. We need to reach out and take it. The Holy Spirit that was present at that first Pentecost is present with us now - ready to break into our routine; into our ritual; into us and transform us.  

The church is a place for us, the imperfect people, to gather together, trying to do the perfect work of God. And may we be always growing in our differences, knowing that it is through us that the message of God is spread to all people.  

This is the Pentecost miracle and challenge for us today. That when we gather, we are all together in one place. May it be so. Amen.  

REFERENCES: 

“I Will Pour Out My Spirit” by Debie Thomas on May 24, 2020.  

Commentary on Acts 2 by Min. Candace Simpson for Enfleshed, 2023.