The Dreams I Dream
Brian Zahnd
And it shall come to pass afterward
That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions.
-Joel 2:28
The prophet Joel says the outpouring of the Spirit results in dreams and visions. They’re similar, but not exactly the same. Visions are prose and need a plan; dreams are poetry and need only be dreamt. Visions are still a little bit tethered to what we tend to think is possible; dreams are a portal to a world where all things are possible. Dreams are truly transcendental — we are free to dream of that which we have no idea how it could come to pass. I’m not talking about daydreams, pipedreams, idle dreams; I’m talking about Spirit-inspired dreams. As I open to the Spirit — the agent of all possibility — I’ve dreamed some dreams about a future church.
I dream of a church that is a house of love, a city of refuge, a shelter from the storm.
The beleaguered souls in the house of fear desperately need a house of love. The accused, canceled, and set upon need a city of refuge. The weary and worn, exhausted from the constant strain of caustic culture wars, need a shelter from the storm. This is precisely what the church is called to be. Sunday morning should be a weekly leave from the constant battle of life. The password in our churches is the exchange of peace: The peace of Christ be with you. And also with you.
I dream of a church that is a pioneer in the way of peace and never again a chaplain to the masters of war.
The greatest infidelity of the church has been to serve the masters of war. In the hagiographic legend, Constantine on the eve of the battle for the Milvian bridge saw a cross in the heavens with the words, “In this sign you shall conqueror.” That was the beginning of killing in the name of the cross — a grotesque departure from the nonviolent peace tradition the church had held for three centuries. At the Milvian Bridge, a deal was made with the devil that eventually led to the two world wars in Europe where baptized Christians slaughtered one another by the millions in the name of national allegiance. The future of the church is found in its primal past of renouncing war and waging peace.
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