I have a question I want to posit this morning for both the graduates and for the congregation: What if?

What if you dared to dream really big?

What if you dared to see bold new visions?

What if you dare to believe, really believe, that a bright vital future is not only possible, it is God’s will for you, and therefore totally doable?

What if?

In all those hypotheticals, I really want to say “we,” but the truth is I won’t be here to walk into this dream with you. And maybe that is a good thing. It has to be YOUR dream; YOUR vision. God inspired definitely, but it has to be YOURS. YOU have to own it, claim it, want it or it will fade once you get to college or out into “real world,” orwhen the pastor or DS or Bishop or whoever moves on. If it is YOUR vision, YOUR dream, it will stay with you and you will not be willing to let go of it. In fact, you will not be able to let go of it. You will pursue that dream, that vision, with the passion and persistence that comes from striving to reach a compelling, challenging, yet attainable goal. That kind of vision can only bubble up from within and among you, it cannot come to you from some outside authority, whether that authority is your parents, your professors, your pastor, or the Cabinet.

Visions and dreams do not work that way. They are individual or communal and God gives them to the ones who can actually bring them to reality. Who are willing to make that commitment, take those risks, make the necessary changes, and lean into an as of yet unknown future, trusting in the promises of God.

So let me ask you a few more questions:

Do you believe that God can make dry bones live?

Do you believe that God can raise the dead to new life?

Do you believe that God can give hope to the hopeless?

Do you believe that God can make a way out of no way?

If you said yes to those questions, or even to just one of them, then you have just taken the first step in daring to dream big and see bold new visions.

What if you actually began to live out of the belief that God really does want to breathe new life into this church and through this church into the community?

What if you actually began to believe that God is ready, always ready, to pour out his Spirit and empower you to dream of a day when what is now hoped for has become a reality? On that day of Pentecost, Peter quoted Joel saying: your young shall see visions and your elders shall dream dreams. Dare we believe that a new Pentecost is before you?